After yesterdays post “Stop carbloading! Theres a better way” I had a few questions on how do you actually get into ketosis. With what types and how much of what foods do you need to eat.
A typical day for me is:
7:30a.m 3 or 4 wholes eggs cooked in 1 TBSP of butter or 1 TBSP of olive oil
10a.m 2oz of Ground beef (75% lean 25% fat)
1p.m 4oz of chicken and 1/4 avocado
4p.m either 4oz of ground beef or 4 oz of sausage
7p.m 4 whole eggs in TBSP of Butter or olive oil
This is 1450 cals. 10g carbs, 112g of fat and 90g of protein
I have been eating like this for 2 weeks now and have noticed my recovery from my sprints is getting wayyyy better than when I started them about a month ago, also recovery between sets at the gym is almost instant. On speed squat/deadlift day Im ready for my next set right away! Also, with weight loss being my goal i’m down over 6 lbs!
To figure out what works for you,you first have to know what your goal is. Weight loss, maintain or gaining weight. Once that is decided know that 70-85% of your calories should come from fat (either monounsaturated or unsaturated) good sources are animals fats, ground beef, sausage, bacon, fattier cut of steak, olive oil, coconut oil, butter, ect. Fats to avoid are Polyunsaturated fats…your vegetable oil and canola oils.
Now one main thing that many people forget or sometimes struggle with is Protein intake. You have to make sure you aren’t getting too much protein because some of the amino acids turn into glucose in the body…which will knock you right out of ketosis. Keep Protein at around 20% of your calories intake. This may be a struggle at first since your trying to keep the protein lower with fat higher but it is doable.
As for carbs keep them under 50 grams. Ever look at the carb count in veggies? you’re able to eat quite a bit and still maintain ketosis. Once again avoid grains or legumes. But just about all veggies are okay and only fruits such as all berries are okay to have. Carbs just fill in the last % of your calories may only be around 5% or so.
When planning your meals focus on the fat then plan around it. An easy way to create different meals is a little bit of protein (3-6oz) (eggs, chicken steak, pork,ect) then cook them or cover them with alot of fat (olive oil, coconut oil or butter) the ratio always works out pretty good.
Getting keto-adapted takes about 2-4 weeks before you start using fat as energy.
Hi, big fan of the blog so far. I came here from Chaos & Pain blog!
I’d just like to add something about the protein knocking you out of ketosis. In my experience this is not the case.
I keep my protein very high, about 50/50 protein/fats in grams. Usually chicken wings supplemented with shakes. I remain in ketosis despite the higher protein intake and eat all my food in one evening meal post training and shakes through the day. I remain in a fairly deep ketosis, around 4-5 on the stix.
My experience has been that with heavy, high volume powerlifting training that I do my glycogen stores get depleted. There is a significant amount of gluconeogenesis as you say but this glucose (with heavy training) preferably refills muscle glycogen over liver glycogen and keeps my muscles fairly full keeping me in ketosis.
I also keep the amino acid leucine as high as possible. Leucine spikes insulin and with heavy training takes any sugars in the blood out and into the muscles. My shakes are whey:casein:egg in a 2:1:1 ratio which is very high in leucine.
I also found starting the day with eggs (or even better- egg whites) spikes insulin very high as eggs are the highest in leucine and glutamic acid. I cook this with no oil (scrambled usually) to maximise the insulin spike. If I am not very deep in keto the next morning I will eat some eggs and I drop very deep in. But the shakes through the day keep me in ketosis very well so this is usually just once a week!
Thanks for checking us out.
Some things I noticed (and I should update my post some) is that High protein didn’t seem to knock me out either what I was noticing was that after heavy training I would not have ketones In my urine. What Phinney said was you have no extra to pass to urine. Which made sense. Also, I never had the keto strips for my Blood Level indicator. Just too expensive. I was relying on urine strips.
How were you measuring your insulin levels? Do you have a blood meter that does that?
Thanks again.