BURNING FAT AND BUILDING MUSCLE — IS THAT POSSIBLE AT THE SAME TIME?

The ultimate goal when it comes to body composition and fitness is building muscle and burning more fat. For good looks and vanity? — But there are other health and longevity benefits as well.

The muscles are actually our largest organ because the fasciae connect all points between our ligaments and thus forms a tissue that covers our entire body. The advantages of a lean physique are obvious, because it increases our metabolism, extends our lifespan, improves almost every biomarker, and even sharpens our awareness.

There is a common misconception in bodybuilding that you need carbohydrates to build muscle. Does that mean that you can’t build muscle successfully on a low-carb, ketogenic diet?

As it turns out, the high-carbohydrate paradigm is obsolete.

In fact, the keto diet can help increase strength and muscle building while minimizing fat gain.

Why you don’t need carbohydrates to build muscle

The traditional powerlifting nutritional protocol assumed that carbohydrates were necessary for muscle building. It is still common for bodybuilders to speak of needing glycogen from carbohydrates to increase insulin and create an anabolic response that helps build muscle.

The truth, however, is that building muscle with a low carb diet is completely viable if done correctly.

Studies have shown that after strength training (in conjunction with a ketogenic diet), lean muscle mass can be increased without gaining excess weight. But that doesn’t happen overnight. On the contrary, you have to switch from using glucose (carbohydrates) as fuel to using fat as an energy source. This is called the “keto adjustment phase” and it takes time. This means that your training performance can decrease for about one to four weeks in this phase.

Why your performance can decrease during the keto adjustment phase?

If you are in the early stages of the ketogenic diet, you may not be able to exercise at the same intensity as you did when consuming carbohydrates. This is because your body goes from breaking down glucose to producing energy (glycolysis) to breaking down fat into ketones.

To build muscle successfully with the ketogenic diet, you have to follow this diet over the long term. Since your body has been used to burning glucose (from carbohydrates) as its main source of energy throughout life, it needs time to adapt.

The longer you follow the ketogenic diet, the more efficient your metabolism will be at burning ketones for energy, and the better your workout will be. By training your body to burn fat, it improves your mitochondrial density. This allows you to train faster and longer.

In other words, once you are fully adapted to the ketogenic diet, your body will synthesize more energy, also called adenosine triphosphate (ATP), from your stored body fat and dietary fat to support training.

Studies have also shown that the low-carb, high-fat ketogenic diet has muscle-sparing effects. This means that once your body is fully adapted to burning fat, your body will prevent the muscles from breaking down while your fat is burning.

Eat more protein to build muscle while on the keto diet

One of the biggest concerns about building muscle is that high protein consumption will throw you out of ketosis.

There is a process called gluconeogenesis by which your body converts excess protein into glucose in your bloodstream. And the presence of glucose indeed prevents you from making ketones.

But what many people forget to take into account is that the body and brain need glucose to survive. Even if you follow a ketogenic diet, some of the glucose will feed specialized cells (especially brain cells) that only work with glucose. You even make glucose from fat — fatty acids have a glycerin backbone that the body converts into glucose.

So why switch to keto when you need glucose?

Most people ingest too many carbohydrates, which causes insulin resistance and hinders the burning of stored body fat for energy. This leads to unwanted fat gain, chronically high blood sugar, insulin resistance, and systemic inflammation.

With a ketogenic diet, you provide your body with just the right amount of glucose (from fats and proteins) that it needs to survive. The production of ketones gives you a more efficient source of energy and allows you to build muscle through protein synthesis without having to worry about gaining excess body fat.

How Much Protein Should You Consume?

Protein intake varies depending on your level of activity.

• Sedentary — little to no physical activity: 1.6g protein per kilo of lean body mass (total weight — body fat percentage x 0.8)
• A little exercise: 1g protein per kg body weight
• Moderate exercise: 1.3g protein per kg body weight
• Heavy training: 1.6 grams of protein per kg of body weight

It is common for people on a ketogenic diet to consume less than is needed to build muscle. Probably because the keto diet increases satiety. In other words, you don’t eat that much because you just aren’t hungry.

Eat more calories to gain more muscle

Monitoring calories is the fastest way to meet your
muscle building or weight loss goals.

• Consume 150–500 additional calories over your normal maintenance calories
• Consume at least about 2g of protein per kg of lean body mass
• Find healthy sources of fat to get the extra calories

Keto is about using more calories than the body burns every day. If you consume an excess of calories in addition to adequate protein content, you can achieve the desired muscular physique.

The targeted ketogenic diet for bodybuilders

A targeted ketogenic diet (TKD) promotes up to 20–50g of carbohydrates immediately before or after training. And yes, that’s the total amount of carbohydrates for a day. So your body can use this quick glucose to intensify the workout. If you do this correctly, your body will burn these carbohydrates quickly and you will immediately go back into ketosis.

TKD works for people who have been on the keto diet for at least a month, and it works better for people who train really hard.

• Competitive athletes can consume up to 100g of carbohydrates per day.
• People doing high-intensity workouts like Crossfit can consume 50g of carbohydrates per day.
• A person who exercises an average of four to five times a week can get by on less than 20g of carbohydrates per day.

If you are just starting the keto diet and your main goal is
weight loss, then by no means try the targeted ketogenic diet (TKD)!

Instead, you should consider following a standard ketogenic diet meal plan while focusing on other performance-enhancing factors, such as getting adequate protein intake.

Bonus

Tips for building muscle while on the ketogenic diet

Reduce carbohydrates

Eat enough protein

• Add high-quality whey protein or collagen protein powder to your smoothie
• Eat more meat, fish, and eggs.
• Choose high protein, keto-friendly snacks like KetoUp Keto Bars
• If you’re vegan and don’t eat whey protein, consider hemp or pea protein.

Strength training

• Yoga or pilates
• Heavy compound lifts like pull-ups, squats, bench presses, and deadlifts
• Bodyweight exercises like pushups, planks, and squats
• Sprinting, which increases anabolic hormones like testosterone
• rowing

Conclusion

We hope to have made it clear that it is absolutely possible to support muscle building while on the ketogenic diet. Please follow the advice in this guide and success is assured — have fun exercising!

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