Going Ketogenic (Atkins, TKD, CKD, And More!)

Maybe you've heard of them, or maybe you haven't.  But they're out there: low carb diets which promise to lose you pounds off your waistline and keep tasty foods in your meals.  And if you can stave off the craving for breads, fruits, and sweets, these diets might be ones to try out if you're really looking to lose some serious fat.  They have been proven to be quite successful in most overweight individuals, and have a huge following in both the fitness world and the general public.  But there's a lot of information out there, and quite a few different types of low carb diets, so things can get pretty confusing quite quickly.  Let's explore the differences between different low carb or "ketogenic" diets and see if one or the other might be right for you.

First though, I'd like to post a disclaimer.  Low carb diets AREN'T for everyone, and they're NOT THE ONLY WAY TO LOSE WEIGHT.  Many people can lose pounds of fat while keeping large percentages of carbs in their diet.  So don't go cutting the bread, pasta and rice without really knowing what you're getting into.

Okay, so what exactly is a "ketogenic" diet?  It's a pretty interesting idea actually.  The train of thought is that when you eliminate most of the carbs from your diet, and replace them with high amounts of fat and moderate amounts of protein, your body, which normally gets its energy from converting carbohydrates to glucose, is forced to instead find another energy source.  It does this by freeing up stored fat molecules, converting them into a substance called "ketone bodies," and using that special substance to fuel your body.  Amazingly, ketone bodies have a lot of energy potential, so after an initial energy low upon starting a ketogenic diet, dieters often report a large increase in energy due to the new energy source.  This state of running off fat is called "ketosis."  Pretty neat huh?

There are several types of ketogenic diets, one of the most common being the Atkins diet.  This diet is mainly focused toward the general public, and has some pretty strict guidelines as to carb consumption.  Normally, for the first few weeks, dieters aren't allowed to consume more than 20 grams of carbohydrates per day, and instead are encouraged to take in their calories through mainly protein based sources.  There are four phases to the Atkins diet, each with different rules and permitted foods.  These phases are:

The Induction Phase (20 g net carbs per day)
Ongoing Weight Loss (Increase of 5 g net carbs per week until within 10 lbs of target body weight)
Pre-maintenance (Increase of 10 g net carbs per week until weight loss ceases, then reduction of 10 g)
Lifetime maintenance (Carbs remain at the "tipping point" established in the pre-maintenance phase)

If you'd like to read more about the phases of the Atkins diet, here's a link to my favorite site:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atkins_diet#The_four_phases

It's your favorite site too, right? =]

The Aftkins diet is strict in the sense that carbohydrate amounts start low and stay low for the duration of the diet.  You're always going to be carbohydrate deprived in order to maintain ketosis, and therefore are always going to have to watch your weight, plan ahead in terms of your diet, and make sure you don't go over the magic number of carbs.  You're also going to need to eat a LOT of protein, which to many keto dieters has been found to be a non-ideal solution to replacing carbohydrates.  Many keto dieters who don't follow the Atkins diet say that it's far better to replace carbs with healthy fats than it is to replace with large quantities of protein.  Also, the Atkins diet doesn't employ any caloric restrictions, which can be confusing and misleading to certain dieters.  Many who aren't successful on the Atkins diet fail because they consume too many calories from non-carb sources that are very calorie dense, like certain cheeses and peanut butter.

The Atkins diet does have a very large following though, and quite a few remarkable success stories, so it remains a popular staple in the ketogenic diet category.

But what about other sorts of ketogenic diets?  Well, the Atkins diet is geared more toward the general public, and non-gym rats.  The fitness crowd tends to employ its own version of the ketogenic diet, and probably the area of greatest success in terms of the ketogenic diet craze is in bodybuilding.  Bodybuilders usually cycle between bulking phases (attempting to put on muscle through calculated increases in calorie and macro-nutrient intake), and cutting phases (eliminated the inevitable fat gain on top of the muscle gain due to bulking) before competition.  One of the greatest cutting tools in the bodybuilding world today is in fact a ketogenic diet.  However the Atkins diet isn't optimal for high intensity gym visits because according to some, it really can decrease strength levels to an intolerable level.  To combat this, bodybuilders (and other fitness enthusiasts alike) use three different types of ketogenic diets:

Cyclical Ketogenic Diet- This diet takes the fat burning benefits of ketosis and mixes them with the power of carbohydrates.  You may wonder how this is possible, due to ketosis requiring an extremely low carbohydrate environment to really work.  You see, on ketogenic diets, some people experience extreme strength losses at the gym, despite the increased fat burning.  This will require them to do what's called a "carb-up" once, or even twice a week.  This carb up involves eating large amounts of carbohydrates on a certain day, then cutting carbs to between 30 and 60 grams on every other day to reinstate ketosis and increased fat burning.  This process should cause a carryover from the carb-up day to allow energy levels to stay managable at the gym, and will keep the dieter from fainting with exhaustion.  This diet is EXTREMELY popular in the bodybuilding world, and has shown to be very successful across the board.

Targeted Ketogenic Diet- This version of the ketogenic diet is similar to the cyclical diet in terms of increased carb intake at certain key points, but instead of on a certain day, the targeted ketogenic diet allows you to ingest large amounts of carbohydrates around workout time, to really give you that boost of strength in the gym, and give your body much needed carbohydrates for recovery.  Usually around 40-80 grams of carbohydrates are consumed pre and post workout, though that number can be adjusted based on carb sensitivity and fat loss goals.  Again, this type of dieting has been shown to be very successful in the fitness world.

Standard Ketogenic Diet- This one I don't need to talk about too much, as it resembles the Atkins diet quite closely.  It has no carb-up days, and requires the dieter to maintain net carbohydrates levels under about 30 grams per day.

Here's a more in depth article about CKD and TKD keto diets from bodybuilding.com:http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/sclark91.htm

Also, ketogenic diets other than the Atkins suggest a larger ratio of fat to protein, which I personally like considering too much protein can cause all sorts of little digestive issues.  Some good starting macros for a ketogenic diet would probably be 60% calories from fat, 35% from protein, and 5% from carbs.  Look around a little though, because many people have tweaked these macros and are still making great progress.

So you may be wondering, is a ketogenic type diet right for you?  Well, if you've got a few extra pounds to lose, a ketogenic diet can really work wonders.  I personally would suggest trying out either a cyclical of targeted ketogenic diet first, especially if you go to the gym on a regular basis (WHICH YOU SHOULD.)  Don't take this article as your only research on the subject, look around the internet for people who have had success, read their stories, and make sure you know your plan BEFORE you embark on the keto journey.  You can get GREAT results, you just need to make sure you know every little nuance of your diet.

Keep things precise, burn that fat, and as always, GOOD LUCK!


http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/cyclical_ketogenic_diet.htm
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/sclark86.htm

Macros: What They Are, And How To Use Them

Aren't calories the bottom line?  I mean, the number of calories you eat during the day must be surpassed by the amount you burn in order to lose weight.  That's what you've always heard, and seems to be the most popular knowledge floating around weight loss classes/forums today.  And I'm not here to disagree with it, because bottom line, that is the truth.  For the most part.

But I'm going to pose a little example to you, which might change your thinking just a little bit.  Imagine your weight loss calorie goal was 1800 per day.  So one day, you eat 1800 calories, with most of those calories coming from protein.  The next day, you also eat 1800 calories, but this time 90% of those calories come from carbs.  Now imagine you have a carb sensitivity (your body doesn't like to burn through carbs as quickly as you'd like, and therefore you're more prone to gain weight off of them).  While you still may have eaten your daily goal, you won't have the tendency to lose much fat, because your body will maintain the fat you have if you don't use all the carbs (and an entire days worth of carbs is pretty hard to completely use up.)  

You can think of the body as a house.  Carbs are bricks, protein is cement, and fat is wood.  You can't build a good house with just one of those things.  You need a bit of everything.  Better yet, you need certain RATIOS of those things (I wouldn't want quite as much cement as I would want bricks).  These ratios are referred to by the fitness community as "macros", which is shorthand for macro nutrients (carbs, protein, and fat).  A typical macro ratio looks like this:

40/40/20

So if you see this while perusing the fitness forums and don't know what it means, be confused no longer!  What that simple shorthand basically stands for is the percentage of your calories from each macro nutrient you should be getting in your diet.  The first number refers to the percentage of carbs .  The next, protein, and the final, fat.  40% of daily calories come from protein, 40% come from carbs, and 20% from fat.  

OK, so now you know what it means, but it still sounds like a pretty daunting task to calculate these.  And I used to think so too.  But in reality, it just takes a little trial and error, and usually you can figure out the rest of the percentages if you already have one.  

So what's the easiest one to calculate?  Protein!  A person trying to maintain lean muscle mass should be trying to take in 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.  So try that in your diet, and calculate the calories coming from those foods you've chosen.  Because only 20% should come from fat, calculate how many calories would come from the amount of fatty foods you'd put in your diet.  How many grams?  Well 20 is half of 40, and if 40 grams of protein represents 1 gram per bodyweight, you should eat about half that many grams of healthy fats.  Simple enough, right?  

Carbs represent the fillers.  Any left over calories in your diet should come from good, complex carbs.  And don't hold too much stock in "low carb" diets.  Sure there's a time and place for those diets, but unless you're really aggressively looking to drop the last few pounds, I would try to maintain a decent amount of carbs, at least initially.  Low carbs=low energy= ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE all day.  That's why a lot of people drop low carb diets quite quickly.

This above statement will be very controversial among keto diet followers, and I know there have been claims/individual proof of giant fat loss/energy boosting from ketogenic diets.  I'm just speaking for the general, average dieter here looking to get into a better habit of eating.  I wouldn't have them hop right into a ketogenic diet.

So this is all well and good, but how do you figure out the best ratio for you and your daily habits/genetics?  Unfortunately, it requires experimentation.  But in this article I can at least give you a good place to start, by listing a few common macro ratios that are used for specific goals.

40/40/20- This diet represents a muscle maintaining/building diet.  It's a very common macro set, and is used throughout the fitness community.  It's not optimal for weight loss, but everyone will respond differently to macros and it's not to say you can't lose weight on these percentages.  Just adjust your daily calories within the ratio.  

55/30/15- This diet is more for bulking.  The large carb percentage will make your body want to store that excess energy as body mass, and therefore you'll grow more easily on this macro set than you would on a lower carb one.  Carbs are especially important for hard-gainers (skinny people who want to build muscle but just can't put the weight on), and you need to eat significant amounts of them to ensure your body can grow.  Again, adjust your overall calorie intake as needed.

25/40/35- This is a common ratio for fat loss.  You're getting around 25% of your daily calories from carbs, and 40% from protein to maintain whatever muscle mass you have.  This will encourage your body to run off the fat you have instead of the carbs you're consuming, and therefore you should burn an extra few pounds.  Unfortunately the body can stop responding to low carb diets rather quickly, and if your fat loss suddenly grinds to a halt I would suggest getting some more carbs back in your diet.

10/40/40- This ratio is called the ketogenic, or "keto" diet.  It's EXTREMELY low carb, and the basic idea is to get your body into a ketogenic state where it is burning only your body fat for energy.  Followers of the keto diet claim increased energy and extremely accelerated fatloss, but there has been a lot of skepticism about the actual merit held by such a low carb diet plan.  The Ketogenic diet will definitely come up in a later article of mine.

So that's about it.  Experiment with your own diet.  Take your daily calorie goal and try to split up those calories by the percentages stated in your chosen macro diet.  Do this by the grams of each macro nutrient you consume (grams of protein, carbs, and fats).  Sure it requires a little math, but hey, gotta keep that brain sharp.  

Count carefully, experiment, and as always, good luck!