IS KETO DIETING RIGHT FOR YOU?

First for those who don't know, a ketogenic diet is a very low-carb, high fat diet that many compare to the Atkins diet. Reducing carbohydrates and replacing it with fat. And also lowering the blood sugar and insulin levels.

When making the decision on whether or not to try the keto diet, you first need to know what exactly you want to accomplish. if you are trying to do some short term weight loss,( Not fat loss) for something like a contest, maybe a wedding or something where you need to drop pounds pretty fast, the keto diet is set up for rapid weight loss. Understand when you lose weight from keto diet in a short amount of time you are depleting your body of stored glycogen as well as stored water. so will lose" alot" of water weight on a ketogenic diet.

Glucose from carbohydrates is the number one preferred source of fuel for our muscles. There are certain areas of the brain where glucose is the only source of fuel that can be used to provide functioning. When you follow a keto diet, you cut your carb intake down to about 5% or less of your total daily calories. All of the carbs that you do eat come from green leafy vegetables while great care is taken to avoid starches like rice, potatoes, pasta, oatmeal, beans, etc. The main portion of your diet comes from fats and proteins.

This means that when you are following a ketogenic diet that you are depending on lots of meats, fish, eggs, nuts, seeds, oils, etc. Even foods like fruit are excluded. Foods rich in fiber would also be excluded if they fall in the starch category. So the idea is to make your body depend on ketones for fuel. the main thing is depletion of your body’s stores of glycogen. Glycogen is the stored form of glucose and is kept inside your muscles primarily and broken down for energy when training. If your glycogen levels are depleted it becomes very hard to train with high intensity.

If you do find a way to increase your energy and intensity to train hard, the downside is you may cause an increase in cortisol because of increased stress to the body as a result of lack of energy. Both the increase in cortisol and the decreased glycogen can have a very negative impact your body’s ability to preserve or maintain lean muscle and can prevent the building off new muscle tissue. There are many different opinions on ketogenic dieting, but the main questions to ask are, Is this diet sustainable over a long period of time, and will you be able to effectively maintain energy needed for exercising to assist the diet. Most diets are trial and error, and not everyone will experience the same results. Always listen to your body and seek professional advice on dieting and whats best for you.

DEAR WOMEN, LIFTING WEIGHTS WILL NOT MAKE YOU LOOK LIKE A MAN!!

I hear it time and time again from females when I suggest that they must start a weight training program in order to lose weight. “But won’t lifting weights make me look like a man?”

This is simply NOT true when it comes to females and resistance training! While men and women are structurally similar, there are many physiological differences that affect the different sexes ability to gain muscle mass.  The main reason that females can’t gain muscle mass like men is the difference in hormones.   Testosterone is the main hormone that promotes muscle growth and other male traits like body hair, deep voice, increased muscle mass. You may say that both male and females produce testosterone…  Yes they do, but men produce testosterone at a much HIGHER level than women.  

  But because females have less free testosterone than males at rest, any increase is not significant enough to allow for muscle hypertrophy to the extent of a male.  

Diet is another (VERY) important key component of gaining muscle mass. To gain muscle mass you need to be eating more than the maintenance level calories. Because females are usually smaller than males, females usually require and eat less than men.  If a female ate the same amount of food that a male ate to gain mass, she would most likely end up gaining a lot of unwanted body-fat. Personally, I don’t see a woman eating as much as man in most cases.

In conclusion getting big and bulky like a man doesn’t happened from heavy weight training. A female gets masculine because of the excess testosterone paired with chronic resistance training and diet directed at muscle growth. The image of the female bodybuilder in the minds of the public is a result of said females chronically using illegal substances in order to increase their muscle mass and size.   For the female who is not doing this (taking steroids or any type of growth hormone), they can lift as hard and as heavy as they wish and will never come close to looking like a man. Just remember, you want more lean muscle in order to increase your basal metabolic rate (BMR). This way at rest, your body is burning more calories than before with little to no muscle.

What to do when you fall off of your diet

OK, So lets say that the diet has been on point, you've been killin the workouts, losing weight and then all of a sudden life happens. Your job sends you out of town for a week for training and all of the meal prepping and clean eating, is now fast food, and late night snacks from the hotel vending machine. I know this all too well.

It is not the end of the world so no need to go into panic mode. The key is to start planning to get back on track as soon as possible. Meaning as soon as you get home! Get right back into fit mode. from diet ... water.....exercise ect. Don't look at the week long fall off as an excuse to keep eating junk since you've pretty much ruined your diet. Use it as motivation to get back to grind mode. throw a couple of extra sets in your workout this week. Add a extra half Gallon to your water intake, and up your cardio for a few days this week. Before you know it, you will be right back where you were before the fall off.

And of course, we know that situations are bound to come up where we may have to resort to fast food options, you still want to go for the more healthier choices on the menu if possible.