Eat Fat to Lose Fat? I'm SO Down!: The TRUTH about KETO

 

Eat Fat to lose fat? Don't give me that look...

For the last 3 weeks, even while on a recent girls trip to Vegas (where I drank ungodly amounts of vodka, don't judge it's been like 7 years since I had a "girls trip"! #yolo), I have been following a (mostly) ketogenic diet. A real ketogenic diet is a low carb diet comprised of 70-80% of fat. Yep, Fat! Butter, Bacon, avacado, salmon, Macadamia Oil, sausage, coconut! Other people think "Paleo" or "Atkins" are ketogenic diets but they are not so don't be fooled! These are essentially low-carb diets but they are NOT THE Ketogenic Diet. 

You may be wondering why I would even take this risk with my health and waistline and it is because of TWO reasons actually... the first is that once in a blue moon I do get a client who does not react well to clean eating, they are insulin resistant, estrogen dominant, or just completely carb sensitive and I have to manipulate the macro nutrients (proteins, carbs, and fats) so ridiculously to get there body to budge that it makes the diet practically unbearable. As an advocate of clean eating for quite some time, I sort of had to remember back when I first started my journey to becoming a "fitness expert". I tried everything to see what would work for me and it was "Clean Eating" that worked. At this time in my life I was in my early 20's though. I was in perfect health essentially. I had not put my body through the riggers of womanhood or competed for 3 years straight. My hormones were perfect. Ketogenic diets lead to perfect cholesterol and blood sugar levels and are often used to treat diabetes, epilepsy, and like me: hypoglycemia and hormonal imbalance (the big one). So since I have recently been dealing with this my second reason for trying this out was ME! I HAD to give it a shot! For Science sake! And if I lost some body-fat, awesome!

I was pretty "low carb" before (even when I had my cheats I never really ate white flour anything!) so I never suffered from "carb flu" when I started the diet as so many people do. It was the upping of my fats and the slight reduction in fruits and veggies that perplexed me. I had always eaten a ton of veggies at every meal because this is what works but now that my body was being super insulin resistant I had to rethink EVERYTHING!

You see (and I am literally explaining this in the simplest way possible) by eating more fat then any other macro nutrient, and severely limiting carb intake (for most it's 25 grams or less), after a couple of days your body goes into a state of ketosis (meaning it starts using energy from ketone bodies in the blood, instead of glycolysis - where blood glucose provides most of the energy). SO basically your body is using fat as energy instead of carbs and you pee out the excess ketones/calories of fat (which science estimates to only be about 100 calories at most so don't get too excited). 
But it's still pretty cool, right?!?! #sciencerocks

Now about a month before I decided to try this I had been on a pretty strict clean-eating plan. I was eating clean (about 1400-1600 calories daily, my macros were high protein, low fat, low carbs) with 1 cheat meal every 2 weeks or not at all, lifting heavy for an hour or more 5-6 days a week, and doing cardio, at least 40 minutes 3-4x a week plus teaching classes. Keep in mind, this is my OFF SEASON! I had been playing around with the idea of competing again and wanted to see If I could even get my body to "move" because if I wasn't healthy enough to drop weight, competing again would be out of the question. My strength continued to improve and the scale dropped a bit but for the energy I was putting into it, and for feeling deprived all the time, I just knew something was still going on in my body health-wise that was preventing me from getting the results of "a normal person". A LOT of people underestimate the importance of hormone health in relation to weight loss and let me tell you IT IS EVERYTHING!
I REPEAT, HORMONE HEALTH IS 100% RESPONSIBLE FOR YOU HITTING YOUR WEIGHT-LOSS GOALS!

On this plan I (you may call me Dr. Frankenstein) have created for myself I am eating 600-800 more calories per day then I was before and working out MAX 5x a week for about an hour (EITHER cardio - ok I haven't done like any cardio lately, or lifting (umm always), not both, ONE OR THE OTHER), AND MY stubborn-ass BODY IS CHANGING, the weird fat pocket areas are slowly diminishing, even with occasional ALCOHOL! Hey #IIFYM!

(That's "if it fits your Macros" btw)

(Side-note: Before, due to all this cortisol storage - residual effects of coming off that tumultuous comp season, I was storing fat in places I had never stored fat before, and as someone who is known for wearing itty bitty bikinis, imagine how this affected my self-confidence! HOW could I possibly inspire others when I was feeling so down all the time?!)

My strength is great, I HAVE ENERGY AGAIN AND I SUFFER ZERO HYPOGLYCEMIA SYMPTOMS, which were f-ing awful, let me tell you. My skin looks better and MORE SO THEN ANYTHING ELSE, I don't feel super deprived and miserable, because my body is getting the fat it needs to stay satiated.

The negatives of this diet are that people who don't have a strong grasp on nutrition often:
1.) eat too little or don't follow a plan so when they go off of the diet they gain all their weight back times 2! Your goals for this diet should be more about healing then weight-loss. Weight-loss is a side-effect of the diet but it is not it's main purpose. Also the first 4-10 lbs none-athletes or seasoned "worker-outers" lose are just water anyway. Athletes who go on this diet often see body composition changes then #'s in the scale dropping.
2.) eat too much protein (WHICH ACTUALLY TURNS TO SUGAR IN THE BODY IF NOT "USED", I know, shocking! again #sciencerules) so they don't go into ketosis
3.) eat too much fat and they don't get any results or wind up actually putting on weight.
4.) leave out all the other stuff from their diet that makes it "healthy" like the supplements and natural probiotics in food sources.

The truth is having a specific plan is essential to your success on a ketogenic diet. It is still a diet, so you can't go bonkers, there is a science to it! Also this diet is NOT for everyone. It is hard to do long term unless you are severely insulin resistant (like me) or suffer form any of the things I mentioned. If this is not you, EAT CLEAN, shut up, and get to work!

Another negative to "keto" is that YOU CAN NOT HAVE CHEAT MEALS OR REFEEDS ON A KETOGNIC DIET BECAUSE YOU WILL SLIP OUT OF KETOSIS AS SOON AS YOUR CARBS/SUGAR GO UP. Sad Face. (But if this is the right diet for you, you won't even miss it, it's weird.)

The truth is ALL DIETS work to some degree, if they didn't millions of people would not write books, sell books, or lose weight! It's ALL about finding the right diet for you, your lifestyle, and your health and fitness goals. Will a male bodybuilder who is trying to bulk in his off season have much success with his goals on the ketogenic diet? Ummm probably not, if for no other reason then he would have to eat SO MUCH FREAKEN FOOD, it would be ridiculous!  Only you know if you suffer from insulin resistance and only then would I recommend this diet for you! DO I think I'll be doing this for much longer? It kind of all depends if I keep feeling awesome or not. If I compete again, I will prep with my normal clean eating plan unless I'm feeling extra experimental, lol. (Actually, keto has been used on the take end of most preps for many competitors to some degree.)

I have come to a place where I strongly believe there is more than one way to skin a cat, if you catch my drift. It's all about finding what will work best for an individual and to continue to learn, and in my case be a human Guinea pig, so that I can get the answers and continue helping people reach there fitness goals, estrogen dominance or hypoglycemia be dammed!

OK my little kittens,
If you would like more information on how to implement a ketogenic diet in your life or for nutritional coaching (keto or clean-eating), email me at faceoffitness@gmail.com

Eat fat to lose fat? Sources say: YES! If done correctly and with proper guidance!

Be happy!
Your Trainer,
Tristan