Best way to Carbup a Keto Dieter?

[Andre Gregoire]

I am an endo-meso, my brother is a diabetic and father is hypoglycemic, I tend to store fat easily and would consider myself slightly carb sensitive.

Over the years I have dieted down with higher carb/low fat diets, zone'ish diets and keto diets. I always seem to go back to keto diets as they work best for me or at least from a personality, adherence perspective they are a great fit.

After being on a keto diet for a while, even when doing a CKD and carbing up every weekend, I have noticed that I become somewhat more insulin resistant. After reading on the subject it's clear that this is a well known result of keto diets and has something to do with having chronically elevated blood fatty acid levels... It doesn't really matter because it's reversed pretty quickly once you start eating carbs again on a regular basis.

It does however bring me to this question. When carbing up someone that has been on a very low carb diet what seems to work best in your experience?

I have done it 2 different ways:

1. The traditional 2-3 day carbup done Wed, Thur, Fri then light meals on Saturday.

2. Carbup heavy on Tue, Wed then go back to a keto for Thursday, Friday and most of Saturday. 6hrs before prejudging do a shitload Carbs/Sodium/Fats once water has been removed.

The first approach works well with someone doing an Aceto'ish diet but for me if carbs were high then I looked fatter and bloated. With lower carbs it seemed like I couldnt' fill in.

The second approach seems to work better, I get really full and bloated early in the week and then I remove water by dropping carbs 48hrs out and then dropping water and lowering sodium 24hrs out. After drying out I put carbs/sodium back in to stay full and dry out further by useing the subq water to help with muscle glycogen creation.. However, I am never full this way.

Today I was listening to a podcast of Heavy Muscle Radio and Dave Palumbo & Ali Amini answered this very question.

Here is the mp3 for those interested, the part starts around 1h20min mark:
http://www.rxmuscle.com/hmr-radio-sh...ducer-hmr.html

Basically both of them seem to have a very similar approach, they carbup people while keeping the fat in.

Might be something like 30-50g Protein 30-50g Carbs 20g Fats per meal times 6-8 meals per day for 2-4 days. The bigger you are the more carbs, meals and days and vice versa.

This makes a lot of sense, I remember reading in Lyle McDonald's Keto book the study that showed that when switching from a keto diet back to a carb based diet the body kept oxidizing fat for energy for nearly 24hrs and the 100% of the glucose was being shuttled for glycogen.

If you try to fill in with no fats when switching from a keto to a carb based diet your body will need to use carbs for energy and glycogen so you won't have enough carbs to fill in. Also since fat slows digestion and lower GI of the meal the carbs are absorbed more slowly and most likely better utilized.

Also, they were both saying someone that carbs up with fats and protein stays full longer.

So let's have it what's the best way in your opinion?

[Ritch]

I was just about to suggest the hmr radio show this week!

[Ritch]

Here`s a carb loader, minus the keto part:

[Praetorian]

I just wanted to clarify one thing prior to answering the carb loading question. When you say insulin resistant I think I understand what you mean but you are saying it incorrectly. Insulin resistant means that insulin is not doing its job efficiently because the cell is somewhat "resistant' to insulin..in other words it requires more insulin to do the same job... lets say X+1 amount that originally X amount of insulin was doing before. Insulin resistance can become what is known as type 2 diabetes. Now with a keto diet..because carb intake is lowered and insulin secretion is lowered as well...the cells normally bombarded with insulin are actually getting a break. This resensitizes them to insulin in effect making insulin much more efficient and effective. Thus when adding carbs back into the diet they must be added in slowly and in smaller amounts.
Now getting back to the loading question...when you carb load there are a few criteria that need to be met to allow the most efficient loading process. One is you need water...thus by restricting water you restrict transport into the cell and loading is less efficient. Two...you need sodium, and three you need fats as mentioned above. So all that is required on a keto diet is to go back to your regular pro/fat diet and add smaller amounts of carbs into each meal on Thursday and friday. For some superheavyweights you can start this process on wednesday. Generally for most BB 30-40g per meal of carbs is enough.
P

[JonnyO]

Good post P. I have found though that when I load guys on a Keto diet, they need more carbs than someone who wasnt doing a keto diet. 30-40 carbs per meal just wasnt enough to fill them out as much as they could have, but then we're playing with a fine line of coming in drier/more conditioned as to fuller looking.

[Andre Gregoire]

Thanks for the replies guys. I have never tried Carbing up as outlined by P & Palumbo. I will try it out when dieting for my next show.

The thing I love about cyclical keto's is that you can basically test your carbup every week if you want but its obviously easier to see what's happening in the last few weeks when you are really lean.e what's happening in the last few weeks when you are really lean. I am not competing until next summer so it will be a while but I might document the process and post my results.

[natenator]

Thanks for the replies guys. I have never tried Carbing up as outlined by P & Palumbo. I will try it out when dieting for my next show.

The thing I love about cyclical keto's is that you can basically test your carbup every week if you want but its obviously easier to see what's happening in the last few weeks when you are really lean.e what's happening in the last few weeks when you are really lean. I am not competing until next summer so it will be a while but I might document the process and post my results.

lets not confuse a Palumbo style keto diet with a CKD diet as they are different.

[Andre Gregoire]

lets not confuse a Palumbo style keto diet with a CKD diet as they are different.

Who's confused?

[natenator]

Who's confused?

I believe you are since you mentioned "cyclical keto's"

[Andre Gregoire]

But did I mention the Palumbo diet?