Add muscle and lose fat.....

Today's post:  Thursday, 8-3-2017

Last week I posted on information and ideas for using very low carb and reduced protein and a high intake of good fats to lose fat.

When I tried this combined with fasting I gained back the weight and any fat I lost.  And, although I did gain back the strength and possibly muscle I lost, I was not favorably impressed with the results of doing this for fat loss. Nor did it seem favorable for keeping up progress in adding muscle.

My goal is to lose fat AND add muscle.

So I last week I talked about measuring if I was in ketosis as a way of ensuring the fat loss part worked better.

Then rotating that after I learned how to do it well each month with periods where I ate more protein and worked to gain muscle might work better.

Since last week I got two interesting pieces of information:

1.  Mike Matthews has been successful both personally and with his many clients in helping people BOTH lose fat and add muscle.

So when I saw he had a podcast discussing whether or not doing so would benefit by eating a very low carb diet and using ketosis, I made time to watch it and take notes as well as I could.

He did his usual first rate and thorough job!  He makes a case that eating a very low carb diet and using ketosis is NOT needed to lose fat and gain muscle. Nor is it the best way to do so.

He also said that there are some medical conditions that DO work best by using a very low carb high good fat and reduced protein diet that produces ketosis.

His protocol for losing fat while maintaining or gaining muscle is to KEEP the high protein intake and while restricting carbohydrate foods and overall calories enough to cut calories 25% below what a person uses.

His method has worked for him and his clients.  But it is lower carb rather than almost no carb and not aimed at producing ketosis.  AND it supports the overall goal of adding muscle or at least keeping it by maintaining 100% of the high protein intake at the same time.

To access Mike’s Podcast directly go to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UShVG1vNNQ&list=PL48Hv-G1m90ei1H2qP9fZH0OooLqNxMDR&index=3

I like that he includes the medical uses for which the ketogenic diet IS the best method:

For type 2 diabetes and later stage Alzheimer’s disease which are caused by significant problems with excess carbohydrate and or with processing carbohydrate ketogenic eating enables you to function well powering yourself and your brain while allowing your ability to process carbs to recover or you to heal without needing any carbs at all.

Your brain can run on ketones only while cancer cells must have glucose.  So if you stay in ketosis when you have cancer you are directly helping starve the cancer cells to death!

(With MS & Parkinson’s disease removing the things in your diet that cause them as you eat a ketogenic diet is effective.  But the work I’ve seen suggests that maintaining that removal is curative while also being in ketosis may not be needed.)

So my current plan is to try Mike Matthews’ method combined ensuring the calorie cut back by fasting each day of that 6 day week from 3 pm to when I have breakfast at 6 am.

None of my four week protocol will cut my high protein intake or cut out any of my whole milk & whey from grass fed cows in my high protein breakfast. 

But to make the first of the four weeks lower in carbs and calories, I’ll take extra bilberry extract and have no fruit at breakfast as I usually do.

The second week will maintain the 3 pm to 6 am fast and other carbohydrate restriction but will add back the fruit at breakfast.

Then I’ll do two weeks where I eat normally with more calories and carbs when I’ll focus most on adding muscle.

What if that fails to remove fat or keep it off?

The first thing I’ll try is to use that same protocol but do the first version for two weeks instead of one and the second version for two weeks instead of one.

2.  What if that fails?

The second piece of information is exact proof that ketogenic eating DOES produce the fat loss and inches lost from your waist that is my fat loss goal.

I’ll simply adopt ketogenic eating until I get to my fat loss goals.  THEN I’ll try to find a protocol that enables me to add more protein and gain muscle without gaining the fat back!

Here’s what I found!

The personal blog of Peter Attia, M.D   http://eatingacademy.com/   http://eatingacademy.com/dr-peter-attia  http://eatingacademy.com/how-i-lost-weight

“At the outset, I weighed 195 pounds, of which just over 20% was fat –about 40 pounds. My waist was 36 inches. My goal was to reduce my waist to 32 inches and I calculated I would need to lose 20 pounds of fat, without losing any muscle mass, to do this. So this defined my targets: 175 pounds, 11% body fat, 32-inch waist.”

This is almost identical to my goal to lose enough fat to remove at least 4 inches from my waist and reduce my percentage of bodyfat from 22% to 9 or 10%.

As his graph shows, ketogenic eating did the job and a bit extra!

He lost 25 pounds and five inches from his waist!

So, it’s clear that ketogenic eating might do the same for me if my Mike Matthews protocol does not!

3.  That said my preference is to do it Mike Matthews style because of some drawbacks to ketogenic eating.

Here are my notes on the Nutrition Authority article I read on ketogenic eating:

"Staple foods on a ketogenic diet include meat, fish, butter, eggs, cheese, heavy cream, oils, nuts, avocados, seeds and low-carb vegetables.

In contrast, nearly all carb sources are eliminated, including grains, rice, beans, potatoes, sweets, milk, cereals, fruits and even some higher-carb vegetables."

1.  If the foods in the ketogenic diet are organic, nonGMO, & or wild caught or fed only organic, nonGMO foods in their natural diet and NOT given routine antibiotics the foods on this list are health supporting to eat, particularly wild caught fish and avocados and low carb vegetables.  

Otherwise they may NOT be safe to eat and can even have ingredients that stop or slow fat loss such as harmful and fattening bacteria.  

It's also important to only include extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil in the oils and completely avoid the omega 6 oils that are health harmful and even contain some hydrogenated fats and harmful chemicals such as canola, corn, soy, safflower, and peanut oils.

2.  The grains, rice,  nonorganic potatoes, sweets, cereals, and the packaged foods and regular and diet soft drinks not listed which are also eliminated ALSO have powerful health harming ingredients and are best never eaten or drunk at all by anyone!  

They each fatten and harm whether someone is on a ketogenic diet or not!

Milk if it's whole, not homogenized and from cows fed only their natural diet from unpolluted organic nonGMO sources, beans, quinoa, chilled cooked organic potatoes, and the high carotene starchy vegetables if organic such as yams and red & orange & yellow squash -- and beans, particularly lentils, can each be health supporting however.  

Cow’s milk is also anabolic for people adding strength and muscle or ensuring they keep it. And, the whey from such milk is even more anabolic in part because its protein profile is the same as human proteins; and the high leucine content in it is particularly anabolic.

Most important, whole fresh fruit if organic when eaten daily is hugely protective reducing the rates of BOTH kinds of strokes. It’s very powerful and is the most effective way to prevent strokes. 

Of course eating fruit daily works best for stroke protection if you also ensure your heart attack protection is very high without taking statin drugs. 

(Interestingly, I found Dr Peter Attia’s ketogenic eating for fat loss by reading an excellent article on his analysis of what blood markers to aim for to prevent heart attacks on Medical News Today.  My post last Tuesday and its part two next Tuesday have ways to increase the beneficial HDL & lower triglycerides that do the reduction of small particle LDL that he also explains is most protective.)

So the only way to keep this benefit on a ketogenic or very low carb diet is to take fruit concentrate supplements.  Mercifully there ARE many good ones:  Bilberry, cherry, elderberry, & cranberry concentrates are all available & have robust health benefits.  I take all hose daily even when I have real whole fresh fruit too!

Hybrid wheat that has been refined and even lightly ground whole hybrid wheat is both directly harmful and boosts blood sugar MORE than high fructose corn syrup.  

Its high omega 6 oil content is harmful because it too is so pro-inflammatory.  

Worse this wheat is grown with herbicides and pesticides that are bioconcentrated in the omega 6 oils.  

Not only must all hybrid wheat be removed to achieve a ketogenic diet, no one who knows its health effects should eat ANY ideally ever at any time!