So, there I was, listening to a podcast on a long drive and the topic of Ketogenic Diets came up. The interview with accomplished athlete Ben Greenfield on the Joe Rogan Experience hit a smorgasbord of topics, but the one that stuck with me was “keto for athletes“. I heard about keto in the past, but never researched it and never pursued it. Well, that’s all changed now! Using Ben Greenfield as an inspiration of immersive journalism, I talked Lindsay into doing a 12-week science experiment with me.

I am going to document our experiences in a quasi-scientific manner throughout the next 12 weeks, with this being Week 0 – or the calm before the coconut oil storm. The intent of this 12-week journal is to share personal experience, resources, and observations, not to be an academic reference for people looking to start a keto diet (although we will attempt to cull the best of those along the way)

What is a Ketogenic Diet?

Where to begin? A ketogenic diet is a generic term for a low-carb, high-fat, high-protein diet. When they say high-fat, they really mean it – I’m planning on over 60% of my caloric intake to come from healthy fats. Ketogenic diets and ketosis have been historically utilized by physicians for several medical reasons, including neurological disorders like epilepsy and different treatments for diabetes.

When someone eats the traditional high-carb diet that most people follow in North America, the body produces an insulin release to process the high volume of glucose in the bloodstream. Glucose is the easiest molecule for the body to use as fuel and therefore the body burns all of the free-floating glucose before it uses any fats. Since glucose is used as the primary energy source, fats are typically stored.

By drastically lowering the intake of carbohydrates, the body can be forced into a state known as ketosis. In a low-carbohydrate keto diet, the body produces ketones in the liver that are used as energy instead of glucose. Ketosis is a natural process the body initiates to help us survive when food intake is low by metabolizing stored and consumed fats. During this state, we create ketones, which the liver produces during the breakdown of fats.

“The end goal of a properly maintained keto diet is to force your body into this metabolic state. We don’t do this through starvation of calories but starvation of carbohydrates.”

What are we trying to accomplish with “the experiment”?

The primary motivator for trying a keto diet is not sports related, but rather the long-term health benefits listed above. A successful result of this experiment would be maintaining our current level of strength progress as competitive athletes, controlling body fat and still reaping the long-term benefits of keto.

Ben Greenfield, mentioned earlier, participated in a 12-month keto experiment for endurance athletes that showed no difference in the performance of endurance tasks between a keto diet and traditional high carb diet. Unfortunately, we have not been able to find any research-based articles on the effects of keto on strength athletes. So, in addition to the long-term benefits and maintaining strength progress, here are a few other things we are trying to accomplish with our first-hand experience that is specific to strength athletes and Ektelo’s mission.

• Body-fat control: Not all athletes want a diet that drops body fat. In fact, Lindsay is at the bottom of a safe window for strength athletes and can’t drop more than a percentage point. On the other hand, I’ll be trying to increase strength while dropping 3%-5% body fat.
• Weigh-ins: Lindsay and I both compete in Strongman and Powerlifting which have weigh-ins as close as 2 hours before the event. Athletes will dehydrate themselves and crash diet before they step on the scale and then attempt to replace their depleted glucose stores in the short time before competing. With a ketogenic diet, the hope is to have less of a crash before weigh-in and reduce the spike afterward, which can cause a loss of strength on the platform.
• Realistic approach: Part of the process is experimenting with what is feasible for the average person who is not a professional athlete. How do cheat days, work lunches, a few Saturday night cocktails and a set food budget affect the effectiveness of the diet?
• Share our experience: We plan on sharing it all – successes, failures recipes, cravings, body measurements, and our meal plan. If it works, we’ll advocate for others to give it a try. If it flops, we’ll try to figure out why.

For further reading, Perfect Keto has a good, researched-based, blog post on How To Use The Ketogenic Diet for Physical Performance.

How are we adjusting a typical Keto diet?

Many keto resources advocate for the daily carbohydrate intake to be under 5% of the daily total. For reference, as someone that is on a 3000cal diet, that would give me a 1/4 cup of cooked rice, a banana and a cup of milk as my ONLY carbs.

(keep in mind that the definition of a “carb” in this case is Total Carbohydrates minus Dietary Fiber)

We have modified the traditional keto diet of a mostly-sedentary person in two ways:

1. Increased carb ratio: I am eating 10% or 300 calories/day of carbs. Lindsay is eating 13% carbs because of her slightly different body type (ecto-mesomorph) and hypermetabolism. We are doing this because we want to get more plant-based micronutrients to better round out our diet. Therefore, most of our carbs come from vegetables like bunches of leafy greens (kale, spinach), cauliflower, herbs, sweet potatoes, one fruit/day, and of course, a square of dark chocolate.
2. Evening carbs: Of my 300 calories/day of carbs, over 75% of them come in the evening. The logic comes from Ben Greenfield. By doing this, we can replace some glycogen stores that are depleted from an evening workout. However, the total carbs are low enough that we will return to a fat burning state overnight, and continue that fat burning throughout the morning and afternoon. Theoretically, the body dumps glycogen into the muscles but continues fueling the rest of the system off liver ketosis.

The Measurements: Week 0

We’re measuring a host of things. Most importantly, for Week 1, is our blood ketone levels. This is done with a blood testing device similar to a glucose monitor, and watching Lindsay poke her finger makes for an entertaining afternoon (teaser for the Week 1 post). Monitoring beta-hydroxybutyrate levels on a daily basis will tell us if we’ve made it to ketosis after the first 5-10 days and, if so, whether or not we are in a light, moderate or deep ketosis. The blood tests let us know if the start of the experiment is working!

Continue along to our Week 1 post, where I’ll introduce our eating/nutrition plan and begin explaining why 1800cal of fat/day is not as unhealthy as you might think.