Progress Report: Why no diet is perfect

I'm not going to lie. The ketogenic lifestyle is kicking my ass.  The first month, I had excessive urination which led to potassium, magnesium and sodium depletion. This cascaded into rapid heart beat, muscle weakness and headaches. The magnesium and sodium are easily supplemented through salty foods or pills but the potassium is hard to come by especially when you're trying to maintain low blood insulin levels.

This guy recommends bone broth soup.






The only problem is they don't sell bone broth soup at McDonald's.

I recently added almonds to my diet.  One cup has almost a thousand milligrams of potassium which is a fifth of government recommended daily allowance guidelines.

The good thing about almonds is they're low in carbohydrate.

As you can see, it has two net grams of carbs per one ounce.  It has also has three grams of fiber. This will quell your appetite quickly.  Also because of the fiber it balances out any excessive digestive acid that you might have taken on when consuming animal fat and protein.  Now for the bad part. The fiber will also cause you to sit on the toilet a couple times of day. 

This is why I say no diet is perfect.  The ketogenic lifestyle makes it necessary for you to exist on only fat, protein and fiber with very little carbohydrate intake which is a very primitive way to eat. My food choices are spinach salads, meat or chicken, low carb vegetables and nuts.   Your selection is limited especially if you eat out a lot.  

Pros vs. Cons. Which one do you sacrifice? Do you give up feeling energized and focused throughout your day while keto adapted or do you choose a large and varied food diet that is accomplished through a high carbohydrate based diet? 

PROGRESS REPORT

Here are my numbers.

Gym Tuesday 12/23/2014 01:08 PM 

Conventional deadlift mixed grip 1"deficit 325-4, 345-1, 355-1, 375-1

Stiff legged deadlift mixed grip 1" deficit  325-1

Life fitness cable row machine 260-1 

Rack pull mixed grip 425-1

Technogym leg press machine 340-1

Workout notes:  I've been experimenting with the mixed grip on all my pulls.  The trick to holding onto the bar is your undergrip hand.  Your undergrip hand has to lock onto the bar with a hook grip (fingers overlapping thumb), and then use your other hand to pack the thumb of your undergrip hand deep into the center of your palm.  Then take the overlapping fingers and clamp onto your thumb even harder.  I find that one tightly secured hand is enough to not let the bar slip out of your grip. 

There is a slight strength difference in grip when alternating between left and right.  My left undergrip hand is weaker than my right, but I alternate just to give both hands an opportunity for grip strengthening.  

The other thing I noticed is using mixed grip on my pulls strengthens the forearms, fingers and wrists.  This has great carryover to the bench press because the harder you can squeeze the bar seems to aid in exploding the bar off your chest. 

Why I think high carbohydrate intake is detrimental to strength

First off let's start with the facts. Any carbohydrate intake leads to an increase in insulin levels in the blood. The insulin is there to shuttle the blood glucose from the ingestion of carbohydrate into muscles and the liver.  This influx of massive insulin surges that accompany heavy carbohydrate intake also lowers blood glucose levels to a starvation mode level.

When the body has low blood glucose levels it first starts breaking down muscle tissue and starts feeding on muscle glycogen reserves and then switches to fat reserves for energy. The problem with this system is the attack on the muscles.

As a person who trains for strength, you need all the muscle you can get. Why would you start that insulin effect of breaking down muscle for energy supply to the body no matter how temporary it lasts?

I used to believe that more insulin is good because you need it to produce Insulin Growth Factor, an anabolic hormone your body produces to stimulate muscle growth.  The problem is that insulin also lowers blood sugar levels and shifts your body into starvation mode.  What happens when you go hungry?  Your body becomes catabolic and breaks down muscle for however short a time to return blood glucose levels back to normal.

One or a couple more times of this small stealing from your muscle might not add up to much. But cumulatively over the course of three or four rest days between workouts with several carbohydrate feedings done each day, those small catabolic attacks on your muscles can add up to significant strength loss.

I hate to beat a dead horse, but the fact of the matter is the ketogenic diet has as its goal to never elevate blood glucose levels. That's why it's superior to a high carbohydrate diet.

You can disagree with me on this, but one thing you cannot deny is that fat and cholesterol are needed to produce testosterone.  The ketogenic diet explicitly states -- high fat, moderate protein, low carb.  It's a perfect match for strength training because the high fat intake will produce testosterone, and the low carb intake will avoid massive insulin surges in the blood.

Heart palpitations on the Ketogenic Diet

So when I get heart palpitations or my heart starts beating rapidly, I immediately think to ingest sodium.

Even a month and a half into the ketogenic diet and having stopped the frequent urination problem I was experiencing, I still need to supplement with sodium.

Most people recommend beef or chicken broth. That takes too long to prepare. Other people recommend putting salt into a glass of water and drinking it. But that's a lot of salty water to drink and it tastes disgusting.

My personal favorite is soy sauce.  Just a couple of sips is all it takes. There's no need to prepare anything and you only have to drink a glass of water to remove the salty taste.

Keys to a successful adaptation to the Ketogenic Lifestyle

The two most important words in the Keto Dieter's vocabulary are moderation and balance.  

Here's what I mean.  You have to eat animal protein for glucose, but too much protein causes the body to be acidic.  The stomach has to compensate for the digestion of extra protein by secreting more acid.  This can lead to health problems such as acid reflux or indigestion problems.

The way to balance this acid increase is to consume acid's opposite: alkaline.  Alkaline sources are zero carb vegetables like spinach, romaine lettuce, broccoli or what they call cruciferous vegetables.  Any acid indigestion problems will be immediately cured by eating them.

Moderation is something I had to relearn.  Up until yesterday, I used to shoot Lite Salt into my mouth and follow it with water.  The reason was to up my potassium intake. Now that I'm somewhat adapted to a keto diet, my potassium requirements are lowered.  When I first started on the Ketogenic Lifestyle, I was urinating all the time because my body was emptying itself of it's glycogen reserves for energy.  The byproduct of glycolysis is water so the body will dump the excess. Unfortunately, this excretion will also strip the body of its sodium, potassium, and magnesium deposits.

A little over a month and a half into the Ketogenic Lifestyle, my mineral requirements are stabilized.  I don't have the excess urination anymore so I don't have to shoot the Lite Salt into my mouth anymore.  I learned that the hard way by overdosing on Lite Salt and having to make an inconvenient trip to the bathroom to flush my bowels.  To remedy this, I only sprinkle Lite Salt onto my foods to taste.

Moderation and balance.  Simple concepts to understand and execute but imperative if you are to be successful at the Ketogenic Lifestyle.

Progress Report: Nazi Vegans, more weakness, and the Ketogenic Lifestyle

So I've recently begun taking flaxseed oil gel capsules.  I got the idea from this Nazi vegan:




It's amazing how the Nazi vegans are so arrogant about how they're more healthy than meat eaters yet they have a ten year life expectancy deficit compared to meat eaters.

The Nazi vegan in the video recommends mixing in flaxseed flour into your recipes to help with heart health.  But I just take a flaxseed oil gel capsule which I found at a local grocery store chain.

The reason I stopped taking fish oil was the fish burps that accompany taking it. But the flaxseed oil gel capsules have no adverse reactions like that and they're pretty much tasteless.  Plus they have almost double the concentration of omega 3 fatty acids that fish oil gel capsules have.


The Ketogenic Lifestyle

I've been on this lifestyle for over a month now. The biggest hurdle in trying to live this lifestyle is relearning how to eat.

I wake-up and for breakfast I eat chicken breast lathered with coconut oil. I'll also eat ten slices of bacon and douse that with coconut oil.

The coconut oil is pretty much tasteless except for a subtle lingering after taste of coconut. I got the coconut oil from Trader Joe's, a grocery store that specializes in hard to find eclectic items.  The oil is just a way to add more fat to my diet and it helps me to have stabilized energy levels while feeling satiated until my next meal.  Also because I have a digestive allergy to butter because I'm lactose intolerant, the coconut oil is a very good substitute that doesn't mess up my stomach and intestines the way butter does.

For my supplementation, I take the flaxseed oil gel capsule, a multivitamin fortified with iron, and a magnesium 500mg pill.  I'll also eyeball out two teaspoons of Lite Salt into the palm of my hand, and I'll shoot it into my mouth. Then I'll follow that with two glasses of water while my eyes tear and my mouth gets sucked into the back of my head.  This torture is endured to up my potassium and sodium intake for the day which you'll have to do unless you want your heart to feel like it's exploding out of your chest.

For an afternoon snack I'll go to Walgreen's or a grocery store and buy a salami meat tube.  Any meat will do as long as it has a 2 to 1 fat to protein ratio.  2 grams of fat for 1 gram of protein for example.

Dinner is just a Subway Sandwich shop spinach salad loaded with gobs of oil, fatty meats, olives and pickles and a dash of tomatoes.

Of course now that I'm back to heavy lifting again, I have to cycle in lean animal proteins like chicken to refill glycogen reserves that were depleted during my training session.



A Lesson in Weakness

Here are my numbers.

Gym Tuesday 12:30 12/16/2014
Conventional deadlift 1"deficit 315-1
Stiff legged deadlift  1" deficit  315-1
Life fitness cable row machine 260-1
Rack pull mixed grip 415-1, 415-0
Technogym leg press machine 320-1

These are the first deadlifts I've done in almost four months.   I switched to using a mixed grip. Before I used lifting straps but I'm going to try and hold out by just using my hands before I go back to the straps.

My pre workout meal of two Cliff oatmeal bars was not enough to carry me to my last sets of exercises, so I'm going to eat one or two more Cliff oatmeal bars before I do another deadlift and legs training session to keep my energy levels up.

Progress Report: Slowly inching my way back

I don't understand modern theories of strength training.  Most of it centers around muscle building.  The classic theory is that lifting weight stimulates muscle growth by way of ripping apart muscle fibers and then repairing them with adequate protein intake. They're missing although the underlying foundation of strength which is your skeletal frame.  It's true the muscles have to adapt and grow, but without a strong and sturdy skeletal frame that adapts and becomes stronger and thicker over the course of a weightlifter's career it will be impossible to handle heavy loads.

Anyways, here's my progress report:

Click here for what the numbers mean.


Gym Saturday 12/13/2014 10:03 AM
Shoulder press seated 205-1
Dead chest press 145-1
Dead pin press 1/4" above chest 155-1,
165-1
Dead pin press 4" above chest 175-0
Precor incline press machine 2" deficit 260-0
Precor incline press machine 220-1
Precor incline press machine 2" above chest 200-0
Pec flyes rehab work 5 lb dumbbells

These numbers are meaningless without an explanation, so here it goes.  When I say "dead chest press", I take the safety arms in a power rack and set them three or four inches below by chest while laying down on a bench.  I then place the bar behind me on the safety arms.  Then I lay back, reach over my head and grab the bar and place it on my chest and then press the bar up.  I find doing it this way strengthens the wrists and forearms which you need to press heavy weight.

When I say "dead pin press", the bar is resting on the safety arms of the power rack but the bar is set at an approximate above my chest.  To complete the lift, I wrap my hands on the bar and push up.  The height measurements correspond to how far it is above my chest.

The reason I do it this way is that I got the idea from watching one of Nick Wright's videos.  He mentions something about not being able to bench the bar more than halfway up when trying to hit a personal best record, so to address that sticking point he did floor presses to concentrate on the top half of his bench press or the lockout.  Start the video at 6:30 to see what I mean.





Basically the whole bottom half of my bench press is my sticking point.  I can't get the bar off my chest, and if I do I get stuck two or three inches off my chest.  So to address those sticking points, I figured why not break my bench press down into segments like I do with my deadlift.  If I'm doing rack pulls and deficit deadlifts and Romanian deadlifts to increase my conventional deadlift, why not do the same thing for my bench press?

To address this, I'm basically having my hands set at varying heights when I'm chest pressing or incline pressing.  The shoulder press I'm not really worried about so I just adjust the seat height of the military press rack so the bar is below my chin.

Finally I have to explain what I mean by "rehab work".  It means I take a pair of 5 lb dumb bells and I lay back on a bench.  Then I take the dumb bells one in each hand, and I sweep my hands back in a Christ crucifixion pose until my knuckles are resting on the floor.  I'll usually hold my hands there at the bottom for a couple seconds and then bring them back to the top above me just as you would in a dumb bell pec fly movement.  This helps to stretch the front deltoids in a gentle manner after working them with so much chest pressing.  

Wheat is like cocaine