This is a long post. Pics are at the botttom.
Reading over my old keto-related posts, I may not have
emphasized CICO (calories-in, calories-out) nearly enough. Simply put, CICO is
the only thing that matters in fat-loss and maintenance. Everything else is
nuance. Keto is just a method for managing appetite and simplifying CICO (among many other great things).
Below are the highlights of what I’ve learned while leaning
out on keto.
But first, the reason I might get so OCD about all this is
two-fold:
1) When I was in poor health as a young adult (smoker,
sedentary, 70-lb overweight), I always meant to become a fit and active grown-up. When I’m careless with nutrition and add fat weight, an unfortunate amount goes to
inter-organ visceral fat, which is associated with metabolic and
cardio-vascular disease. I’ll go into this further in a later post, or series
of posts.
2) Nowadays, I’ve come to like the idea of competing. Even
though I’m decidedly mediocre as a runner and cyclist, the idea of competing still
adds an extra dimension to training and nutrition. With both trail running and road cycling,
a huge limiting factor is extra weight (especially in the hilly Bay Area). A
few extra pounds costs minutes in even a short race like a 5k. Extra weight
also increases injury risk and compounds joint-wear with every step and
downstroke.
THE NUMBERS THAT MATTER
Some keto folks get caught up with the bacon & butter and
think that dietary fat is what defines keto. It’s not. Being in ketosis (via
limiting carbs) is what defines keto. Dietary fat might add flavor and satiety
to meals -- and that’s a beautiful thing -- but when on a cut, the biggest and easiest calorie-source
to reduce is dietary fat.
During a cut, a constant focus is on satiety, how to feel full. What are the most-filling foods I can eat within a limited number of calories? Should I eat 100 calories from a small pat of butter? Or 100 calories from massive
bowls of lettuce and colorful, crisp veggies?
Body-fat Weight: There is an upper limit to how much body-fat
the average person can burn over a period of time, and it’s proportional to the
amount of body-fat a person has. Per various conclusions, that limit translates to roughly 30
calories per pound of body-fat per day.
For example, if I have 30 pounds of bodyfat, the largest daily calorie deficit I should shoot would be 900 calories (30x30). Anything beyond that, and I risk losing hard-earned lean-mass to the fire. (In real life, that's a massive deficit that I'd find unsustainable.)
To eliminate wasted time and the guesswork of finding my body-fat weight, I’ve had a series of DEXA scans to verify my body-fat changes over time. This info allows more-precise calorie requirements to maximize fat-loss while minimizing lean-mass loss.
Dietary Protein: I follow the general guide of eating roughly 1 gram of protein (4 calories) per pound of lean mass per day. Combined with
some strength training, that amount of dietary protein spares my lean mass from
the cut.
BEST PRACTICES
As mentioned in earlier posts, being in ketosis helps manage
my response to hunger. It helps prevent making poor food choices. In addition
to ketosis, I’ve found that doing the following helps tremendously while in
deficit:
- Intermitttent Fasting – going 16 hours after dinner and first meal of the day. I’ve experimented with longer fasted periods, but 16 hours is a good balance to maintain energy levels. As mentioned in earlier keto posts, I do this because it frees up my daily schedule and makes meal-time that much more satisfying (vs the often-recommended 5-6 small meals per day). There are also hormonal benefits that help manage hunger and satiety.
- Eat tons and tons of salad and fibrous low-calorie veggies -- and Beano + Gas-X !-)
- Make frequent visits to the grocery market, and shop for only a few days into the future -- within reason. Keeps salads and veggies fresh and crisp. Helps avoid stocking up on food I should avoid anyway.
- Limit calorie-dense food in the house. (Again, within reason. We have two young vibrant kids who eat closer to a standard American diet.) If it's not in the fridge and not in the cupboards, it's out of site, out of mind.
- Measure every morning. I record two: Total weight and circumference of widest point of ab flab. Measurements can vary day-to-day. Seeing that variance helps ease any doubts whether the program is working. It also helps see the effects different foods, liquids, and quantities have from day-to-day
- Keep lifting. This is a must-do to preserve lean mass.
PROOF OF CONCEPT
I discovered something neat while going through old pics.
A couple years ago (summer of 2014), I experimented with an
extended deficit with practically zero workouts. I was recovering from a string
of injuries and surgeries that limited any kind of exertion. Not working out
also simplified my calorie-deficit requirements. In the end, I got down to 134
at lowest and it did not look good. I had very little muscle. I was not just
skinny-fat, but bony-fat. (I have eliminated all visual evidence.)
From late 2014 through 2015, while mostly injury free, I re-started
some strength training, then got heavily into trail distance running. Here’s
from late summer 2015:
Not bad, but still a bit soft in the mid-section.
In late 2015, I had a pair of terrible injuries that shut
everything down: 1) A frozen left shoulder that developed after a pair of
rotator-cuff injuries and 2) A badly sprained ankle that I kept re-aggravating.
Between the two injuries, I couldn’t lift heavy nor stay on my feet for any
duration. By the spring of 2016, it became clear that any race goals I had for
the year were out the window.
Even now, after eight months of focused rehab, the injuries
still limit serious lifting and high-impact cardio.
But, ya know what? I could still do some things well. I
could stay positive. I could eat clean. I could progress with the exercises I could do. And I could
have goals!
Instead of racing, the goal became to lean-out ahead of a
summer vacation in Hawaii. It was to prove a point that CICO mattered most.
What would it look like if I ate below maintenance and kept up with rehab?
Here’s the progress from late-April to late-July this year. We’re going to Hawaii next week, so the last pic will be my maintenance goal
for August.
Calories In, Calories Out: All of the above was done without running or cycling -- and with light resistance for weight-training and core-strength training.
NEXT POST: Keto and next-level diagnostics
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