Clean Keto Cutting Journey

5 minute read
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“Woah, I couldn’t do Keto. What about the risks of heart disease and cholesterol?”
- Said almost everyone Circa 2018

Flash forward to now, late 2019/beginning of 2020 and it seems everyone and their mom are following the latest diet trend.

What is the Ketogenic Diet?
Keto Diet for short, is a low carbohydrate but higher fat that offers many health benefits not including weight loss! By drastically reducing the amount of carbohydrates and glucose in your body, it forces it into the state of ketosis. This process converts fat molecules into ketone bodies that our body can use an as alternative fuel source.

Those benefits include helping with epilepsy, reducing inflammation, diabetes and many many more.

Weird benefits I have experienced:

  • improved quality of sleep
  • cleaner clearer skin

Though, there is one amazing benefit that I think is its best advantage. Spoiler Alert! It’s not the weight loss - I’ll get into that afterwards, bear with me.

Misconceptions:

  • Not an excuse to indulge yourself in meat and bacon, in fact protein should be modestly eaten and controlled. This diet leans more on fats. There is the case when you eat too much meat the protein is converted in our body to sugar
  • Eating bad fats, like fried foods or things cooked with vegetable oils, oils from processed foods
  • You won’t have enough energy for workouts because of the lack of carbs. False, once you get more fat adapted you will find that you’ll run just as well if not slightly better at the gym. Of course your body will have a brief period of getting used to running on fats

Good foods on Keto:

  • Meat (Personally, I am keeping to meats that I cook myself and affordable ones like poultry, fish, pork)
  • Eggs (A quick Keto go to)
  • Butter (Pro-tip: also look into Ghee)
  • Cheeses (I’ll be careful with this too as I’m easing into Keto, milk products have some inflammatory effects)
  • Nuts: Also got to be mindful of how much I eat, Tim Ferris calls these domino foods. Tiny morsels that you don’t feel guilty eating a handful, but can spiral out of control. A handful of almonds can be between 150-160 calories
  • Good oils (Avocado, Olive, Coconut)
  • Avocados
  • Non-starchy vegetables
  • Some low glycemic index fruits (berries)
  • Salt and Pepper

Why I am doing Keto:

Actually, I have done Keto in the period of late 2017 to middle of 2018. Ofcourse it was my first time doing it and there was much experimentation to figure out what works I felt great.

This isn’t some crazy weight loss story, prior to Keto I was a pretty fit guy. I hovered around 155-157lb (70-71kg) at 5 foot 6 then and also to this day.

So unfortunately I can’t speak to some amazing fat loss goals. This time around I do want to cut slightly…. At this build I’m pretty bulky. For agile sports like sprinting and TaeKwonDo I get pretty gassed out, especially during sparring.

Therefore I want to go down to under 150lb. It might include some fat and muscle loss but I am prepared. You’ll see why in my diet and training plan.

The secret benefit:

You won’t believe this but its pretty significant: The mental brain boost, ketones will also fuel your brain as it was previously running on sugar. However your overall energy levels will always feel constant.

Compare that with the significant bumps and dips running on carbohydrates, you know that feeling at around 2 to 3 pm after lunch in the office (Post Prandial/Post -lunch crash).

Running on Keto I did not get any of that, before keto I used to always have to take naps. Either a quick one at work, or a long one after work before I needed to go about the rest of my night.

Basically if keto works out for you, it’s a natural body hack. This is why I enjoyed this lifestyle the most compared to ‘dieting’ for a brief period then ultimately hopping off the diet. Once you get into the habit of a ketogenic lifestyle it’s like you are operating at 100% efficiency without burning out.

Therefore in order to increase my general levels of productivity and lifestyle I want to start out with Keto parallel to everything else I want to do.

Training Plan:

Going to keep it simple here. I have been lifting weights for the past couple months and while that has been gains in terms of strength and mass I am looking to cut. I’ll be doing that with more cardio and HIIT. In the short term it is to be more agile and be in a good shape in order to participate in any running activities in the spring and summer:

Here is it:

Monday: Sprints + Running to deload
Tuesday: HIIT (3 intervals of 8 body weight type exercises)
Wednesday: Sprints + Running to deload
Thursday: HITT (3 intervals of 8 body weight type exercises)
Friday: Sprints and Running again
Saturday and Sunday are rest/active rest days

And 2/3 days of the week would be TaeKwonDo training

Meal plan:

Generally I am cooking and eating the foods.

Honestly it is pretty boring… That maybe why people cannot stick to a diet and rebound

I eat the same meal everyday, which is usually dinner because I also throw in intermittent fasting (Skipping breakfast hoo-rah) and work provides a lunch which I choose a fairly health conscious option like a salad + meat, throw in some extra fats like peanut butter, avocado and olive oils.

For snacks would be nuts, cheese, raw veggie sticks or hard boiled eggs

Then my dinner would be something along the lines of:
- stir fried Chinese style veggies (minus the hoisin sauce)
- baked piece of chicken/pork

Hey hey, I know it’s strict. To keep my sanity I try to incorporate some keto-friendly cheat meal or snack like chocolate, bacon, keto-baked goods.

If anyone is interested I will be happy to post up a sample meal plan.

Also, of course I will have a follow-up post in 1 and 2 months time to show my progress : )

Average Guy/Girl Keto Resources:

In the meantime, what have you heard about Keto? What do you think of this ad-hoc training plan of mine? This is just a starting process and I will refine as I go. That means I appreciate your opinion and thoughts. Do let me know of your fitness and lifestyle plans you have in the short and long term.