Fat Adaptation

Our body prefers to use glucose as energy for strength and high intensity training. 

A drawback of the keto diet is it’s hard to get solid muscle contraction during workouts because glycogen (energy stored in the muscle and liver) are depleted.

Before getting in depth with the two different types of keto diets that introduce carbs, its important to stay on a strict keto diet for a minimum of 1 month to allow your body to become fat adapted and use ketones for fuel. This will give you the ability to effectively switch metabolic states which is prerequisite to make the most of what I’m about to introduce.

Once keto adapted, the type of keto diet that is ideal for people trying to build muscle or people who just need some physical strength is known as Cyclical Keto dieting. There are 2 types, the 2 day cyclical diet & the 2 week.

2 Day Cyclical Keto Diet

On the 2 day cyclical diet, for 5 days you are on a strict keto then for 2 days you’re on a high carb, low fat, high protein. 

It is important that your fats are low because when consuming high fats & high carbs at the same time, your fat will be heading straight into the adipose cells where it is stored as fat.

The benefit of the 2 day cyclical diet is you’ll be able to enjoy all of the benefits of the keto and have quality workouts because of the glycogen stored in muscle to give you that quality muscle pump.

2 Week Cyclical Keto Diet

The 2 week cyclical Keto diet is similar to the 2 day diet however instead of 5 days of keto you are on the strict keto for about 6 weeks and on a high carb, low fat, high protein diet for about 2 weeks.

The benefit of this is you allow your body to be deep into ketosis which has a whole host of benefits and when you are out of keto, during the carbing up phase, you’re allowing yourself to enjoy the perks that come with the high carb, low fat, high protein diet.

Conclusion

Both of these diets accomplish the same goal which is to replenish your glycogen stores and increase metabolism. 

It’s a good idea to experiment with both diets and see which one works best for you. I enjoy the 2 week cycling because I like to allow my body to get deep into ketosis then carb up after.