# 4 weeks into KETO - Have I hit a wall?



## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Just want some peoples thoughts on this. I'm just coming to the end of my 4th weeks following a CKD. I have just done my weekly weigh in which is done before the carb up on Friday. I have lost a steady 2/3 lb a week, but this week absolutely nothing. I weight believe it or not exactly the same as last Thursday. Does this mean I've hit a plateu?

I'm doing nothing differently to the previous weeks, eating the same food and doing the same amount of CV. What do I need to do?

Should I reduce fat calories further, up my cardio, or have say a couple of weeks off and then get back on it again?

Any help here would be grately appreciated.


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Another thing, should I try a shorter/less of a carb up? I weighed the same weight last thursday, after my carb up weighed 4lb more, and has taken me the week to lose that 4lb.


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

Do you look leaner than you did last week? If so, weight is irrelevant. You could just be constipated and taking a sh1t could drop you 3lbs right there


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Lol......had 2 this morning so completely empty. Don't really look any different if I'm completely honest.


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## LittleChris (Jan 17, 2009)

Increase cardio first. Then introduce fat burners/stims, then finally play with the diet, reduce one Pro/Fat meal with a Pro/Veg meal.


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

LittleChris said:


> Increase cardio first. Then introduce fat burners/stims, then finally play with the diet, reduce one Pro/Fat meal with a Pro/Veg meal.


I'd agree with this. What's your current diet looking like though OP?


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

8.00 - 5x whole eggs

11.30 - 60g turkey

60g low carb p/butter

3.00 - same as meal 2

6.30 - 150g mince beef with grated cheese

9.30 - protein shake with 30ml olive oil

that's pretty much exactly what I stick to every day


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Stims don't agree with me either. Makes me feel on another planet.


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Any ideas based on that diet Al...?


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

Tomwlsn99 said:


> Any ideas based on that diet Al...?


Looks decent actually mate, without knowing exactly how much "protein shake" or cheese you're consuming. Any idea what your cals and macros are at? If not, figure that out as it'll be useful to know.

What is your cardio regime looking like and how are you handling your carb-ups?


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## UKWolverine (Apr 25, 2009)

You could be just due a "woosh" soon...

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/of-whooshes-and-squishy-fat.html


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

30g protein in the shakes, and just one slice of cheese melted on the mince. Total calories are 2000 at the min. About 150 g protein (30g each meal) and about 150g fat (30g each meal). That takes the total to 1950 plus I allow for roughly 12/13g indirect carbs.

I have been doing cardio 3x mornings during the week, 60 min steady state fasted in the morning with my heart rate around 125/130.

My carb ups have started right after Fridays workout and have 100g maltodextrin here with 5g BCAA, 10g creatine, and 50g whey isolate. About 2.5 hours later have a further 100g carbs consisting of either White rice, bread, bananas etc. Then on sat I'm eating around 100g carbs with each meal so the complete carb up is around 700g of carbs. I'm wondering if this is too much for my body to use properly. I try and keep the carb ups as clean as poss as well.


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Interesting link Wolverine.....I can't say for sure whether I'm suseptable to water retention but it's definately interesting to know.


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## spaynter (Jul 6, 2009)

Carb up seems a bit heavy. Just do Saturdays and see what happens. All trial and error, I'm afraid as we're all bit different. I'd also get some green fibrous veg into your diet. A whole bag of spinach only has 3g of carbs, so don't worry.


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

Tomwlsn99 said:


> 30g protein in the shakes, and just one slice of cheese melted on the mince. Total calories are 2000 at the min. About 150 g protein (30g each meal) and about 150g fat (30g each meal). That takes the total to 1950 plus I allow for roughly 12/13g indirect carbs.
> 
> I have been doing cardio 3x mornings during the week, 60 min steady state fasted in the morning with my heart rate around 125/130.
> 
> My carb ups have started right after Fridays workout and have 100g maltodextrin here with 5g BCAA, 10g creatine, and 50g whey isolate. About 2.5 hours later have a further 100g carbs consisting of either White rice, bread, bananas etc. Then on sat I'm eating around 100g carbs with each meal so the complete carb up is around 700g of carbs. I'm wondering if this is too much for my body to use properly. I try and keep the carb ups as clean as poss as well.


Sounds pretty much textbook mate. Cals are quite low, but I'm not sure about your body weight. I would suggest adding in 3 additional AM cardio sessions - I remember you said no stims so we'll leave them out.

I think the success will lie in increasing the cardio and tweaking the carb-up. Instead of 700g carbs I would suggest consuming anywhere from 1500-2500g high GI carbs within a 24hr period over the weekend and see how you get on then. Your metabolism will be slowing down gradually during the week on low cals, so having a huge carb up (with fat below 90g) will be like pouring a gallon of petrol onto a fire and should get things moving again. People seem to make the mistake of reducing carb-ups the leaner they get, but they've got it completely the wrong way round. The lower your cals go, the leaner you get, the higher your energy output, the bigger the refeeds need to get! Look up skiploading!


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Nice one Al. I'll look it up. I'll try upping my carbs this sat then. Is there a particular reason as to why to use high GI carbs?


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

Tomwlsn99 said:


> Nice one Al. I'll look it up. I'll try upping my carbs this sat then. Is there a particular reason as to why to use high GI carbs?


Because it's far easier to get huge amounts of high GI carbs in; try eating 2500g carbs worth of oats lol, it won't work. It will also spike insulin fairly rapidly and your body will be immediately begin upping metabolism and replenishing glycogen stores.

Check this out: http://www.intensemuscle.com/33961-my-biggest-refeed-date.html

And this: http://www.intensemuscle.com/33298-what-24lb-loss-36-hours-looks-like.html

And an interview with skip: http://www.musclemayhem.com/forums/showthread.php?t=57225

Plus members on here, such as weeman will also attest to the benefits of having a huge refeed once a week to keep progress coming


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Nice one All. I'll have a look at skiploading. I'll keep you posted on my progress


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

Tomwlsn99 said:


> Nice one All. I'll have a look at skiploading. I'll keep you posted on my progress


Good stuff mate. I've only done it a couple of times so far, but each time it's worked amazingly well! Didn't gain an ounce of fat and took in around 2500g carbs in a 24hr period. You gain a lot of water, but shed that over about 3 days and you're still losing fat underneath all the water. Skip recommends starting out smaller and working your way up to 24hrs, but after 2 weeks on keto there was no way I was doing anything less lol. Obviously you have to be fairly depleted for it to work.


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Yeah 24 hours sounds good with me. I could do with filling my face with loads of sweets etc. Just read over skips interview twice and I'm still trying to get my head around the issue of water intake. Is he saying it should be high during these 24 hours, or high before/after. I might start with 1000g high GI processed carbs to start and see how my body reacts. But I'll definately be using processed high GI carbs. The info he gives on the insulin response to these types of carbs as well as the faster respose to topping up glycogen completely makes sense.


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

Tomwlsn99 said:


> Yeah 24 hours sounds good with me. I could do with filling my face with loads of sweets etc. Just read over skips interview twice and I'm still trying to get my head around the issue of water intake. Is he saying it should be high during these 24 hours, or high before/after. I might start with 1000g high GI processed carbs to start and see how my body reacts. But I'll definately be using processed high GI carbs. The info he gives on the insulin response to these types of carbs as well as the faster respose to topping up glycogen completely makes sense.


RE water intake, it will be hard to take in what you normally do while carbing up, and much of what you do take in will be retained by your body. Just try and keep it as high as possible, but I doubt you'll be able to keep it as high as normal.


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Ok mate. This is a completely new look on things for me as far as a re feed goes. Obviously my brain is telling me that if I eat basically 1000g sugar (4000 calories) over 24 hours, I'm just going to gain weight and come Thursday when I weigh myself I'd expect to be heavier than last Thursday. But if what I understand is right, eating this amount of high GI carbs is going to kick start my metabolism so that come Thursday I should of lost some fat?


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## Guest (Feb 25, 2010)

Re carb up. Im of the opinion that youll spend all week on 0 carbs, why eat 5 times more than you would normally just for the sake of it??

When i did CKD i used to have one meal with carbs. last main meal of the day on Saturdays. This might have been a slice of pizza, it might have been a baked spud. or a rissoto but that was it. I dont go for this, stuff as many carbs in your face as you can BS

high amounts of carbs also made me the most irritable bloke in the world and it took ages for me to get into keto again, sometimes 2 weeks.

Ill have a look at those threads Alasttair. cheers.


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

mikex101 said:


> Re carb up. Im of the opinion that youll spend all week on 0 carbs, why eat 5 times more than you would normally just for the sake of it??
> 
> When i did CKD i used to have one meal with carbs. last main meal of the day on Saturdays. This might have been a slice of pizza, it might have been a baked spud. or a rissoto but that was it. I dont go for this, stuff as many carbs in your face as you can BS
> 
> ...


The reasoning is glycogen supercompensation - because you're depleted you can store many more carbs than normal. Also the huge metabolism boost which a baked potato will not give you. The reason he's not progressing is probs cos his metabolism is dead. You think a slice of pizza or a baked potato will sort that out?

I hate to keep throwing his name around, but weeman has huge weekly refeeds all throughout his contest diet and always comes in shredded.


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

I'll also add that if I can eat pancakes, syrup, sweets etc while dieting and it only serves to improve my progress then why the hell wouldn't I?


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## Guest (Feb 25, 2010)

AlasTTTair said:


> I'll also add that if I can eat pancakes, syrup, sweets etc while dieting and it only serves to improve my progress then why the hell wouldn't I?


I know where your coming from bud. id do the same. but it doesnt work like that with me. Probably due to the fact i carry alot more fat than you even on a good day. I look at a sarny the wrong way and itll **** me up.

I need to do more research on it to be honest. the pics in that thread you posted were impressive. but i wish he had taken a before shot, not just 3 afters.

Ok, glycogen super compensation, however when your on a keto diet why would you want your body over filled with glycogen when you want to use fat as fuel?

Dont look at this as an argument, im genuinely interested.


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## Big Dawg (Feb 24, 2008)

mikex101 said:


> I know where your coming from bud. id do the same. but it doesnt work like that with me. Probably due to the fact i carry alot more fat than you even on a good day. I look at a sarny the wrong way and itll **** me up.
> 
> I need to do more research on it to be honest. the pics in that thread you posted were impressive. but i wish he had taken a before shot, not just 3 afters.
> 
> ...


Not at all mate, you don't sound argumentative. In the thread with the dropped water I posted, the before pic would have been pretty much the same as the final after pic - maybe slightly less lean (and I mean slightly) but the pics are just there to illustrate how much water can be gained and lost without any of the carbs being stored as fat.

Also mate like you I store fat very easily, and I'm not in any way lean atm. This'll work for anyone (albeit levels of carbs will vary somewhat) but generally the leaner you are the more you'll be able to take in.

Also, having full glycogen stores won't prevent you from entering ketosis IIRC mate. I've explained all the benefits of a huge carb load but add to that the fact that you need to get through the week's workouts and you'll need a fair amount of carbs for that. Trust me, it's very hard to completely fill a depleted muscle in a day, and a day or two after the carb-up you'll feel depleted again. You should get into ketosis again about 2-3 days later I'd have thought. It's necessary if you don't want your weights to suffer.


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

All how does this re feed work on other diets such as TKD or a targeted carb diet? The reason I ask is because I only intend on doing KETO for another 2/3 weeks or so. To keep my body guessing I'm going to still do 2000 calories in order to lose fat still but might do 800 calories from protein, 800 from carbs and 200 from fat just to see how my body reacts to it. In this example would a re feed be required to keep my metabolism going, or would it not be required as I'll be eating 200g of carbs a day?


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Anyone have any suggestions on the above ^^^^^^ ?


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## b4kun09 (May 20, 2009)

i normaly do 30 hours carb up. i lost just 1 and half lb this week. im 7 weeks out from comp. im now dropping my carbin from a day and half to just a day. see how im looking. GL anyway mate CKD is tough. is for me anyway. its all new to me.


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## Tomwlsn99 (May 30, 2009)

Yeah all new to me as well. I haven't found it too hard really. Just stuck to the same thing every day so I know exactly what I'm doing. GL for the comp mate....


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## b4kun09 (May 20, 2009)

yea thanks mate.


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