#131 Higher Fat Keto for Muscle Growth with Robert Sikes the Keto Savage

Robert Sikes (0:00)

Being Keto Adapted, fat is my primary fuel source, both for my body and for my brain. And I don't want to feel like a zombie if I'm in a prep and I'm already at a low caloric intake. I want to feel like a rock star.

And if I'm taking in a higher fat ratio, I'm going to be able to do that. I'm going to function better throughout the day to day.

And I don't have to worry about my muscles, you know, wasting away because I'll be at a more anti-catabolic state due to the higher ketones. If you're not complaining, if you're happy with where you're at in life, you're happy with your nine to five, then keep doing it. By all means, more power to you. But if you're miserable in your job, if you're miserable in your career path, and then you're complaining and you're not doing anything to fix it, there's an issue there.

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Siim Land (0:41)

Body, Mind Empowerment.

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Siim Land (0:49)

Everything the body needs.

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Siim Land (0:54)

Welcome to the Body, Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host, Siim Land, and our guest today is Robert Sikes, the Keto Savage.

Robert is a Ketogenic Bodybuilder, Coach, and Entrepreneur. He creates content about optimizing muscle growth, fat loss, and performance with the keto way of eating. Robert, welcome to the show.

Robert Sikes (1:10)

Thanks a million for having me, man. Always a pleasure to be here.

Siim Land (1:13)

Yeah, I'm glad to have you back on the show. And we did a podcast the first time, maybe like over a year ago, and we also met face to face for the first time in the Metabolic Health Summit in January.

So what have you been up to since that time?

Robert Sikes (1:28)

Man, just been trying to grow the business. I don't know how many of your listeners are familiar with me, but we've got the Keto break business. So we've been trying to scale that up. We've got a new warehouse location now. So trying to build that. And then from a personal side of things, I've been trying to kind of ramp up my metabolism, kind of increase my calories, get my metabolism ramped up, focus on building, kind of really solid building phase right now, put on some more muscle mass prior to leaning out for the next season of competitions.

Siim Land (1:56)

Yeah, like I've seen a lot on your social media that you actually got married recently and you're building up the Keto Brick business. So it's really glad. I'm really glad to see that everything is going in the right direction.

Robert Sikes (2:08)

I appreciate it, man. There's a lot of things I guess I should have said. Yeah, we got married since then too. But yeah, Crystal, we got married in April. And it's pretty cool because she's been with me forever now. We've built this business together and to be able to kind of be on the same page with all of our endeavors and passions. It's pretty cool, man. I feel very blessed. I'm very grateful to be here.

Siim Land (2:30)

Yeah, for sure. I remember a few years ago, your book was one of the only key touching bodybuilding books that I actually saw out there.

And I also written a book about it. So I felt like this kind of topic was so foreign in the, let's say, fitness sphere a few years ago. But nowadays, I think like most people do agree that it is to a certain extent possible to build muscle with a ketogenic diet and you don't need to be eating like six times a day to make gains. So maybe how has your opinion about building muscle on a ketogenic diet changed since your last competition?

Robert Sikes (3:10)

Well, my last, I've done five different shows now. My first three were with a carb based protocol, whereas the last two were all following a ketogenic protocol. Doing that, I was able to kind of, like you said, there was no really resources out there to do a prep, build muscle and lean out following strictly ketogenic diet. So there wasn't really anything I could turn to to kind of have a roadmap. So I kind of blazed my own trail, so to speak, and did some self experimentation, figured out what worked. But then in doing that, my last prep following that strict keto protocol, it basically convinced me that this was the way to do it. I mean, it was a much healthier, much more sustainable approach to dieting down for show.