#140 Ketogenic Muscle Growth, Carnivore, Carb Cycling and Stoicism with Danny Vega

Danny Vega (0:00)

If you carry a ton of muscle and you're training in a way that's going to deplete that glycogen, it's almost like you're stimulating a fast, not so much a fast, but you're pushing yourself more towards that fasting. And I think that's super interesting because there are people who want to add muscle, but at the same time, they want to feel those benefits of autophagy or ketones are being produced and they're feeling the effects of the ketones. And I tell them that if you're training in the morning even, or even if in the evening, you need to understand you're going to burn through a bunch of that sugar. Then you're going to fast for eight to 10 hours. You're probably getting very similar effects to someone who's not incorporating those carbs for the workout, but doesn't really work out hard and doesn't need to do that.

Siim Land (0:45)

You know, Body Mind Empowerment.

SPEAKER_3 (0:48)

Get stronger, faster, smarter, quicker, friendlier, more helpful, more driven, everything the body needs, control your mind.

Siim Land (0:59)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host Siim Land and our guest today is Danny Vega. Danny is a ketogenic powerlifter, bodybuilder, coach and a dad. He has a Master's of Science in human performance and has worked with many professional athletes.

Danny, welcome to the show.

Danny Vega (1:15)

Thanks for having me. Great to be on.

Siim Land (1:16)

Yeah, I'm great to have you on the show. And I feel like that we should have done this a lot sooner, but I'm glad that we could make it happen now.

Danny Vega (1:24)

And I know we need to we need to make it happen on my podcast, too. So as soon as we stop recording here, we'll get our schedule because we've been going back and forth for a while.

Siim Land (1:32)

For sure. Sounds good.

Maybe like, can you give us a brief background of how you get got into doing keto and lifting weights?

Danny Vega (1:42)

Yeah, so I mean, lifting weights, that's that's been part of my life since I was 13 I was really fortunate to have a Marine, an ex Marine coach who was very by the book back in the day and he helped me create a really strong foundation. As far as the lifting goes, you know, he had me doing compound lifts, squat, bench, deadlift, power clean.

He didn't let me go up in weight until I had the form perfect. He didn't let me do single limb work. He didn't let me do bicep curls or anything like that.

He even gave me a diet that I followed that, you know, at the time, it wasn't low carb or anything. It was your traditional, you know, wake up in the morning, have eggs and oatmeal, have steak and potatoes and beef and potatoes and, you know, carbs and protein. And then I've always been into it. But obviously in college, I was eating your typical diet, playing college football. And then when I got my master's, I was still obviously very interested in nutrition. But at the time, you know, I kind of, if I were to say what I espoused, it was probably a low carb approach. I really, really liked, what are the people, the Canadians? Oh, no, I'm thinking of an actual, an actual, oh, Dr. John Berardi.

Berardi Precision Nutrition, that was the type of information that I followed back then. And I still think they're a great company and a great organization.

But then, you know, after you graduate from college, you have all these obligations that you no longer have. Like you no longer have team lifts, you no longer have obligated to do anything. And so there were some years there that I was just having fun and I wasn't really trying to stay consistent. And it's ironic that when I got into CrossFit in 2011 was when I ignited my love for lifting again. And after two years of competing in CrossFit, I realized that I was probably better off doing something more suited to who I was, you know, my body type and everything. So I got into powerlifting and I did that from about 2013 to 2016 And I was able to compete in several competitions, several meets.

I hit the top 50 as well as the top 25 in my weight class.

I also, you know, there were a few injuries here and there, nothing crazy. And then I tore my meniscus in 2015 and I was trying to nurse it back to health. I didn't want to get a surgery. And in 2016, I finally had to pull out of my last meet because it was just really, really bad and I officially got the diagnosis and everything. And so I said to myself, you know what, I need to lose some weight. And that's probably going to help me feel better. So I went on a diet and at the time, like my friend created a diet for me. He was a bodybuilder and it was a typical, you know, low fat diet. And over a period of four months, I lost a good 20 pounds or so and I felt terrible.