#47 Natural Bodybuilder Keto Savage on Winning Contest Prep and Building Muscle on the Ketogenic Diet

Robert Sikes (0:00)

From a natural bodybuilding perspective, keto could be a really, really great just kind of level of playing field. Look better than you've ever looked, be healthier than you've ever been, and just feel much better doing it.

You don't have to walk around like a zombie. I was down to 1,650 calories at the end of my contest prep, and then the day after that, I jumped up to 4,000 plus. Like my physique's a much more accurate reflection of what my physique actually looks like as opposed to being watered down. And all my lifts have gone up in that time. I mean, everything's improved, my strength has improved. If you subject your body to stress, your body is going to respond to that stress and it's going to build muscle. Ketones, I would argue, are more muscle-sparing than carbs.

And I mean, I was able to go really, really low. I went down to 65 grams of protein towards the end of my prep, and I never really experienced any muscle loss.

Siim Land (0:45)

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SPEAKER_3 (0:47)

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Siim Land (0:53)

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Siim Land (0:58)

Welcome to the Body Mind Empowerment Podcast. I'm your host, Siim Land, and our guest today is Robert Sikes. He's a natural bodybuilder who follows the ketogenic diet. He's an author, a coach, and also an entrepreneur.

Robert, I'm glad that we could finally have this talk, and I've been a fan of your stuff ever since I came across your content online. So I want to welcome you to the show.

Robert Sikes (1:19)

Yeah, yeah, man.

Let me get on here. I've been watching you as well, so it's cool to finally connect to you.

Siim Land (1:25)

Yeah, like unfortunately, we're not getting any video at the moment, but we have the audio. And for everyone who's listening, then you just have to look up Robert's YouTube channel and his Physique Contest, because the man was just in this amazing shape band, and he did it on a strict ketogenic diet, am I right?

Robert Sikes (1:44)

Yeah, yeah. It was keto. I've been keto for, I guess, about four years now.

Siim Land (1:48)

Yeah, we'll talk about your contest prep in a minute, but let's start off from what got you into bodybuilding in the first place.

Robert Sikes (1:57)

Shoot, that's going way back. Bodybuilding, I don't know, probably since I was a junior in high school or so, I was always like the skinny guy that I wanted to break out of that skinny guy mentality. I was 115 pounds in high school, and I grew up on a farm, so it's farm tough, I was strong in that sense, but I just didn't have the physique to really match that.

My uncle played football, so I wanted to not necessarily play football, but at least look like I was stronger.

Yeah, exactly. He showed me a few things, and I just started diving into the wonderful world of YouTube, watched pro bodybuilders on YouTube, and learned how to train based off of what they were doing. I was making makeshift weights and stuff in my shop. We lived out in the country, so it was literally just pieces of steel that we had laying around. Then from there, we just scaled up. I got a gym membership, and then I just got better and better with it over time. Not really knowing what I was doing initially, but eager to learn. That's just taking me down the road that I'm now doing bodybuilding as a career, basically.

Siim Land (3:03)

Yeah, it's a good fundamental basis doing some farm work or being active physically ever since a child. I've been quite similar myself.

When did you start the keto diet?

Robert Sikes (3:17)

So I started keto, I've done three competitions following just a standard flexible dieting, if it fits your macros protocol.

And I don't know, I got really lean with all of those. I looked really good, but I just didn't feel good. And they all led to just walking around like zombies towards the last month of contest prep. Then after the show, you have all kinds of binging and eating disorders, just bad news.

So after my third show doing that, I'm like, there's got to be a better way. And I wound up doing carbohydrate back loading, John Keefer's carb back loading, which is basically keto in the morning and then throughout the majority of the day. And then you switch to eating a lot of high glycemic index carbs at night. I'm like donuts and pasta and a lot of good stuff.