How to Eat Carbs on Keto Without Losing Keto-Adaptation

Siim Land (0:01)

You know, when it comes to nutrition, then we're definitely in the movie The Matrix. Do you want to know what it is? What if I told you that fat isn't bad for you, and the ketogenic diet is one of the healthiest diets of all time? What if I told you, you don't need to be in ketosis all the time? The Matrix is everywhere. What if I told you that you don't lose your keto adaptation if you do eat slightly more carbohydrates?

Shocking, I know. People have been eating carbohydrates for thousands of years and all of a sudden, they've become the devil. El Diablo. Like Spanish for like a fighting chicken. Welcome to the channel, my name is Siim, and in this video, I'm going to explain you how you can eat some carbohydrates on the ketogenic diet without losing your keto adaptation. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. If you want to optimize your body and mind, then make sure you subscribe and click the notification button for future videos. But now let's take the red pill of keto. And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Don't get this the wrong way. Most people would dramatically benefit from lowering their carbohydrate intake. The reason is they don't have that high physical demands. For instance, would you really think that Michael Scott from the TV show The Office should follow the same diet as the four-time CrossFit Games champion and the fittest man on earth, Rich Froning?

As a doctor, you would not tell a patient if they had cancer. Could you imagine how their individual pancreas and metabolism would react to the same type of food?

Let me help you with that. If a person is sedentary the majority of the day and they're staying within quite a low respiration rate, then they're burning mostly fat for fuel. Their glycogen stores remain unused and full. If a person is working out at both high intensities and aerobic activities several times per day, then they're almost always tanked and they're using a ton of glucose for fuel. Your body can store only a certain amount of glycogen, 100 to 150 grams in the liver and up to 300 to 500 grams in the muscles. Giving someone carbohydrates who isn't burning it off still creates the same metabolic reaction by flooding the bloodstream with glucose. What follows is a surge of insulin that tries to reestablish normal blood sugar levels again. The difference is that Rich Froning's muscle cells are so insulin sensitive and they're eager to draw that glucose in for some recovery. Michael Scott's muscle cells on the other hand are already full and they can't keep up with the supply.

Over the course of many carbohydrate meals, your cells lose their ability to respond to insulin. This leads to insulin resistance, which happens when the cells don't open up their door to the intake of insulin anymore. Knock, knock, who's there? It's insulin. I got some of that more glucose for you.

That's the main cause of diabetes. Insulin resistance induced by eating too many carbohydrates. Too much is a matter of context and the amount of carbs rich Ronin needs to eat is more than enough to make Michael Scott diabetic back to back several times.

Therefore, how many carbohydrates you should consume and how much your body needs depend a lot on your individual physical conditions. For instance, how hard you train, how often and how much lean body mass you have. But the thing is that ketosis changes the context completely again. There are a ton of high level athletes who consume no carbs at all, but they're still performing at elite levels. So ketosis can greatly enhance your physical performance and to become fat adapted, you first need to establish nutritional ketosis. Everything the body needs. Nevertheless, you don't need to be eating strict keto for the rest of your life. And it's even a good idea to occasionally dip in and out of ketosis, to promote metabolic flexibility, to prevent food intolerances and to enhance your performance. I think you've already heard about two methods of consuming carbohydrates on the ketogenic diet. One is the cyclical ketogenic diet, where you eat low carb for a certain period of time, like a week. And then you have a refeed day, where you increase your carb intake. The second method is the targeted ketogenic diet, which involves you using a small dose of strategically incorporated carbohydrates. You have this small dose of high glycemic carbohydrates that will be used during your workout. At other times, you're still eating low carb keto foods and restricting your carb intake. Both the cyclical and the targeted ketogenic diet are great for enhancing your performance and boosting your metabolism. The Ducini Alfredo. Time to carb load. But which one should you use? Easy, both. I myself have experimented with them quite extensively. At the moment, I've been doing more of the targeted ketogenic diet because having these high carb refeed days, it might have their negative consequences.