Introduction

As ketogenic diets have become big news among ‘civilians’, cyclical ketogenic diets (CKD) are big news among athletes. Ketogenic diets offer extraordinarily rapid fat loss with superior muscle retention compared to carbohydrate or gluconeogenic (high protein) diets. Done right, ketogenic diets are the absolute best diets for fat loss and high, steady energy. Read what we have to say about them here.

There is already a lot of information available about basic CKD and its rationale that is beyond the scope of this article. http://www.ckd.com is a great start if you are interested. What interests us here is how to improve the ERC.

CKD Overview

CKDs are based on a period of ketosis followed by a carbohydrate “loading” period. The theory behind CKD is that breaking ketosis every 5-10 days during 1-3 days of high carb consumption:

Restore muscle glycogen

Restore gym performance

Rebuild any lost muscle (and hopefully add some new muscle)

As a bonus, by loading carbohydrates from a depleted base it is possible to supersaturate our muscles with glycogen. In other words (in layman’s terms) muscles nearly depleted of glycogen (and water) are so starved for glucose that they can be “tricked” into absorbing up to 50% more glycogen (and water) before they realize it. what happened. In this super glycogenated state, our muscles look and feel perpetually ‘pumped’ and bloated. And pumping a muscle cell to the limit is a powerful stimulus for muscle growth.

CKD problems

While the original 5-Day Ketogenic/2-Day Carb CKD works well for fat loss, only a genetically gifted few can gain muscle with it; and even they would have done better on another diet. The problems are that, even using glucose disposal ‘supplements’:

The zero carb period before reaching ketosis is quite catabolic.

It takes most dieters 2-3 catabolic days to achieve ketosis, leaving only 2-3 days of rapid fat loss

Few people can achieve glycogen supercompensation in just 2 days and without excess carbohydrate ‘spillover’ into fat stores

Protein synthesis takes time, and the few hours of muscle cell hyperexpansion do not sufficiently take advantage of this powerful mechanism.

Would not it be nice…?

While the above issues can be partly addressed with longer CKD cycles, say 7-11 days keto with 3 days of carb loading, the anabolism periods are still too short to gain significant muscle but long enough to recover a significant amount of fat. We really want some way to exploit the full carb load condition for a few more days without getting fat.

Continuing carb loading is redundant when the muscles have already overcompensated: excess carbs are converted to fat. Increasing calories in the early days of ketosis is anti-catabolic but does not exploit the unique anabolic environment we create with carbohydrates.

Fortunately, the metabolic ups and downs of CKD create another natural opportunity for muscle growth.

protein intake

The ketogenic phase requires 70-80% fat intake (otherwise the diet will be gluconeogenic) and carb loading requires 60-75% carbohydrate intake; therefore, protein intake throughout CKD is only moderate to low (