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The benefits I get from sticking to a ketogenic diet are so significant, I would probably prefer to stay scrawny for the rest of my life rather than trade them away.
Just how tall are you?
If very tall, to some you might appear to be on the thin side.
But scrawny . . . at 160 lbs. . . . ?
I'd like to see a not-too-revealing recent photo of you
(just your body, not your head for personal safety reasons).
Some people have a warped view of what their body actually looks like . . .
And the problem usually does go hand in hand with depression & anxiety . . .
Just how tall are you?
If very tall, to some you might appear to be on the thin side.
But scrawny . . . at 160 lbs. . . . ?
I'd like to see a not-too-revealing recent photo of you
(just your body, not your head for personal safety reasons).
Some people have a warped view of what their body actually looks like . . .
And the problem usually does go hand in hand with depression & anxiety . . .
Haha, I appreciate your concern and apologies for being miselading, I was exaggerating with "scrawny". I am not struggling with my body image to the best of my knowledge, but I am frustrated with the lack of progress in getting my numbers up where I want them to be. I did specify my height, weight and estimated bfp in the original post.
Thanks for taking the time to provide your thoughts, but please read my original post carefully. My perspective on the above: vegetable oils (canola, soybean, etc) are not healthy fats, the LDL bad-cholesterol myth has been disproven and I do not believe there is anything wrong with fatty, red meats. I think these points are mostly off topic, my issues are not with eating (healthy) fats. Last year I spent about 8 months eating complex carbs and my body was not pleased.
To reiterate, I am adhering to the Greyskull Linear Progression program which I understand to be pretty standardized. 3 compound lifts, every other day, takes about 45 minutes.
I have no ideological attachment to low-carb, I just need help addressing the problem I have with carbs. Unfortunately nobody here is addressing the central concern, which is the link between carbohydrates and depression/ anxiety.
I do not have an eating disorder, I do not work out for 3 hours a day, I do not have unrealistic muscle mass goals, I'm seeking average annual gains in muscle mass men can expect from consistently lifting progressively heavier weights over a period of months and years, with the goals of gaining strength and improving physique. I would be happy to gain about 10lbs of muscle over a 12 month period, which I think should be realistic for a newer lifter.
Greyskull is a power building routine for getting stronger. Are you doing 3 sets for 5reps? This is not optimal for building muscle. This is optimal for practicing strength. To build muscle you need adequate time under tension. You need your sets to last around 40seconds. You need to slow the eccentric (lengthening phase of the lift) and you need to allow your muscle to be loaded with weight when it’s fully stretched.
More importantly you need a wider variety of movements than just the compound movements Greyskull emphasizes.
Most important variable is time under tension. If you elect to do 10reps each rep needs to take you 4 seconds (1 sec for concentric 3 for eccentric). If you do 20 reps than each rep will take you only 2 seconds. The weight will need to be a lot lighter than what you were used to under Greyskull but it needs to be heavy enough that you fail (your form breaks down) sometime near your rep goal. In other words if your rep range is 10-15, you should be failing sometime before 15. If you don’t, increase the weight until you do.
Make sure you go through proper range of motion. For example if this was bench press, you’d allow the weight to rest on your sternum, feeling maximum stretch then push to the top, and allow the weight to SLOWLY come back down on a count of 3 seconds. Do this for 10-15 reps and I’ll guarantee you’ll feel a pump.
Now, if you’re not gaining weight you likely are not gaining muscle especially at your body fat. You don’t want to eat carbs due to how they make you feel. Add 1 protein shake to your day, every day. You just added 200-300 calories per day. Measure your weight daily, and if by the end of the month, still haven’t gone up in weight? Add another protein shake. Eventually you will go up in weight.
There are a lot of practicing cardiologists who would disagree with your two statements "the LDL-bad cholesterol myth has been disproven" and "no problem with eating lots of fatty red meat".
I suggest you go back and learn some basic anatomy and physiology before you decide to fill your coronary arteries with plaques. The cost of your age-50 MI treatments will end up being borne by the rest of us in the form of health insurance premiums.
Location: Formerly Pleasanton Ca, now in Marietta Ga
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Quote:
Originally Posted by stealheadrun23
As a life-long non-athlete (currently approaching late 20s) who just got into strength training about 2 years ago, I am struggling to gain muscle through a consistent lifting routine (I am following a linear progression program called PGLP: Phrak's Greyskull Linear Progression) because I cannot consistently sustain a caloric intake over maintenance (generally for more than a month at a time).
Before I started lifting a couple years ago, I started implementing a low-carb, high fat diet after reading about the correlation between ketogenic diets and alleviation of anxiety and depression in some studied patients. I have also heard many laypersons report they found this correlation to be valid in their personal experiences.
After experimenting myself, I found my anxiety and depression symptoms are drastically reduced when eating high-fat low-carb, compared to eating high-carb. I have intermittently attempted to return to a high carb diet in order to support my goal to gain muscle, and this completely wrecks my mental health. Even with consistent strength training and some amount of regular cardio, when on carbs I experience severe anxiety, a looming sense of doom, severely disrupted sleep and other similar things that inhibit goal-seeking.
The problem is, I am struggling to find a relatively affordable high-fat diet I can consistently eat at a surplus, without either experiencing some kind of digestive problem, or simply being unable to finish my meals without trigger nausea. For the past 10 months I have been experimenting with different meal plans and here is what I have learned about myself
Note: I do everything I can to avoid vegetable oils, added sugars, other weird processed ingredients
- I can eat 4 boiled eggs every day for a month, but if I keep persisting, I develop an egg intolerance, where eating any amount of egg will result in imminent vomitting; I discovered other people online have claimed to experience very similar symptoms; if I refrain from eating eggs for another month, I can go back to eating them regularly, so (purely from my experiential perspective and not informed by science) whatever mechanism is at play here has to do with some kind of build up
- with avacados I have a similar experience to eggs, I can eat them for a bit and then hit a limit
- peanuts and peanut butter cause dibilitating indigestion issues
- tomato-based pasta sauces are okay for a week or so but then I start to experience acid problems (maybe because the products I was buying use
Here are the things that do work so far:
- I consistently eat about 12 ounces of cooked 70-30 beef every day, and I have consistently been able to do this throughout all my meal plan variations.
- I can eat greek yogurt every day with a small portion of banana or some other fruit consistently without running into any problems.
- I found I can consistently eat canned salmon with avacado-oil mayonnaise and extra avacado oil every day without running into any apparent complications.
I could probably get away with some carrots and small portions of a variety of other vegetables, but as far as I can tell none of these would be very useful for boosting my calorie budget.
I am tired of being stuck at the same weight for multiple consecutive months, and seeing my lifts regressing. Does anyone have any personal experience addressing these issues? Either finding a way to increase carb intake without sacrificing mental health, or finding a low-carb diet plan that allows you to bulk over the course of 6+ months without triggering nausea, etc?
The benefits I get from sticking to a ketogenic diet are so significant, I would probably prefer to stay scrawny for the rest of my life rather than trade them away.
Edit: For additional context, I am getting to about 2100 calories a day, whereas I need to get to about 2500 calories. weight 160lbs, height 69in, estimated body fat 13-16% (based on crude measurments and online calculators)
What we don’t know is your total protein intake per day. You list some things but not all the quantities. Try keeping a log of your daily protein intake. You want to be in the 150 to 160 gems a day if you want to build muscle.
I am 6 feet tall and at this point, a senior and seriously out of shape. But I used to be young, and a fitness fanatic, and my ideal weight was about 170lb during that time. I would strain an XL shirt and people would guess me at 195lb, and I was getting called "the hulk", "king kong" because my muscles were so big, even at that weight - like literally, everyone would comment on my physique - I can recall one of my female chemistry professors looking me over in the office of her female colleague and saying to the other "Oh my, he's nice!" LOL... so I think - how big do you really need to be? You don't need to be heavy to look imposing, unless you want to look more like a competitive body builder - but those guys invariably are doing steroids.
While a few years of eating high beef, high eggs, high fat, and high cholesterol won't kill you, you don't want that to become your lifelong diet, it's not good for you - ask the guy who just had a "come to Jesus" meeting with his cardiologist. Chicken, turkey and fish, non-fat dairy, beans and nuts are healthier if you want high protein than beef, pork, and eggs.
Besides the saturated fat and cholesterol in beef, there are high levels of TMAO, which is also not good. You can eat beef, but for health's sake, it should be the exception, not the rule. https://www.health.harvard.edu/stayi...and-your-heart
Last edited by OutdoorLover; 08-25-2023 at 04:40 AM..
I am 6 feet tall and at this point, a senior and seriously out of shape. But I used to be young, and a fitness fanatic, and my ideal weight was about 170lb during that time. I would strain an XL shirt and people would guess me at 195lb, and I was getting called "the hulk", "king kong" because my muscles were so big, even at that weight - like literally, everyone would comment on my physique - I can recall one of my female chemistry professors looking me over in the office of her female colleague and saying to the other "Oh my, he's nice!" LOL... so I think - how big do you really need to be? You don't need to be heavy to look imposing, unless you want to look more like a competitive body builder - but those guys invariably are doing steroids.
While a few years of eating high beef, high eggs, high fat, and high cholesterol won't kill you, you don't want that to become your lifelong diet, it's not good for you - ask the guy who just had a "come to Jesus" meeting with his cardiologist. Chicken, turkey and fish, non-fat dairy, beans and nuts are healthier if you want high protein than beef, pork, and eggs.
Besides the saturated fat and cholesterol in beef, there are high levels of TMAO, which is also not good. You can eat beef, but for health's sake, it should be the exception, not the rule. https://www.health.harvard.edu/stayi...and-your-heart
You can eat beef everyday and be healthy. It’s all about the quantity of beef you eat vs your caloric needs. The Masai either eat beef or drink milk everyday, barely any fruits and vegetables, and are the healthiest people on earth from à cardiovascular standpoint (and not to mention incredibly lean and athletic).
Average height of Maasai is 6 foot 3 inches. And, they can jump.
Must be the cattle blood they consume....
And not to mention all the physical activity their daily life entails as they hunt and herd animals from watering hole to watering hole.
When they move to the city, become sedentary and have easy access to calories, obesity and cardiovascular diseases skyrocket proving it’s not just genetics.
Another interesting thing I noticed about the Maasai tribesmen is the quality of their teeth. Keep in mind there are no dentists in the bush. They don’t even brush/floss.
Try drinking your extra calories... 2 cups of milk, a scoop of protein powder right before bed.
What we tell our athletes in your position is to record everything you eat for a week without changing anything... redo that week the next week eating the same things but add 300kcals daily. Weighing in daily at the same time can help with motivation. If you don't see a change.... add another 300kcals per day.
Eventually you do grow.
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