From CT’s New Thib Zone:
"Mass gains CAN be achieved on a ketogenic diet, especially if the body is used to that state. However I do believe that to do so you will need to:
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Increase calories more so than with a mixed or high carbs diet
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Use an alternate way of stimulating insulin release to promote an anabolic state
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Find a way to shuttle more amino acids to the muscles even without a spike in insulin.
So in that regard muscle gains CAN be achieved BUT it requires more discipline and a more precise approach.
First of all protein should be increased to the 1.75 to 2.0g per pound. I KNOW that I normally say that above 1.75 (or even above 1.5g) is not necessary for the natural trainee since the body will be limited in the quantity of protein it can use to build muscle mass, but in this case it is to allow the body to produce some glycogen from protein without running short of amino acids when it comes to building muscle.
Second your fat intake will obviously need to be higher since you can’t increase calories via more carbs. 1.25 to 1.5g of fat per pound is a good starting number to shoot for. Of those, no more than 25% should come from saturated fats.
So for a 200lbs individual that gives us 250 to 300g of fat (2250 to 2700 calories). Of that no more than 60-75g should be from saturated fats. And even then, the saturated fat should come from mainly coconut oil which should be used for cooking.
So that leaves the 200lbs guy with around 200g of unsaturated fat to consume. I suggest using multiple sources of fat:
25% from fish oil
25% from extra virgin olive oil
10% from evening primrose oil or borage oil
25% from macademia nut oil
And the remaining 15% from other good oils AND the unsaturated fat from your food source
The third step is to increase meal frequency from 6 to 8 or 9, even if that means drinking a shake during the night.
So our 200lbs guy would consume around:
350g of protein (1400 calories)
250g of fat (2250 calories)
30g of carbs (120 calories)
Total: 3770 calories per day
That means:
45g of protein per meal
30g of fat per meal
trace carbs per meal
*NOTE that we’ll add some protein post-workout:
The fourth step is to be able to spike insulin post-workout. So the post-workout shake, which doesn’t count in the meal count should look like this:
50g of whey isolate
10-15g of leucine powder
10-15g of glycine powder
10-15g of glutamine powder
5-10g of creatine
This will spike insulin almost as well as using 30-40g of carbs and will thus help transport the amino acids to the muscle.
Finally I recommend taking 5g of BCAA 5x per day between meals.
So with all of this we can add around 400 calories from the shake and BCAAs which brings the daily total to 4170 calories on workout days.
As for carb-ups, the same logic applies as with a regular ketogenic diet… only one cheat meal a week."
On my budget, I dont think I could even afford that much food every day, and it seems like way too much work for what its worth. Certainly going to be re-thinking my plan of bulking on a keto diet if I can accomplish the same results with carbs.
