Mark Bell's Power Project - MBPP EP. 648 - This Is How You Build Muscle On A Ketogenic Diet ft. Luis Villaseñor

Episode Date: December 29, 2021

Luis has been practicing a low carb/ketogenic diet approach since 2001. He is the founder of Ketogains and LMNT Electrolytes, and is regarded as one of the most experienced people in the fitness industry when it comes to low-carb dieting for body recomposition and strength training. Find Luis on IG: https://www.instagram.com/darthluiggi Ketogains 8 week bootcamp: https://www.ketogains.com/bootcamp/ Special perks for our listeners below! ➢Vertical Diet Meals: https://verticaldiet.com/ Use code POWERPROJECT for free shipping and two free meals + a Kooler Sport when you order 16 meals or more! ➢Vuori Performance Apparel: Visit https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order! ➢Magic Spoon Cereal: Visit https://www.magicspoon.com/powerproject to automatically save $5 off a variety pack! ➢8 Sleep: Visit https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro! ➢Marek Health: https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: http://drinklmnt.com/powerproject ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Subscribe to the Power Project Newsletter! ➢ https://bit.ly/2JvmXMb Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Pat Project family, what's up? Have you guys ever been working out and maybe you got a calf cramp, hamstring cramp, or ab cramp? Well, that's probably because you might be electrolyte deficient. That's why I've partnered with Element Electrolytes because most of the time when that happens,

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you're doing you're going to be well hydrated andrew can you tell the people how to get it yes you guys got to head over to drink lmnt.com slash power project uh we highly recommend that you get a value bundle because you're going to get four boxes for the price of three get any four flavors you want but you're only going to pay for three of them. That's, again, at drinklmnt.com slash powerproject. Links to them down in the YouTube description as well as the podcast show notes. Head over there right now. It's beanie weather, huh?

It is beanie weather. What is that heater you said you got for the studio? Oh, yeah. I don't know. Where's the heater, man? He's like, I'm actually never that cold, so I keep not bringing it in. Cold therapy. I'll text Andy.

Maybe she'll bring it in. I made another mistake. So, you know, part of the reason why I've been cold is because I just haven't gotten a lot of sleep. I didn't get a lot of sleep last night because The Matrix came out. Did you stay up to watch it? Yeah. so we thought about that but i'm like no i'm not i'm gonna be a zombie tomorrow like i know i know i thought i i thought i could you know weather the storm and i'm not a zombie right now but when you don't get

enough sleep you tend to feel colder when you should like in cold at least i noticed that for myself when i get a good amount of sleep cold um i'm resilient strong but when i don't get enough sleep i'm like i'm a pussy like i'm just like i haven't thought about the corner next to the heater in the office yeah i'm always like you know waking up in the middle of the night and i'm fucking always cold uh i mean not in bed but like outside you know like i just i've always been cold yeah i don't know i don't't know. What about your eight sleep? Eight sleep definitely helps. Warm that bitch up.

Thankfully, I usually have left it at level eight, plus eight to wake me up. I cranked that bitch all the way up. Oh, wow. I cranked it all the way up to 10, and that will get me the fuck out of bed. Oh, my goodness. It's pretty awesome, yeah. So it's weird.

I've seen Wim hof talk about like putting your hands in ice you know to help cure like literally cure people of having severely cold hands they do it for two three minutes and you do some doses of it here and there supposedly you get better and it's like andy's hands are criminally cold yeah yeah i'm like are you still alive what's going on over there? But I wonder, like, could you just do it with the whole body? Because, like, I've been on runs before, and it actually feels really good just to take a shirt off and, you know, be out there, and it's like 30 degrees. You're right.

I think if it's cold, cold, like if it's like East Coast cold, then you might be in some trouble if it's like zero but what's east coast cold though by the way zero yeah fucking five degrees they have single digits black ice like they got oh yeah yeah yeah the ice on the road that you can't like see but it has like just a perfect amount of like powder over it like a little bit of snow on top and you just end up in the fucking bushes and you're like what the fuck i wouldn't survive out there dude meaning a friend of mine from missouri said that um yeah yeah so that like people died by icicles out there like that's the thing is that a thing and it'll like hit them yeah like icicles will fall down from shit and like you gotta like look up sometimes especially during winter weather

you gotta look up and make sure there's no icicles on shit. Just get hit right on the head by a big, giant icicle. Is that a thing? Does that happen in New York? Climate change, my man. I don't know. East Coast, it doesn't. I mean, where I grew up, it wasn't that cold. But if you go up further north to like Buffalo or you get near like Maine and then you're in Canada, it's cold.

My dad took me to Niagara Falls when I was a kid and it was frozen. Just like a little stream trickling down. And I remember we were like, is that possible for that water to be frozen? That's coming down so ferociously, you know? But it was frozen. It's only been frozen like twice. And the one time my dad took me, it was frozen. That's crazy.

You know, when I was a kid, I'm so like, when you said Niagara Falls, I remember this time when I was a kid and some kid was trying to say Niagara Falls. Oh, no. Same thing with the country Niger. Oh, no. It's like, okay. Should have started. But like, yeah, like some kid was like, I'm not going to say it.

When he said it wrong, I was like, let's say that right. Hold on. Yeah. But also. You got to spell it out. Bruh. Sound it out. There is Nigeria.

And then there's also the country Niger. Spell the N-I-G. I'm not saying Niger one of them. It's bad, man. It's like when people get tripped, I'm just like, no. That is definitely not the country. Yeah, you got to be careful out there. Cool.

We got today's guest coming on in. Here we go. Yeah, talk about that ketosis. Get on that level. Why is he so jacked up on in. Here we go. Yeah, talk about that ketosis. Get on that level. Why is he so jacked up? Whoa, that is cool. He's coming with a stranger. He's coming with the smoke.

He's got smoke in the background. He's got element going. Hello, guys. How are you? Doing well. We're doing great. We're actually sipping on some element right here, right now. Same here.

Oh, it's not. Well, yeah. Great way to. I can't see it. You guys got some new flavors coming our way or what's going on over there? Likely in about next year. We're playing with some seasonal flavors. So maybe, I'm not sure, we'll see some cucumber, like a mojito or things like that.

Likely also bring back a grapefruit, which was a huge hit. How did this whole thing get started with you guys creating this electrolyte brand? So you want the romantic version or the real version i love romance and the romantic version is very much what you can read on the website um it basically started with an interview with rob about what six seven years ago i think so he was trying to do keto again uh but he was not really. You're not hearing me? No, we can hear you. Okay.

We're just adjusting our sound a little bit. Okay, no worries. So he was trying to get into keto again, but he was not very sustainable with jujitsu, right? So I was, okay, let's review your diet, what you're doing, what's your sodium intake. what you're doing uh what's your sodium intake and um along with other things that i suggested he was like no you know sodium i think that i salt my food way too much uh i probably don't need it i don't want to go you know into the high pressure area blah blah blah and it's like no no no rob if you're doing keto you need more sodium not less and like what the yeah you're right it's like because we are usually told you know it's one of those meats that you know you get stole so much that you actually don't double check

that's very much what happened to him and it's like you know i tried the salt shot before training and i could very much go on for hours just like when i was doing a high carb diet so it's like go on for hours, just like when I was doing a high carb diet. So it's like, let's try it. And that's very much one of the first iterations. But the actual, actual place where Element was born is, it's a recipe that we've been doing for, well, I myself have been doing it for, since I started keto over 20 years ago,

that I started adding it to my clients when they felt very much dragging ass, especially when they were training. I was just actually looking. I had, I think, the first recipe about when I first published the blog post and started dabbling in Reddit was probably in 2007, 2006, something like that. And in that trip, Rob came to Mexico, to Laredo, to Baja California.

And he was here and said, hey, do you want to come over for vacations? It's like, I didn't really have anything to do. I went there with my now wife. And while we were there, I was, hey, Rob, I have this recipe. Have you tried it? Is there a way we can make it in the States? Because I was trying to make it here in Mexico. It wasn't really advancing much.

You're getting someone to produce it, et cetera, et cetera. It's like, yeah, let's talk to a few guys and see what happens. And that's what happened very much. When we started or when I started taking Element, because I do low-carb dieting with training, it's the thing that made the absolute difference. Because I do jujitsu also and I weightlift. And I was noticing that I was cramping up at the gym

and that was kind of problematic. I was like, okay, maybe it's the diet. But once I started adding electrolytes in, it was literally night and day. It's like, wow, okay, so I really don't need to have heavy amounts of carbs before I lift. Like that was the thing that made the biggest difference. So is that the one thing that people, most people are typically missing when it comes to doing a low carb or a keto diet, as far as performance is concerned? It's one is is of course electrolytes and it's usually a little

bit more than people think again because we have all of these ideas that sodium is bad uh but again even if you're not doing keto uh we know that salt and then we're probably going to see start seeing this in more supplements sodium per se along with a little bit of potassium is very much what gives your cells energy, especially when you're training at high intensity levels, right? And of course, carbs do have a place. Depending on where you are in the spectrum of either health or performance, of course, you're going to need more carbs. There are some types of training that are inherently glycolytic.

So, for example, if you're going to be doing lots of sprinting, like in certain aspects of CrossFit, for example, right? Or in Jiu-Jitsu. Like in Jiu-Jitsu, depending if you are playing defensive, okay, maybe not so much. Or just like rolling sporadically. But if you're doing, you know, the chokas, jumping, that type of explosive

movements where you roll over and and go on top of the your opponent especially if that person is uh like at a high strength level or bigger than you you're gonna need that a lot of explosive uh movement without carbs you're probably not going to really uh feel it and it's something that i found out myself i really haven't shared this anecdote but i was just remembering when was the first time that i actually noticed that i needed carbs for explosive movements and it was at a wedding when i was dancing oh wow and i was i wanted to be a little bit more explosive and do you know more uh rapid movements and I felt I was dragging. And yeah, it was because I was very much, of course,

a little bit dehydrated, but also it was glycogen depleted. You can be strong with glycogen to a point, but you don't have that explosive movement. I think you just needed more carbs from alcohol. That would have probably done the trick. Maybe.

Tell me about the keto gains community, you know, for the people that are listening, I'd love for them to know, like what has made you guys different. And, you know, once somebody really like starts to dive into keto and they start to look around and they stumble upon some of the things that are in the keto gains community, it is different. It's not the same as all the other keto diets so maybe you can explain some of that to us for sure so uh keto gains the main difference is that we are not um like a the butter chuggers crowd from from traditional keto for for once right a second that we follow and focus a lot more on nutrient density. And also, in a way, we are protein postures, right?

Like some people say we're not really keto, we're really more so low carb. I really don't care what you call us, as long as you follow the protocol and understand, right? Because a lot of people think that keto is just because that's what they've heard or read, or even if their nutrition is, that's what studies say. It's a high fat diet, moderate to low protein, and super low in carbs. And they all go by the classic ratios, right? 70% fat, 20% or lower protein, and then the 5% carbs or less. or protein, and then the 5% carbs or less. And if you only use or follow keto with that close idea, then you're always going to see everything with the same lens.

And how I learned keto or how I modified it is basically understanding, and this is actually now even published in some studies what you need to enter ketosis is basically a sufficiently low amount of carbohydrates you need to empty your liver glycogen that's it and you haven't even have to empty it at zero because it's really actually not possible you're it's when you get to that special threshold that depends on the individual, so it's like maybe 20, 30% of your living glycogen is full of carbs. That's when your body sees the need to produce ketones because very much it's a response to a stimulus. It says, okay, probably there's not enough energy in the environment. So let's start to use our own energy source which are fat right and then from that self-fat burning you get the byproduct which are the ketones so if you understand that

thing or that main difference which is the same but looking it with a different lens then you know that i don't have to eat all the fat right I have to eat just enough fat depending first on my goals, my activity levels. And it's very much like Dr. Nettingman says, if you are high fat, if your body is high fat, maybe all you need is a low carb. To a point, again, I'm not saying zero fat. zero fat. It's just maybe not as high fat as you probably eat or think because or when you want to lower a little bit your body fat, right? And then carbs, they come and go depending on your metabolic flexibility, what type of sports you're doing, what's your current goal at the moment. You want performance. Okay, maybe you're going to have to add more cars. You're just training maybe in the off-season or training recreationally,

maybe you don't need as many cars as you think. Now, as far as keto is concerned, what else do you think is the rest of the keto community or people that are hopping onto keto? You mentioned things like fat bombs, like they're doing a lot of those. What other things are you guys doing very differently or talking about very differently as far as keto is concerned that are typically normal keto practices for people outside of the keto gains community? First off, we are in the camp that calories do matter and the calories do count. But whether you count calories or not also depends on, again, your objectives, right? For a lot of people, when you have a very specific goal, calorie counting can be, or macro counting, which is more so what we suggest.

It's a tool to make sure you are on track and you're heading in the right direction. It's very much like, Hey, you're using a Google or Waze. You know you're going to get there, right? Versus just, you know, driving north and hoping you get there. Probably you're going to get there eventually, probably by chance. Probably you're driving south without knowing, right? And that's a lot of the things that we've seen with people, especially with other communities or people who follow keto differently. A lot of them get results, but suddenly they stall. And also they chase just weight versus understanding the difference between body composition. A lot of people lose weight very rapidly, but at the expense of also losing a lot of lean mass.

So you end up just being a smaller version of yourself. You're still in a way with the same body fat or skinny fat, right? Yeah, you look better with clothes, but you take your shirt off and you say, hey, I lost 20 pounds or 30 or even 100, but I still don't have abs. What's happening? Well, the thing is that along with that fat that you lost, maybe you lost also a big amount of muscle. What we do is teach people the importance of training,

of also eating adequate protein, not lowering protein as some community suggests. So that, yeah, maybe you're going to lose less weight, but it's because you're also maintaining or even gaining muscle at the same process do you find it helpful to not be like dogmatic and uh to maybe not always lock yourself in like sometimes somebody does keto and they're like i'm keto i can't eat any carbs because i want to get bumped out and so on but in your opinion could you have some days that are a little bit more keto-ish and have some other days that maybe aren't and you're just kind of modulating maybe the amount of fat that you're consuming? So on certain days, maybe you pull back the fat a little bit, eat a little bit more carbohydrate, and you kind of go back and forth between the two, or is that a recipe for disaster?

It depends on a lot of factors. When we coach people, we also look not only at their physique, but also where their head is at, right? In some cases, it can create a bad habit. I'm a firm believer of first tackling the habits rather than just putting people on a deficit or adding difficult things to do. When you have people doing, for example, cheat meals or carb loads, et cetera. First, I found over the years that carb loads are seldom necessary. If you're a bodybuilder, of course, you're going to have to do a lot of the stuff that it's traditionally suggested. But there's a lot of traditional bodybuilding stuff got communicated to the recreational athletes or people that just want to lose weight.

And it doesn't function the same for them, right? Like, let's say, imagine, I don't know, a lady that's 100 pounds overweight. And she reads that carb loads help move a little bit more fluid or help you with a soul. And she starts doing carb loads. She has no place doing carb loads, but we see people like that all the time, right? Whereas if you are maybe 12% body fat and you're finding it difficult to probably drop that maybe two extra points, maybe a carb load can help you move that a little bit of the extra intracellular water and glycogen and also increase a little bit your NEAT and your metabolism and then drop down.

Those are tricks that you can use, but when you are fairly at the advanced stage or at the end of the cut, not something that people that are just, again, recreationally dieting or training should be doing. Of course, again, and this is something that I say to all my clients, if you want to eat that donut, that is the best donut in your time, go and eat it, but go sit, enjoy that donut for what it is, but really enjoy it, savor it. And that's it. And you go back immediately to the diet that you were doing and don't see it as a diet, That's it. And you go back immediately to the diet that you were doing. And don't see it as a diet. See it more as a way of life or something that you actually do and enjoy.

If you're dieting and it makes you feel miserable, let's find either another diet or let's learn to cope with other things. Right. And it's very different to eat that donut that it's actually a good donut in a way that it's something you enjoy versus going to a 7-Eleven and buy that greasy donut or seven, which some people do just for the sake of having a donut, right? You know, on the side of performance, you're talking about really advanced athletes. And a lot of people that listen to the show are athletes that are trying to get really strong powerlifters or individuals that are really trying to gain as much muscle as possible. I can truly say that, I mean, when I was focusing, like when muscle gain was the main thing I was trying to gain as much muscle as possible. I can truly say that when I was focusing, when muscle gain was the main thing I was trying to focus on, I was doing an IFYM, kind of high-carb diet.

I got up to 270 pounds at a certain point back in 2015, and that's how I built a majority of my muscle through the years. Now I'm low-carb. I'm still actually slowly building muscle even though my main goal in the gym isn't purely muscle building focused. It's more performance focused, but I'm still able to build muscle on low carb.

Now my question here is like guys that are new, right? Or people that are new to building muscle, bodybuilding, strength training, can they build as much as somebody who is doing a high-carb diet, but they just need the correct structure as far as protein and fat and low to no carbohydrates? Can they still, in their building phase, when they're building a majority of their muscle, is it beneficial for them if they want to take on that diet? Or is it more beneficial to do a more traditional, I don't even want to call it a bodybuilding, but a high-carbohydrate diet, good amount of protein, moderate to low-fat diet, and then later on make that transition?

later on make that transition? In my experience, and maybe I'm an outlier, but I've been doing this for 20 years, you can definitely build a great physique and a great amount of raw power on a keto-gain style diet, which is fairly familiar. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Lean Gains. Yeah. Okay, have you read the actual book?

I haven't read the book, no. Okay. There's a version of Lean Gains that a lot of people think or that they know. And there's a version of the book written by Martin on the book. When I read the book about two years ago, it was like, hell, this is keto gains. Because basically what he does to build muscle is go much higher on protein maybe about 40 of your calories 40 to 50 of your calories and this is for lean gaining meaning you gain muscle in a very lean way you stay you're gonna be staying between 12 to 14

body fat which is basically when you can still see your abs. So it's like, again, 40, 50% protein, then about, you end up eating 50, 60 grams of carbs, depending on the training intensity. And those carbs, mostly from green vegetables, lots of nutrient dense on fruit. And then the rest of your calories basically from nutrient dense sources of fat. So basically the fat that comes along with the protein sources, egg yolks, the fat that comes with the beef, et cetera, right? Maybe some cheese, et cetera, but it's high quality fat,

not just butter for the sake of it, not just adding coconut oil for the sake of it. It's like everything that's very nutritious. So it has a benefit of, even if you're higher in calories, protein, as you know, is super highly thermogenic like you spoke on i've been following your podcast for quite a while so very low i know a lot of that especially the ones related to training and nutrition uh you had alan alan aragon a few um

cast before and he basically said protein is very much a free macro, right? You really cannot get fat on protein, but it's like, again, the best food for building muscle. So it allows you to be super full. You get a higher thermogenic effect, which allows, again, it's inefficient in a way caloric wise, but it allows you to eat a lot more, feel saturated. And then along with the extra carbs that you may have, especially green veggies, but I'll go into these a little bit later. Some extra carbs for performance. And then just the fat, which is also in a way anabolic. You get mostly what you need for lean gaining. And I had some people always tell me that you'll gain more with carbs.

And yeah, probably to a point, but you have maybe also the risk of gaining a little bit more fat, right? And in my experience, when I've seen and also per some studies, but also with clients, someone that's gaining muscle naturally with carbs on a traditional diet versus someone that's doing it our way. Let's say that the person that's doing the traditional way probably gains eight kilos. I'm talking about a novice trainer over the span of probably 10, 12 months. The person that did it keto gain style would probably gain five or four. And then here you're saying, okay, that's very much double. Right. But the person that probably gained that on a traditional diet, of those eight kilos, a lot of that is also fat. So probably 30, 40%. Once that person cuts,

they will end up with about four or five kilos, which is very much the same. The difference is very minimal. With the benefit that the person that did keto gains basically eats about the same foods every day or all year long. So you don't go through bulk and cut diets, which again, depends on the person, what you prefer. You prefer to eat more food some of the time and probably enjoy some diversity.

That's perfect. Then go with a traditional approach, but then're gonna have to cut right if you're junk probably that's not an issue but if you're past your 30s or 40s it gets harder to lose fat aware you know as we age for various reasons habits uh disponibility of food or also of course uh our body becomes a little bit more resistant to hormones whatever you might may want to call it right so i prefer that eat about the same foods approach it's great for your habits and in the end because you don't have to cut it's also great for you know psychologically you're eating about the same things and of course you can have one deviation

here or there which i do suggest maybe you know a diet break. But you can do it one weekend every three or four weeks, not, you know, all the time or one week. Again, there are a few variations there. We're almost at World Carnivore Month. It's almost January. And what are some of your thoughts on carnivore-style diets? So it's a very easy diet to use. I suggested for people that have maybe gastrointestinal problems, IBS or et cetera, because it's a very, well, it's very much a super elimination diet. It's like the next step from keto, right? And it's very similar to what

we do in the sense of not limiting protein to a point. I do think there's a little bit of misconceptions out there. And again, I love eating beef and meats and everything there. And I veer towards a little bit of carnivore, but I do suggest, and I think based on my nutrition background, that it's important to eat lots of green veggies. And just as amino acids and protein are the best sources from animals, some vitamins and minerals, the best sources come from the vegetable kingdom, right? So mixing both of them, especially if you don't have any gut issues,

inflammation issues, et cetera, it's the best way to go for you know like overall health now again if you're going through some inflammation issues ivs gut diabetes etc okay probably you can go into carnivore try it out and see how it happens but i don't think that long term it may be the best diet you've been mentioning um veggies as a form of carbohydrates you know it's the main form of carbohydrates that a lot of people within the keto gains groups utilize. What specific veggies do you guys like, do you like use or you think is super effective? So mostly it's a combination or my suggestion for vegetables is both for satiety, but also for micronutrient content, right?

So green beans, mostly everything that's green that grows above ground very much. But again, green beans, spinach, all types of from the family of zucchinis, right? I don't know if you're familiar, but I eat a lot of chayote, which is very much like a big zucchini found here in Mexico. Super high vitamin C, lots of of fiber lots of vitamins and nutrients but it's super low in calories what's it called some chayote never heard of it yeah it's it's again uh it looks like uh the unofficial name in keto gains with my clients is called shrek balls very much because it very much looks like a ball sack it's a green ball sack and it even has a little bit of thorns we're into it i love it you have to find it it's it's but nutritionally nutrition wise

it's awesome right okay and um uh already said green beans uh you can even uh add a little bit of carrot etc as much as nutrient dense and of course i'm a super bit of carrot, et cetera, as much as nutrient dense. And of course, I'm a super fan of berries. You know, a strawberry, blueberry is something that I try to eat on an almost daily basis. And well, of course, avocado is also what some would call a superfood, right? Got it. What about sneaking in other stuff that's sweet? Is there any room for that? Like dark chocolate or something? I've heard other people talk about it before.

Yeah, of course. Dark chocolate, again, is also a side comment. My grandfather was the founder of one of Mexico's biggest chocolate factories for a while. So it was like the Willy Wonka kid. When I was a kid, I was overweight, and that was one of the reasons. Of course. Makes sense. I'm a super fan of chocolate, but as you know, when you go into low-carb or keto, your taste buds start to change, right? And then you start to favor and notice the benefits. Not the benefits nutritionally-wise, which of course there are,

is the benefit, not the benefits nutritionally wise, which of course there are, but also in the type of, you start to notice the differences of various types of dark chocolate. And you start to know the good quality versus the superior quality or something that's not really

as great as maybe it's doubted out to be, right? So yeah, of course, you can always add some chocolate. You can always add, again, the berries, even almond butter, whatever you like. But again, I'm a firm believer of you have goals. I'm going, I'm not a super focused person. When I have a goal, I'll try to not go that route, but there's always a space to add, you know, stuff like that. You said focus there and you said it very well. Tyler told me to ask you to say focus for us.

We have a joke on that. Anyway, what allowed you to kind of stumble upon a keto diet in the first place? You did mention you were heavier as a kid. What sort of led you down that road? So it's a story that I just recently opened the real version about three years ago, I think. So when I was a kid, I was overweight and that led me to try to study nutrition on my own and actually start bodybuilding. My mother took me to a nutritionist and she was quite overweight. And I said in front of her,

how are you going to teach me how to lose weight? It's like, you probably know the saying. How old were you? I was a very, you know, wise guy. So I'm a combination between a bookworm and one of those that really didn't shut my

mouth, right? So it's like, you know, never trust a fat chef. Skinny chef. Never trust a skinny chef and you should also, well, not trust a fat dietitian good yeah so well that started my interest in trying to learn things by myself right but um just for reference i'm 44 years old so this was back in the 80s we didn't have internet we didn't

have google we didn't have all of this. So I tried to research. And the only thing that I had was very much the Encyclopedia Britannica and things like that. Right. And, of course, my biggest influence at the time for strength training was muscle. What was the name of this magazine? Muscle and Fitness? Muscle and Fitness. Very much. what was the name of this magazine um muscle and fitness muscle and fitness very much all i learned from nutrition and training at the time was muscle and fitness looking at ronnie coleman

arnold schlesinger uh franco colombo all of those were and of course i'll have this guy here on my human was a big influence for me and i I said, I want to be like that guy. What do Arnold eat and what does he do? Of course, one of my first books, and I still have it here, is Arnold's Encyclopedia to Bodybuilding. But then I managed to lose some weight. And when I got into college, I was through a period of depression. College was super hard at the time. I went to pretty much like a Mexican Ivy League college.

And peer pressure was killing me, right? I ended up anorexic. So I ended up weighing about 48 kilos, which is in pounds like 120. Let's see. 115, I think, or something. Yeah, something like that. I'm not a tall guy. I'm 5'6".

So basically I hit rock bottom, right? And I was studying business administration at the time but uh some friends were studying nutrition and i decided to go and join their classes and that's when i started to get a more uh depth in a sense of what what macros are how you can manipulate things for certain goals and based on on what I have learned from bodybuilding and strength training, and at the time we finally had internet, I could go into the library and read and study. And, you know, I don't know if you're familiar,

you remember bulletin boards from those days. So I don't really recall which was the actual bulletin board that I was reviewing, but I wanted to learn how the bodybuilders used to be jacked and cut while there were, you know, pre-contestants. So basically what they were doing was a version of keto. That's it, right? They were very much like, you know,omba's diet eggs and beef pretty much and some veggies and um i actually was in the same forums where lyle mcdonald was giving his advice just before he wrote the the final edition for the ketogenic diet so i was reading up on Bodeopus by Dan Duquesne, the anabolic diet, things like that. And again, they're all refinements of the same protocol, which means very much what we were

talking all about, you know, a higher protein, just limit starches, limit sugars, limit crap and processed foods, get your carbs from healthy sources, add maybe a carb load, again, from healthy sources, not just eat pizza and dogs and bread. Rather, when you do a carb load, you're going to be eating probably rice, sushi, healthy things as well, right? So I started trying the diet, and I started to gain healthy weight. Because I was coming through that period of anorexia. I also was afraid of gaining weight. I'll send you a picture later, but in that time,

I was, I was joke when I, when people asked me about it, I looked like a Mexican version of Michael Jackson because I had long hair, but you know just here. I was pasty white because of the malnutrition. You could see my ribs. I looked like, again, like a cross between a Calvin Klein model and Michael Jackson. You could see my ribs, but I didn't have abs. I had a gut. And that was the perfect definition of like a skeletal skinny fat, whatever you may want to call it. of like a skeletal skinny fat, whatever you may want to call it.

But then when I transitioned to the other diet, I actually felt more focused. I could study better. I had the energy to train again. I gained or I regained a lot of my strength and weight back. People started to ask me what I was doing. Girls started noticing me. I became the buff guy at a college. People actually wanted to train with me and do what I was doing.

They started asking me about things about nutrition and so on and so forth. And yeah, I started explaining what keto was. especially after reading Lyle McDonald's book, which goes much more in depth about all the aspects of nutrition and science of keto and how you can manipulate it for the context of bodybuilding, not just for losing fat. Which is something funny because we're again finding all of these versions of keto, which are more focused on body composition. And they were written in 2000 we already had a book but just people forget about it yeah yeah i remember reading a lot of that stuff um i got on board with keto stuff pretty early on and uh i remember reading it magazines and books and stuff and it was like mesmerizing i was like like, how could this be? You know,

the general population doesn't talk about this. Meanwhile, I was trying to lose weight by eating like cereal and stuff and trying to like go lower fat. I knew about protein a little bit, but didn't have knowledge about, you know, I guess basically the principle of keto, which is kind of like lower the carbohydrates and then eventually you can get to a point potentially where your body is feeding off of its own body fat, and you're also producing ketones as kind of a form of energy. That's just some of the real basics of it. What is going on inside the body when you're trying to get yourself in this ketogenic state? ketogenic state so uh how i understand it and i try to explain to people is that ketogenic diet is very much like um you have a car where you or let's let's look at it as a more hybrid car

you can use either fat which would be uh electricity as, or you can use gas, which would be the carbs. So very much depending on the food availability or what you normally eat, you either use one or the other, right? Nowadays, because of what we've, or basically what is produced, especially if you live in a first world country, it, especially if you live in a first world country. A lot of foods are super high on carbs and have added fat for flavor. Normally, if you ate whole foods, the mixture of carbohydrates and fats are very different.

But again, nowadays, we are, because of the environment, the food environment, most foods are super high in carbohydrates, and we tend to eat every two or three hours. So what keto does basically is first it shifts the way our body functions. It makes you use more fat because you are taking away the carbohydrates or reducing them. It allows you to use your own stored energy as fuel, which is also cleaner in a way. You are less inflamed. It creates less reactive oxygen species. So again, it's cleaner in a way to say. And it gives you that also extra energy in the sense of these ketones have a benefit for some people because it's not universal that create an anorexigenic environment.

And this is in a good sense. What it means is that it takes away hunger and hunger is for most people the number one reason why a diet fails. Right. people the number one reason why a diet fails, right? If you're constantly hungry and thinking about food, which is something that happens when you just diet down and try to eat healthy carbs, or what are masked as healthy carbs, which like you said, Mark, cereal, right? Eat cereal, eat a candy bar or a Quest bar or a protein bar or whatever. Okay. You probably just by sheer willpower, some people can do it, but most people cannot. So you stay hungry and ravishing for two or three hours. And all you think is food. If you're on keto, very much like with fasting, you can go on without eating for

16, 80 hours, 18 hours, and basically use it because you maybe remember that you have to eat, right? Not because you are driven to eat. Yeah, I know you're enjoying this episode, but I have a question for you. Are you still dieting off of broccoli, chicken, and rice, and maybe tilapia if you want to spice things up? Well, it's 2021. We're past that. That's why we've partnered with Piedmontese Beef. Now, Piedmontese is an amazing company that has cuts of beef that are really high fat or cuts of beef that are low fat. So if you are dieting on a low fat diet, you don't need to resort to the weak bird of chicken. You can instead eat some beef, eat some steak, and still end up getting the results you're looking for. So, Andrew, can you tell the people how to get it?

Yes. You guys got to head over to piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com at checkout. Enter promo code POWERPROJECT for 25% off your entire order. And if your order is $150 or more, you get free two-day shipping. Links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Let's get back to the podcast. Now, I kind of want to know, as far as like cooking and keto, are you an individual that cares a lot about the cooking oils and that type of stuff that you use? Because a lot of individuals, I think you cook in ghee sometimes.

We've had people come on to the podcast and say, oh, it's not a big deal to use canola oil. It's not a big deal to do that. And then other people who are like, it's toxic. So being a high-fat individual and doing a lot of cooking, do you have any suggestions for people as far as cooking is concerned or do you not think that's a big deal as far as the oils? So I am more so in the middle in the sense that I'm very practical. And my idea is if you can buy things that are not going to affect your budget, always prefer the best quality. your budget always prefers the best quality. If buying high quality things means that you're going to sacrifice other things that are tire A, then use whatever you have at hand, right?

For example, I have people, Hey, I want to use this supplement and buy ketone salts and whatever, you know? And it's like, okay, and maybe that costs you a hundred or $120 or $200. And because you're buying this, you're not buying eggs and beef. Don't buy this, stick to the eggs and beef. I myself use mostly avocado oil, olive oil, coconut oil, olive oil coconut oil and ghee that's it why i i do suggest to my clients to stick to those kinds of fats for cooking mostly because what i suggest is like a mediterranean style ketogenic diet that's it okay and and also another thing to to consider is there's a lot of studies that support that those types of oils may cause inflammation, right?

There may be others that say that they don't matter that much. Well, if you can choose, always be here to work. I think that has benefits, right? Yeah. So that would be my response. How does speaking multiple languages help with some of your business? Because I see a lot of your content is in Spanish. And when I traveled, I noticed there was a lot of countries and a lot of different areas where, not that people weren't in shape.

They actually, a lot of people looked great, but they weren't muscular. I didn't see hardly anybody that looked like they lifted. They weren't muscular. I didn't see hardly anybody that looked like they lifted. And I was like, man, I wish I kind of knew some of this when I was younger, because it would have been great to be able to speak a couple other languages. I bet I could really help and reach a lot more people. So have you found that you're able to reach a lot more people? I mean, you live in Mexico as well right oh it's uh it's a blessing and it's something that i'm very grateful with my parents and you know trying to educate me to or help help me be this curious about stuff i'm in in a lot of ways i'm self-taught in a lot of things so basically my my english was learned from learning reading comics i can thank spider-man and watching He-Man cartoons and G.I. Joe and all of that because that basically made me speak very well English. And then also the part of studying, reading nutrition studies, et cetera, books very much like what we have been speaking about. Those were the ones that actually also made me understand very well other factors, right?

And then because I'm a nerd, I saw that there's a, I actually can read about seven languages. So I can speak fluently German and English, of course. But from those, I can read French. I can understand it Italian as well my confidence in myself just shook I feel like shit I barely can figure out

English you know this is just to prove a point when people say that if you do keto for long term your brain is going to get fried I have no issues with any of those. And basically, that's why I say I'm a little bit of a language and science nerd. I've heard in Mexico, and I don't know if this is a rumor or not, but when you get a trainer, it's not uncommon to also maybe get some steroids as well, which happens here anyway in the United States.

But because it's not illegal there just does that so is that a thing or am i just hearing weird rumors no no the thing is uh it's it's funny and i was i wasn't even aware of this until about probably three years ago so i i've always been uh going to a gym that's more uh well let's call it it's not like planet fitness like a more high-end gym right so the type of trainers you get there it's like you have science like using steroids and everything is wrong very much like in the states but now that i studied uh nutrition here in mexico as well It's actually part of the curriculum, depending on where you study. Wow.

It's like, it's not like you take a, like a certification on the side. You can take it, but openly, like you said, they're not illegal. You can buy, you can go and buy testosterone over the country, over the country and most pharmacies without a prescription. Why? Because it's not illegal. And so very much like you said, Mark, in some gyms, if you ask your trainer, do you have this or that, they can probably suggest. The thing is that there are some that may be super cheap. And so again, you don't know what

you're getting. So you want to go and use the high quality, either the underground labs would actually be as far as i know some of the best if like they they actually come from a factory or just can get the actual medical grade which are pfizer iron etc right but those are quite expensive you know we we can't really end the podcast at any point without talking about fasting and keto and fasting. They end up coming in. I just saw you had a recent post where you were talking about fasted training. I think you did a whole article about it. So how does fasting come to mix when you do things with keto gains?

And also, I mean, I do quite a bit of my training fasted, but I hear that you actually don't suggest that people do that. So how do you suggest that people go about using fasting along with a ketogenic diet? And then when it comes to training and fasting, how do you suggest that they put that all together? Okay. So a little bit of context here. The reason why I don't suggest fasting training is mostly if you want to optimize muscle building right okay that that's the main caveat if you want to maintain or gain as much muscle as you can while in the ketogenic diet also uh it's like there are already some ideas or things that make people think that a ketogenic diet is subpar for strength or muscle building.

And I can pretty much accept some of those ideas, you know, reduced mTOR, some of the metabolic pathways may be, you know, not optimized. So then why add another extra factor? That's very much how I see it. And I work with men of handsome man's and have a good friendship with a lot of researchers on keto. It's like, it's funny, but I like to see myself like the middleman in between high carb and ketogenic diets, because I have a good relationship with, or a friendly relationship with Alan Aragon, Lane Norton, et cetera.

Some of the, they're not really anti-keto, they are anti-stupid keto in a way. And what I found, again, it's not that it's bad. It requires context. So what I suggest for people that want to optimize strength training is just to not train fasted. And what I mean fasted is more than four or six hours after your protein feeding. Right.

And for those that train first thing in the morning, it's as easy as probably taking a protein shake before training or worst case scenario after training. Right. What's the main reason? A lot of the things that people promote from the benefits of fasting for muscle building are misunderstandings. They are not real. And for example, the growth hormone thing that if you train faster, your growth hormone increases. Yeah, it increases increases but then it decreases so the result is very much the same you don't really get a benefit of you're going to be

building more muscle while training faster because of this second this is also again a misnomer growth hormone in adult humans does not create a muscle it's very much what happens is the growth hormone is used to transport uh building blocks which are in this case amino acids to repurpose them to other organs or cells that need that have priority and we forget that muscle has the least priority in our body. Amino acids are not only for muscles, they are also for enzymes, hormones, your organs, right? So of course your body needs them and we cannot store really amino acids in our body.

There's no place where we store them. We only assimilate them as muscle. It's like the best example I can give you, which makes a lot of people understand is, okay, you're training to build muscle, right? It's very much like if you were building a house. What do you need when you're building a house? Okay, you need bricks and the workers.

Okay, you have the workers. You tell them, be there at 7 p.m. Perfect, they're here at 7 a.m. And they come, hey, boss, where where are the bricks i don't have bricks but you can take away this wall back here and use it to build a wall we need in front uh okay well so how is that gonna work to build a house right you're just shuffling things along on the other hand if you place a little bricks here, okay, they're going to use your bricks and they're going to help you build a bigger house. That's very much how I like to explain it. Now, on the other hand, there are people that say and support, and it's actually that I felt because I did probably OMAD for about a year and a half.

Sometimes when you train faster, you feel more energetic, you feel stronger. And then this gives people the idea that you're getting again, stronger, and you're going to build more muscle. This is mostly the effect of your hormones, mostly adrenaline and a higher cortisol which again are not the best for muscle building it's very much like the fight or flee response you have a higher adrenaline but why because you're training faster your body let's put it in in ways our body can understand our body doesn't know that you're actually lifting weights to gain muscle. Your body thinks that it's a stimulus and that you're in danger for whatever reason, even if you're happy about it. And that you're probably even fighting a saber-toothed tiger or maybe running away from a buffalo that's coming for you.

I don't know. But again, yeah, you're going to do or you're going to be able to do incredible amounts and feats of strength. But it's not going to be optimal for her muscle building, right? If you personally get like a little bit out of shape for yourself, you feel a little fatter, you feel flatter, what are two or three things that you implement that you think are really effective that maybe there's not like a lot of science behind or whatever, but it's just things that you've gone to and they seem like they worked.

Is there any type of like cardio style workouts you do or CrossFit workouts or is there any manipulation of the food? What's like a go-to for you? Because of my age now, it's going to sound funny. When I was younger, I would do lots of cardio and probably diet down and do more a PSMF style diet, et cetera. Now, this is something that I found incredibly well during pandemic and it's been two years now. I've actually been leaner now and maintain a lower amount of body fat in these last two years by doing less. So it's review and optimize your stress levels. Learn when to say no.

If you need to sleep, like I used to be anti-naps, and now maybe I take a nap every two days. If I'm tired, I take a nap, maybe 20 minutes, 30 minutes. Because, you know, rest and sleep are super important. We forget that muscle grows when you're asleep or when you rest. And the same happens if you are under-rested, are super important. We forget that muscle grows when you're asleep or when you rest. And the same happens if you are under rested, your cortisol is higher and you probably are going to have a little bit higher difficulty losing fat to a point, right? So that's one thing. The other, it's funny, I used to be count your macros all the time. I haven't really counted

macros since Godwith, but I've implemented a little bit of things here and there. Normally, maybe I eat one avocado. If I feel that I'm, you know, a little bit fatter than I like, okay, I'm going to eat half an avocado or maybe no avocados for most of the week and I'll save them for the weekends. That piece of chocolate that you mentioned, right, Mark? Okay. If I had that one every night, I'm going to skip it and maybe just save it for the weekends. I normally eat four eggs.

Okay. I'm going to eat just three eggs. So I prefer high quality meat, reduce a little bit of certain fats or reduce the amount of food I'm eating. Maybe I normally fast for 16 hours. Maybe I'll fast for 18. But again, just try to keep more, reduce the amount of food I'm eating. But again, cut out some of the foods that I know that are just energy and stay high on the protein

and the nutrient-dense vegetables or fruits. Wow. Okay. What's a protein-sparing modified fast? I think that you guys at KetoGains are the guys that kind of push that to the forefront. How can somebody utilize that? Maybe what's the dangers of it as well? Okay.

So the issue with a protein-sparing modified fast, and also this goes very well with what we've been talking about. People think that fasting and keto are the optimal for fat loss. And yeah, they are. I think that they're one of the best tools that you can have in your arsenal for losing fat without losing strength and looking great naked, very much. and looking great naked, very much. But the OG for fat loss and body composition is PSMF, protein-sparing modified fast.

It's even better than the traditional fasting because when you fast, and we have been sort of talking about this, yeah, you can preserve muscle to a point, but you will still lose muscle. That's a given. People say that, no, you will not lose muscle. That's a given. People say that, no, you will not lose muscle. Yeah, you will lose muscle, especially after 36 hours. There are some studies that actually show that with, I think they did nitrogen tracing. I don't

really recall. Tyler has more information on that. I can i can check it out uh later and send you the studies but the thing is that after 36 hours because your body does need the amino acids for again hormones enzymes etc they're gonna it's gonna take in from your muscles right so that's why the psmf approach was not really developed by bodybuilders it's actually a clinical approach to preserve as much lean mass as possible, especially during clinically or necessary conditions. You have a patient that's bedridden. The loss of lean mass is super dangerous, again, because you need amino acids, right? So what it does in the sense of body recomposition or what you do is go super high on protein around three kilos or trip out yeah about three three grams per kilo you weight probably it's like normally where you

end up you stick to only green vegetables which in the end for most people, this would be in between 30 to 40 grams per day. And then you go basically as low as you can in fats. But when I say as low as you can, you're basically going zero to 10 grams of fats. And then these fats come from mostly omega-3 fats. So basically the actual protocol, if I recall correctly, as written in the book by Lyle McDonald, he has a protein-sparing modified book, is the fat that you get comes basically from fish oil. That's it. And some vegetables to help you get filled. The issue that I see with people who try or attempt this diet is that they really don't have good habits, right? So they think this is a crash diet.

They think that in one week, they're going to be able to lose everything they wanted. And they also do it with shakes. If you do like we've been sort of mentioning that when you eat a lot of protein, you don't get hungry, right? Or it has an increased hemogenic effect. This only works when it's actual whole food protein. If you only feed someone shakes, you're going to get extremely hungry because it's digested super fast. It has a higher insulin spike than just food, etc. So it makes the diet miserable.

And then you also don't lose fat very rapidly. Even though you may burn a lot of fat of your own body fat, there are some people that do retain a lot of water. So maybe you don't see the big change in fat loss in one week. It only occurs after the third or fourth week, depending on if you can actually endure the diet because of the famous whoosh effect. And this is something that I've seen anecdotally in people that do it. What I suggest instead is, okay, you know the basics of the diet. Why don't you implement one or two days per week, sandwiched in between your normal diet or what you're eating?

So let's say that you have a very busy day. Instead of just fasting, dry fasting like some people do, maybe just do a PSMF fast. Like eat a big salad, some grilled chicken, which is super low on fat. Aim for, again, it's going to be a lot of protein because if you're going to be doing it for one or two days, maybe you don't need to go as high as three three grams per kilo maybe you could just go with two and that's enough to uh pretty much lower your calories for the day in a very big margin which in the end over

the week and if you stayed on the same calories or same foods that you were eating, it's going to help you shed fat faster without actually feeling like you're in a diet. Because if you actually go and review and count the calories, you can easily stay at 800 calories in one day like this. Imagine probably eating 200 grams of protein, just for reference. We're going to be at 800 grams sorry at 800 calories plus the veggies that how many calories you want to add on veggies probably 100 without adding of

course dressings and unnecessary fats it's a very easy way to yeah get in between 800 to 1000 calories which is going to make you lose weight do you do any other type of long-term fast? Because you hear some people talk about long-term fast, like 72 hours, 96 hour fast for other health benefits. Do you do anything like that? Or do you generally use like sometimes PSMF and just general intermittent daily fasting for your protocols. I myself just stick to traditional very much body recomposition protocols.

I've done just for the sake of it because I forgot to eat very much as long as 36. But it's not something that I either recommend or endorse. Unless, of course, you actually have a medical condition that requires it. I know that some people, it has sort of become like a passing right to do a 72-hour fast. And I ask them, why? What's the purpose? Like, hey, I want to clean my liver or lose some ectopic body fat or whatever. Okay, do you actually have that? or lose some ectopic body fat or whatever.

Okay, do you actually have it? Like are you someone that used to be a chronic drinker? You may have some kind of cirrhosis or maybe liver damage, et cetera. No. Okay, like it's – I don't know. If you want to test yourself, go and do it. But like, again, context. I always try to ask people why or what's the purpose you're trying to to get from it if you cannot actively say say to me or explain me

your own words the particular reason maybe you're just doing for the lulz right i don't know uh i don't think it's going to be optimal do you think people that are in sports that are highly glycolytic, like individuals that do track or individuals that do CrossFit, do you think that they could get away with doing keto? Because when you're doing keto, I guess you're not trying to just chase being in ketosis, but I guess you're trying to have just enough carbs so that you can perform at a high level like that's how i look at carbohydrates at this point it's like i need just enough so i can perform really well and i don't need any more above that almost like a carbohydrates as a supplement um do you think that athletes that do highly glycolytic sports can do that or should they just have the carbs or have as much as whatever as as most of those athletes do i think it very much depends on what your preferences are i do think uh for example i

i have uh in one of our coaches is uh one of probably it's between the third or the fourth uh best crossfitter in costa rica right i know it's not a big country, but she ended up in the 20 worldwide last year. And she uses this approach, right? Depending on how many sessions she's training, for the day, she's going to eat more or less carbs, depending on the season. But of course, when she's competing for the CrossFit Games, she's going to be probably at 150 grams of carbs. Why? Because, or even more, because she needs them to perform at that level. But she's not at 600 grams of carbs like some other people may be. She'd rather go higher protein, just feeds the carbs very much.

And, you know, how I like to teach this is very much because I come from a business administration background. If you have heard the type of administration called JITS, which is just in time, which is a little bit on managing warehouses, it's what do you prefer? houses. It's what do you prefer? Having a warehouse full of materials, which you don't know when you're going to be using or having a smaller warehouse and you get the new materials, you use them. It's empty. Then you shuffle more materials. So this is very much how I see the carbs. It's a strategic use of carbs, very much like how you do it. add more when you need more if you're in off season maybe you don't need more or you're going to be training more explosive for that day you're going to be adding more yeah i myself when i'm training explosive power lifting i add more carbs if i'm going to be just doing traditional bodybuilding style i don't need them as much as uh most people

think and one thing that i found which is uh important, I used to recommend glucose or dextrose before training. Right. So it's like my break. Let's call it breakfast in a way. My breakfast or pre-workout choice is some whey, coffee, mixing coffee. So it's very much like a cappuccino if you want to call it that way, a little bit of element, sodium,

especially the chocolate one that mixes perfectly with it. And depending on the intensity, either glucose or dextrose, which are basically the same, just liquid or solid, but now for a few months are being dabbling with glycerin.

Oh, okay. Yeah. So glycerin is a type of glucose, but it has the added benefit that it also volumizes the muscle cells. So it adds a little bit of extra hydration. So you get better pumps and you get better explosiveness. So I've been sharing this with some of my clients that practice jujitsu and CrossFit, and they've been feeling much better probably because of the extra hydration versus just taking glucose. And it's just depending of

your training session in between 10 to maybe 20 grams of this substance. And it mixes perfectly with the coffee because it's very much sweet. Is it a powder? You can get it in powder, but I prefer glycerol. You can buy it on Amazon or any outlet, but just check that it's a food grade because it's, you can eat, the ones I've seen on Amazon US, they are used as an emulsifier for creams and lotions. So you get the food grade that's used on pastries and candies and such.

You can mix it perfectly on your coffee. It just adds that little sugary taste. And it's great because it's very much absorbed immediately. So you're going to ingest it. I mean, between 15, 20 minutes, you're going to feel the effect. It's kind of a weird substance because it's like an alcohol, isn't it? Or somewhere in between that or something. It actually looks like gel. It's right. Yeah. But it's funny because a lot of old school pre-workout supplements have it. Yeah. Like there's a, you know, probably old school glycerworkout supplements have it yeah like there's a you know probably old school

glycerin pump i remember that i used to take it and it was precisely the idea that it's very much increases the volumization of your muscle cells because it helps you retain water very much like in a way creatine yeah but this is from actual uh glycerol which again it's one of the the forms of energy you know in fatty acids. Yeah, athletes use it as well, like endurance athletes. They have those little goo packs or whatever they are, and they squirt them right into their mouth, the goo packs. I'm going to add that in. That's a pretty good idea.

What you got over there, Andrew? Yeah, I'm curious. Luis, you had mentioned about eating vegetables as long as you don't put a lot of dressings or anything on it. But if you go to the store, almost every company now has a product. And on the front, it says keto friendly. What are your thoughts on stuff like that? Do you recommend to your clients, hey, you can go with this brand.

This is okay to use, but avoid X know x y and z or anything like that um the issue is that by adding a lot of uh dressings you may be adding 100 200 depending on how you how much you use to your talents right and this is one of the issues that i see especially with women let's say that you have a female that's on 1,300 calories, right? Maybe her average, I calculate her calories, and maybe her maintenance calories are 1,600, 1,500. I'm talking about my average clients. And then, okay, let's eat 1,200 calories for fat loss.

Just 200 calories. If you eat those 200 calories from a dressing, I'd rather have you eat 200 calories from extra chicken or more salmon, et cetera, because they are really going to be filling you up. You're just wasting calories. Again, I do most of my clients very much like manage them as they were small

enterprises. And that's how I try to teach them. Or like, again, balance and checks from your bank account. Use these resources for things that are going to be more nutrient dense for once, and also is going to make you feel fuller. It's totally different to eat 1200 calories from a lot of chicken salads and stuff, rather than having more processed food. And the issue with some dressings, again, and stuff rather than having more processed food. And the issue with some dressings, again, depending on what the dressing actually is, you could be adding lots of high calories that could be used elsewhere. I'm not saying that to not use them.

More so to check and see if there's space for them. You can probably add a little bit of olive oil. But I see people that use olive oil like if it was you know like i don't know five five tablespoons maybe half of it one actually sort of tastes the same and you can also use a lot of non-caloric dressings like i've seen a lot of them that are great um i don't know if uh i suppose it's an american brand but we get one here in mexico that's made in the usa i don't recall the brand right now's an American brand, but we get one here in Mexico that's made in the USA. I don't recall the brand right now, but it's like you can either get ketchup, barbecue sauce, like Thousand Island, et cetera, et cetera, which are just a mix of actual glycerin.

formal kitchen that are used non-gmo non-weird uh ingredients paleo approved in a way but are very much five or ten calories per per spoon in deference to maybe using 120 or 200 calories per serving right yeah is there any uh because i remember when i discovered keto i probably like six years ago now um instantly wanted to figure out how to get into ketosis right away and so i discovered all these other products basically they're just ketones that would guarantee that you get into ketosis within like an hour or two or whatever it was um but are there any benefits to taking in exogenous ketones while on a ketogenic diet so how i explain that is that, yeah, you get ketones in your system, but it's not the same because they are not your own ketones.

You are putting ketones in your system. So yeah, you're probably going to read or see higher ketone readings, but again, they're not your ketones. You're not producing them and they are not from fat burning. So for energy, okay, they have a use. If you're using also therapeutic ketosis for a special, I don't know, maybe you're going to treat cancer or a neurodegenerative disease and your protocol actually requires you to have high ketones they can of course help now there's also like some lines of thought and some sports that they are experimenting with using exogenous ketones for speed performance etc i really don't know it's like i would say still being studied there's some studies that show some improvement. There are others that really don't see any benefits from them.

I don't think that the jury is still out. There's a definitive answer. It's more so let's experiment and see what happens. But again, for the purpose of getting into ketosis faster, I think that they are misleading. What you want to go is actually go into fat burning zone. It's just stopping carbs. If you want to accelerate it for what it's worth, because it's going to only accelerate

it for maybe six hours, okay, do some cardio, do some weights, because what you want to do is empty a little bit your muscle glycogen and then by proxy empty your liver glycogen. And that's when you start very much creating those ketones. And then also, so when you tell somebody that you're going to do a ketogenic diet and it's a high fat, high saturated fat diet, the whole thing about cholesterol comes roaring its face right at you. First off, why are we so damn confused when it comes to cholesterol? You have people on the carnivore side that will show their blood work and it'll be like, perfect, my cholesterol is totally in check. And then some vegans will even do the same thing like, so is my cholesterol. But yet when we talk about saturated fat, it's like, oh no, your cholesterol is going to go through the roof. You can't have whole eggs. What's the matter with you?

So is there anything new in regards to cholesterol that makes a little bit more sense about all of this? It's not my area of expertise. So I don't want to be quoted on this, save that there's a, I think that again, there's still a lot of things that we need to study i've seen in my case and with a lot of clients that their cholesterol numbers improve especially the ratios versus the diet they were using before what i can tell you is that if you're doing a keto diet or a high fat diet depending of, your cholesterol numbers are going to get higher. Why? Because you're ingesting naturally more fat.

That's a given. Doesn't mean that it's necessarily bad to a point. I don't like to see on my clients higher numbers of total cholesterol. If I see they're getting overly over 300 or maybe, you know, getting past 260, I would review exactly what they're eating and probably limit some kinds of saturated fat. I don't like them to be eating lots of nuts, nuts of cheese, probably you're going to be eating saturated fat. Okay. Let's make it come from eggs and fish and some beef, but I don't want you to be adding that fat just because, right? Let's go into more of a Mediterranean style diet.

Again, most of my clients, when we review their ratios, they are near perfect in most cases. Very rarely do we have clients after they've done the protocol over 270. In some cases, also, it depends on genetic factors. There are people that naturally have a tendency for having higher cholesterol numbers. And always we need context. How were your numbers before? Are they improving?

Because if we just look at certain numbers and we see high or whatever, if we don't have something to compare them to, we're just having, you know, not complete information. And another thing that's important is when you lose a lot of body fat, what happens with that fat? Of course, it's going to be deposited in, or that process of losing fat is going to make your cholesterol higher, especially triglycerides. So it's a transition thing. Usually within six months, you should see some kind of improvement. As long as you're losing weight, you're going to have, in most cases, a higher cholesterol. Now, the thing that I'm not so sure of is people that are quite active, that are super low body fat or low body fat, the so-called lean mass hyper responders that

you probably heard about, that have a super high levels of cholesterol. What we found, when I say we, we have a small think tank between Rob Wolf, Ted Naiman, Marty Kendall, Tyler, and some other people that love to talk and review things on keto, protein, et cetera, is that these persons may have subclinical hypothyroidism. So what we do with these clients, and we've had some of them, is we increase carbs with them. So let's go, instead of staying at 30 grams of carbs, let's jump to 50, let's jump to 80, let's jump to 120. Again, healthy food. Let's see that you're not overly saturating yourself with fat. Probably let's lower it to 80 100 or maybe 60 and you know what happens their cholesterol drops so i don't like to go into these sales route where no no your ratios are perfect don't worry because what what if that person gets a heart attack or get something i don't want to be responsible for

that right so we have uh a good amount of people that have a goal that watch and listen to the show they have a goal of like i want to lose 50 pounds i want to lose 100 pounds and we've seen them be successful you know they said i joined mark bell on the war on carbs and i haven't looked back since and i've lost over 100 pounds. But as we all know, one of the hardest things is to lose the weight and keep it off. So when somebody reaches that goal weight lost, what are some actionable things that they can do so that way they make sure that they don't rebound as far as coming off of a ketogenic diet or maybe modifying it so that way they make sure they don't gain almost all of it or even more back. So first, two myths.

One myth is that when you drop keto, you regain all your weight back, right? How I explain one thing is when you start keto, most people lose in between 15, 20 pounds, right? This is because the loss of glycogen on water. So how I explain this is we have actually, or let's look at ourselves as we have two sets of weights. What Mark weights on a high carb diet at the same body fat and what Mark weights on a low-carb diet. And probably the difference is going to be between 15, 20 pounds, right? Why? It's just the glycogen and the water that comes along with it. One gram of glycogen in your muscles is bound to about three grams of water.

So how much do you weight, Mark? About 230. Okay, 230. So imagine, yeah, probably if you you carved up you probably gained like 20 pounds very easily and when you and that's very much imagine someone that sort of weights the same the the more muscle you have the more glycogen you're gonna be able to carry and thus what happens is you start the diet you're gonna drop to drop, or if you leave the diet, you're probably going to get it back. So it's not like you're gaining a lot of weight.

You're going to gain that weight back and more if you go back to eating like an asshole, right? So that's one thing. And the second is people say that this diet is not sustainable and that you're going to gain it all back. The same happens with any diet. Go back and see the success rate of any diet whatsoever. And most people within two years, they end up rebounding. It's not just keto, it's any diet. And then what's the reason?

Because they only use the diet as a temporary fix versus actually changing habits. So it can be keto. It can be a vegan diet. It can be a carnivore diet. It can be just macro counting. The thing, and this is something that a lot of people hate me for this, but you don't have to see it as a diet. You have to see it as a lifestyle. Choose a diet that aligns more with your dietary preferences and learn to stick to that way of eating 90% of the time.

That way means that you will be able to lose that weight and maintain that loss. And even if you go and eat pizza, it's not going to make a dent because you have to make eating pizza, not an everyday thing. Probably it's a one special occasion thing. And it's sad, but one thing that I always like to say to my clients is the same. Like we used to have your birthday cake on your birthday. And now we have birthday cake every single day as a dessert, right? You have it as a cupcake. It's a mini dessert cake, but maybe you have five or you have a whole jar of cookies or you have your, I don't know, like your fat bomb, whatever you call it.

It's the same thing with different names or different flavors, et cetera. So we're just looking to feed, you can call it the sugar demon or the desert demon or whatever. The issue is save those for very special occasions. If you have it every day, it's not special anymore. Thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it. Where can people reach you, find out more information about you? So basically everything that's keto gains in the web, it's us.

That's it. My personal Instagram is Tartluigi, but that's mostly for things in Spanish. KetoGains is in English. And of course, Element as well. You can also reach me there. Awesome. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Yo. Darth Luigi, first off, that's a funny-ass Instagram name. But that glycerol thing, that's really cool. I never, I think maybe you've mentioned that before, but I never

thought about using it. Yeah, I've used it in powerlifting competitions and stuff. I used it to, like, re-comp, you know, to gain used it in powerlifting competitions and stuff. I used it to like re-comp, you know, to gain weight back for competition and things like that. I don't have like

a ton of experience with it so I don't know how powerful it is but it's supposed to hydrate the cells really, really well and it's used all the time by runners.

I don't know why it's never caught on any further like in any other sports but I've heard other keto people in the past mention it as well, and I think that's where I first saw it, where they were like, you can still kind of hydrate the cells with electrolytes.

I didn't really know all the different electrolytes. I just knew salt at the time and with glycerol, so it's really interesting. And I do think it's an alcohol for some reason. I don't know why. But anyway, yeah, it's interesting. He has a great approach, too, I think, to his diet. It's interesting in listening to these people that have been in the keto space for a long time.

I mean, all this stuff is written in a book called The War on Carbs that I wrote a long ass time ago. Even in the book, I wrote about utilizing carbohydrates as a supplement, utilizing them to your advantage and use them for performance enhancement. And I wrote a whole set, the book's very small, but I wrote a section on it where it talked about getting your carbohydrates up to 50, 100, and so on, depending on your goals, depending on what you were doing. But I thought he had a reasonable, sensible approach. Sounded like he's down for people to eat some vegetables and things like that to help keep you full.

So sounds like he's got a great diet to me. His explanations are pretty great. There's two that I liked a lot. Number one, the two weights that you have. Because quite literally, if I went back to my way of eating carbs, I wouldn't necessarily gain a crazy amount of body fat if I kept my calories, but I'd end up being around maybe 255. So it's like that's like it is crazy how much you would you would just be holding in terms of

water weight um and then the second thing i liked was the warehouse thing you had you know what i mean like making sure especially if you're a performance athlete just make sure that you have enough carbs to perform at a high level in terms of what you're doing rather than what most athletes do is have excessive amounts of carbs but this is also why a lot of those athletes tend to hold a little bit more body fat because they're eating more than they necessarily need to eat for the thing that they're about to do yeah that and then the uh the building a house analogy which i i've heard similar but i think he just said it the best you know like you got to have some bricks there for your little builders to build and that's kind of what's been in the back of my head when i

work out and then i have breakfast before i come here whereas before i would just fast through it i it just makes more sense to me but although with everyone we've had on you know these calories don't just reset at midnight like i'm definitely still having something in there from the night before but it just i don't know it makes a lot of sense you know even he but he said it wasn't even like a lot he's like have a protein shake yeah right something small don't you know obviously don't go to like uh black bear they said before or after so i mean if so that's that's that's one thing you know he also said four hours yeah you know up to four you know that's that's a long time that's not like i think people are thinking pre-work you know pre-workout meal

they're thinking like they're eating it on the way to the gym right they're eating their rice That's a long time. That's not like, I think people are thinking pre-workout meal. They're thinking like they're eating it on the way to the gym. Right? They're eating their rice cakes and Quest Bar or whatever in the car with their pre-workout shake or whatever. Got to carb up. Yeah, very sensible stuff. Even the fact that he's not promoting like people dump more oils on stuff. I think that's kind of an older keto thing.

I think in the past people thought that somehow the more fat that you would eat, you would somehow trick your body into like burning excess more fat. And as far as tricks go for the human body, there's not really many of them. It's hard to trick the body into stuff you know yeah that's what i see with like you know how i brought up some of the keto friendly products or whatever it's like they just added like a little bit more oil to get the fat content

up and it's like hey there's still like basically 50 carbs in here you know like this is weird like at costco and target and those places like they have a whole category of like keto stuff. And you're like, I didn't know that all this keto stuff. You look at it and you're like, I don't know if that's keto. The carbs are high and the fat is high. It's like 300 calories per serving. And it's like, wait a second. Here's something really interesting.

And I think that we forget this and we lose sight of it. There's nowhere in nature, there's not any sort of food that is sweet and fat at the same time like it just it i got a food i'm gonna shut up all right there's uh you know even with like carbohydrate carbohydrates about okay even even carbohydrates and fat you know, you won't find those two together really except for like in nuts and seeds and that's about it. But like an apple is sweet, but it doesn't have any fat. Steaks have fat, but they don't have any carbs, you know, and you keep going down the list. You can think of every single food.

There's some stuff like avocados and things like that that get a little bit off but yeah they don't have sugar in them. Didn't see him as a child. That lack of sleep is kicking in right now. He's all delirious. It's like if he has a beer no that's way different but yeah he does pants are off man yeah

my mind is just my mind just went to the gutter yep bacon can be sweet right yes it can yeah but it's made sweet though that's true

it's made sweet they put honey on it got it okay I'm like what yeah no you're right you're right you're right

okay okay but what were you talking what food group were you talking about? Is this something like that's more from Africa than anywhere else? Well, I mean, you could say it originated. We all did. Yeah, we all did. I'm interested.

Oh, man. No, man. Do you guys think we're in foods that you're eating? Must be that goat head you were talking about. No, man. My mom listens to this podcast. Do you guys think we're foods that you're eating? Must be that goat head you two are talking about. Goat brain. Hey, man. Goats are some good shit. If you guys haven't tried goat, go give it a shot.

Have you had any? I have, yeah. You have? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, I think you talked to me about that recently. Mm-hmm. I have not.

You should try it, man. Goat meat's good. I like goat milk, too. Pretty good. I haven't had goat milk. Oh, you never had it. It's good. I haven't had goat milk. Oh, you never had it. I haven't had goat milk.

Nope. But Lewis was very reasonable. Like that's like, Lewis, we just had Thomas on. I don't think you guys have seen, well actually, the Thomas and Laura episode's going to be out. But we had Thomas on too.

It's like, we're giving y'all a keto thing, getting y'all ready for next month so that you have everything you need. Again, I don't think any of us have the belief that carbohydrates are necessarily bad. but a lot of times they can trigger people to eat more food or just over consume calories. And it really doesn't matter the type of calories that you're over consuming. I think in the long run it might, because you can look, like if you eat like a teriyaki chicken bowl on one day and it's slightly off plan, I think that's a lot different than eating like a big bowl of ice cream because it's, when you eat the bowl of ice cream it, it's not ice cream.

And it's not going to probably trigger you into cheating on your diet the next day and so on. So I do think there's a little bit of play with some of that. But for the most part, carbohydrates and fats together, it just makes it so much easier to eat more food. So highly processed foods are things that people, in my opinion, should

do their best to really pay attention to and do the best to just not have them in their diet and just not have them around. I totally am. I'm totally convinced that I could have built all the same amount of muscle with a different type of diet. But the main reason I was going very high carbohydrate is I was trying to convince myself that this was for performance, but I was also trying to allow myself to fit in a lot of these processed foods, a lot of these highly palatable foods in my diet, count it and make it fit. But that also built bad habits, which made it very difficult to get lean. I think if you follow this approach to dieting, still implementing carbohydrates, doesn't need to be keto, could be low carb, but still implementing carbohydrates, you can still gain that muscle, have better dietary practices, and have better habits to make it easier when you get lean. That was one thing that always kind of annoyed me about flexible dieting type stuff. Even though

it can be tremendously effective, I was always like, well, you're only counting and tracking because you're allowing yourself to eat shit that you're not supposed to eat in the first place. However, that same thing happens with people that do keto as well. You still eating, you know, you got to just got to be cautious when it comes to any processed foods, no matter what bar it is or what kind of they can be great treats. And they can be things that satisfy some needs for that particular day. But be careful. Andrew, take us on out of here, buddy. Sure thing. Thank you everybody for checking out today's episode. Uh, please, uh,

like comment, uh, comment, anything that you learned today or anything that you're going to implement, uh, down in the comment section below, and please make sure you're subscribed. If you're not subscribed already, uh, follow the podcast at Mark Bell's power project on Instagram at MB power project on Tik TOK and Twitter, My Instagram and Twitter is at IamAndrewZ. And I always forget, but like all of these links and everything will be down in the description below. And Seema, where can people find you? And Seema Inyang on Instagram and YouTube.

And Seema Yin Yang on TikTok and Twitter, Mark. At Mark Smelly Bell, strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength. Catch y'all later. Bye.