Ketostix showing LOW on CKD? What's going on

[kagenical]

Bro there's no way that dropping that low in calories is healthy, even on a strict CKD diet. I mean even when below 20g carbs a day, you're still supposed to watch calories and try to be about 500kcal below Total Metabolic Rate to lose the fat and not be entirely catabolic, right? If you're losing 3-4 lbs a week that is insane and half of it is probably muscle. So unless you're on a high dose of anabolics, I don't see why they would do that.

Veneto I think the 6 meals a day is fine- I do about 6, mostly with solid foods but with a few whey or casein shakes in the mix along with natty peanut butter and flax oil. More meals doesn't necessarily mean more cals, just keep them smaller and more frequent. Kagenical, I still don't know how you can eat all those nuts and still remain in keto, unless you're saying they're a carbohydrate that is the exception to the rule. And recently I noticed something odd, I did a 36 hour carb refeed the other day, and about 14 hours later my ketostix were still showing light purple (trace amounts). Isn't the refeed supposed to purposely knock you out of keto to replenish glycogen stores?

In a moderately low-fat (10%BF) individual, even in starvation, you will see a 3:1 loss of fat to muscle. Losing 3-4lbs of fat per week likely will result in a 1lb loss of muscle per week as well. But we're talking about large individuals with 3500kcal TDEE's eating 2000 incredibly clean, high protein (275g+) calories. Eating like that makes it quite difficult to drop muscle quickly, especially when combined with proper training.

I did say I wouldn't suggest ever doing this, though, but instead used it as an example. Muscle loss, in a training individual, in ketosis (where the body is only consuming 15% of the glucose it would normally consume after the 20g or so made through glycogenolysis through the breakdown of triglycerides from stored lipids) is highly overstated... 15% of normal (50g) glucose is a few grams a day, less than 10, which would incur a (worst case) protein catabolism of 15g per day or so. We're not talking about much here.

Lots of exercise (sprints, lifting, lactic acid training) can be an anabolic stimulus, so as long as you're in keto and burning your calories (rather than a 2000Kcal TDEE individual consuming 500kcal to make the massive deficit)... Especially for short periods of time, 1-2 weeks... Will be just fine. Dropping 6-8lbs in 2 weeks is a great way to commit to a more sustainable weight loss without getting too frustrated. Just look at PSMF.