Will Keto Diet Ruin Your Gains?

Egis R.
4 min readMay 31, 2022
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If I may renew a topic found in my previous post — One Reason You Probably Shouldn’t Do Keto Diet — I have a bit more to say about the keto diet. This time, it’s about its effect on muscle growth. Does the keto diet compromise muscle gain?

Those among you who have a love affair with keto may wish to take a moment here to tighten up those sphincter muscles because the body of the evidence looks rough for the keto diet.

A 2018 study by Vargas et al

Efficacy of ketogenic diet on body composition during resistance training in trained men: a randomized controlled trial
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…evaluated the efficacy of an 8-week keto diet during calorie surplus and resistance training protocol on body composition in trained men.

The subjects with more than 2 years of resistance training experience were randomly assigned to the keto diet group, non-keto diet group, and control group. Here is the macro breakdown for the keto and non-keto diet groups:

Macronutrient distribution for NKD group was about 55% CHO; 20% PRO and 25% FAT. / Macronutrient distribution for KD group was about <10% CHO; 20% PRO and 70% FAT
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During 8 weeks both the keto diet group and non-keto diet group trained 4x/week trying to add some muscle. The whole study can be qualified as a

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Egis R.

I’m Egis, an online weight loss coach who has heightened BS sensors for fitness & nutrition. Only evidence-based & sustainable fat loss. www.absscience.com