How to keep yourself out of ketosis.

I wanted to talk about the mistakes I made when trying to get back into Ketosis so maybe someone who is searching for an answer can get help and so I NEVER forget the mistakes I made.

The first mistake? Nuts. I was eating several ounces of nuts per day.

The second mistake? Not enough fat, too much protein. Without a very high ratio of fat to protein/carbs, the body will go into and stay in gluconeogenesis (the conversion of protein into glucose, i.e. sugar for use in metabolic processes). I’m trying to build muscle, not have my body use it as fuel!

The third mistake? Taking glucogenic amino acids as supplements while trying to get back into ketosis. Yep, those 2 grams of L-Glutamine, 4 grams of Beta-Alanine, and 1.5 grams of L-Arginine were probably contributing factors to my inability to get into ketosis. For a info on glucogenic amino acids, see this wikipedia article.

In humans, the glucogenic amino acids are:

• glycine
• serine
• valine
• histidine
• arginine
• cysteine
• proline
• alanine
• glutamate
• glutamine
• aspartate
• asparagine
• methionine

Amino acids which can be either glucogenic or ketogenic:

• isoleucine
• threonine
• phenylalanine
• tyrosine
• tryptophan

So if certain aminos are glucogenic, then some can also be ketogenic (as you may have inferred from the second list above). Here is a wikipedia entry on ketogenic amino acids.

In humans, the ketogenic amino acids are leucine and lysine,

Not a very long list, eh? This tells me also that things like whey protein (especially with added L-Glutamine) may keep you out of ketosis if you use a lot of it and you aren’t getting enough fat in your diet. You have to eat fat to burn fat.

So let’s follow this logic a bit. A lot of body builders take BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acid supplements). The three types of aminos that are considered BCAAs are leucine, isoleucine, and valine. So this supplement may also keep you out of ketosis, or at least hinder the transition.

Now, if you are a firm believer that you have to gobble down tons of protein to stay catabolic AND you are trying to get into ketosis, you probably want to only supplement with leucine until after you are in ketosis.

Something to think about.