Of course you can. While keto isn’t the best diet for muscle gain, making a just few tweaks will help you maintain muscle endurance and build muscle mass at a steady pace. Let’s debunk a popular myth first.
Do you need carbohydrates to pack on muscle?
Some people believe that it’s impossible to build muscle and strength on a Keto diet because carbs are a requirement for muscle growth. That’s incorrect. Carbs do have anabolic properties, but are not a requirement. A keto diet that is high in protein intake is sufficient to build muscle and increase strength.
Maintain or increase muscle mass on Keto?
The secret to maintaining muscle mass is easy: you do it by eating enough protein and doing resistance training.
If you want to build more muscle, you need to enter a caloric surplus. Start with at most 10% more calories than usual, so you can track progress and adjust as necessary. Don’t binge on anything with carbs – it will kick you out of keto. Increase your protein and fat calories.
How much protein is enough to gain muscle on Keto?
You should aim somewhere around 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. That’s a large amount of protein for your daily intake.
How much fat is enough to gain muscle on Keto?
Typically, a gram of protein has 4 calories, similar to a gram of carbohydrates. A gram of fat, however, has 9 calories. That’s right, fat is more than twice as caloric compared to protein. To gain muscle on keto, you should be consuming more protein than fat, somewhere around 60% of your total daily calorie intake. Building muscle will also accelerate your weight loss by reducing fat storage.
What type of weight training is good for me?
It depends on what your objective is. If you want to maintain or even increase your overall muscle endurance, focus on light weight, high repetition exercises. For example, rowing or cycling with lower resistance.
On the other hand, if you want to increase your muscle mass, focus on heavy weight, low repetition exercises. For example, curls or bench press following hypertrophy-based set planning – starting from 12 repetitions per set and decreasing it to 5 or 7 on your last set, all for a total of 3-4 sets.
How to build muscle on Keto
As long as you eat enough sufficient protein and fats, do weight training and allow rest time for your muscles to recover, you’re on track for increasing your muscle mass.
