Keto Bulking: Does It Work?

The ketogenic diet is a high-fat, moderate protein, and very-low-carb diet. It involves drastically lowering your carb intake and consuming fat instead. This helps your body transition into a metabolic state known as ketosis, where your body uses fat to make ketone bodies as an alternative fuel source.

Ketosis occurs when your body has limited access to glucose or carbs, the body's preferred source of fuel. When your body's preferred energy source is drastically cut, it needs to come up with an alternative energy source. Your body turns to your fat reserves for energy and starts producing ketones as the primary energy source.

The keto diet is commonly used for weight loss, but it can also be used to build muscle. Studies show that it is possible to build muscle on the keto diet. For example, a study in 25 college-aged men found that a traditional Western diet and the ketogenic diet were equally effective for muscle gain, strength, and performance.

To build muscle on a keto diet, you need to be in a caloric surplus. This means consuming more calories than your body needs. The calories you need are based on your age, weight, height, activity levels, and gender. It is recommended to increase your calorie intake by 15% above your maintenance calories.

In addition to being in a caloric surplus, eating adequate protein is essential for building muscle. Protein is the building block of muscles, and most studies suggest that eating 0.7–0.9 grams of protein per pound of body weight is ideal.

To build muscle on a keto diet, you should calculate your calorie, protein, carb, and fat needs based on your weight and lifestyle factors. Other factors to consider include resistance training regularly and taking supplements if necessary.

Determine your calorie intake

To build muscle on a keto diet, you need to consistently eat more calories than you burn. The number of calories you need to eat per day to build muscle depends on several factors, such as your weight, height, lifestyle, sex, and activity levels.

The first thing you need to do is determine your maintenance calories—the number of calories you need to consume per day to stay the same weight. To do so, weigh yourself at least three times per week and record your food intake over the week with a calorie-tracking app. If your weight stays the same, that is roughly your maintenance calories. Alternatively, you can determine your maintenance calories using an online calculator.

When you're trying to build muscle, it's recommended to increase your calorie intake by 15% above your maintenance calories. For example, if your maintenance calories are 2,000 per day, you should eat 2,300 calories per day to build muscle. As you build muscle, it's a good idea to adjust your calorie intake around once per month to account for the changes in your weight.

It's recommended to gain no more than 0.25–0.5% of your body weight per week to prevent accumulating too much fat.

Eat plenty of protein

Eating enough protein is essential for building muscle. Protein is the building block of muscles, which means that you need to consume more protein than your body breaks down through natural processes when trying to build muscle.

Most studies suggest that eating 0.7–0.9 grams of protein per pound of body weight (1.6–2.0 grams per kg) is ideal for building muscle.

There’s some concern among keto dieters about consuming too much protein because it could encourage your body to use gluconeogenesis — a process in which amino acids are converted from protein into sugar, which could stop your body from making ketones. However, studies have shown that people can safely consume around 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight (2.1 grams per kg) and stay in ketosis.

According to the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN), you should consume between 1.6 to 2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight to gain good muscle. For example, if you weigh 70 kg, you must consume 112 to 140 grams of protein daily.

If you have difficulty reaching your protein intake, a protein supplement can help you. Make sure to search for one that is keto-friendly to ensure it has a low carb content. If you cannot find one keto-friendly, it should have less than 3 grams of net carbs per serving.

• Meats: beef, chicken, pork, fish/shellfish, etc.
• Eggs: chicken eggs, quail eggs, duck eggs, etc.
• Dairy: cheese, plain Greek yogurt, cottage cheese
• Nuts and seeds: peanuts, hazelnuts, pecans, macadamia nuts, walnuts, chia seeds, flax seeds, sesame seeds, nut/seed butters
• Protein supplements: protein powders, protein shakes

Track your carb intake

Tracking your carb intake is an essential part of the keto diet. To reach and stay in ketosis, most people need to eat fewer than 50 grams of carbs per day, although the exact value can vary.

Calculate the quantity of each serving of food with nutrition labels

If the food is pre-packaged, look at the nutrition label. You will see “serving size,” and “servings per container.” First, convert the units from the recipe to the same as the serving size units if they are different. Then, take how much (quantity) of each ingredient is present in the recipe and divide that by the serving size. Save that answer as the number of servings per recipe. You will multiply the amount of carbohydrates by this answer to determine how much of it is in the recipe.

Navigate to the USDA Food Search tool for fresh food items

For fresh foods without a nutrition label, navigate to the USDA Food Search tool. Edit Select Source for Standard Reference, and enter the name of a food item. Find the food item description that best fits your food. For fresh fruits and vegetables, the term often includes “raw.”

Search and modify the quantity of the item to match your recipe

Scroll horizontally in the table to find the quantity that best matches your recipe. To modify the column, enter a value into the serving size box and hit Enter.

Identify and record the quantity of carbs

Match the value in the column for your desired quantity with the row for total carbohydrates. Record this value for each food item in the recipe, and repeat this cycle for each food item.

Sum the carbohydrate content of each value

Sum each carb value in the column by adding together the values for each food item.

Convert total carbohydrate quantity into calories

To convert carbs into calories, multiply the sum by 4. This product equals the total amount of calories in the recipe derived from carbohydrates.

Estimate your consumption

Next, estimate how much you consumed as a decimal. If you ate the entire dish, it is an easy 1. If you ate half, you would have consumed 0.5 of the dish. One quarter? 0.25. And so on. Multiply this decimal by the total grams and total calories of carbs. These values provide the total amount of carbs and calories derived from carbs that you consumed from this meal.

If you want to engage in carbohydrate counting over time, repeat this process for each snack and meal you consume throughout the day. This technique can help you lose weight, ensure you are eating a balanced diet, and help you meet your athletic goals.

Increase your fat intake

When on a keto diet, it's important to monitor your fat intake. Your body relies on fat for fuel when you limit your carb intake and are in a state of ketosis. After accounting for protein and carbs, fat should make up the rest of your diet.

• Fat-spike your drinks - Add a tablespoon of fat to your coffee or tea. Try grass-fed butter, heavy cream, coconut cream, coconut oil or MCT oil.
• Fat-ify your veggies - Whether roasted, steamed, sautéed or raw, vegetables can handle extra fat from sources like grass-fed butter and extra-virgin olive oil.
• Avocados - Avocados are packed with healthy unsaturated fats and are incredibly versatile. Eat them plain, use them to make guacamole, add them to salads or mash them in the shell with cilantro, lime juice and salt for a quick hand-held guacamole.
• Nuts and seeds - Eat nuts and seeds as a snack or add them to a smoothie or salad. Choose from cashews, pistachios, walnuts, almonds, pecans and Brazil nuts.
• Eggs - Enjoy eggs in all forms, including hard-boiled, soft-boiled, over easy, poached, fried, coddled or scrambled.
• Full-fat dairy - Try full-fat sour cream, full-fat cheese, and full-fat Greek yogurt.
• Mayonnaise - Use homemade mayonnaise in salad dressings or as a dip for veggies.
• Tahini - This Middle Eastern paste made from sesame seeds can be added to smoothies or salad dressings or used to make keto bombs.
• Coconut - Add unsweetened coconut flakes to homemade trail mix or smoothies. Use full-fat coconut milk to make curried meats or roast vegetables in coconut oil.
• Fatty fish - Look for sustainable salmon, mackerel and sardines, which are all high in healthy omega-3 fatty acids.
• Fat bombs - Fat bombs are a dynamo and instant delivery of fat in one or two bites. Check out these Black and White Keto Fat Bombs.

Other factors to consider

Resistance training

Without resistance training, you will gain fat instead of muscle. Resistance training is when you use weight or other strength training exercises to increase your muscle mass. The main goal of resistance training is to create micro-ruptures in your muscles. By creating these ruptures, your body needs to repair them, and this is where they grow.

Supplements

Although not necessary, supplements may help you build muscle. If you're struggling to reach your daily protein needs, you could use a protein powder supplement such as whey, casein, pea, or hemp protein. However, it's important to note that many protein powders contain carbs, so you'll need to account for these in your daily carb allowance to stay in ketosis. You could also try using a creatine monohydrate supplement, as studies show that it can aid gym performance, leading to more muscle gain.

Sleep

Sleep plays a crucial role in muscle gain. When you sleep is when your body recovers and builds that muscle mass. Without adequate sleep, you won't obtain the results you're after. Make sure to have a good night's routine to prepare your body for sleep and ensure you're getting enough high-quality sleep.

Track your food

It's a very popular habit to eyeball your food. You might be eating fewer calories, less protein, or more carbs than you think. To avoid any of these factors from affecting your goals, make sure to start tracking everything you eat. There are plenty of excellent keto cookbooks for meal planning and keto apps for tracking your macros and nutrient intake. Take advantage of them so that you can eat and bulk with confidence that you are going to stay in ketosis.

Frequently asked questions