Awesome PIcs! I'm a powerlifter..BRING ON THE BULK! Jillian Micheals...the aforementioned brunette from the Biggest Loser....looks great! She's fit, muscular and still very feminine. I think women really underestimate the power of metabolically active tissue (muscle) and its effect on metabolism. I train hard, eat carbs, lift a ton AND I am getting more muscular everyday. Even if the scale doesn't move, my measurements get smaller when I train consistently and carry a more muscle mass. cheers

Ketosis does NOT eat up lean muscle mass, there are numerous studies that prove this. In fact as far as diets go, it seems the more carbs you eat, the more lean muscle mass you lose as a % of weight lost. In strict ketogenic diets, with 30 grams or less of carbs per day, virtually all weight lost is fat, and muscle is retained. So that will not be an issue on a highfat diet. If you need references for this I will find some for you.

Oh, and as for the HIIT workout "45 seconds Max sprint. 75 seconds walk. Repeat for 20 minutes total" -- I have done it many times, and after a 30 minute run warmup-- but I also run 25/30 miles/wk. "all out sprint" will be relative, of course, it is very hard to sprint "all out" for 45 seconds even once! My definition of "all out sprint" is: "the fastest time that you can maintain for all 10 of them" (in this case meaning you go by distance instead of time -- 45 seconds should be about 200 meters). that will make it much easier and sane to gauge your effort by. if you aren't used to running, that workout will give you intensely sore legs i bet!! Good thing animal fat is anti-inflammatory...

~gary_demp

See this link, bottom of page:
"Very Low Carbohydrate Diet and Preservation of Muscle Mass"
http://nmsociety.org/index.php?opti...id=20&Itemid=44

Quote:
"The perception that the VLCARB leads to progressive loss
of muscle protein apparently comes from the poorly controlled
"Turkey Study" published in the New England Journal
of Medicine in 1980 [12]. The authors of this study
reported that the protein-only diet subjects were losing
nitrogen yet gaining potassium. As pointed out by Phinney
[13,14], however, potassium and nitrogen losses are
closely related, as they are both contained in lean tissue.
This anomaly occurred because the authors assumed the
potassium intake of their subjects was based upon handbook
values for raw turkey, but half of this potassium was
being discarded in the unconsumed broth. Deprived of
potassium, these subjects were unable to benefit from dietary
protein and thus lost muscle mass [14]."

If anything, those who've been on a calorie restricted high carb diet for a while will regain the lost lean tissue once they go on a VLCARB/VHFAT ad libitum diet.


About the sprint and HIIT/Tabata. I think that 45 seconds for 200 meters is not all out. All out for a top athlete is <10s/100m. For 200m it's <20 seconds. But I agree here that the intensity is relative. It's relative to our current potential. But that will improve over time and from one workout to the next. Below is the Tabata protocol as an example.

20s sprint 170% Vo2Max
10s full rest
repeat 8 times

Any exercise can be used as long as the entire body is used for it. Running, cycling, jumping jacks, burpees, and a few barbell lifts such as the clean or power clean can be used.

That's my take on it.