Robert Sikes | Keto Bodybuilding: The Journey of Keto Savage | September 15, 2025 Ep. 25

Summary:

In this episode of the Low Carb Consultant Podcast, I interview Robert Sikes, also known as Keto Savage, a natural pro bodybuilder and founder of Keto Savage and Keto Brick. We discuss Robert's journey into the ketogenic bodybuilding space, the importance of reverse dieting, common mistakes people make on keto, and the significance of electrolyte balance for performance. Robert also shares insights on the sugar diet, misconceptions in the keto community, and his daily non-negotiables for success. The conversation wraps up with a look at Robert's upcoming projects and his philosophy on sustainability in diet and fitness.

Find Robert and his companies:

All socials: https://www.instagram.com/ketosavage/

His bodybuilding show: https://naturalstatesavages.com/

His website: https://www.ketobodybuilding.com/

Keto Brick: https://www.ketobrick.com/

Takeaways:

Robert Sikes transformed his health through keto and bodybuilding.

Keto can be effective for bodybuilding without carbs.

Reverse dieting is crucial for those stuck in restrictive diets.

Balance in life and fitness is essential, especially over 40.

Many people overlook total caloric intake on keto.

Electrolyte balance is key for performance on keto.

The sugar diet is not sustainable for most people.

Keto misconceptions persist in the bodybuilding community.

Daily habits and routines are vital for success.

Sustainability in diet is more important than quick fixes.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Robert Sikes and His Journey

02:13 Discovering Keto and Its Impact on Bodybuilding

06:01 The Seven Phased Approach to Bodybuilding Nutrition

10:02 Understanding Hormonal Changes and Nutrition for Older Adults

13:52 Common Mistakes in Low Carb and Keto Diets

17:37 The Sugar Diet: Insights and Opinions

21:22 Daily Routine and Meal Prep Strategies

31:55 The Impact of Social Media on Health Choices

33:27 Unlearning Keto Myths

35:58 Daily Non-Negotiables for Success

38:37 Debunking Keto Misconceptions in Bodybuilding

40:56 Electrolytes and Performance on Keto

46:00 Transforming Your Body in 30 Days

50:00 Crazy Prep Stories and Endurance Challenges

52:26 Common Keto Mistakes to Avoid

54:51 Essential Exercises for Lifelong Fitness

55:35 Upcoming Projects and Future Plans

56:41 lifestyle-outro-high-short.wav

Keywords:

Keto, Bodybuilding, Nutrition, Low Carb, Fitness, Health, Diet, Electrolytes, Sugar Diet, Reverse Dieting

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
All right guys, welcome back to the Low Carb Consultant podcast.
So today we've got Robert Sykes on, better known as Keto Savage.
Robert is a natural pro bodybuilder, author of Ketogenic
Bodybuilding, and the founder ofKeto Savage and Keto Brick, a
performance coaching brand and keto friendly meal bar company.

(00:33):
A veteran in the ketogenic bodybuilding space, he
transformed his own health through keto and now channels
that experience into helping others optimize their nutrition,
performance and mindset. So Robert, man, again, it's a
pleasure to finally meet you here.
Great to have you on. Excited to jump into all this
stuff. Hey man, I appreciate the the

(00:53):
pleasures on minds. Great opportunity.
Always fun for me to connect with people in the space.
So appreciate the opportunity, brother.
Absolutely. And maybe before we get into, as
I say, all the fun stuff, maybe for the listeners who are not
familiar with who you are quite yet or your work or what what
you're specifically focused on, can you give the listeners just
a real brief background on yourself and how you got into

(01:15):
space you're in right now? Yeah, so it's, I mean, I was
super small, man. I was 115 lbs when I started
lifting. I started lifting as a junior in
high school and just really self-conscious, really kind of
depressed in that chapter of life.
Started to lift, fell in love with the sport of lifting, and
then just decided to take you tothe next level with
bodybuilding. Hooked up to 230 lbs, 80 lbs and

(01:38):
12 weeks from my first show. This was long before keto did
everything wrong, developed a bunch of eating disorders and it
was kind of like the whole carbohydrate model, you know,
bro dieting, flexible dieting approach for the first several
years. Realized there had to be a
better alternative. Kind of stumbled upon keto by
accident in 2014. And then I just kind of fell in

(01:59):
love with that as a lifestyle. Then polished it and kind of
refined it from a bodybuilding standpoint and then just became
very passionate about that and then decided to build a brand, a
business, a lifestyle around helping others do the same and
haven't looked back since, man. Yeah, well, let's maybe dive
into that a little bit. So you said you stumbled across
keto around 2014. Were you mainly leveraging it at

(02:22):
that point for, for bodybuildingor were you getting into keto
for like other things, maybe just like health mindset, all
that type of stuff, which I knowketo obviously helps with, but
were you, were you, were you specifically using it for
bodybuilding at first? I was doing keto not knowing
what keto was, so I heard about.I mean, at that time I was like

(02:45):
binging, purging, like really negative relationship with food.
And I was trying to just fix that first and foremost more so
than the bodybuilding endeavors.Like getting that dialed in was
priority numero Uno. And I started doing a diet
called Carbohydrate Backloading developed by John Kiefer.
And it's basically, it's basically keto during the first
half the day and then a bunch ofhigh glycemic index carbs at

(03:07):
night. So I would not eat carbs And
then at night I would slam a tonof carbs like and crappy carbs,
man, like brownies covered in peanut butter and syrup.
Like you were supposed to eat things that were super high
glycemic. And I did that and it kind of
worked well because it, it paired with my binging
tendencies pretty nicely. But I noticed that it wasn't
really sustainable long term. Obviously I didn't really feel

(03:28):
healthy doing it. So I started doing carb
backloading minus the carbs and I felt pretty good with that.
And then again, that was back in2014, 2015.
So there was no word on the street about keto like there was
any books, podcast, websites, there is no keto anything.
My first introduction to keto aslike a dietary protocol was I

(03:49):
heard Tim Ferriss and Dom d'agostino on a podcast way back
in 2014, 2015. And that was when it was like an
aha moment. OK, this is what I'm doing.
Here's the name associated with it.
And then I just started diving deep into keto for whatever
research was on the on the on the subject at the time, which
was like it being used for epileptic, you know, children

(04:09):
with seizures. But I'm like, this is working
really well for me. I don't have the disordered
eating tendencies as much. Let me try and leverage it from
a bodybuilding standpoint. And, you know, everybody, all
the Bros at the gym at the time were like, hey, man, you can't
do that without carbs. You're not going to hump, you're
not going to get shredded. You're not going to have energy
or recover. And I'm like, yeah, but my
relationship with food is much better.
And that alone is worth it for me.

(04:30):
But lo and behold, I got better.I got leaner, I got stronger,
recovered better, and went pro with keto.
So I've kind of put the naysayers to rest, so to speak.
Absolutely. That's so awesome.
And then so on the bodybuilding side of things, do you at all
remember like an exact moment where you found the right macro
nutrient breakdown? And obviously it's going to

(04:52):
change whether you're bulking upfor a show or cutting down,
whatever the case is. But do you remember like an
exact moment where you were justlike, man, I think I found it
Like I found the right break breakdown of the macro
nutrients. Well, I had done so many shows
with the carbohydrate approach, like I had that first show that
I lost 80 lbs in 12 weeks. Like that was obviously not
healthy or optimal. And then I'd done like two or

(05:13):
three or four more shows with the carbohydrate based model.
And you know, I just like the stereotypical bodybuilding, you
know, zombie mentality, massive drop in strength, didn't like
any of it. The first time I did keto from a
bodybuilding standpoint for a prep was in 2017.
And I didn't have my protocol nearly as refined as it is now.
So like right now I've got like A7 phase protocol that I use for

(05:37):
myself and my clients. But back then I was just really
being aggressive with the drop in protein.
And I think for that show, I took my protein all the way down
to I think 65 grams a day at theend of the prep and what I of
protein. Got it, Got it.
Yes, so very low protein, but what was crazy is that even at
that low protein, I didn't notice any drop in strength or

(06:00):
lean tissue. So that was an eye opening
moment for me. It's OK.
Keto in and of itself is a greatway to preserve muscle in the
context of a caloric deficit. And since then I've refined my
process so I don't have to take my protein that low to get the
results I'm looking for. But that was a big eye opening
moment for I feel better than I've ever felt during a prep.
I got leaner than I've ever gotten and I didn't see a drop

(06:21):
in strength and I wasn't a zombie throughout the whole
process. So that was when I knew that
keto for bodybuilding had a purpose.
It was, you know, well merited. So then I just set out to hone
in on that protocol. Very cool.
And you mentioned like the the seven phased approach I believe
which is in your book. So for someone diet stuck in

(06:43):
your opinion, what phase or which phase would deliver the
biggest impact? A lot of people that are stuck
have been chronically restricting in some form or
fashion for far too long. And whether they're competitor
or not, they would likely benefit from a period of reverse
dieting. So actually bringing their
intake back up so they can resetmetabolic rate, hormone function

(07:04):
and all that good stuff. So a lot of people, like I get a
lot of clients, I'm sure you do too, that are like the
quintessential middle-aged womanthat's been following some diet
for 20-30 years and they've justconstantly been restricting the
metabolisms down regularly. The hormones are shot, they
don't feel good, they can't build muscle.
So taking them through reverse dieting period, which is a hard
sell as a coach because it was like wanting to lose weight, but

(07:26):
we're actually going to eat more.
You may gain some weight, but you're going to be in a much
better position to lose more weight after everything's reset.
So reverse dieting is where a lot of people totally miss the
boat. Interesting.
And in regards to maybe getting clients that are a little bit
older, whether it's male, female, I've heard you say in
the past balance is bullshit. What does that mean for someone,

(07:51):
let's say like over 40, which I I would say, I would say the 40
number is like a good age to where like we typically see and
men, but also females like things start moving in the wrong
direction in terms of hormones or weight gain, whatever the
case is. But what does that mean for
someone, let's say over 40, trying to get results with low
carb or keto? Well, there's, there's a myriad

(08:12):
of factors, man, like a lot of people in that chapter of life,
Like I had a podcast on too longago and he was breaking down the
trajectory of like, you know, testosterone as an example,
especially for men. It's like, you know, your
testosterone peaks when you're, you know, a teenager and then
just steadily declines from thatpoint on.
But then after your teenage years, all of your stressors,

(08:33):
your sleep deprivation, your schedule gets more and more
chaotic. So it's like a perfect storm of
cascading events. And at that stage in life,
whether you're male or female, 40s, fifties, 60s, like you've
got more responsibility, you're probably getting less sleep,
you're not as easily able to justify spending time in the
gym. Training and nutrition is often

(08:53):
an afterthought. And that's all in tandem just
wrecks havoc on people through and through.
And I think a lot, I mean, kind of going to the balance of
bullshit phenomenon, like that'sa whole lifestyle oriented
question. But like in bodybuilding, you
know, I view everybody as a bodybuilder.
Like whether you actually step on stage and compete or not is
irrelevant. We all, you know, follow the

(09:15):
same physiological principles. We all build muscle in a similar
fashion. We all lose fat in a similar
fashion. We're all human beings.
So all those same rules apply. Bodybuilders that compete are
taking it to an extreme level, but like what I use as a
bodybuilder would apply to a 60 year old grandmother that's
trying to build muscle or lose fat in the most healthy, optimal
way possible. So prioritizing, you know, the

(09:37):
building and preservation of lean tissue is key, especially
in those menopausal years, you're more at risk of losing
bone density, losing lean tissue.
So anything you can do to, you know, counteract that and keep
it is key. And prioritizing the foods
you're eating and the habits that you're performing on a
daily basis is of paramount importance.
And you can't really do that if you're trying to segment every

(09:58):
chapter of your life out and say, OK, I've got work over
here. I've got, you know, family over
here. I've got nutrition and fitness
over here. It's like it all has to be
symbiotic in nature and work well together.
I love that. And going back to what you were
saying, viewing everyone as a bodybuilder because it's like,
yeah, we all need to be, whetheryou step on stage or you don't,
we all need to be doing some form of resistance training

(10:20):
because that's just going to help you build so many other
things other than muscle, bone density, strength, if you're if
you're a young kid, confidence, right, all those types of
things. Like everyone really is a
bodybuilder. I've never really thought about
it like that. But yeah, you're right.
Everyone is a bodybuilder. We're all trying to put on some
muscle, get stronger, not just like with her body, but in you

(10:41):
could argue and a lot of other aspects with our life.
That's a, that's a really cool and interesting way to take a
look at it in terms of just, youknow, because I know you've
helped a lot of clients. Like what would you say is the
most common low carb keto mistake you see people making?
And, and I would say here, not just necessarily if they're

(11:02):
trying to compete, but just in general, what do you typically
see the the biggest mistake is people make, whether it's low
carb or keto? It kind of goes into waves, man.
Like I've been in the keto spacefor over a decade before it was
the keto space and I've seen these ebbs and flows.
So like early on, gluconeogenesis was the fear on

(11:22):
everybody's lips. Like people were fearful of
protein. They didn't want to, you know,
raise blood glucose at all by too much protein.
So people would chronically not eat enough protein.
Now the pendulum has shifted so far the other direction,
especially with carnivore being so popular that people are like,
protein is a free macronutrient,you can eat as much of it as you
want. And that's certainly going to
impair optimizing fat metabolismto some extent, as well as a

(11:45):
point of diminishing returns with protein consumption.
So that is often times a mistakeI see people make.
And also to the rhetoric of if you have body fat on your frame
to lose, you shouldn't consume much dietary fat.
And that sounds sensible from a far distance.
But like when you actually drillinto that's not really good

(12:06):
advice. And that often times derails
people's progress and ability tosustain the diet for a length of
time as well. Yeah, and, and it's funny that
you bring that part up because I, I so was at this point, I've
had the pleasure of, you know, interviewing some awesome people
like yourself in the low carb carnivore space, like Doctor
kills Doctor Lisa Weedam and thecarnivore Dr. And I, I, I would

(12:32):
like to get your insights on this and just get your two
cents. So in terms of like, let's just
take into consideration the older female who doesn't work
out, let's say like, or they they're not maybe as active as
you or I or someone that goes tothe gym like six days a week.
They're just doing The Walking. They're somewhat active, trying
to get the steps in, but they'reeating high fat carnivore and

(12:52):
they're gaining weight when they're trying trying to lose
body fat, but they're but they're going the high fat
carnivore approach. Do you at all take a look at
situation like that and say hey,based off your activity levels
you might want to bring the fat down or or or are you saying

(13:13):
that you know that might not be the best route?
Like keep the fat high? So.
Like I guess what I'm saying is go like a higher protein, more
moderate fat approach. That's what I'm getting at.
Yeah. I mean, there's certainly
instances where that could totally apply massive mistake
people make. And this kind of dovetails with
that question is that a lot of people in the keto carnivore

(13:35):
space have put like a massive significance on insulin as the
exclusive driver for obesity to the extent that they're paying
no mind to total caloric consumption.
And the word calories has depending on who you ask, that's
like a very. Yeah, it's a touchy word.
It's a touchy word, yeah. But like for me, like I feel

(13:57):
very blessed because I came fromthe bodybuilding space first and
bodybuilders are obviously very capable of changing their body
composition. Like we've got that pretty well
dialed in, but I'm, I've since come into the ketogenic space
where so much of an emphasis on the quality of the nutrition,
the sourcing of the food and optimizing health and longevity.
So I've kind of married 2 worldsin the most ideal fashion and

(14:22):
you get these camps, you like the the bro dieting camp.
It's all about calories, carriesin, carries out, eat less, move
more. And then you've got no mind
being paid towards like the types of foods, the quality of
the food you got people in the carnivore space, they're like
then you we got to get the best quality food.
You got to know your local farmer ranch, which I can
totally appreciate. But then they pay no mind to the
amount of fuel they're consuming.

(14:44):
So like you can absolutely get fat eating the highest quality
ketogenic carnivore foods on theplanet.
Like I've done it, you know, like I can bulk up way too
unnecessarily by eating the highest quality fats of protein.
So there is certainly an argument to be made that people
are consuming too much fat, too much protein, and that's
impairing their progress as well.

(15:04):
So I was curious then let's maybe take a certain situation
into consideration. Let's say we're bulking for a
show, right? Or not like bulking for a show,
but like let's say we're trying to put on some muscle mass and
we're trying to eat in a caloricsurplus.
What would your macros look likein a typical bulking phase?
I'm generally pretty close to 1 to 1.

(15:25):
Like my fat grams, protein gramsare usually pretty close to 1 to
1. All oftentimes have a little bit
more dietary fat than protein. So I like to operate around 70
to 75% of my total calories coming from from fat rather.
But I'm also expending a ton of calories and energy throughout
the day. So like it makes sense that my

(15:46):
energy input requirements would be higher than someone that's
not training like I am. So they could probably and
operate better, you know, at a one to one or slightly lower and
it kind of depends on the individual and the sex to like
I've found that males can typically go a little bit lower
on the fat as a percentage of total calories than females

(16:07):
without adverse effects. Whereas women, especially with
hormonal fluctuations, tend to respond a little bit better to
having a slightly higher fat ratio.
Interesting. So like what would like the
rough numbers be like if would it be like 200, two 25 grams of
protein and fat since they're 1 to 1, Is that kind of like the
range or maybe 225250? And for me, in a building phase,

(16:28):
normally I'm around, you know, 200 grams protein, 225 on the
higher end. And I'll sometimes go as low as
like 150 on the protein in a building phase.
And right now I'm doing an alternate day fasting.
So like I'll typically have, youknow, 6000 calories.
So I might be consuming 300, three, 150 grams of protein and
450 grams of fat, but then not eating the following day at all.

(16:50):
So I'm kind of always experimenting with something,
but generally close to that one to one or slightly higher fat to
protein. I love that.
Any particular reason why you'redoing the alternate day fasting?
Just to try it out and see how you feel?
Or are you trying to cut down a little bit?
I'm not really trying to cut down but like I I'm just
ravenous man. Like I can literally eat if I'm

(17:10):
eating ad libitum. Intuitively I would put down 5
to 6000 calories a day no problem.
But if I ate 6000 calories a dayevery single day, even with my
output, I'd still put on unnecessary body fat.
So for me, the alternate day fasting approach allows me to
eat too satiety on my feeding days and then I just don't think
about food on my fasting days. So my net my average intake for

(17:34):
the week is right around my target intake to maintain a
healthy body weight. That makes sense.
How is that going? How long have you been doing
that for, out of curiosity? About a month and a half now and
it's, I mean, it's been good because like for me, and This is
why I do OMAD in the later phases of a prep, like when my
calories are low, I find it morepsychologically sustainable to
eat one meal and that actually fills me than to have multiple

(17:58):
smaller meals sprinkled throughout the day.
So this alternate day fasting ispretty much that in the context
of a building phase drawn out over a longer period of time.
Yeah, and I think OMAD is great.I just made a post about this.
Like the way that I eat, I flex a lot of these diets.
So I was carnivore for a long time.
I was keto for a long time. I'm a pretty active guy.
I run a lot of half marathons, marathons.

(18:22):
And also I just like like to do just normal basic weightlifting
in my garage and bodybuilding stuff, but I kind of flex a lot
of these diets. So it's like some meals are
keto, some meat and meals are carnivore.
Sometimes I might throw in a little bit of carbs like on a
Friday, I might have some carbs at night if I'm doing like a
training session on Saturday. And then on a Sunday I'll throw
in like an OMAD. So I flex a lot of these diets

(18:44):
throughout the week to not just give me, it gives me a lot of
different meal options, right? But for me personally, it just
helps to keep things a lot more sustainable because you know,
I've got these different strategies that I can blacks and
most times I eat like 2 meals a day.
And that's like where I sit. I'll have like a protein shake
after after I work out in the morning and then I'll have a

(19:07):
lunch and then I'll have a dinner and then it's just like
boom. Then I'm on the same thing the
next day. But I sweep, I switch up the the
meal options, but I pretty much keep my protein high.
Like I try to eat around 2 like 180 to 200 grams of protein a
day. That's basically what I'm taking
in. And then on Sundays, I'll do one
meal a day or sometimes I won't eat and I'll just skip a Sunday

(19:28):
and then boom, it's back on track.
And it kind of just helps to keep my body guessing.
I'm not, I'm not prepping for any show, but it just keeps me
in the shape that I like to to be at year round, if that makes
sense. And then obviously, if I were to
ever do something like a show that I would completely change
it up and do something differentand you know, have to bulk up

(19:49):
and then die it down. You know the strategy would
change, but. That makes no sense man.
Like sustainability is key regardless of the diet and if
that makes it work for you then freaking rock on brother.
Yeah, and and a big part too, I think with just like high fat,
high protein in general is it kind of keeps that food noise
down, you know, like you were, Ifeel like you were alluding to

(20:10):
and and how you're doing the alternate day eating.
It's I and honestly, the the traditional bodybuilding, like
eating multiple small meals a day.
Like to me, that just sounds like a pain in the ass.
I don't want to constantly AI don't want to have to be
constantly eating like every couple hours and B like I just
have other stuff I want to do. That's why I love a lot of these

(20:32):
low carb diet variations like keto carnivore, because you can
eat a meal, eat to your full andthen you're just not thinking
about food. You know what I mean?
I'm just like, we all got lives,We all got businesses and things
that we do. I just don't want to constantly
have my life revolve around food.
And that's the nice part about keto, carnivore, a lot of these
other diets, yeah. 100%, man. I mean like since I started the

(20:54):
businesses, I mean I've got multiple businesses.
I'm on podcast. Like I'm going to 1,000,000
miles an hour from the time I wake up at 3:00 in the morning
till the time I go to sleep. And if I had to stop every two
or three hours like I used to dowith conventional bodybuilding
dietary protocols to get like myTupperware meal out, heat it up,
eat that, and then go back to the day, like, my level of
productivity would be massively hindered.

(21:15):
And I just, I don't have time for that, you know?
Yeah, yeah. And I just don't know if you're
really designed to eat that. Eat like that anyways.
No. No, no.
You mentioned something about waking up at 3:00 in the
morning. And obviously, I know you got a
handful of different things going on.
So what is like, what is right now like?
What is a typical day look like for you?
Like when you wake up, like whenyou train, what does your day

(21:38):
look like? When do you eat?
And then like when are you trying to get to sleep?
So I typically wake up at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning depending
on how much I have to do that day.
I'm trying to get more sleep because that's my Achilles heel
and me sleeping in until 4 is the best I've gotten yet.
So 3 or 4 is when I wake up and I typically have a cup of coffee

(22:00):
and I'll answer emails. I'll do like a little prayer
meditation, like answer emails, knock out my client, work for
the day early in the morning before any of them really wake
up. And then I'll head to the gym
train. That's normally like an hour,
hour and a half. And then I'll go on a trailer
run. So I've been doing like a two
mile trail run through a pretty technical high, you know,

(22:21):
terrain, high elevation terrain not far from our building here.
And then come back, take a shower and then we got our
morning meeting with the crew and then we are just hustling
non-stop. I mean, I'm doing keto brick
stuff, doing keto bodybuilding stuff, keto savage stuff,
recording content, podcast, all that.
And then managing our crew. And then after that, I typically

(22:43):
have a brick for meal 1 or some other form of food for meal one.
And then I'll typically leave the warehouse, leave the
compound depending on the day around 5-6 or seven, and then
head home, have dinner with the family, try and juggle the whole
dad life thing with two kids andmy wife.
And that's a challenge in and ofitself since we just have a

(23:04):
newborn now as well. And then we typically do the
whole bedtime bath time routine and try to get in bed by 9:30 if
at all possible. Yeah, wow, that's a wild day
right there. Yeah, that's awesome.
In terms of just like prepping food, how do you go about that?
Do you have like a #1 strategy for meal prep or have any advice

(23:27):
just to people that are maybe asbusy as you are in regards to
prepping your food? You do like a a Sunday meal prep
type of thing or how do you go about that type of stuff just to
simplify your life with everything going on?
Yeah, if I, if I'm in a competition prep, then I'll
typically meal prep on Sunday, like because my macros change
each week in a prep. So I'll have my macros for the

(23:48):
coming week, prep all that food on Sunday and have everything
ready to go heat and eat throughout the week for the
week. If I'm not in a prep, like I'm
not right now, I'll typically I'm tracking on my macro still,
but I'll typically just have something simple while at the
building, which is normally likea keto brick, you know, heavy
cream in my coffee, maybe like you know, some meat sticks or

(24:09):
tuna or something like that. And then I'll have my main meal
in the evening. When I get home, I'll just cook
it fresh there. Very cool going back because I
know I had a question about, youknow, what the macros look like
when you're bulking. So when when you're in a prep
and you're trying to cut down, how would the macros shift for
you? They change a lot, man.
So like the seven phase protocolthat I've got, you know, like
I'll start with the high fat ratio pretty much starting at my

(24:31):
maintenance caloric intake, starting at about 80% of my
calories coming fat. And then I'll go through phase
two, which is basically increasing my dietary protein
while simultaneously decreasing my dietary fat until I hit my
unique protein threshold. From there I'll start dropping
both fat and protein. That's in phase 3A, phase four.

(24:52):
At that point, my calories are getting pretty low, so I'll
introduce a weekly ketogenic caloric refeed, which is an
increase of both fat and proteinstarting conservatively at about
30% increase above baseline. And then I'll keep scaling that
refeed up as my daily intake is dropping.
And then phase 5 is the peak week itself.
So the competition and I'll do some more manipulations around

(25:12):
that refeed, you know, strategy there.
And then phase six and seven is transitioning into reverse diet
post show. So then I'll start bringing my
calories back up, my food intakeback up until I return to a, you
know, stable baseline again. Very cool.
In regards to show prep, I wanted to ask your thoughts on
the sugar diet because I feel like it's it's it's maybe having

(25:37):
a little bit of a moment. I think the noise around the
sugar diet isn't as loud as it was maybe like a handful of
weeks ago. But from what I'm, from what I'm
seeing and hearing, a lot of people, especially bodybuilders
are using the sugar diet as, as a tool to prep for not just like

(25:57):
maybe being a little bit more full on stage, but also helping
them with just, you know, the caloric restriction in general.
I just wanted to get your thoughts on your on on and your
two cents on it. And and I think I have a feeling
of what they are, but I was justcurious to ask.
Yeah, so like the sugar diet, like took the world by a storm
it seemed for a good month. And then it seems like it's died

(26:21):
out as quickly as it came to some extent.
I mean, there's still a little talks of it, but it's it's
definitely not the hype that it was, you know, six weeks ago or
so. And like when it happened, man,
like I'm like, this is just another another moment of noise
in the nutrition space. You know, like I don't ever want
to be dogmatic towards any macronutrient especially.

(26:43):
I mean, it's just macro nutrients at the end of the day,
but like, recommending people consume primarily high glycemic
index sugars is not likely goingto bode well for a population
that is overweight and obese anddiabetic to begin with.
So like, I don't recommend that.It's not really sustainable.
A lot of people were advocating the use of just, you know, hyper

(27:04):
palpable processed junk food andcandy form, which obviously I
don't want to support that. Some people were more like,
let's take the natural approach.Eat, you know, primarily honey
and fruits and that's fine for people for a short stint, I
would imagine. But like some of these people
were advocating 0 protein, 0 fat, pure sugar, sugar fasting,

(27:26):
which obviously isn't sustainable.
And anything that isn't sustainable that's like a hack
or a short fix. Like I just don't really have
respect or time for. I mean, I've been doing this
diet for the past 10 or 11 yearsnow and it's worked well.
I've gotten better every single year.
Like that to me is impressive. Like I like and respect people
that can play the long game withanything.

(27:46):
The sugar diet is not my idea ofthe long game mentality.
So I'm not a fan of it in that regard.
I put out a couple videos, podcasts around the sugar diet.
And then what's interesting is if you look at from a
mechanistic standpoint, the primary driver for their
increase in metabolic rate via the high glycemic index sugars
was coming from the FGF 21 hormone.

(28:09):
That's primarily, you know, catalyzed by lower protein more
so than high sugar. So I went through a two week
span where I replicated the sugar diet via a fat form of it.
So I had very, very low protein,very, very high dietary fat,
like 8486 eighty, 7% of my calories coming from fat with
very minimal protein. And I was able to replicate the

(28:32):
same results that people were getting with the sugar diet.
That is awesome. And my testosterone, both total
and free, doubled during that two week span of my experiment
with high fat. I don't know what the hormone
markers are looking like for people doing the sugar diet, but
I would venture to say that it probably didn't double.
Well, so First off, that's really, really cool.

(28:52):
And yeah, my two cents on the sugar diet is, yeah, there's no
way it's sustainable. And to your point, with a, with
a population like the United States where it's, I don't even
know at this point, I feel like it's, I feel like the percentage
of people that are overweight orobese is always going up.
Every time you see that statistic, it's always changing,
but always moving up. And now it's like 70%.
Yeah, man, you're going to put someone that has diabetes on a,

(29:14):
on a sugar diet. Really.
Like that just doesn't make any sense.
I, I, I do kind of see. And This is why it is still
somewhat intriguing for me. I do see the potential use case
for maybe a bodybuilder, someonewho is active who has a decent

(29:36):
blood marker profile and is somewhat insulin sensitive to go
on something like that to maybe lose 20 lbs for like a show or
something. But like to give someone who's
like 2 or 300 lbs overweight andadvise them on going on a sugar
diet. That literally make that makes
like opposite sense to me. But but what's wild is so wait,

(29:57):
I kind of want to go back and touch on that a little bit more.
So what you did was you replicated the sugar diet and
really going back to the FGF 21 marker, you just dropped the
protein. And that was really the the
element that moved that specifichormone or marker in the
direction for you to get the benefits out of sugar fasting

(30:18):
without even just pumping carbs or any of that, you just dropped
the protein. Exactly.
Yeah, I dropped the protein increase, the dietary fat ratio,
and I'm in a building phase right now.
So I wasn't trying to lose weight.
So what I did was basically tried to maintain weight while
consuming more calories than I was.
So I basically like my baseline caloric intake is normally
around like 3032 hundred. I increase calories by 1000,

(30:42):
maintain the same weight with that macro split.
Doubled my testosterone in the process and never consumed sour
patch kids. That's actually pretty badass.
So you did you make a post or a YouTube video about that?
Yeah, I put out quite a few newsletters and I made a video
and I had like Mark Bell on the podcast, like he and I are super
cool. So like, yeah, I'm not throwing
shade at anybody that was doing it, but that's was definitely

(31:03):
not what I was advocating for. Well, so let's, I wanted to talk
about this because obviously I, I'm a big fan of Mark Bell and I
love the, the one thing I do love about him is he's always
experimenting, always try tryingthis crazy shit, you know, and
he was definitely one of the guys that was pumping the sugar
diet 100% a handful of weeks agoor months ago, whenever it was

(31:23):
blown up when he was on your podcast and he saw that you were
able to get the effects by just lowering protein and upping the
fat. Like what did he say?
I mean, Marvel respects me, I respect Tim like it's a mutual
good thing there. And like the cool thing about
Mark is like he just he's not saying and none of the stuff he
put out of that sugar that was suggesting that this is the only

(31:44):
way to do it or people should bedoing this.
He he's always taking the approach of like, Hey, this is
the crazy thing that I'm doing and this is what I'm finding as
a result, which I respect that. Like I'm all for it.
Like we need more people that are willing to experiment and
think So like 100% on the same page with them there.
So like he was never, you know, encouraging people like this
was, I don't think he was ever, you know, encouraging 300 LB

(32:06):
obese people to, to do that. But The thing is with social
media is like people latch on toanything.
They, they, they want to remove their own ownership of things
and look for some Holy Grail solution to their problems.
And if it sounds enticing and also satisfies their, you know,

(32:28):
their senses and their desires, then they can justify it and all
the better. And that's what was happening
with the sugar dad. So people that would not be
great candidates were justifyingthe consumption of just
nonsense. And that is something you got to
be careful for when you're like putting content out knowing that
people will take it the wrong way and and make mistakes, you

(32:48):
know? IA 100% agree.
And again, that's the downfall with social media.
It's like you got to be careful with what you talk about and
what you throw out out there because people are going to take
that and they're going to run with it when they might not be
in the best position to do that for themselves.
No, that makes 100% sense to me.Going back to Taquito here for a

(33:10):
quick second. And while we're on the topic of
like maybe bad habits, what in your opinion it'd be like one
fitness or nutrition idea you think in the in the keto space
need that just needs to be unlearned right now?
Is there one like keto bad habitthat people are doing that just
needs to stop? Well I think there's definitely
a massive demographic of people in the keto low carb space that

(33:31):
like legitimately have no desireor will to account for total
consumption and that's just massively hindering their
progress. Like there.
I mean, I 100% agree that if you're going to eat intuitively,
eating a well formulated ketogenic a carnivore diet is
the best way to do so because it's giving your body more
natural hunger signaling cues. You're able to eat intuitively

(33:54):
with this approach much much more safer than if you were
eating a bunch of hyperpaldable processed junk foods that's
constantly fluctuating your blood sugar levels.
But there are people that have seen tremendous, you know,
success with keto carnivore, butthey've plateaued and they're
not able to go to the next level.
But they are convinced that tracking macros, tracking total

(34:17):
intake and pulling those levers is not necessary.
So that's, that's a big one, like actually taking into
account and recognizing that theamount of foods you consume is
incredibly indicative of to reaching a desired body
composition. And it's not exclusively just
hormones like it's both. It's both and not either or.

(34:38):
So what you're saying is the people that are jumping on the
keto or carnivore train and justeating the sticks of butter on
the steak, but they're they're not necessarily tracking.
That is not the right way to go because we and we're going back
to like the, the calorie word a little bit earlier because it
could be touchy for everybody. But I do, I do think you have to

(35:00):
understand how much food you're consuming, the amount of energy
that that food contains, the amount of the macronutrient
breakdown. So you at least know like where
you're driving your ship basically.
Is that what you're saying? People need to get comfortable
tracking. Yeah, yeah, if, if they're not
what they want to be, like if they're 100% they want to be,
then like don't worry about tracking.

(35:21):
But if you're like plateaued, you want to take it to the next
level, that would be the next thing to do.
I mean, what can be measured canbe managed.
And I'm not demonizing sticks ofbutter.
I mean, there's times where I'llput a freaking whole stick of
butter on a steak. Like I'm I love butter.
You know, I'm not saying that that's an issue.
But like, if you are, you know, 400 lbs and 200 lbs overweight

(35:43):
and you're trying to get leaner but you're eating 10,000
calories and not moving, then even if all those 10,000
calories are coming from, you know, grass finished steaks and
raw oysters and liver and you know, pasture raised eggs, like
it's still going to keep you stuck, you know?
Yeah. I would agree with you there.
Going back to like your day-to-day and obviously you've

(36:05):
got like multiple businesses going and you're, you're
obviously very successful in what you're doing, not just in
business world, but in the ketogenic bodybuilding world.
What's your, what's your just? And obviously too, you're a dad,
you got kids, you got all thingsgoing on.
Waking up at 3:00 in the morning, running these companies
like what's, what's your, what'syour daily non negotiable?

(36:25):
Do you have a daily non negotiable?
It might be working out, I don'tknow, but is there something
that you have to do every day tomake you kind of feel centered
and keep things moving in the direction that you want to be
moving? Kissing my kids every single day
that I'm home is a good one. Like I don't leave the house
like kissing them. I don't go to bed without

(36:46):
kissing them. Like that's a big one from a
personal side, from a fitness side, like I, I don't deviate
from keto. Like I've been strict keto for
the last decade or so. So that's a non negotiable that
doesn't even feel like a sacrifice anymore because it's
just my norm. And then from like a fitness,
you know, training standpoint, like I'm typically doing
something active every single day.
I don't weight lift every singleday, typically 5-6 days a week.

(37:10):
I'm normally running. I've been getting into running
lately. So I'll normally run every
single day unless I'm traveling or if I've got like I've got
like some, I'm not really an injury, but like I've been going
hard here lately on things. So I might, you know, take a
break from running for a day or two to let things heal up and
recover. But like I've got my crew, I've
been trying to get them into fitness.
You know, I've got, I got two, I've got 3 employees that are

(37:32):
doing a bodybuilding show. One of them couldn't even do a
single pull up before I started working with us.
Now we all take a break from work and we all do 70 pull ups
together. That's awesome at some point
during the day. So like we're always doing
something active for sure. That's very cool.
So I've got a portion of my podcast where I get into some
rapid fire questions that don't necessarily need rapid fire

(37:54):
answers. Like so elaborate as much as you
want, but in terms of keto, ketobodybuilding, what do you feel
like is the like the biggest misconception about keto in the
bodybuilding space? Well, I mean, people are
convinced that you have to have carbs to build muscle or perform
optimally. And I, I would think that I've

(38:15):
been able to dispel those rumors, but I mean, bodybuilders
are stubborn as I'll get out. And that's a good thing cuz it
like allows them to just, you know, be super disciplined in a
lot of ways. But like, there's negative
connotations of being too stubborn with certain things as
well. And I would hope that the notion
that you couldn't be competitiveas a ketogenic bodybuilder would
have died by now, but it still is commonly believed.

(38:39):
So that's one for sure. The notion that you can't get
shredded naturally, I mean, I freaking got shredded, man.
I was the leanest man alive in 2023 at 3.9% body fat.
And I did that all naturally with a strict ketogenic
approach. So just some misheld beliefs
that you can't diet down, you can't have energy, you can't

(39:00):
perform optimally, recover and build muscle without
carbohydrates. Like all of that's just noise
and it's not true. Yeah, Just out of curiosity
here, does it ever pop into yourmind?
Because we were talking about your your your non negotiables a
little bit earlier, everything to yourself.
Like, yeah, well, what if I wereto just try a little bit of
carbs? Like does that ever creep in or

(39:22):
you just so like focused in on what you're doing in the keto
bodybuilding space that it's like it doesn't ever pop in your
mind? Or sometimes does it creep in
that, you know, what if I were to try a little carb post pre
training to see if it gives me alittle bit of boost?
Does that ever happen? No, I mean because I've, I mean
I used the cars before, like I was carbs all in my early

(39:45):
bodybuilding years. And like, I know how I felt, I
know how I performed, I know howmy body responded.
So it's not like it's an unknownthing.
I just know that I'm better now without them.
So I feel like I'd be sacrificing potential gains if I
went back to them. And honestly, like I'll still
have, you know, I'll get trace carbs in throughout the day.

(40:06):
So depending on what my total caloric intake is, I mean, I may
have 50 grams of carbs a day, but that's a very small
percentage of my total calories if I'm eating 6000 calories.
So yeah, I haven't had a carbohydrate based meal or food
in over a decade and my performance just continues to
get better and better, so I don't feel like I'm missing out.

(40:27):
That's awesome. And, and, and the reason why I,
I asked that too, because again,one of the main reasons why I do
play around with carbs on certain days is because I do
notice, and this might, this might because of like a salt
water intake issue, but I do notice that I've, I, I get a

(40:47):
little bit more pump out of the workout, a little bit more pump,
I do feel a little bit stronger.So being basically 0 carb, what
do you do for like an electrolyte supplementation
standpoint? And, and, and I'm getting at
that question for mainly like, do you in terms of getting like

(41:10):
a good pump in the gym, right. If for you, is it a salt thing?
Like how do you use salt? How do you use electrolytes?
That's what I'm curious about. Yeah, so couple, couple things.
First, like a lot of people thatif they're first, you know,
switching to the ketogenic diet,you know, early on, they will
likely notice a drop in performance temporarily because

(41:31):
it takes some time to get that metabolic machinery in place.
They're going to flush out a lotof those electrolytes.
They're not going to get a good muscle contraction.
They're going to look flat. Like all those things hold true.
You have to make sure you're deeply, deeply fat adapted.
And I always tell people to be strict keto for at least six
months before you, you know, throwing the towel, so to speak.
But I also believe that the longer you are adapted, the more

(41:53):
adapted you become kind of like in this compounding exponential
manner. And I've been able to kind of
illustrate that through, you know, VO2 Max testing and like,
at what point my body uses fat metabolism primarily versus
glucose metabolism. So I feel like the longer you
are strict keto, the better you get at being strict keto.
And there's been studies that illustrate that once you are

(42:14):
fully fat adapted, your body's ability to replenish and replace
muscle glycol glycogen is on parwith some of its consuming
carbohydrates. Plus, if you're eating at a
surplus and you're consuming ample fats and proteins from the
glycerol backbone of those fats and the amino acids in the
protein shouldn't really have any issue in filling that muscle
and liver glycogen. So at that point, it really

(42:35):
becomes sodium and electrolyte manipulations and fluid intake.
So I generally trans, you know, strive for about a 2 to one
ratio between sodium to potassium.
And if I'm hydrated and I've gotthat ratio dialed in, then you
know the best pumps I've gotten have been with keto and not with
carbs. Interesting.
So you do a 2 to one sodium, what do you do you use like

(42:56):
element or something? Or do you use like your own
concoction? Yeah, I mean, I've used them
all. Like I like relight, I like
elements. I like there's a, there's a
bunch of them salty. I mean some really good
electrolyte blends out there. You got to kind of look to see
what form of the mineral is being used, you know, whether
your body responds to a citrate to work.
You know, there's a million different forms in different, so

(43:18):
like the citrate some more so 'cause, you know, intestinal
fluid and GI distress. So I try to not get that.
I'll go for a chloride more often than not, but like making
sure the sodium potassium equilibrium is in check along
with the amount of water you're consuming is key.
And it's crazy man. Like when I'm in a prep and I'm
manipulating my refeed macros for peak week, I'll also

(43:41):
manipulate my sodium intake the day before the show and I can
increase sodium very specifically over baseline and
eat more food. I'll lose weight overnight as I
sleep, wake up at a lighter weights and just have like crazy
vascularity. And that's all coming from those
relations with electrolytes. Very cool.
So what was it just so for like the the sodium, potassium, maybe

(44:05):
magnesium breakdowns like pre pre workout.
Are you are you taking like maybe like a like a 500
milligrams or like a gram of salt?
Like what does that typically look like?
Usually about a gram. So I'll try if I'm going to use
like a pre made electrolyte, I'll try and get one that has
like a built in two to one ratioalready.
So like Redmond Relight, I thinkthey've changed their formula a

(44:27):
few times, but I think there's now is like 800 milligrams
sodium, like 400 milligrams of potassium.
So I'll do that and I'll have that like you know, that in 25
fluid ounces of water, you know,when I first wake up and then
another one intro workout while I'm training and you know, kind
of keeping something like that works pretty well for me.
Yeah, I feel like, especially because I'm, I'm in Texas and so

(44:50):
and I work out in my garage and it's like basically working out
in a hot box, which I love it. Like I love sweating my brains
out, but it's like you have to keep you got to have salt in
your water to to kind of keep moving a little bit because you
can like I can lose a lot of salt real freak of quick if I'm
not careful, especially like running out here too, because
I'm a big runner, man. If you're not, if you're not
careful before you go out for a run and it's like midday, like

(45:12):
you're, you're, you're going to be hurting halfway through.
Totally. And if you're not like, you
know, hydrated and dialed in those electrolytes, like you're
going to feel miserable. I mean, there's been periods of
time like if I'm traveling and my intakes off, my hydrations
off, you know, like I don't get a good muscle contraction, don't
get a good pump, I'm exhausted. Flying.
Flying does that to you dude. Yeah, flying jacks you up big

(45:34):
time. But if you're dialed in like you
feel like 1,000,000 bucks and you know, that can all be
related to just making sure thatelectrolyte equilibrium is on
point. 100% agree. OK so if someone here's the next
rapid fire question. If someone wanted to look and
feel completely different in 30 days using keto, what are the

(45:55):
top three things they must do starting today?
Look and feel totally different in 30 days. 30 days is pretty
short time span man. You can change the way you feel
in in 30 days no problem. But as far as how you look like,
I always like a longer time scale.
Like when I'm in a prep, I typically, you know, budget four

(46:18):
to six months for me to go to, you know, walking around
building phase to like show ready.
So I typically operate in like months instead of, you know, 30
days. But like, perspective is key
too, man. Like I think when people, people
get in trouble by having this quick fix mentality, like I hate
all the, you know, 6 pack shortcuts, you know, 30 day

(46:40):
challenges. Like I just don't subscribe to
that mentality. But you can get super excited
about the daily wins you're having if you're striving for a
longer time timeline goal and you're making tangible progress
for it every single day. Like weight loss and weight gain
is not typically linear. Like if I look at any of my prep
spreadsheets, you know, I'll seemy weight go up and down, but

(47:02):
it's trending in the right direction, the desired direction
over that time, the entire time.So I think people just need to
give themselves a longer time window and play the long game.
And when they do that, they're not going to be heartbroken when
they don't look a certain way ina week.
Yeah, man. And, and to be honest with you,
this kind of goes back to what Ifeel like you were saying a
little bit earlier when we were talking about the sugar diet and

(47:25):
these quick fixes. You know, like the sugar diet
just seems like to me something like someone would just jump on
so they don't have to do the hard work right.
And like really, what is the hard work?
It's it's moving the majority ofthe days out of the week, like
getting a good solid hour dedicated to like some
resistance training, getting your diet dialed in, like doing

(47:46):
the basics work on your sleep. But it's not going to come in a
pill. It's not going to come in a form
of some freaking crazy diet where you're pounding sour patch
kids and like eating some wild way.
It's like there there's no real hack, man.
If you just do the work and thenthis goes back to like enjoying
the journey, not the destination, man.
If you can kind of fall in love with the way that you eat, the

(48:09):
way that you train, getting daily movement in, man, you'll
look however you want to look. And 6090 days, whatever the time
frame is like. That's what's key, dude.
Yeah 100% man. The thing is like it may suck
initially but then once you do it and you see the progress
being made, you fall in love with the journey and then it no
longer seems like a sacrifice. Like it's just part of the day.

(48:31):
Like you probably brush your teeth on a regular basis, So do
I. My 3 year old hates brushing his
teeth. Like it's like a big ordeal
every time he brushes teeth. He's gotten better but it's
still a big ordeal. We've been doing it for so long.
That's just part of the day. When you can think of eating the
right food, putting in movement training as just as much a part
of the day as brushing your teeth.

(48:51):
There's no sacrifice, it's just part of it and you get better as
a result of it. Yeah, well said.
What's one thing you did during Prep that most people would call
crazy? But it absolutely worked.
Well I wouldn't recommend this for prep necessarily but I did
it and it was pretty crazy. So I do a 50 mile March every

(49:11):
year to raise money for veteransthat are homeless and displaced
and it's it's awesome Like it's cool to like give back to the
veteran community. But in 2023 when I did my 5
competitions, I looked at the the calendar and I'm like man,
this 50 mile March is literally the Saturday and Sunday
preceding my peak week for my first show.

(49:34):
So I was like, you know, 33 weeks into prep in total.
You know, towards the end of that I went on a 50 mile March
through the night, no sleep, in a caloric deficit, and then
literally the next day upon waking is peak week for me,
which is pretty gnarly. Like no other competitor that I
know would do then. But we freaking rocked it and I
won the show, so it's all good. Yeah, that's, that's awesome.

(49:57):
Like how did you feel? How did you feel after that
March? Honestly, man, I felt pretty
good because like what I've found, I've done the March 5
years now and the first time I did it, I did everything wrong.
Like I was on crutches for a week afterwards.
I didn't wear socks, I had blisters.
I mean like it was just not good.
But when I did that prep, you know, I was so much lighter.

(50:17):
So walking 50 miles through the night at, you know, 155 lbs is
way easier on my joints and knees.
And that same 50 mile March at 180 lbs.
So honestly, I didn't feel too terribly bad at all.
Yeah. So do you wear like a rucksack
at all or is it just like it's like a body weight mark?

(50:38):
No, you got to have like they require you to have like water
and like flashlight, like all this stuff.
Got it. You need to be self-sufficient
snacks and stuff like that. But it's pretty cool, man.
It's from Lincoln to Omaha. It's 22 hours long to represent
the 22 vets that take their lives daily.
And I mean, we've raised a ton of money for the veterans and
it's all going to them. So it's it's a pretty cool
'cause. That is very cool.

(50:58):
That is very, very cool. If you had to pick one food to
fuel your training for the rest of life, what would it be?
Man. Would you?
Would you just be smashing keto bricks or?
I do love my bricks. I mean, I literally eat 1:00
every single day, but I if I could just pick one thing for

(51:22):
the rest of this eternity, it'd probably be like something that
I've haunted and harvested myself.
It's tricky because most wild game that I hunt is very lean
and I would want some more fat on it.
So I don't know, I'm going to have to move up to Northwest and
be like hunting grizzly bears orsomething to get some fatty
grizzly meat or something. So like maybe like a rib eye,

(51:44):
would that maybe be the answer if if you had?
I do like, I mean, if I'm just like looking at steak cuts, I
love Pecania. Like like lamb, Pecania is the
bomb. I went to Brazil for 10 days
looking for a cacao butter for the bricks.
And you know, Brazilian steakhouses are pretty common in
Brazil and they have Pecania. I could crash that every single
day, man. Man, I bet you ate well down

(52:06):
there. That's like the perfect place
for. That's like the perfect place
for someone like us is. Yeah, just get literally
crushing Brazilian steakhouse meat every single night.
Yeah, exactly. You can't go wrong down there.
No way. That's awesome.
All right, What's the most common mistake people make on
keto that's secretly destroying the results?

(52:27):
That's a good one. The secretly destroying their
results. I mean, we can't touch like a
lot of the big ones, like not paying any money to total
intake. Like I'd probably default to
that as my response. But I mean, I think like lazy
keto is pretty bad too. Like, you know, you look at
people that are doing keto and they're just going to
McDonald's, take the bun off of burgers.
Like dirty keto kind of same. Thing Yeah yeah, dirty keto and

(52:50):
it's like from a macro nutrient,you know, if it fits your macros
kind of criteria standpoint, like you're still going to see
progress with that. And I would, you know, I
encourage people to do that as opposed to eating a bunch of
hyper processed carbohydrates and sugars.
But like I try to take a holistic approach to the food
that I'm eating. And you vote with your dollar.

(53:11):
And I like knowing that everything that I consume, I've
either harvested myself raised on our farm or know the local
farmer rancher that it comes from and I can like give back to
the community. So it's not really harming them
from like a health standpoint, but just from like a holistic
humanity standpoint. I feel like actually putting an
emphasis on where you get your food and knowing where it comes

(53:32):
from and the people that it's impacting is very important.
Well said. Well said.
All right, this is the last question here and I like to ask
this to some of the the fitness people that I interview because
I've interviewed a lot of guys in the CrossFit space and those
types of things. You got 10 exercises that you
can do for the rest of your life.

(53:52):
Only 10. They don't necessarily need to
be in any specific order, but what would what would the 10 be
for you all? Right.
So deadlifts, squats, a militaryPress of some sort, barbell
rows, bench press. That's not throw in, that's

(54:13):
five. OK, throw in, run.
You know they'll run pull ups, lunges.
And then I got two more. Let's throw in like a lateral
shoulder raise of some type and rocking, Yeah.
Rocking would you? What do you do for ABS?

(54:35):
You train ABS at all? Yeah, I do.
But I mean, if you're doing likedeadlifts, you know, barbell
rows, squats, like you're going to be engaged in your core quite
a bit with that. If you're doing like heavy
rucks, you're going to be engaged in your core quite a bit
with that. So like if I can only pick 10, I
wouldn't do a dedicated AB movement as a 10 as one of my
10. Well said.
I I would agree with you. Yeah, man, You can get away with
building a girthy midsection just knocking out some heavy

(54:58):
deadlifts, man. Well, before we wrap up here,
Robert, anything new coming up for you?
What's going on? What's coming down the pipeline?
Man, there's always something inthe pipeline.
So we're hosting. I'm promoting my first
bodybuilding competition, so I'mnot competing this one.
I'm putting it on. That's going to be September
27th this this month. It's going to be freaking

(55:21):
awesome, man. Like we're no expense period
going all out. Like I got an awesome venue.
I got judges coming in from all over the place.
We got competitors lined up likewhere my dad's going to be
smoking, you know, BBQ pork butts there for the attendees.
Like we're going all out. And then I've got a ton of
content that's getting into ketobodybuilding.
So ketobodybuilding.com is like my content, you know, hub as far

(55:44):
as like coaching. I've got an online course, like
I've got a super comprehensive online course that's over 200
videos that basically walks people through my seven phase
protocol. There's a community there for
people that need accountability.So yeah, I'm really proud about
that. Really excited about that.
Just excited to keep adding to it.
Yeah, absolutely. And again, this, this, this was

(56:05):
fantastic. Robert, It, it was a pleasure to
to meet you here and and pick your brain on a couple things.
Where can people find you online, get in contact with you,
work with you, all of that? If Abe is interested in coming
to the competition, that's goingto be Natural State,
savages.com, ketobodybuilding.com for the
content and the coaching, Keto brick.com for the Bricks, and

(56:27):
then I'm Keto Savage on all social platforms.
Very good, very good. Well, again, this was awesome,
Robert. And thanks guys, for listening
to the Low Carb Consultant podcast.
We'll catch you guys on the nextone.
Appreciate you man. Appreciate you.