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Keto for football [Article]

Posted by Pascal Landshoeft

Oct 16, 2019 9:00:00 AM

Keto for football

Keto for football

 
Keto is great for athletes on a cut. As most footballers are more concerned about packing on muscle mass it might not be the best diet for them.
Download 5 free batch cooking plans
 

Keto batch cook

 
By clicking the button above you can get free access to my free batch cooking plans for keto which I have developed together with my wife. I usually take out 4 hours of my weekend to get the food ready for the entire week for us. There is also one pregnancy-friendly batch cook included as my wife craved the carbs when the little one was growing inside of her. Definitely recommend getting into the habit of batch cooking to save money and time. Also gets you some brownie points at home. The plans should save you a month of research and trial and error. Always consult with your doctor first whether you can eat the foods in the diet you are changing too. 

Overview of Keto 

 
The keto diet is a relatively new trend which has its roots in the successful treatment of patients with seizures. While this effect seems quite proven other claimed positive effects of the diet like slowing down cancer, Alzheimer’s and diabetes are still being investigated and the body of long term studies to support these claims still has to grow. 
 
The basic idea of the Ketogenic diet, or short keto diet, is to replace the carbohydrates in your diet through fat. By this, you want to achieve that your body switches into a state where the preferred source of energy is fat instead of carbohydrates. The effect is that your body becomes a fat-burning machine and you lose weight at the places where you normally store surplus fat. 
 
To get into Ketosis on a daily basis is very hard. Depending on the diet you are on the usual recommendation is to stay under 20g of carbohydrates to achieve this. You only look at a big of crisps the wrong way and you are already over that threshold. Eating one apple will also have the same effect. Therefore there are different approaches to the diet of which some make it more palatable than others. 
 
The standard Ketogenic diet divides your macronutrients in 75% fat, 20% protein, and 5% carbohydrates. Calculate whatever the recommended daily intake is based on your gender, age, height, and weight and distribute the calories on the macros accordingly. This version of the diet is very hard to maintain without changing your lifestyle completely and saying no often when food is offered at social occasions. 
 
Another take on the keto diet is the cyclical Ketogenic diet. Here you stick to the diet for five days and allow for more carbohydrates on two days of the week. You might as well call it the “I am allowed treats at the weekend” keto diet. 
 
Another version of the keto diet is the high protein keto diet. Here you apply a split of 60% fat, 35% protein and 5% carbohydrates. This is a version which might be favored by anyone who wants to build muscle. 
 
Things which you can eat on the keto diet
 
  • Meat 
  • Fish
  • Eggs 
  • Butter 
  • Cream 
  • Cheese
  • Nuts 
  • Olive oil 
  • Coconut oil 
  • Avocado 
  • Green vegetable 
  • Tomatoes 
  • Peppers 
  • Small amount of berries 
 
Things which you can’t eat 
 
  • Soda 
  • Fruit juice 
  • Smoothies 
  • Cake
  • Ice cream 
  • Candy 
  • Wheat 
  • Rice 
  • Pasta
  • Cereal
  • Fruit 
  • Peas
  • Beans 
  • Cereal
  • Lentils 
  • Chick peas
  • Potatoes
  • Sweet potatoes
  • Carrots
  • Parsnips 
  • Sauces 
  • Vegetable oil 
  • Mayonnaise 
  • Alcohol 
 

Pros of the Keto diet 

 
 
Keto is said to have positive effects on the following diseases: 
 
  • Diabetes 
  • Low blood sugar 
  • Epilepsy
  • Alzheimer’s 
  • Cancer 
 
I am no doctor so consult with your specialist for your specific case before deciding to go on the Ketogenic diet. The body of evidence for epilepsy seems to be strong while I always take the claimed benefits for diets to help with cancer and heart disease with a grain of salt before there is a lot of evidence to support it. If you want to sell a diet you have a way easier time if you claim it slows down cancer. So almost any leaflet of diet spinners claims this. What I can say is that I did see a marked improvement in my wife’s fibromyalgia symptoms when we stuck to the keto diet
 
What I can also vouch for is that the keto diet helped us to lose weight before our wedding. I went down by 7kg in 2 months and see wedding pictures look fabulous. I won’t talk about my wife’s weight because a wise man just simply does not. What you have to keep in mind is that any diet will work if you stick to it and there is quite a large body of evidence to support that. The weight loss is usually closer tied to the awareness how much food is eaten and a concerted effort to control it rather than the types of food themselves. 
 
Another benefit of the keto diet is that you can still eat fat. 
 
Steak? No problem. 
Berries with cream? Yes, sir, here we go. 
Platter of cheese? Bring it on 
 
If you like meat a lot and want to do a diet, keto is a great option. 
 
As you eat air of fat there is also a very low risk for you to eat too little calories. Fat is very highly condensed energy which comes in a high calorie per gram count. So eating a lot of fat will get you to your daily calorie prescription fairly fast. This is an area where vegetarians can really struggle without taking supplements. You have to eat a lot of cabbage to make it to 2000 calories. Not so much if you put a nice cream sauce on it. 
 

Cons of the Keto Diet 

 
 
As with every diet, the biggest con is that you are depriving yourself of an entire component in your diet, carbohydrates. If there is no medical reason to reign this intake in, the risk-reward might be a little of. If your main goal is weight loss this can also be achieved, and maybe even easier is you don’t have to change your cooking, by taking control of your portions, cutting out desserts and alcohol. 
 
There are also claims that the higher intake of fat makes it more likely for you to get kidney stones. Your gut health might also be negatively impacted. 
 
A big personal downside to the keto diet for me is that it becomes very hard to have a proper side to your main meal. Most side dishes have a lot of carbohydrates in them so you end up only eating the meat and cheese. This went so far for my wife and me that we needed to take a break. It also doesn’t really work when your pregnant. 
 

Alternatives to the Keto diet 

 
There are alternatives to the keto diet if you don’t find this appealing. Some of them are: 
 
 
The low-fat diet was the trend which was based on studies that a high intake of fat would lead to cardiac arrest and other problems in your blood system. With the surge of the keto diet, these studies are being contested. Still, for decades, low fat was the way to go when you were on a diet. What food producers did not tell you was that they still wanted their products to taste nice so that you keep eating them. Things usually taste nice when they either have fat or sugar in them. When you combine both in a cake it is extra delicious. As food producers couldn’t add fat they opted for sugar. 
 
If you like sweet things you can try juicing. Juicing is a diet where you only take in food in liquid form in the form of juices. As with every diet, the idea is to cut out certain foods to make you lose weight and be healthier. The main effect is that you switch from stuffing anything in front of you in your mouth to making More deliberate decisions. 
 
Weight watchers or slimming world are dieting concepts where foods are being attributed points. For each day you get a certain number of points which you can use up. It doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as you don’t go over your daily allowance of points. You can even bank your points and budget for a week. Once a week or month you will meet with your local group to be held accountable for progress. My wife tried it and I went to one of the meetings with her. She didn’t stick long to it. To be honest, me and my wife usually like to do our own thing. For someone who likes to meet with other people to talk about their struggles on a regular basis this concept might be more appealing. There are many examples where weight watchers worked. Again, this is back to portion control, if your goal is weight loss. 
 

Football 

 
Football is a very popular sport in the United States. It developed from rugby and ch ages the basic rule that the ball can only be passed backward. In Football the ball can be passed forward, sideways, backwards, you name it. As soon as the ball hits the ground or the player who carries the ball hits the ground the teams break and reset. 
 
You have for rounds which are called downs to make a gain of at least ten yards. If you fail to do so possession of the football goes over to the other team. The field is 100 yards long and the ultimate goal is to carry the football into the end zone of the opponent. This counts for six points. Once a touchdown is scored you also get the opportunity to convert extra points. A field goal counts for one while bringing the ball into the end zone again counts for two. After that possession of the ball goes to the opposing team. Another way to score is to kick the ball through the two posts from any place on the field. This is a regular field goal and counts for 3. 
 

Pros of football

 
Based on the passing rules football is very fast and aggressive. There is a lot going on in each play and the strategy constantly changes. Defensive players and offensive players need a different set of skills and you will find places for big and strong as well as small and fast players. 
 

Cons of football 

 
The injury risk is very high as you can be blindsided at any team for full impact. It also might not be the best game to develop endurance is the nature of the game comes in sprints rather than long drawn out efforts.
 

Alternatives to football 

 
If you like to engage in full contact and play on a team you have other options like 
 
  • Ice hockey 
  • Rugby 
 
Ice hockey moves the whole game onto the ice with a hockey stick. If you live somewhere where it is very cold and icy almost all year around this might be the better option. Ice hockey is super fast and full contact just like football is. The downside is that you have to get pretty good at ice skating which is not for everyone. 
 
Rugby is another alternative if you want to work a little more in your stamina than with football. In rugby, you have fewer breaks as the clock does not stop when the ball carrier hits the ground. The game continues while you can not pass forward to make a gain. Kicking the ball forward is allowed though. 
 

Keto for football 

 
Most football players are expected to be big and fast. Therefore you might want to opt for a high protein keto diet to cover those needs. More often than not the preferred dieting goal is to pack on mass rather than losing weight, so look into ways on how you can do that sustainably. If you need to lose weight as an athlete, I think the keto diet is a great choice. 

Topics: Keto