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The No Nonsense Ketogenic Article of Your DreamsThe ketogenic diet is probably the trendiest diet ever. It’s also probably the most misunderstood diet ever as marketers and influencers love to take advantage of it’s popularity by overexaggerating claims and taking science out of context to hype up ketogenic products.Ultimately, you’re wondering, is keto truly good or bad for you? Is it overrated or can it be useful? Let’s answer this looking at the unbiased science, shall we?What is Keto? (pronounced key-toe not ket-toe)So, what even is keto? The ketogenic diet is essentially a moderate protein, high fat, and very low carb diet. The goal of this diet is to toss you into a state called ketosis by severely restricting carbohydrate intake.This carbohydrate limit for keto is generally about 50 grams a day (2,3). This is not a set in stone limit for everybody as mild ketosis has been seen in some people with slightly higher intakes, but generally speaking you’d want to stay under about 20-60g of carbs daily to remain in ketosis. This likely means the only carbs you can eat are fibrous vegetables.What the Heck is Ketosis?So being on a ketogenic diet puts you into ketosis. Ketosis is where your body’s primary fuel source of glucose and fat switches to primarily using fat and ketones (4,6).Your brain in particular, uses primarily glucose. It can’t use fat so when carbs are severely restricted on keto, your brain switches to using ketone bodies that your body produces. Ketone bodies also called ketones are essentially an alternative fuel source for your brain when glucose isn’t available and despite what keto zealots will tell you, ketones are likely not the ideal fuel source for your brain when compared to glucose (9,10).As for the rest of your body it begins to utilize fat more as opposed to glucose (carbs). This might negatively affect you depending on your goal, but we’ll talk more about that later.This entire process of converting to ketosis generally takes about 3-4 days and usually isn’t pleasant to adapt to (5). This is why people often report what they describe as keto fog or keto flu within the first few days/weeks attempting the diet describing symptoms of sickness or fatigue (16).While on keto, it’s also common for people to report bad breath known as keto breath because of the presence ketone bodies in the blood (6).A bit random, but it’s interesting to note that ketosis can also occur with extended fasting and times of starvation (11).How Keto StartedEven though your annoying co-workers on keto might make this diet sound new and flashy, it’s actually not new. The ketogenic diet has been frolicking around for an entire century and if you’ve been attentive, it spikes in popularity every couple of years, then dies down slightly before spiking up again.And this might be shocking, but keto actually didn’t start as some flashy fat melting diet popularized by celebrities. It actually started way back in the 1920s where doctors used it to treat epilepsy (1).Epilepsy is a neurological disorder associated with seizures. 1 in 26 people will develop epilepsy and fortunately the ketogenic diet has been shown to help.What About My Love Handles Bro?You’re probably thinking, “that’s great and all that keto helps children with seizures, but what about my weight loss goals bro? Is keto good for that?”Yes, keto can definitely be good for weight loss, but it isn’t magical or superior to other diets as keto marketers would have you to think.When people first learn about ketosis, many misunderstandings arise.Because you do burn more fat than carbs while in ketosis, it leads many to believe you’ll lose more fat on keto.Unfortunately, what marketers don’t want you to know is that burning and losing fat are completely different. You can burn more fat, but not necessarily lose more fat off your body.How is this so?Well, your body adapts to the fuel source you provide it. With extreme fat intakes and extreme carb restrictions, your body is obviously going to burn more fat and less carbs because that’s what you’re providing it (8,12).Burning fat simply means your body is oxidizing it as fuel. On the other hand, to lose fat, you have to burn more total fat than you store or in other words, you have to be in a caloric deficit.When tightly controlled studies comparing low carb vs low fat diets, even though the low carb group burned more fat, it also stored more fat making the net outcome the same when calories and protein intake are equal (7).This is why despite the hype behind ketosis, fat loss is not superior on a ketogenic diet given calories and protein in a diet is matched.Net energy balance (calories in vs calories out) still determines fat loss not ketosis (14). This is also to a good time to bring up that the ketogenic diet shares the same awful potential as every other diet on this planet which is, it still has the potential to make you fat.Even though ketosis might sound great, it doesn’t miraculously save you from excess calorie consumption. If you eat more calories than your body can burn over time, you will still gain fat regardless if you’re in ketosis or not.Why the Ketogenic Diet Might Be a Good Idea For Fat LossEven though the ketogenic diet isn’t necessarily superior when compared with other diets given the same calories, there are two advantages to the ketogenic diet you might want to consider if the goal is fat loss.The first advantage is appetite suppression. Ketosis can suppress appetite for some people if maintained consistently (13).Now this appetite suppression benefit generally takes about 3 weeks to take effect, so like any other diet, to reap the benefits, you have to be consistent (15).The second advantage to the ketogenic diet is early weight loss (7). This applies to all low carb type of diet as restricting carbs causes additional losses in water and glycogen at the beginning. However, studies show long term body composition is the same.Even though the long-term effects are the same, in my experience, the early weight loss of a low carb diet like keto can be very beneficial for clients who want to see the scale drop fast early on.This could ignite motivation in people who are easily discouraged when initial progress appears too slow even if most of the early weight is just water.Why the Ketogenic Diet Might Be a Bad Idea For Fat LossDespite being a viable weight loss diet on paper, people forget in practice, you have to actually stick to the diet consistently to reap the rewards.Some of the studies I mentioned earlier are metabolic ward studies or tightly controlled studies, meaning participants were housed and forced to eat the exact food instructed. This is great to study the effects of a diet with clarity, but this doesn’t tell us much about whether the diet is easy to stick to given your own free will.When you look at ketogenic studies where participants weren’t paid, housed, and forced to eat specific foods, it showed the ketogenic diet is not easy to adhere to (17).This is very similar to people I know who claim to be doing keto. Most people I see who do keto don’t have the ability to restrict carbs consistently and end up having cheat meals on the weekends which inevitably will kick you out of ketosis. Even if you ate no carbs the following week, it would take you half the week to finally get into ketosis in which you would stay for only a couple of days before cheating again.A true keto diet has very little to no carbs which is usually too restrictive for people to stick to for long periods. Research has shown us the only people who actually stick to it consistently are paid athletes and people housed in confined studies like lab rats.Still, the ketogenic diet can be a great weight loss diet if you can stick to it consistently. If you can’t, no sweat, there are plenty of other options that are just as good. Keto is simply just another tool to choose from in the endless toolbox of diets.What About Other Goals?Even though, the ketogenic diet started gaining mainstream popularity for the sake of weight loss, many influencers are promoting it for other goals like hypertrophy or performance.In reality, a ketogenic diet seems to be potentially suboptimal for both hypertrophy and performance.Let’s take a deeper look at these aspects.Keto and Athletic PerformanceWhen it comes to traditional sports performance, keto isn’t ideal both in terms of aerobic and anaerobic measures.This is because with a ketogenic diet, you lack carbohydrates and besides tasting really good, carbohydrates have other crucial benefits (28).For starters, when carbs are burned for fuel, they produce more energy than fat (18). On top of this, a carb sufficient diet will allow the glycogen in your muscles to be full along with replenishing it during exercise, both of which is critical for maximum performance (19).Here’s a systematic review in 2016 showing carbs are beneficial for performance particularly when exercising for longer than 90 minutes (20).In actual competition, victories are attained thanks to carbohydrates. Race winning moves, sports of long durations, and bouts of high intensity all rely heavily on carbs (21,22,23,24,27).Research has also indicated in concurrent training where both resistance and endurances styles of training occur, a ketogenic diet is not optimal (19).This study on CrossFit for example, concluded that a moderately low carb diet might be ok for short durations of CrossFit, but a higher carb diet is likely needed to maximize performance especially for longer demands (25).As far as pure anaerobic performance, this study showed keto isn’t as good either (26). You’ll likely lose power.Further Considerations for Athletic Performance on KetoAnother big thing to consider as it pertains to athletic performance is metabolic flexibility. This is a concept made famous by Dr. Mike T Nelson and it’s basically the idea of how flexible your metabolism is. If you’re in ketosis, your metabolism isn’t very flexible as it’s only adapted to fat and not carbs.Having a flexible metabolism means you can switch back and forth between fat and carb use instead of just solely using one.By going on keto, you’re less metabolically flexible. As carbs are restricted, an enzyme called PDH which controls carbohydrate use gets hindered (29).Once this enzyme is hindered, it doesn’t recover immediately. When you reintroduce carbs, you still won’t maximize on the performance benefits of carbohydrates for some time even if glycogen stores are replenished (29).With all this considered, at best keto is ok for athletic performance and at worse it’s vastly inferior to any other diet that includes sufficient carbs.Keto and Lifting PerformanceBut surprisingly outside of traditional athletic sports and concurrent styles of training, the evidence behind keto’s effect on pure lifting is not as clear cut.Most keto studies on strength training have major limitations like not controlling for equal protein as well as not testing for blood ketones to ensure ketosis is achieved and maintained.Considering the glaring limitations, some studies do show the ketogenic diet can maintain strength comparable to the control groups (30,31).This review article on carb’s effect on resistance training concluded it most likely depends on the volume, duration, and intensity (32). With more volume/time of lifting, carbohydrates become increasingly important.This lines up well with a study done on intermediate Olympic lifters, a sport in which volume and duration of intensity is fairly low compared to traditional sports (33). The Olympic lifters lost fat and muscle on a ketogenic diet, but was able to maintain performance. While Olympic weightlifting is considerably different than the strength training most people do to get jacked, this study at least shows the ketogenic diet can be advantageous for weight class restricted athletes looking to maintain performance.So what’s the verdict on keto’s effect on strength training?Considering the data we do have on traditional athletic performance and the limited data we have on keto’s direct relationship with strength training, my conclusion is that a ketogenic diet is likely fine for lifting performance given volume and duration is low.However, I do think a higher carbohydrate diet would be beneficial for maximizing strength training if your workouts involve a lot of sets/reps or go pass 1 hour.Keto and Muscle BuildingSome people will say you can’t build much muscle on keto because you can’t eat much protein without going out of ketosis.In theory this is true because protein can be converted into glucose which would stop ketosis, but when played out in practice, high protein intakes have been shown to not kick people out of ketosis as long as carb intake is very low (34).Research has shown as much as 2.8g of protein per kg of bodyweight doesn’t withdraw you from ketosis. That’s way more than enough daily protein to build muscle.As for not having sufficient carbs, we know that the muscle signaling enzyme mTOR is unaffected by carbohydrate restriction (35).So then this begs the question if protein is equal, is there any muscle building benefit or drawback to eating a ketogenic diet?The answer is yes. This infamous study done by Vargas and colleagues shows that despite being assigned a caloric surplus, the ketogenic group could not eat in a surplus and resulted in no muscle growth.This is not saying you can’t build muscle on a ketogenic diet, but it does show that it’s difficult to eat enough total calories on keto. This is likely because the ketogenic diet as discussed earlier is pretty good at suppressing your appetite.In general, I don’t recommend the ketogenic for muscle building. While it is possible, it’s not optimal because it makes it harder to eat sufficient calories and overall gym performance is likely compromised (32).Bonus StudyI have one more ketogenic study that’s important to highlight (36). This one compared a ketogenic diet with just a basic low carb diet.We know if calories are matched, the weight loss will be the same, but what I found interesting is that the low carb diet outperformed the ketogenic diet when it came to micronutrients.With the ketogenic diet’s drastically low carb requirements, you miss out on fruits, starches, and grains, all of which have plenty of valuable vitamins and minerals.It goes to show you two important things.If you prefer a low carb diet, a simple low carb diet is probably better than a pure ketogenic diet where carbs are practically banned.If you do choose to do a ketogenic diet, selecting nutrient dense foods is important to prevent nutrient deficiencies given your limited food choices.Wrapping it All UpI hate to sound like I’m bragging, but this is literally as comprehensive and unbiased of a ketogenic diet article as you’re going to get. Just like with all my other articles, I’ll be updating it if new evidence comes out.To recap everything into adorable little bullet points, here’s the key takeaways.The ketogenic diet’s goal is to put you into the state of ketosis. This generally takes 3-4 days of heavy carb restriction.Most people are not able to stay in ketosis because of dieting inconsistencies, not to mention there are annoying side effects to adapting to ketosis.Regardless of attaining ketosis or not, the ketogenic diet is like every other diet when calories and protein are matched. It can make you lose weight if you eat low enough calories and it can make you gain weight if you eat too many.The ketogenic diet can be a viable fat loss diet especially considering it’s appetite suppressing effects, but only if you can stick to it consistently which the research has shown to be hard to do given your own free will.The ketogenic diet is subpar for athletic and typical sport performance.The ketogenic diet is fine for traditional weight lifting, but likely not optimal if your workouts are long or involve high volume.The ketogenic diet can build muscle, but is likely not optimal for hypertrophy as it’s hard to eat sufficient calories paired with the fact that lifting performance might be compromised.If you’re not careful, the ketogenic diet may leave you deficient in micronutrients as food choice is severely limited.That’s all for this one folks. Shoot me an email ([email protected]) if you have any further questions tickling your brain.ReferencesWheless, James W. “History of the Ketogenic Diet.” Epilepsia, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2008, History of the ketogenic diet..Paoli, A, et al. “Beyond Weight Loss: a Review of the Therapeutic Uses of Very-Low-Carbohydrate (Ketogenic) Diets.” European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Nature Publishing Group, Aug. 2013, Beyond weight loss: a review of the therapeutic uses of very-low-carbohydrate (ketogenic) diets.Gregory, Rachel M. “A Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet Combined with 6-Weeks of Crossfit Training Improves Body Composition and Performance.” ClinMed International Library, A Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet Combined with 6-Weeks of Crossfit Training Improves Body Composition and Performance.Westman, et al. “Low-Carbohydrate Nutrition and Metabolism.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 1 Aug. 2007, Low-carbohydrate nutrition and metabolism.Owen, O E, et al. “Brain Metabolism during Fasting.” The Journal of Clinical Investigation, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Oct. 1967, Brain metabolism during fasting..Paoli, Antonio. “Ketogenic Diet for Obesity: Friend or Foe?” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 19 Feb. 2014, Ketogenic Diet for Obesity: Friend or Foe?.Hall, Kevin D, et al. “Calorie for Calorie, Dietary Fat Restriction Results in More Body Fat Loss than Carbohydrate Restriction in People with Obesity.” Cell Metabolism, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Sept. 2015, Calorie for Calorie, Dietary Fat Restriction Results in More Body Fat Loss than Carbohydrate Restriction in People with Obesity..Bergouignan, Audrey, et al. “Increasing Dietary Fat Elicits Similar Changes in Fat Oxidation and Markers of Muscle Oxidative Capacity in Lean and Obese Humans.” PloS One, Public Library of Science, Increasing dietary fat elicits similar changes in fat oxidation and markers of muscle oxidative capacity in lean and obese humans..Prince, Allison, et al. “Oxidative Metabolism: Glucose Versus Ketones.” SpringerLink, Springer, New York, NY, 1 Jan. 1970, Oxidative Metabolism: Glucose Versus Ketones.Mergenthaler, Philipp, et al. “Sugar for the Brain: the Role of Glucose in Physiological and Pathological Brain Function.” Trends in Neurosciences, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Oct. 2013, Sugar for the brain: the role of glucose in physiological and pathological brain function.Cahill, G F. “Starvation in Man.” The New England Journal of Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 19 Mar. 1970, Starvation in man..Veldhorst, Margriet A B, et al. “Presence or Absence of Carbohydrates and the Proportion of Fat in a High-Protein Diet Affect Appetite Suppression but Not Energy Expenditure in Normal-Weight Human Subjects Fed in Energy Balance.” The British Journal of Nutrition, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Nov. 2010, Presence or absence of carbohydrates and the proportion of fat in a high-protein diet affect appetite suppression but not energy expenditure in nor... - PubMed - NCBI.Gibson, A A, et al. “Do Ketogenic Diets Really Suppress Appetite? 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(Research Review) • Sci-Fit.” Sci, 22 Mar. 2019, Adhering to the Ketogenic Diet - Is it Easy or Hard? (Research Review) • Sci-Fit.Zajac, Adam, et al. “The Effects of a Ketogenic Diet on Exercise Metabolism and Physical Performance in off-Road Cyclists.” Nutrients, MDPI, 27 June 2014, The Effects of a Ketogenic Diet on Exercise Metabolism and Physical Performance in Off-Road Cyclists.Knuiman, Pim, et al. “Glycogen Availability and Skeletal Muscle Adaptations with Endurance and Resistance Exercise.” Nutrition & Metabolism, BioMed Central, 21 Dec. 2015, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4687103/.Pöchmüller, Martin, et al. “A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Carbohydrate Benefits Associated with Randomized Controlled Competition-Based Performance Trials.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, BioMed Central, 11 July 2016, A systematic review and meta-analysis of carbohydrate benefits associated with randomized controlled competition-based performance trials..van Loon, L J, et al. “The Effects of Increasing Exercise Intensity on Muscle Fuel Utilisation in Humans.” The Journal of Physiology, Blackwell Science Inc, 1 Oct. 2001, The effects of increasing exercise intensity on muscle fuel utilisation in humans..Helge, J W. “A High Carbohydrate Diet Remains the Evidence Based Choice for Elite Athletes to Optimise Performance.” The Journal of Physiology, John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1 May 2017, A high carbohydrate diet remains the evidence based choice for elite athletes to optimise performance.Ben M. Krings, et al. “Effects of Acute Carbohydrate Ingestion on Anaerobic Exercise Performance.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, BioMed Central, 10 Nov. 2016, Effects of acute carbohydrate ingestion on anaerobic exercise performance.Hawley, John A, and Jill J Leckey. “Carbohydrate Dependence During Prolonged, Intense Endurance Exercise.” Sports Medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), Springer International Publishing, 2015, Carbohydrate Dependence During Prolonged, Intense Endurance Exercise..Escobar, Kurt A, et al. “The Effect of a Moderately Low and High Carbohydrate Intake on Crossfit Performance.” International Journal of Exercise Science, Berkeley Electronic Press, 1 Oct. 2016, The Effect of a Moderately Low and High Carbohydrate Intake on Crossfit Performance.Wroble, Kymberly A, et al. “Low-Carbohydrate, Ketogenic Diet Impairs Anaerobic Exercise Performance in Exercise-Trained Women and Men: a Randomized-Sequence Crossover Trial.” The Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Apr. 2019, Low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet impairs anaerobic exercise performance in exercise-trained women and men: a randomized-sequence crossover trial..Burke, Louise M, et al. “Low Carbohydrate, High Fat Diet Impairs Exercise Economy and Negates the Performance Benefit from Intensified Training in Elite Race Walkers.” The Journal of Physiology, John Wiley and Sons Inc., 1 May 2017, Low carbohydrate, high fat diet impairs exercise economy and negates the performance benefit from intensified training in elite race walkers.Chad M. Kerksick, et al. “ISSN Exercise & Sports Nutrition Review Update: Research & Recommendations.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, BioMed Central, 1 Aug. 2018, ISSN exercise & sports nutrition review update: research & recommendations.Stellingwerff, Trent, et al. “Decreased PDH Activation and Glycogenolysis during Exercise Following Fat Adaptation with Carbohydrate Restoration.” American Journal of Physiology. Endocrinology and Metabolism, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Feb. 2006, Decreased PDH activation and glycogenolysis during exercise following fat adaptation with carbohydrate restoration..Meirelles, Claudia M, and Paulo S C Gomes. “Effects of Short-Term Carbohydrate Restrictive and Conventional Hypoenergetic Diets and Resistance Training on Strength Gains and Muscle Thickness.” Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, Uludag University, 1 Dec. 2016, Effects of Short-Term Carbohydrate Restrictive and Conventional Hypoenergetic Diets and Resistance Training on Strength Gains and Muscle Thickness.Rhyu, Hyun-Seung, and Su-Youn Cho. “The Effect of Weight Loss by Ketogenic Diet on the Body Composition, Performance-Related Physical Fitness Factors and Cytokines of Taekwondo Athletes.” Journal of Exercise Rehabilitation, Korean Society of Exercise Rehabilitation, 31 Oct. 2014, The effect of weight loss by ketogenic diet on the body composition, performance-related physical fitness factors and cytokines of Taekwondo athletes.“Carbohydrate Restriction: Friend or Foe of Resistance-Based Exercise Performance?” Nutrition, Elsevier, 6 Oct. 2018, ScienceDirect.Greene, David A, et al. “A Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet Reduces Body Mass Without Compromising Performance in Powerlifting and Olympic Weightlifting Athletes.” Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, Dec. 2018, A Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet Reduces Body Mass Without Compromising Performance in Powerlifting and Olympic Weightlifting Athletes..Tzur, Adam. “How Carbs and Protein Affect Ketosis (Keto Research Review) • Sci-Fit.” Sci, 27 Nov. 2018, How Carbs and Protein Affect Ketosis (Keto Research Review) • Sci-Fit.Escobar, Kurt A., et al. “Carbohydrate Intake and Resistance-Based Exercise: Are Current Recommendations Reflective of Actual Need? | British Journal of Nutrition.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, 20 Dec. 2016, Carbohydrate intake and resistance-based exercise: are current recommendations reflective of actual need? | British Journal of Nutrition | Cambridge Core.Johnston, et al. “Ketogenic Low-Carbohydrate Diets Have No Metabolic Advantage over Nonketogenic Low-Carbohydrate Diets.” OUP Academic, Oxford University Press, 1 May 2006, Ketogenic low-carbohydrate diets have no metabolic advantage over nonketogenic low-carbohydrate diets.

First, some brief context: I founded and have been running a coworking space for the past 7.5 years (Locus Workspace in Prague, Czech Republic), so my answers are informed (and biased) by that experience. The kind of coworking space I operate, and so the one that informs my perspective, targets freelancers and remote workers whose alternative to a coworking space would be a home office, a cafe, or a one-person private office. This kind of coworking space seeks to address the professional and psychological needs of that particular sub-group: the location-independent professional.Here are the main benefits, in my experience, of working from such coworking spaces for that particular target group:Work-life separation: For people who would otherwise work from home, coworking spaces help create a clear separation between work and non-work life that can be very hard to establish with a home office, where partner/child demands, the responsibilities or distractions of home, the allure of procrastination, or alternatively the tendency to work when you ought to be playing, can be hard to escape.Reduce loneliness or depression; increase work-related motivation: for people who get lonely or depressed or unmotivated when working by themselves over an extended period of time—perhaps most freelancers and remote-workers after enough time alone, given that humans are social animals—coworking spaces can provide that missing social proximity that can help you feel less lonely and more focused on your work. Even without the time or interest in talking to others, social proximity to other people working in a focused, productive way can do wonders to enhance one’s work productivity in ways that working from a cafe or library cannot, perhaps something akin to social/emotional contagion. As one of our members put it, “You arrive here and there’s people beavering away on their projects and things and doing what they do and you just kind of… you get drawn into that, and it’s infectious.”Focused, productive work as a form of “social/emotional contagion”Locus Workspace in Prague, Czech RepublicA room full of free expert consultants: this is one of the intangibles of coworking that I think adds more value than almost anything else, and that most non-members (and even members) of coworking spaces under-estimate. If you’re working from home or otherwise working on your own and you have a work-related question, say, “Where can I get high quality business cards printed at a good price?” or “Should I set up an LLC or an S-Corp?” or, “Where can I find a good accountant?” or even a more specialized question about how to translate a certain term (if you’re a translator) or how to solve a coding problem in a certain language, if you’re a software developer), or just where to get a good bite to eat if you’re new to the neighborhood, other members of your coworking space provide a high-quality resource, quickly and for free. The people you sit alongside every day are part of a moral community with incentives to be honest that you can rarely find online, and they have the kind of local knowledge and common needs that can be extremely hard to find anywhere else. If you happen to work in a coworking space in a foreign country (or just a foreign city) where you’re dealing with norms or laws you may not completely understand and without knowledge of the resources available, this value can easily be multiplied ten-fold.A room full of paid expert consultants: the previous bullet point refers to benefits that come as a matter of course, on a daily basis, from turning your head and asking your question to whoever happens to be sitting nearby and might know the answer. But most location-independent professionals also need to find paid service professionals, other freelancers like themselves, whether it be someone to help with social media marketing, to build their website, to design their business cards, to translate or copyedit their written material, or what have you. Yes, those kinds of professionals can often be found on Upwork or somewhere other than one’s coworking space, but if you’ve spent some time outsourcing, you’ll know that it can be incredibly difficult to evaluate quality from online reviews or the local yellow pages, and often the services need to be local. Other members of coworking spaces often have those skills, or alternatively they had to find those people themselves and know who is good and local. And you’ll get much higher-quality work from those “co-workers” than you’ll often get from a stranger who doesn’t sit next to on a daily basis and have the kind of personal and ongoing relationship where reputation really matters.Serendipitous collaboration. Two often misplaced buzzwords of the coworking industry are “serendipity” and “collaboration.” Coworking spaces love to use those words in their marketing material, the media eats it up, and people looking for coworking spaces often hope to find collaborators or creative inspiration (one sense of the term “serendipity”). The truth is, coworking spaces generally are NOT good places for inspiring creativity or collaboration, particularly in the very short-term, because most people who join coworking spaces already have clearly defined projects that take their full-time attention. They’re not looking to work on your project, and they’re not there—except perhaps during special one-time events—to spend unpaid time helping you be more creative. That said, unexpected (serendipitous) collaborations are likely the rule rather than the exception once you are a member of a coworking space for an extended period of time (say three or more months) and if you push yourself to get actively involved in an authentic way with the community of members (at least if it’s the right kind of coworking space). We did a survey with 15 long-time members and found that the majority had ended up meaningfully collaborating (more than just hiring the other person for a one-time gig) with other members on projects, even though as a community manager I had no idea that kind of collaboration was going on between members.For digital nomads (long-term travelers who work full- or part-time on their laptops to support that lifestyle), access to a good nomad-friendly coworking space can be the single most-important resource to having a positive travel experience and doing good work. Not all cities and not all coworking spaces cater to digital nomads, and if you’re not living that particular lifestyle, odds are you haven’t heard of digital nomads. That said, more and more coworking spaces specifically cater to that demographic, and the demographic itself is growing by leaps and bounds (thanks in part to the coworking spaces popping up to serve it). Nomad-friendly coworking spaces are mostly English-language spaces (despite being in a non-English-speaking land), largely inhabited by other digital nomads (though better if they’re also popular with nomad-friendly locals and expats), that organize events which specifically address challenges commonly faced by digital nomads (both for having local fun and for the professional challenges facing nomads, like how to pay, or avoid paying, taxes, or how to effectively market and provide remote products and services). These spaces are popping up around the world in some of the most beautiful, “exotic” (though usually exotic in a foreigner-friendly and safe, way), and affordable locations. They allow digital nomads to get working productively from the day they arrive, with the freedom to work for just a week or to decide on a whim to stay for several months, with access to local experiences and services that they otherwise wouldn’t be privy to, and access to a ready-made community of co-adventurers looking to make friends, explore new location and even form business partnerships that are often harder to create in more stable, locals-only contexts, where peeople aren’t as likely to be looking for partners or to broaden their community. These spaces often organized events that specifically target the nomads’ needs with “mastermind groups” to help promote success and opportunity to form business collaborations that can be surprisingly more difficult in more stable, local-only, locations, where people already have established communities.If you need flexibility as part of a good place to work, there’s often no better option than a coworking space. Digital nomads (see previous bullet point) need flexibility. But so does Google when it’s building a new office, so do many companies that are growing or shrinking or simply have consultants coming in on a regular basis, and so do startups that may fail or grow quickly, or might not, and so do not want to commit to office space for the long-term. Even executive suites (ready-made offices) tend to require year long or at least half-year contracts, and so to be non-ideal for many people. Coworking spaces tend to have month-by-month contract options (or even less for those who need it), and for a very reasonable price, providing what may be the only option for flexible professional office space.Price. Although at some point I expect the norm will be for people to pay a premium for the added value of a coworking space relative to renting a private office, at this point coworking spaces are often the least expensive alternative to working from a home office or a cafe. If you are cost-conscious and you need professional office amenities (location, meeting room, reliable high-quality internet, etc.), coworking spaces are often the most affordable option. If you value any of the items listed in other bullet points, and don’t mind the other ones, that’s can just be icing on the cake.Shared resources. As with maker- and hacker- spaces (where you can share expensive tools), car-sharing services and other new businesses that are examples of collaborative consumption, coworking spaces provide access to many high-end resources for which your own small business couldn’t justify the expense, but that are affordable because they’re being shared with others: meeting rooms, data projectors, nice printers, high-end coffee makers, prime location, etc.Environmental Sustainability: getting rid of the commute: One of the reasons I became interested in coworking was because a friend of mine said—in an offhand conversation before either of us had ever heard of a business like coworking—that one day all knowledge workers in big cities would step out of their apartment, walk to a corner shared office, check in to their company and start work, with no more than a two-minute commute. Particularly in large cities that may have dozens of coworking spaces, working from a coworking space can eliminate the commute that would be required to work from your company offices. In an increasingly “flat world” (in the sense meant by the New York Times op-ed columnist Thomas Friedman), where large companies may be entirely composed of remote workers, the commute may be much further, and this value therefore much greater. As a poignant and funny headline from a British newspaper points out, the most affordable London suburb where monthly rent costs less than a travelcard might be Prague (which, for the geographically impaired, is separated from London by several countries and a pretty big hunk of Europe). If your company lets you work remotely, even part time, working from a coworking space can be a wonderful solution to the increasingly expensive and environmentally damaging commute, especially if you’re commuting from Prague to London, for example.Ongoing education, mentorship, and support. One of the biggest challenges to becoming a successful freelancer as opposed to working for a traditional company, is that you lose access to ongoing education, to mentors, and to other colleagues who can help provide ongoing professional development. The best coworking spaces offer a variety of events and other activities that fill this void, often organized by the members themselves. To offer some examples, our coworking space has a weekly “critique-free writing meetup” where people get together just to write for their own projects, whether they be master’s theses, blog posts, books, or articles. The meetup provides a sacred time and place and that positive social energy mentioned earlier that helps participants work through writer’s block (or just the tendency to avoid writing that many of us face). A member who is a coach and trainer has been doing a yearly workshop on how to set goals and achieve them. A past member successful at creating and promoting online video courses gave a presentation on how to do that for digital-nomad hopefuls trying to figure out how to build a career that allows them to travel. We have a few long-running mastermind groups comprising members who help each other more successfully achieve their goals (one group) or create and then market their eBooks (another group). Etc., etc., etc. Many other coworking spaces provide free or discounted access to mentors or business coaches to help their members succeed in their entreneurial endeavors.In summary, to quote Brad Neuberg who coined the term coworking as it’s used in this context, from his blog post that made the first public mention of the concept back on August 9th, 2005 (International Coworking Day for coworking enthusiasts), and who says it as well as anyone I’m aware of:“Traditionally, society forces us to choose between working at home for ourselves or working at an office for a company. If we work at a traditional 9 to 5 company job, we get community and structure, but lose freedom and the ability to control our own lives. If we work for ourselves at home, we gain independence but suffer loneliness and bad habits from not being surrounded by a work community. Coworking is a solution to this problem.”A couple caveats to this long list of benefits:Coworking is NOT for everyone and there are many disadvantages to it. I started a coworking space and continue to run it in part because I am passionate about coworking and what it can offer. I am also motivated to be passionate about it (both consciously and unconsciously) because my business’s success depends on it. Even with those biases, it’s clear to me that coworking is not for everyone who could use it. Even for those who benefit from joining a coworking space, there can be considerable disadvantages. Here’s a quick list of who it’s probably not for and some of the disadvantages of coworking.If you work best in a quiet place without distractions and on your own, coworking probably isn’t for you. Coworking spaces can often be noisier than would be ideal, and you are more likely to find yourself getting interrupted by well-meaning strangers and colleagues than you would like.If you talk on the phone most of the time or work on particularly sensitive material, most coworking spaces probably aren’t for you, as they often don’t have good facilities for ongoing phone calls or for the kind of work privacy you might need.If you are already part of a productive team who you work closely with face-to-face on a regular basis, then coworking is probably not for you (though if you need to work on your own often and miss camaraderie when you do, or if you don’t like the team you work with, then part-time coworking can be great; alternatively, if you’re looking to regularly grow your team or regularly need to outsource, getting a private office that’s part of a larger coworking establishment can be ideal). Coworking isn’t usually great for existing teams, in my opinion, because you already have access to the community and support and resources that most people who join coworking spaces are missing, and you have it in a more cohesive and directed way than most coworking spaces can support.If your business image is of primary importance, is in a conservative industry, and you meet with clients face-to-face on a regular basis—some consultants, lawyers, realtors, architects, accountants, financial advisers, for example—then most coworking spaces probably are not for you, since unless they’re really just executive suites like Regus, it’ll be clear to your clients that you’re “co-workers” are really a bunch of people from unaffiliated companies.If you have the resources and need for a custom office fit to your particular business, then coworking spaces probably aren’t for you (though there are some hybrid examples allowing for custom private offices as part of a coworking space that might work for you).If you want the quality of your work environment to be reliable and you’re not particularly interested in the more social or educational aspects common to some coworking spaces, then you’ll need to be selective about which space you join. Many great coworking spaces prioritize events over the work environment, and may limit when you can work, or how nice that work environment is, because events take priority. On the other hand, many do not: don’t give up on coworking if the first space you try puts events above coworkers.Price. Although price can be a deciding factor in favor of coworking, many freelancers are struggling to pay their bills and though they might benefit from coworking simply can’t justify the cost relative to the free alternatives of working from home or a cafe (though as one friend rightly pointed out after this post, the food and drinks you may feel compelled to buy at cafes can easily cost more than your monthly coworking space membership).In short, whether a particular coworking space (or coworking spaces more generally) is good for you, depends largely on what you need to work effectively and happily, and many people don’t need what coworking has to offer.There are as many answers to your question as there are coworking spaces. Asking why people join coworking spaces is a bit like asking why people eat out (rather than why they eat at a particular restaurant, or a cuisine, or style of restaurant such as a food truck, a fast-food chain, a buffet, or a Michelin-starred restaurant). It’s not a bad question, but in most cases the answer depends on the specifics.Since my answer refers to a particular kind of coworking space, as noted at the beginning, it’s also limited by that particular context. Some self-identified coworking space in practice are nothing more than the equivalent of an airport or hotel “business center” where you might not see another person working at all, and if you do it would seem rude to do more than say hello. Other spaces primarily provide short-term offices or open work space for startup-oriented teams with some shared amenities, but fostering little if any interaction between the distinct startups. They may provide mentorship or access to investors, certainly valuable, but they provide few of the values I listed above. If they provide coworking in the way I’m using it, it tends to be because the business incubators or startup accelerators that motivates the business doesn’t fill the available desks. Others use the term to offer fixed desks in existing companies that have extra office real estate and are happy to have some outside energy in their offices. Others are curated or only target certain professions and focused on the narrow needs of that particular group. All of these alternative versions of coworking have certain pros and cons, and few of them have a good alternative name, so that the general term coworking might be applied to any of them (though many of us coworking “purists” might object).

The best keto secret is that in most cases, keto is overrated. I’m serious. That’s the unbiased truth keto fanboys will never tell you. Here are the pros and cons of keto based on science, so you can decide for yourself.The No Nonsense Ketogenic Article of Your DreamsThe ketogenic diet is probably the trendiest diet ever. It’s also probably the most misunderstood diet ever as marketers and influencers love to take advantage of it’s popularity by overexaggerating claims and taking science out of context to hype up ketogenic products.Ultimately, you’re wondering, is keto truly good or bad for you? Is it overrated or can it be useful? Let’s answer this looking at the unbiased science, shall we?What is Keto? (pronounced key-toe not ket-toe)So, what even is keto? The ketogenic diet is essentially a moderate protein, high fat, and very low carb diet. The goal of this diet is to toss you into a state called ketosis by severely restricting carbohydrate intake.This carbohydrate limit for keto is generally about 50 grams a day (2,3). This is not a set in stone limit for everybody as mild ketosis has been seen in some people with slightly higher intakes, but generally speaking you’d want to stay under about 20-60g of carbs daily to remain in ketosis. This likely means the only carbs you can eat are fibrous vegetables.What the Heck is Ketosis?So being on a ketogenic diet puts you into ketosis. Ketosis is where your body’s primary fuel source of glucose and fat switches to primarily using fat and ketones (4,6).Your brain in particular, uses primarily glucose. It can’t use fat so when carbs are severely restricted on keto, your brain switches to using ketone bodies that your body produces. Ketone bodies also called ketones are essentially an alternative fuel source for your brain when glucose isn’t available and despite what keto zealots will tell you, ketones are likely not the ideal fuel source for your brain when compared to glucose (9,10).As for the rest of your body it begins to utilize fat more as opposed to glucose (carbs). This might negatively affect you depending on your goal, but we’ll talk more about that later.This entire process of converting to ketosis generally takes about 3-4 days and usually isn’t pleasant to adapt to (5). This is why people often report what they describe as keto fog or keto flu within the first few days/weeks attempting the diet describing symptoms of sickness or fatigue (16).While on keto, it’s also common for people to report bad breath known as keto breath because of the presence ketone bodies in the blood (6).A bit random, but it’s interesting to note that ketosis can also occur with extended fasting and times of starvation (11).How Keto StartedEven though your annoying co-workers on keto might make this diet sound new and flashy, it’s actually not new. The ketogenic diet has been frolicking around for an entire century and if you’ve been attentive, it spikes in popularity every couple of years, then dies down slightly before spiking up again.And this might be shocking, but keto actually didn’t start as some flashy fat melting diet popularized by celebrities. It actually started way back in the 1920s where doctors used it to treat epilepsy (1).Epilepsy is a neurological disorder associated with seizures. 1 in 26 people will develop epilepsy and fortunately the ketogenic diet has been shown to help.What About My Love Handles Bro?You’re probably thinking, “that’s great and all that keto helps children with seizures, but what about my weight loss goals bro? Is keto good for that?”Yes, keto can definitely be good for weight loss, but it isn’t magical or superior to other diets as keto marketers would have you to think.When people first learn about ketosis, many misunderstandings arise.Because you do burn more fat than carbs while in ketosis, it leads many to believe you’ll lose more fat on keto.Unfortunately, what marketers don’t want you to know is that burning and losing fat are completely different. You can burn more fat, but not necessarily lose more fat off your body.How is this so?Well, your body adapts to the fuel source you provide it. With extreme fat intakes and extreme carb restrictions, your body is obviously going to burn more fat and less carbs because that’s what you’re providing it (8,12).Burning fat simply means your body is oxidizing it as fuel. On the other hand, to lose fat, you have to burn more total fat than you store or in other words, you have to be in a caloric deficit.When tightly controlled studies comparing low carb vs low fat diets, even though the low carb group burned more fat, it also stored more fat making the net outcome the same when calories and protein intake are equal (7).This is why despite the hype behind ketosis, fat loss is not superior on a ketogenic diet given calories and protein in a diet is matched.Net energy balance (calories in vs calories out) still determines fat loss not ketosis (14). This is also to a good time to bring up that the ketogenic diet shares the same awful potential as every other diet on this planet which is, it still has the potential to make you fat.Even though ketosis might sound great, it doesn’t miraculously save you from excess calorie consumption. If you eat more calories than your body can burn over time, you will still gain fat regardless if you’re in ketosis or not.Why the Ketogenic Diet Might Be a Good Idea For Fat LossEven though the ketogenic diet isn’t necessarily superior when compared with other diets given the same calories, there are two advantages to the ketogenic diet you might want to consider if the goal is fat loss.The first advantage is appetite suppression. Ketosis can suppress appetite for some people if maintained consistently (13).Now this appetite suppression benefit generally takes about 3 weeks to take effect, so like any other diet, to reap the benefits, you have to be consistent (15).The second advantage to the ketogenic diet is early weight loss (7). This applies to all low carb type of diet as restricting carbs causes additional losses in water and glycogen at the beginning. However, studies show long term body composition is the same.Even though the long-term effects are the same, in my experience, the early weight loss of a low carb diet like keto can be very beneficial for clients who want to see the scale drop fast early on.This could ignite motivation in people who are easily discouraged when initial progress appears too slow even if most of the early weight is just water.Why the Ketogenic Diet Might Be a Bad Idea For Fat LossDespite being a viable weight loss diet on paper, people forget in practice, you have to actually stick to the diet consistently to reap the rewards.Some of the studies I mentioned earlier are metabolic ward studies or tightly controlled studies, meaning participants were housed and forced to eat the exact food instructed. This is great to study the effects of a diet with clarity, but this doesn’t tell us much about whether the diet is easy to stick to given your own free will.When you look at ketogenic studies where participants weren’t paid, housed, and forced to eat specific foods, it showed the ketogenic diet is not easy to adhere to (17).This is very similar to people I know who claim to be doing keto. Most people I see who do keto don’t have the ability to restrict carbs consistently and end up having cheat meals on the weekends which inevitably will kick you out of ketosis. Even if you ate no carbs the following week, it would take you half the week to finally get into ketosis in which you would stay for only a couple of days before cheating again.A true keto diet has very little to no carbs which is usually too restrictive for people to stick to for long periods. Research has shown us the only people who actually stick to it consistently are paid athletes and people housed in confined studies like lab rats.Still, the ketogenic diet can be a great weight loss diet if you can stick to it consistently. If you can’t, no sweat, there are plenty of other options that are just as good. Keto is simply just another tool to choose from in the endless toolbox of diets.What About Other Goals?Even though, the ketogenic diet started gaining mainstream popularity for the sake of weight loss, many influencers are promoting it for other goals like hypertrophy or performance.In reality, a ketogenic diet seems to be potentially suboptimal for both hypertrophy and performance.Let’s take a deeper look at these aspects.Keto and Athletic PerformanceWhen it comes to traditional sports performance, keto isn’t ideal both in terms of aerobic and anaerobic measures.This is because with a ketogenic diet, you lack carbohydrates and besides tasting really good, carbohydrates have other crucial benefits (28).For starters, when carbs are burned for fuel, they produce more energy than fat (18). On top of this, a carb sufficient diet will allow the glycogen in your muscles to be full along with replenishing it during exercise, both of which is critical for maximum performance (19).Here’s a systematic review in 2016 showing carbs are beneficial for performance particularly when exercising for longer than 90 minutes (20).In actual competition, victories are attained thanks to carbohydrates. Race winning moves, sports of long durations, and bouts of high intensity all rely heavily on carbs (21,22,23,24,27).Research has also indicated in concurrent training where both resistance and endurances styles of training occur, a ketogenic diet is not optimal (19).This study on CrossFit for example, concluded that a moderately low carb diet might be ok for short durations of CrossFit, but a higher carb diet is likely needed to maximize performance especially for longer demands (25).As far as pure anaerobic performance, this study showed keto isn’t as good either (26). You’ll likely lose power.Further Considerations for Athletic Performance on KetoAnother big thing to consider as it pertains to athletic performance is metabolic flexibility. This is a concept made famous by Dr. Mike T Nelson and it’s basically the idea of how flexible your metabolism is. If you’re in ketosis, your metabolism isn’t very flexible as it’s only adapted to fat and not carbs.Having a flexible metabolism means you can switch back and forth between fat and carb use instead of just solely using one.By going on keto, you’re less metabolically flexible. As carbs are restricted, an enzyme called PDH which controls carbohydrate use gets hindered (29).Once this enzyme is hindered, it doesn’t recover immediately. When you reintroduce carbs, you still won’t maximize on the performance benefits of carbohydrates for some time even if glycogen stores are replenished (29).With all this considered, at best keto is ok for athletic performance and at worse it’s vastly inferior to any other diet that includes sufficient carbs.Keto and Lifting PerformanceBut surprisingly outside of traditional athletic sports and concurrent styles of training, the evidence behind keto’s effect on pure lifting is not as clear cut.Most keto studies on strength training have major limitations like not controlling for equal protein as well as not testing for blood ketones to ensure ketosis is achieved and maintained.Considering the glaring limitations, some studies do show the ketogenic diet can maintain strength comparable to the control groups (30,31).This review article on carb’s effect on resistance training concluded it most likely depends on the volume, duration, and intensity (32). With more volume/time of lifting, carbohydrates become increasingly important.This lines up well with a study done on intermediate Olympic lifters, a sport in which volume and duration of intensity is fairly low compared to traditional sports (33). The Olympic lifters lost fat and muscle on a ketogenic diet, but was able to maintain performance. While Olympic weightlifting is considerably different than the strength training most people do to get jacked, this study at least shows the ketogenic diet can be advantageous for weight class restricted athletes looking to maintain performance.So what’s the verdict on keto’s effect on strength training?Considering the data we do have on traditional athletic performance and the limited data we have on keto’s direct relationship with strength training, my conclusion is that a ketogenic diet is likely fine for lifting performance given volume and duration is low.However, I do think a higher carbohydrate diet would be beneficial for maximizing strength training if your workouts involve a lot of sets/reps or go pass 1 hour.Keto and Muscle BuildingSome people will say you can’t build much muscle on keto because you can’t eat much protein without going out of ketosis.In theory this is true because protein can be converted into glucose which would stop ketosis, but when played out in practice, high protein intakes have been shown to not kick people out of ketosis as long as carb intake is very low (34).Research has shown as much as 2.8g of protein per kg of bodyweight doesn’t withdraw you from ketosis. That’s way more than enough daily protein to build muscle.As for not having sufficient carbs, we know that the muscle signaling enzyme mTOR is unaffected by carbohydrate restriction (35).So then this begs the question if protein is equal, is there any muscle building benefit or drawback to eating a ketogenic diet?The answer is yes. This infamous study done by Vargas and colleagues shows that despite being assigned a caloric surplus, the ketogenic group could not eat in a surplus and resulted in no muscle growth.This is not saying you can’t build muscle on a ketogenic diet, but it does show that it’s difficult to eat enough total calories on keto. This is likely because the ketogenic diet as discussed earlier is pretty good at suppressing your appetite.In general, I don’t recommend the ketogenic for muscle building. While it is possible, it’s not optimal because it makes it harder to eat sufficient calories and overall gym performance is likely compromised (32).Bonus StudyI have one more ketogenic study that’s important to highlight (36). This one compared a ketogenic diet with just a basic low carb diet.We know if calories are matched, the weight loss will be the same, but what I found interesting is that the low carb diet outperformed the ketogenic diet when it came to micronutrients.With the ketogenic diet’s drastically low carb requirements, you miss out on fruits, starches, and grains, all of which have plenty of valuable vitamins and minerals.It goes to show you two important things.If you prefer a low carb diet, a simple low carb diet is probably better than a pure ketogenic diet where carbs are practically banned.If you do choose to do a ketogenic diet, selecting nutrient dense foods is important to prevent nutrient deficiencies given your limited food choices.Wrapping it All UpI hate to sound like I’m bragging, but this is literally as comprehensive and unbiased of a ketogenic diet article as you’re going to get. Just like with all my other articles, I’ll be updating it if new evidence comes out.To recap everything into adorable little bullet points, here’s the key takeaways.The ketogenic diet’s goal is to put you into the state of ketosis. This generally takes 3-4 days of heavy carb restriction.Most people are not able to stay in ketosis because of dieting inconsistencies, not to mention there are annoying side effects to adapting to ketosis.Regardless of attaining ketosis or not, the ketogenic diet is like every other diet when calories and protein are matched. It can make you lose weight if you eat low enough calories and it can make you gain weight if you eat too many.The ketogenic diet can be a viable fat loss diet especially considering it’s appetite suppressing effects, but only if you can stick to it consistently which the research has shown to be hard to do given your own free will.The ketogenic diet is subpar for athletic and typical sport performance.The ketogenic diet is fine for traditional weight lifting, but likely not optimal if your workouts are long or involve high volume.The ketogenic diet can build muscle, but is likely not optimal for hypertrophy as it’s hard to eat sufficient calories paired with the fact that lifting performance might be compromised.If you’re not careful, the ketogenic diet may leave you deficient in micronutrients as food choice is severely limited.That’s all for this one folks. 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