#27 Steve Parke – Keto Bodybuilding in the UK

• Steve Park is 35 years old
• Natural body builder
• 5-10 years in running ParkeCore Personal Training together with his wife
• He have 2 sons

HOW STEVE FOUND KETO & HIS LIFE BEFORE

• Few years ago, I used to take diet, which most body builder would and they still use now which is keeping the protein high, keeping you card midway and your fats slow.
• When I utilize that technique I did lose body fat but it was really difficult, hard, long couple of months. Also, really draining.
• And when you have a normal life to live on top of the body building life it really takes a tone on you.
• Sometimes, you come out into the competition, you’re really drained.
• You can eat normal food again and your body just doesn’t know what to do. It’s 3 months that has not taken a normal food in any kind of normal ratio and you just gain a ton of weight.
• On stage you may look the strongest, healthiest most muscular lowest body fat person in the world to most people and internally, you’re very close to starvation stage.
• So, I moved over into more keto to utilize a stable amount of protein, have a nice amount of fats and then taken the carbs out of the equation as well or very low. Sort of 30 grams or lower.
• And I found out with that one I was far healthier, I was far more acute mentally as well as physically. The energy level are much more stable.
• Although the training is hard and has a lot of different elements, I was able to handle it far better utilizing that nutritional approach than before.
• The judges said I look my best at that show or the show I started utilizing the keto approach.
• I felt better mentally and have the benefits physically.

HOW LONG DID STEVE DO THE TRADITIONAL BODY BUILDING DIET

• I started training and competing when I was 19.
• 4 or 5 years, that was a typical day and I would utilize was leading up into competition
• After that stage, I started to gain more knowledge. Every competition is a learning process so you find out what works for your body, what does not work for your body.
• When you’re close to competition you can have a pizza but you can gain 4 to 5 pounds of water weight but the difference is you ‘ll know it is water. You can feel the difference how water weight feels on your body different to fat.
• When I did utilize the Keto approach, the first thing I noticed was the energy level.
• Keto nutrition plan for me is almost like what I do everyday automatically.
• If there’s one ratio you that would look at in a typical plan that somebody would put for, you could almost guarantee the fat would be dropping lower.
• More people are getting to know about the technique and the way to eat on that basis, so it’s far easier now than 2 to 4 years ago.
  But people are still finding it difficult to get in their head and put them on that degree.
• As a basic starting point we tend to pull down the carbs for one and then we utilize the way of having high fat and nice amount of protein per meal.
• It obviously depends on the client to what degree we implement it.
• I tend to bring down a little bit.
• Replacing the carb with a fat and in a space of a month, the fat become the energy source and the carbs come weigh down.
• I tend to go for net because it gets kind of confusing with the total.
• I will prefer people have their vegetables otherwise it’s difficult to get a good amount of fiber

WHAT OTHER BENEFITS

• One of the other main benefits is the energy physically.
• The energy benefits are so nice because the body fat burning aspect is great.
• The fact that you can have energy to take on a certain day to deal with stress and worries that comes through out the day.
• And also energy to train hard and be a husband and a father, and father to a dog that likes long walks twice a day. It’s great to have that energy.
• Before you kind of negotiate on how you can spend your energy.
  Shut things down because you’re not going to have energy to do that and do this.
• And the mental clarity is great as well, because a lot of time when I was putting down the fats for a typical pre-contest diet I was really foggy.
• It’s such a pleasant change being able to get a full fat whipped cream or lactose free cream because I am lactose intolerance and actually go through a whole part of it and still needs more.
• Probably most of the pre-contest diet stage is it was pretty much white fish and broccoli for most meals.
• If you would have to look at the nutritional panel, it would have a lot of protein, very low in fats and probably a decent amount of carbs because you would be utilizing rice or starchy potato.
• The fat is non-existent.
• It was the mincemeat done in coconut oil.
• Mincemeat is an average steak that is in tiny chunks.
• Being able to eat that with the coconut oil. I’m not going to drain down the coconut oil and just have the dry meat by itself.
• It gives you this lovely and creamy texture to it. So it’s a nutritional wise in a sense. I never get bored eating it.
• When I was initially starting out the hardest for me is just getting the balance right. Just to get them right, just to get enough of the benefits but not too much in a sense.
• When I’m going for a competition I tend to cut the protein down and keep the high or even higher. So the protein doesn’t come down a crazy amount but definitely it would come down far more that what a typical body builder in a preparation stage would love to do.
• As weird as it might be, it depends on the kind of stress levels you’re going through. Literally the kind of mindset you’re in at the time of that preparation. It depends on how your body is going to react to either extra fats or lower fats. Or extra protein or lower protein.
• It’s one of those sciences that is always changing and learning new things on nutrition.
• Although the food you put in your mouth is the easy part then the stage I tend to look is how your body is going to react into that food and what stresses you when you’re eating that food.
• Back in my younger days, I did a typical cardio routine.
  And I think at that time it was advocate slow and steady cardio.
• So now, a lot of my conditioning were probably 2 or 3 times a week but I tend to use the battle ropes, the kettle bells or interval training.
• What I do is also what I tend to do with all of my clients.
• I treat them as if they are athletes.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU?

• We have a show coming up right about June

FAVORITE QUOTE

• If you stay ready, you don’t have to get ready.
• I really dig that one because it can relate to a lot of things.
• Obviously it can relate to the physical aspects, the mental aspects and so on all.

HOW CAN PEOPLE FIND YOU

• Website: parkcore.com
• Instagram: ParkCore OT
• Youtube: ParkCore
• Facebook: ParkCorePT