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You’ve heard it plenty. You can’t gain muscle on keto. A new meta-analysis published earlier this week seems to support the notion. This meta-analysis looking at 20 keto and resistance training studies reported that while keto has a profound impact on reducing body fat percentage, the combination of keto and resistance training does not increase muscle mass.

While this is new research, the idea that you can’t gain muscle on keto is a common misconception rooted in the lack of personalizing a diet for specific outcomes. I’ll show you what I mean.

I started looking through the studies used in this meta-analysis and I found a few common trends that can help explain the conclusions these researchers came to.

Looking at the first study in overweight women following a keto diet and resistance training, we see the researchers report that the diet helped conserve muscle mass but failed to produce muscle gain. This is a common theme you will see among the studies used in this meta-analysis.

When you take a look at the keto diet these women were consuming, you’ll see that they were only consuming on average about 79 grams of protein per day. While everyone has different protein demands, 79 grams per day is not going to be enough for anyone to gain muscle.

If you continue to look through the studies, you’ll notice the low protein theme popping up time and time again. This 11 week keto and resistance training study sheds light on why.

This study also reported no muscle loss but also no muscle gain on the keto diet. If you read the methods of this study you’ll see that the participants were instructed to consume 20% of their calories from protein.

This 20% of calories from protein recommendation is very common in keto studies because these are the traditional macronutrients recommended to keto dieters. The problem is the traditional keto diet was invented for epilepsy, not gaining muscle and 20% of your calories from protein is not enough to elicit muscle gain.

Moving on to the next study from Paoli, which also reported no muscle loss but no muscle gain, you’ll see they actually did eat what I would consider enough protein to elicit muscle growth at about 200g per day, about 40% of total calories. But if you keep looking you see the second common problem we see in these studies. The participants were consuming on average less than 2,000 calories. Most likely not enough calories to elicit muscle growth.

Another common theme you will see in these keto and resistance training studies is no advice on protein intake. Like in this 6-week crossfit study that also reported no changes in muscle mass.

If you look through the methods you see that they didnt give protein or calorie recommendations at all and when you look at the average dietary intake, you again see that total protein and calorie intake ended up being too low to be conducive of muscle gain.

These studies summarize what you will see when you look at the rest of the studies in this meta-analysis. While many interpret these results to mean that you can’t gain muscle on keto, what these studies really highlight is that the keto diet needs to be personalized to whatever goals are trying to be achieved. Said another way, using the keto diet for mental health may not look the same as using the keto diet to gain muscle or strength. When it comes to muscle gain, if you are going to use the keto diet, protein and calorie adjustments will be required to get your desired outcome.