The Cusp of Keto (CoK) is a phrase, uniquely my own, that I have been using for a couple years now to answer the recurrent question, “what type of diet do YOU follow?”.  Many, from personal training clients to Edge Members, from family to friends, have asked me to answer that question.  The quickest, most concise answer I can give is, “I do something I call, “The Cusp of Keto“.  Inevitably, this answer often leads to me providing more specific details.  This post is meant to describe those details.

First, it will help you to understand the evolution of the way I strategize my eating.

I started off, much like everyone does, not really thinking of the direct and critical impact my food has on me.  Only that, when I’m hungry, I should eat something “good for me” and be careful about eating too much “junk food”.  My personal definitions of “good for me” and “junk” foods have also dramatically changed over time.  A pivotal phase for me occurred when I switched from eating junk like Pop-Tarts for breakfast, to eating 6 egg whites and an orange for breakfast.  This switch at breakfast was accompanied with a variety of other changes, such as going from 3-4 meals per day to 6 meals a day, but the contrast of the breakfast choice is dramatic enough for you to imagine the rest of the major differences representing the transition from being largely ignorant of my food choices to a new mindset of beginning to understand just how critical eating properly really is.

So, my first exposure to “dieting” was something I refer to today as a “circa-1980-something bodybuilder diet”.

I still see this very same type of diet plan being prescribed by “certified personal trainers” and “online coaches”, and followed by fitness newbies (“noobs”) quite frequently.  It’s like they are all lost somewhere in time, right around 1985.  Six meals per day, usually starting off with something like “10 egg whites and 1 cup oatmeal” for breakfast, and concluding with a “macro count” (macro-nutrient profile) in the area of 30-35% protein, 45-55% carbohydrate, and 15-20% fat.  With this type of low fat, 1980’s bodybuilder diet plan, there is always the overemphasis on how much protein you need to eat –anywhere from 1-2 grams of protein per pound of body weight.

An “80’s Bodybuilder Diet” is not the WORST diet plan in the world, but it’s not very elegant, practical, or forward thinking either.  Because of the relatively high carbohydrate intake, it is necessary to have a high frequency of meals in order to properly manage insulin secretion.  Carbohydrate intake and meal frequency are directed related.  As carb intake rises, meal frequency must rise to ensure proper management of insulin.  Some people on this type of diet plan may be aiming for 8, or even 10 (!), meals per day.  The big problem with this many feedings per day is… who has this amount of free time?!? By the time you prepare, eat, and clean up after one meal, it’s almost time for another meal!  This often leads into the trap of resorting to something along the lines of 3 meals and 3 shakes.  Unfortunately, protein powders and meal replacement shakes are a scam.  If you want to trust a bucket of mystery powder instead of carefully choosing your food from a good supermarket, that’s up to you.  I wouldn’t – I don’t make those type of mistakes anymore. 

Since I was experimenting with an 80’s Bodybuilder Diet BEFORE the explosion in availability of protein powders and meal replacement powders, all my dieting back in these early days was accomplished by eating REAL FOOD.  Six meals per day, with all real food. I spent about 3 years religiously committed to this type of diet.  For much of this time, I was stuck at a bodyweight of about 195 lbs (my height is 6’1″, or 6’3″ by Hollywood’s standard of reporting height), at a bodyfat level of roughly 9-10%.

Examples of my strength levels – 225 lbs for 5 on the “Olympic depth” squat, about 20 dead-hang-to-chin-over-the-bar pullups, and approximately 315 pound on the flat barbell press (bench press).  It’s important to note that I worked out exclusively with free weights (no cardio whatsoever, except for 5-10 minutes of jumping rope, and another 5-10 minutes of hitting a speed bag to warm-up) , six (6) days per week, for about 2.5-3 hours per day.

Because the monk-like living required and the amount of deprivation suffered on a low fat, high protein diet like the plan outlined above, my day to day application of the diet deteriorated to the point where I started to get softer and chubbier.

At 225-235 pounds, although I had succeeded in gaining muscle, not all the weight I gained was quality weight, I felt like crap, and I was totally burnt out on eating lots of canned tuna and boiled chicken breast.  I did, however, make some great gains while being on this diet.  Now, I was actually big and strong enough to consider “dieting down” and competing in bodybuilding.  It was now 1991 and the eighties were over.  And so was my commitment to eating chicken and tuna, chicken and tuna, every single day.

It was around this time I was first exposed to some life-changing materials about nutrition, eating, and diet theory:

the early writings of Mauro DiPasquale (who would later publish something called The Anabolic Diet) and an archaic, small paper publication called “The Ultimate Dieting Handbook” written by Daniel Duchaine and Michael Zumpano.

More than just general diet advice, the writings of these men provided clear, effective strategies for integrating training and diet for simultaneous muscle gain and body fat loss.  The materials presented by DiPasquale and Duchaine were much more technical, rational, and logical than your typical muscle magazine, low-brow, endlessly regurgitated diet advice nonsense, and appealed to my preference for science based, not opinion based, guidance.

When I found The Ultimate Dieting Handbook, I was enrolled in (undeclared) Engineering and taking classes like Calculus, Physics, Chemistry, and Engineering Design.  The writing of Dan Duchaine appealed to my preference for advanced technical information and immediately “spoke” to me in a way that strongly influences how I look at diet and nutrition to this day.

By distilling the information from Duchaine and DiPasqule, I was able to formulate my own cyclic ketogenic diet (before that phrase even existed) that I would use with great success for the first bodybuilding contest I ever entered.

While all of the other local bodybuilders I knew at the time, including friends that competed at the same contests in the other weight classes, were using what I call, “controlled starvation”, I was eating up to 14 pancakes with butter and (real) maple syrup once per week right up to two days before the contest.

Coming in at my biggest and leanest ever at 219 pounds, I won 1st place in the Heavyweight Division in 1992 at a local contest called The Merrimack Valley Classic.  A week later, I won 1st in the Heavyweight Division (again) at another contest called the Powerhouse Grand Prix.

These pictures are from backstage, just a few minutes before the morning pre-judging at the Merrimack Valley Classic.  Even though everyone, including competitors, I talked to about my pre-contest diet considered what I was doing radical, unheard of, and probably dangerous, it was really the ONLY WAY for me.

Simply put, I am never going to starve myself for 8-12 weeks, for any reason.  Cyclic Ketogenic Diets just make perfect sense when prepping for physique shows – you get to practice achieving a “peak” look every 5-7 days AND you never really feel like you are starving (for very long).

Having achieved such success with applying science to my eating and training, I was encouraged to keep learning.  The rest of the nineties was a incredibly productive and constructive time for me.

During this time I competed in several more bodybuilding shows, opened my first business, and continually educated myself in all my areas of interest – nutrition and diet theory, human performance, strength training, small business management, and computer technology and application.  I studied under Olympic Coach Charles Poliquin for several years, making several and repeated trips to Canada to work with him in person.  I completed a Bachelor of Science degree in Health Education & Promotion, with a Minor in Psychology.  Because I had completed 3.5 years of an Engineering Degree before switching to Health, I graduated with 176 credit hours, far above the typically 122-125 credit hours required to complete a Bachelor’s.  I discovered that the college based materials on exercise and diet theory were 20-30 years out of date, and rejected the notion the college adequately prepares you for a successful career as a coach – you must include your own self-directed education.

In addition to being an early, loyal student of Charles’, I became a dedicated student of both Dan Duchaine and Louie Simmons (Westside Barbell) as well, being fortunate enough to even speak via telephone and correspond with these amazing men directly, back in these early days.

This brings me to the end of the 90’s when I spent 2 full years on a Cyclic Ketogenic Diet (1997-1999), inspired by Duchaine’s book, Body Opus that was published in 1995.

Underground Bodyopus: Militant Weight Loss & Recomposition, an amazing achievement, is the ONLY book necessary to forever help you understand how to manipulate diet to achieve any goal, if you can comprehend and ingest (pun intended) its content.  Taking the advice of a professor who taught a class named, “Teaching and Learning Strategies”, I read Body Opus no  less than seven times, cover to cover.  I internalized what Dan was saying and began experimenting with the optimal cycle length and the food selection for those 2 years.  I kept extensive notes and learned a lot about how to get the most out of this type of diet strategy.  Committing to this style of eating for 2 years was very instructive and I learned some very important lessons concerning the pros and cons of “keto” eating plans.  Of course, at the end of the nineties, many more bodybuilders were on board with the “keto” strategy, but it was still way too radical for the mainstream public to adopt.  I discovered my personal, optimal carb rotation was 5 days low carbs, 1 day high carbs, repeat.

I was completely dialed in.  My stats during this period?  My biggest and strongest ever.  Bodyweight between 248-258 pounds.  34 inch waist, off season.  Deadlift… 405 x 20 reps.  3 minutes later – 585 for 2 reps.  Olympic Squat, pause in bottom – 500lbs.  Bench – 420lbs, with a pause.  Straight Bar Curl – 225×2.  Chin over bar pullups – 4 reps with 135 pounds hanging from a dip belt.  Of course, at my biggest and strongest, this is exactly when I suffered the biggest injury of my life.  We can save that story for another time.

When I was preparing for yet another bodybuilding contest in 2001, I pushed the limits of a ketogenic diet strategy and formulated and tested something called a “fat fast”.

Like a “fruit fast”, or a “water fast”, where you consume nothing but fruit, or water, for example, I was consuming practically nothing but fat.  I dubbed my version of a fat fast , “The Pudding Diet”.  This truly radical eating plan was 90% fat, 10% protein, and 0% carbs.  My best result on this plan was shedding 9 pounds of pure fat (while maintaining every pound of my muscle mass) in 5 days.  The plan is remarkably effective, and just as equally remarkably dangerous.  Do not ask me for details – I will not give specific details on how to do a fat fast.


After that last contest in 2001, it occurred to me that I could instigate a “mini” cyclic ketogenic diet using a 24 hour clock.  This strategy boiled down to loading carbohydrate only in post-workout meals, and going basically zero carbs the rest of the day (24 hour period).  This actually worked surprisingly well all the way from 2001-2012.  I could walk around in nearly contest shape (less than 10 weeks out from a contest at any given time), was able to still gain strength and size, and never really felt like I was starving myself.  It was pretty easy.  I was even still drinking alcohol (vodka, club soda, lemons/limes) during this period.  Unfortunately, I never realized this whole time that the growing list of health nags I was having at the time was due to the fact I was walking around with Celiac Disease.  Even though I showed clear symptoms of gluten intolerance since 1984 (skin rashes, headaches, chronic diarrhea, low blood iron, depression, lethargy), I would not be officially diagnosed with Celiac Disease until 2014.  Thirty years of relatively chronic exposure to something my body sees as essentially a low dose poison had done irreversible, internal damage.  I had always wondered why it seemed so much more difficult for me to make gains in size and strength than my peers.  Because I was constantly hindered by unwittingly eating poison, my dieting and training methods had to be superior in every way in order to make standard, expected gains.  Did my dieting and training strategies allow me to survive longer, or did it add to my problems?  Hard to say.

Starting in late 2012, my health and my world came crashing down.  To say I almost died several times is not overstating things.  Even though my carbohydrate intake had been kept relatively low in my day-to-day life for a couple decades, I had still, unwittingly eaten gluten nearly everyday.  Example?  Soy sauce as a marinade for chicken and beef.  Regular soy sauce contains gluten.  There is a gluten free version available though.  Too bad I never bought gluten free soy sauce until 2014.  Another example of hidden gluten?  Malt flavoring.  Yeah… it’s tricky.  Eating gluten for decades and being stubbornly dismissive of my ever growing list of symptoms destroyed many systems of my body, some systems were destroyed permanently.  Generally refusing to get medical treatment until they literally carried me out of my house on a stretcher, I thought I could “tough it out”… I thought wrong.

Fast forward through my health problems and basically having to rebuild myself from scratch, today, in 2019, I cannot afford to make dieting mistakes.  I have seen this explosion of “keto” products become available, which, in turn has fueled the public’s interest in trying a “keto” lifestyle.  Dear Public, You are not reading factual data and textbook information, you are reading marketing data and sales propaganda. You should know, unequivocally, that the best thing about keto is YOU DONT NEED TO BUY ANY SUPPLEMENTS TO USE A KETO EATING PLAN.  It’s relatively inexpensive and super efficient, when followed properly.  Giving keto diets to the general public is like handing out loaded pistols to first-graders, sending them to school, and just telling them to “be careful”.  It’s stupid and dangerous.

Unless you can make a 100% FIRM commitment to going “keto” and understand the CRITICAL nature of your day-to-day food selection, DO NOT follow a “keto” plan.  If you do, you may pay a big penalty with your general health later in life.  Remember, in my article Rob Goes Keto, Rob is a personal training client and had my constant guidance using a keto diet going from 195 lbs to 155 lbs.

Again, at my age, with my medical history, I cannot afford gambles or diet mistakes.  Although I have a comprehensive understanding of all aspects of a ketogenic diet, I do not use a keto plan per se.  Like I said, I use something I call, “The Cusp of Keto”.  At any given time, I am no more than 36 hours away from being in ketosis.  However, I purposefully keep myself out of any prolonged ketogenic state.  I keep myself out of chronic ketosis because there are risks present in that scenario – that’s the bad news.

The good news is I am willing to share the specifics of my eating strategies with you.  I have written an algorithm that calculates the optimal eating menu based on age, gender, current bodyweight, target bodyweight, weekly exercise volume.   I use this exact plan personally. It is the healthiest and most effective eating plan I have ever formulated, which is appropriate, since my number one goal is to stay on the planet for as long as possible.  The two nice side effects of this eating strategy is you will get leaner (if you follow it closely) and get stronger (with proper strength training).

I can dispense this eating plan to you in the form of daily menu plan (pdf document), with the food amounts specifically calculated to your gender, current height and body weight, and current exercise program, based on the algorithm I wrote to calculate the optimal meal plan based on those values.  It is written with specific, ideal foods to be eaten throughout the day as 3-4 structured meals.  I’m basically taking an ideal diet plan I’ve arrived at through trial and error and customizing it to fit your specific body and situation.

The cost is only $9.95/person plus a small credit card convenience fee per transaction.  This price is ridiculously low for the level of expertise written into this meal plan.  Even if you only stick it on your refrigerator door and use it as a general suggestion for how to alter your daily eating, it’s worth way more than ten bucks.

The cost of The Cusp of Keto Eating Plan does NOT include personal training service, dietary counseling, unlimited questions, etc.  You get my eating plan written specific to you, based on the algorithm I described above.  That’s it.  Don’t ask me questions about food substitutions, how to exercise for maximum results, how to prepare meals, if burpees are an acceptable exercise option (no, dopey), etc.  I will put those type of questions on ignore.  Obviously, if you have food allergies or sensitivities, you will need to figure out your own substitutions, but this eating plan as written is already GLUTEN FREE and SOY FREE, so at least you do not have to worry about those two items.  This plan is not vegetarian or vegan, and I am not able to write this menu in a way to fit those restrictions.

YOU WILL get fantastic results if you follow the plan exactly as written.  Any changes or shortcomings are on you.  Again, I assume no liability.  Follow any of my advice at your own risk.  You assume and accept all responsibility for your actions.  By purchasing this eating plan you agree to the Terms of Use.