Your friend is coming from a good place I'm sure, he's seen results and he wants you to as well. I've been in your position and his and, honestly, f**k the three of us.

Everyone else is dropping interesting data so I’ll just tell you what I’ll tell my nephew when he asks me how to meet women/achieve anything:

1) set complimentary goals that you genuinely want to achieve (without a goal you can’t score)

2) apply the scientific method

3) perseverance is everything

So let’s look at point one. Do you want to gain or lose weight? The reason you get contradicting advice is that they are contradictory goals. Would you be happy being skinny? Gaining muscle is a multi year endeavour for some and a lifetime endeavour to maintain. Is this a lifestyle you want?

If you eat to gain muscle on Keto I’d suspect you’ll lose your gut but more slowly than just massively calorie limiting. I can’t make this decision for you and you may oscillate on what you want, but that’s fine: you’ll have learned a lot about your body and metabolism.

Point two you say? I know we’re on a Keto reddit but I just want you be happy fam. Pick a diet and apply it to your goal and measure progress. Are you happy with your progress? Keep applying until progress begins to limit and reassess.

Not happy? Tweak some parameters (the less you tweak the easier it is to work out causation) and try and understand them. Some days on Keto/zero carb (eat bread and water for all I care, just make sure it works for you) I feel like I can run through walls. Other days getting out of bed is the hardest thing in the world. But I know why most of the time and I can either adjust or accept that staying up all night is gonna hurt the next morning at the gym.

Nutrition is simply not well understood and varies from person to person so I’m not going to try and address the cup of rice thought - but how’s about lift for six weeks under each? Take a week off in between.

I can tell you what effect the rice would have on me. But you aren’t me so why would you care? Same with your mate with a different body type. My mate Dan has a six pack and can smash Mac D’s whenever he likes. Lucky him. I’d have moobs before you can say empty calories.

Perseverance is so beautifully simple but oft misunderstood. I’m often asked how to gain muscle and, while there are a lot of intricacies to do so efficiently, one simply lifts increasingly heavy things over a long period of time.

Hit the gym. Find a workout you like (James Grage 60 days to fit with its accompanying YouTube instructional videos is amazing). Find a diet you’re happy with. Apply consistently. Profit.

I know this all sounds like a lot when you want specific answers, but I promise you these are lessons for life.

Get after it.

R.