I’m new to keto. I’m 3 weeks in and have had low-moderate ketones since day 2. This last week, my ketone levels have increased (2.0-4.0) and my BG level has leveled out and is pretty much consistently in the low to mid 80s. My macros are generally 5% carbs, 65% fat, and 30% protein. Calorie intake is between 1600-2000 per day depending on my workouts and hunger. I’m 5’5" tall, 132 lbs, and female. I lift weights 4-5 times per week (a split between straight sets and circuit style workouts with short bursts of aerobic activity) and I train jiu jitsu twice per week. So, here are my questions…
I’m still feeling pretty hungry a lot of times. I’m not craving carby foods per say, and I don’t get “hangry”, but I’m still getting the more than occasional urge to eat between meals. I’m trying to eat to a deficit to lower bf percentage, but it doesn’t seem to be enough. Do I need to wait until I’m more adapted to try to lower my calories? My energy is better, my sleep is better, my mood is improved, I’ve had slight body composition changes, but I’m not experiencing any decrease in appetite.
Next question… during my workouts I sometimes include short periods of cardio to break up my resistance/weight training sets. I’ve noticed my endurance is much lower and my legs feel perpetually tired. Is this also something that will get better, or do I need to be doing something different? I generally train about 3 hours after breakfast. Breakfast is almost always bacon, eggs cooked in coconut oil, avocado, and mct and butter coffee. I’m always able to make it though my workouts (usually 1-1.5 hours long), but I just feel that my endurance is lagging.
Thank you for any feedback you can offer!
Endurance loss and unexpected hunger
I am sure there are members who are more qualified to answer your question but I will state my limited experiance and opinion for 60 years old male.
In my opinion there are two types of endurance. endurance for high rate workout and endurance for low rate workout or excercise.
my experiance that I can go about my daily rotines such as walking and working in the office and I can work 14 hours without feeling the need to rest. This I call low output or low rate workout . This has signficantly improved afyer keto.
However high rate of output such as running hard or hard excersise I feel has become less endured after keto.
like you and since I am not there yet keto wise I do not know if this high output endurance will improve or that is it.
In my case I realy do not care as I am happy with my physical performance and ability to acomplish the daily business with good mood and endurance.
At your stage if you are hungry eat more, fat in particular, we tend to use macros in grams here so that would be more helpful as far as levels go. If you are used to eating 3 meals a day eat 3 meals a day.
Do not deficient eat, until fat adaption, you will only screw up your metabolism in the process.
Do not restrict calories, do not count calories. Eat to your maintain macros, this is important during keto adaption esp since you are active. If you are still hungry eat more fat, until full.
Endurance and output will be effected during keto adaption to fat adaption. You will start to recover slowly as you fat adapt, its not a light switch moment. If you are fit cardio wise, I would stop doing that for the interim, peruse a LISS or HIT, even then I would limit that for the first few weeks. Bring it back online after you fat adapt more. You may notice that your cardio will not be the same depending upon how you accomplished it, since your glycogen store are going to be much lower.
Okay. I’ll stop focusing on calories and wait to see some signs of fat adaption. My grams yesterday were 13g carbs, 136g fat, and 75g protein. That is actually fairly low for a day, but I was starving from afternoon until bed time. So, should I just stay within my macros and disregard calories?
Well lets do the full spectrum what is your BF.
For you active lifestyle your protein seems a touch low.
I think counting calories outside of the total for the day is counter productive.
You should not be hungry on this WOE with two exceptions. Right before you eat or on a extended fast at certain point. (and that is not recommended right now. )
I haven’t had my bf measured since before my last fight in January. Then, it was 17%. My fancy scale says it’s 22%, but it has always measured a tad high. I would give it an educated guess of about 20% bf. My arms are defined and somewhat vascular, some upper ab definition, but definition of hip area and legs is lacking.
Protein was my biggest struggle since starting keto. I had to adjust my meat portions to much lower than what I was used to. My typical cut diet previously was low carb (40-80g depending on activity), high protein, and moderate fat. I felt decent when cutting that way, but was still very hungry. However, I didn’t crave protein during those cuts like I do now. I want protein things! Eggs, chicken thighs, burgers,etc… all the time. When eating clean, I’m used to having eggs for breakfast, several hard eggs throughout the day and 6 or so ounces of protein for lunch and dinner. Since starting keto, I’ve eliminated all the hard eggs for snacks and cut to 4oz meat servings for meals to stay in my protein goal.
alright I forgot to ask age, i used 31
my calculator came up with 167g fat 137g protein
For you I used 1.3g to lean which is high, and 20%BF
This would be a maintain diet macro, I assume you would like the benefits of fat adaption for fighting. I think that level would get you to it quickest IMHO. Once you hit that you can cut fat down some and you should be able to drop a little. I will say you are fairly low already so it will not go quickly.
Good guess! I’m 31 in July.
Yes, I’m hoping to use keto for fight and bjj competition performance. I waited until i didn’t have anything scheduled because I knew there was an adjustment period. But, I don’t want to take a fight or start a camp without being fat adapted, so I’m a bit anxious and want to make sure I’m not doing anything you slow my progress. Also, losing some bf will be helpful for my cuts, as I fight at 115 (mma) and under 129 (with a gi on for bjj). I think being able to easily maintain a more lean composition will make my cuts much less stressful.
I appreciate you looking into it. I’ll up the fat and protein and see what happens. As long as I’m not gaining, I’m good. Lol.
Well its a starting point, you will have to adjust, if GNG kicks in too much you will not stay in keto. So you will have to do some experiments on the protein level depending upon the types of protein you intake. Make sure your keytones don’t fall too much if you increase to that level. Since you are active I would expect you are already beginning fat adaption. Keeping the ketones high until that happens is the key so no cheating or you get high insulin spikes.
Once you are fat adapted you may want to consider fasting some for the autophagy after a fight and before. It did miracles on certain issues I have been having even since keto, mainly joints and some old scars.
Eat eggs, eat bacon, eat all the bacon they are some of the most perfect foods.
Watch your salt levels, you will needing more than in the past, do the math for potassium intake on your foods as well as magnesium.
YES. You should be eating to your TDEE until you are fat-adapted. Add more fat in your meals. Everywhere. You should not get hungry between meals.
The general consensus is that you should back off your exercise while you get fat-adapted, then gradually ramp back in to it. Your body is going through an upheaval- give it a break.
Make sure you keep up your electrolytes, too - especially if you keep up with part of your exercise regimen. Shortage of sodium will drag you down pretty quickly.
KCKO!
I’ve found jogging/running to be difficult. The legs have felt tired and heavy. I’ve been doing Keto and IF science Nov 17 and very consistently since Jan 18. I’m sure I’m fat adapted but I’m not feeling like I have a spring in my step so to speak.
I am on keto for almost two months now. I lift weights and run. In my opinion, full adaptation is when you don’t feel “heavy” in the legs during running. So far, I have experienced many benefits of the ketosis but still don’t feel like myself during the workouts. But I see progres.
You are really active so you are going to be hungrier and your body is telling you (physiological) that you need more food (don’t ignore it, it’s not psychological) which is ok even for keto, because you have more physical exertion happening!
Eat when you are hungry!
I remember hearing from the podcast that sport performance for athletes who start keto can take 6 months to reach previous performance. I think the cycling episode with Ian Robathan talks more about that. They mention that athletes start doing keto in their off-season because they need to adjust. If you’ve only been doing it for 3 weeks, I don’t think you’re at the stage yet where your body is optimally using ketones for fuel. I also agree with the others that you shouldn’t be calorie restricting. I am 5’0" and 115 lbs and I eat about 2000-2500 calories per day and I have been maintaining. I only exercise about 1-2x per week so I would imagine that you need more than you think.
Do you use LISS or do you sprint. There will be a big difference between the two. You may need to train your muscles differently if you sprint. Sprinting relies on on glycogen which you now have very little most of the time. If you do LISS then you should have almost unlimited energy if you have the fat reserves and are fat adapted enough.
I will freely admit I don’t run, but I bike, and I can no longer really go nuts on sprinting but I can go faster and a little harder in the long run, and I have yet to cap out(but I have only had a couple rides) I did a hike about 6000 feet higher than I am used to, with an elevation change and crappy terrain 2 days ago(4 hours 9 miles). I never slowed down save to breath, and my daughter 20 years younger than me could not keep up. A year ago I would have been lucky to make 1/4 of the way without burning out.
I adjusted my calories to maintenance. I feel better even after only 2 days. My ketone levels in the morning before breakfast are consistently 1.5-2. I always check again post workout before lunch and they were between 2-3. Today, after 60 minutes of lifting and a 10 minute moderate intensity run, they were 3.7. Is this a result of upping my calories? Does it matter?
On another note, today was the first day since starting keto that I have actually had the urge to run. I felt good. I only went 10 minutes, but I didn’t feel as heavy as previously and I could have gone longer. Alas, I had to retrieve my child from baby jail (Genesis has a 2 hour max for kids club). I was also able to go from breakfast at 0700 until lunch at 1430 with very little discomfort. I mean, I was hungry, but I wasn’t “I feel like killing people” hungry like I used to get. Today has been a good day. Although, I think im going to not get on the scale as often… lol. Since upping my calories, I’ve gained a pound. I’m excited to find my groove so I can attempt IF and possibly full day fasts. Thanks again for all the feedback. Its been so helpful!
Cardio is a mixed bag for me. A lot of it comes from rolling in jiu jitsu or sparring. However, I occasionally add intentional cardio to my gym workouts. I don’t have a regime. Generally, it’s whatever I feel like doing. Sometimes I’ll row for 10-15 minutes. Sometimes I’ll jump on the stair mill for 20, and occasionally I’ll do long incline walks or 10 minute hiit runs. It just depends on what I feel like. I would say, most of it would be considered LISS, because thats what I would compare jiu jitsu rounds to…
Thank you! I try to listen to my body, but in the past I have struggled with binge eating and I still don’t always trust myself to know whether I’m actually hungry or just want to eat more.
I too just completed 3 weeks on Keto. I am a runner and I know exactly what you mean about your legs feeling heavy. They start to go to jelly for me now after about a mile.
I have been told this is normal. It’s so hard to back off, but I’m determined to give Keto my all, so I’m going to have to.
I did read something very promising by a Keto runner. She said eventually the endurance will come back and she now runs 2 hours at a time before eating with no problems. As I’m trying to go for distance, that sounds great to me. She said it would be about 6 weeks before energy levels started to come back. But my energy levels sound like they may be even lower than yours. I’ve actually had days where it’s difficult to get out of bed and do anything.
I made the huge mistake of signing up for a RunBet challenge the same time I started Keto. Every run feels like it’s gotten worse than the one before. But I only have one more run to complete. Oh, and my husband was so sweet as to sign me up for a 5k for mother’s day. Something I really wanted before starting Keto. I don’t have the heart to let him down, so I’m I’m going to give it my all.