Endurance loss and unexpected hunger

(Jade) #21

Are you doing keto for weight loss or for endurance benefits? Or both? My energy is actually really good most days. I used to have to take a nap to get through, but now when I nap, I do it just because.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #22

Both. I have been a yo-yo dieter my whole life. I was looking for something I could maintain. And since doing the LF thing hasn’t stuck, I decided to give Keto a try.
But I also was really attracted to the idea of extra energy. The furthest I’ve run is a half marathon. I was really thinking of training for a full, so the idea of having more endurance is certainly a draw for me.

#23

My runs are ridiculously easy if I compare them to what they used to be. I started keto because of some other Health issues which have been solved almost magically when I transferred to keto. But I was also athlete (and like to think that I still am), but - keto has steal a big part of my strength and endurance. At least in this adaptation phase. I am waiting for this adapting thing to happen - because then everything suppose to be back on the old basis. At least I am hoping so. To be honest, I’ ve had some serious problems for past two days - extreme fatigue and sickness - and I have almost quit because this was unbearable. I decided to see how today will go. I want to go to the gym today (last two times I was extremely sick after going to the gym), I decided to do some modified workouts (will experiment to see what will be). I really cannot and don’t want to quit that part of my life (gym, running, sports) because of keto. It just doesn’t make any sense to me. Also, I am not in this for losing weight but to help myself with Health issues.

#24

Three years ago I had one failed attempt of Keto. Now I Know where I was wrong. Too much protein and dairy which kept me the whole time in some low carb bad state. I remember that I was going on a 10K race which I barely completed. I was thinking that I am gonna die at the end and that was the last minute of keto for me back then. Surprisingly, I went for another race (5k) just two weeks after that with ridiculously small amount of carbs in my body and it felt like I was flying. I was strong, fast and feeling great, light. I remember that time when I thought I was on Keto (and now I Know that I wasnt, and that time I didn’t have a blood meter to check) - my legs were constantly heavy and I felt overall heavy and fat. Now I Know that I am in ketosis but I am not fully adapted. I feel light and good, my legs are fine - but I still feel muscle weak. If I go to the gym - I have no problem at the gym and my workouts are going better every time - BUT I feel like total crap for few days after and that is killing me. As I wrote in the comments - I was in the gym at sunday, had some busy and energetic monday and tuesday (a lot of walking) but wednesday and thursday got me so sick that I almost ended on emergency in the hospital. And that is not ok either.

#25

Then I am curious. If you are hungry yet you cannot get a proper suitable food on your hand on the time you are hungry, then how? <_<

(Chris W) #26

Context is everything in this discussion.
If you are asking if you are or become hungry and you cannot eat anything suitable at the time you become hungry, and you are keto adapted but not fat adapted I would say don’t eat yet. Hunger can be trigger by a number of things more complex to discuss here but during adaption its mostly mental(trained/time) and hormonal.

If you are asking if you are still hungry and you ate recently and you are keto adapted but not yet fat adapted, I would say this is more of a problem. If you do it once probably no harm no foul, if you do it all the time you will set up a slowing of your metabolism and cause more issues. Only providing partial energy in this case I would say is worse than not providing at all in a short term of time based on my own experiences. I would also tell you that it will vary person to person on how much you can tolerate without having metabolic changes. This would be the restricting of calories that is so often talked about here.

I will also say that in my world being full and satiety are slightly different, the main difference being the level of fullness your body signals to you and maybe the time frame. But while becoming fat adapting its more important to eat to full so you get to know the feeling of satiety, and how weight out what you need to get there in fat intake. I understood full in my carb eating days, satiety not so much.
People are so used to portion control that you need to knock those barriers down, they are more of handicap then a help even though the macros are sort of portion control. Once you fat adapt it is much easier to eat to satiety and not get sick or under eat, and have the proper amount without much thought in the matter, more or less listening to your body based on your “training” on the road to fat adaption.
When I tell people to eat to a macro it is not that you need to hit that mark for some appreciable benefit as much as its that you need to re train your mind how to understand what satiety and hunger are at a proper intake level. Many people eat so little for so long that they are not used to it, and have a mental block that kicks in and stops them from eating properly to get there metabolism to were it belongs again to heal, destroy fat, and feel good.

(charlie3) #27

I’ve been experiencing the low energy training issue. I’m back to exercise after decades. Over the last three months I tried to increase muscle mass, improve cardio fitness, reduce body fat and adapt to a keto diet, all at the same time. I was restricting daily calories, taking sets to failure, and pushing too hard on the Airdyne. I did reduce body fat to nearly lean highschool days, about 10 pounds, and got macros where they need to be but there was only marginal improvements in cardio and muscle mass.

All those things can’t happen at once, at least not for me. The universal belief in strength training is the onlly way to increase muscle mass is eat surplus calories and accept some increase in body fat. I don’t doubt that but may be iit can be finessed. My N=1 is to eat the extra calories Sunday - Friday then try to recapture most of them by fasting from Friday night until Sunday morning and hopefully burn more body fat than lean tissue. I dearly want to keep my fat loss progress and still increase muscle mass. So far it’s obvious I have more energy for workouts when I’m not trying to loose body fat. May be some day I’ll have more flexibility. I’m treating this situation liike a deload period where you rebuild from a lower performance level.