Hi,
I have started exercising today and plan to implement 5 days a week cardio for a couple of weeks then mainly weight training.
How have people found exercise while on Keto, did it increase the weight loss, it did it make you feel good?
What type do you do?
Thanks
Frank
Exercise and building muscle mass will increase your insulin sensitivity. That will help with weight loss.
Your peak performance will go down on keto, but your endurance should go up.
Keto and exercising both use up sodium, so make sure you’re getting enough > 5g/day. If you feel light headed while exercising you’re probably not getting enough sodium.
Personally, I do a bit of weight training and walking. I look forward to cycling more when the weather is better. I’d like to do a 300 km (186 mi) ride this summer.
Thanks, I am waiting for the weather to get better to get out on my bike too.
The insulin sensitivity is interesting that exercise can effect that, you have given me a solid reason to exercise.
I walk minimum 3 miles a day, kettlebells 2 or 3 times a week, HIIT on my bike 2 times a week. I’m do sprint triathlons and will start running when I heal from a foot injury and will get back in the pool when it warms up. In the meantime I am working on building muscle to make it easier. I have found that I am actually doing better with my kettlebells on keto than I was before because I am not suffering from the chronic pain and fatigue I was prior. I only swing a 25 lb bell but I have doubled my reps. I think exercise is great for mood, stress, sleep…
All of this is so key and I wish I had known this in my first few days. @steak is so spot on here (also side note, I thought you were a robot when I first joined since you liked my post so quickly and I thought that maybe there was a steak robot that automatically liked everyone’s first posts…but I digress)
Here is my n=1 re: exercise as a keto newbie myself-- I made a post in the newbie forum that goes on at length about this, but my exercise endurance went THROUGH THE ROOF very quickly when I transitioned to keto. But the electrolyte thing that Steak mentions is VERY real.
You will be more prone to muscle cramps and mild headaches so whatever water you were drinking before, drink WAY more, but not just straight up water-- in my experience, too much plain water feels like it just dilutes my electrolyte balance more. I can’t state how much @brenda 's ketoade recipe has been a lifesaver as I have been ice skating multiple times per day. I drink about 48 ounces of it per day now in addition to about twice that in regular water and I have made a ketoade concentrate, flavored with lime juice, that I keep in little 1 oz. plastic bottles so that I can make water into ketoade as necessary. Electrolytes are so important in keto, so important in exercise and are INCREDIBLY important when combining the two. I have never been as acutely aware of my own homeostatic balance and how carefully I can throw it out since I have gone keto. I feel like Chris Traeger from Parks and Rec all of a sudden-- my body is a microchip and if I don’t get enough salt, the chip won’t work anymore!
I haven’t hit a point where I notice anything re: peak performance but hat is subjective in a sport like figure skating. The bug change is endurance. Mine has felt Herculean compared to what it was pre-keto. My primary goal is less weightloss and more reduction of overall body fat while increasing lean muscle, so I can’t speak to that specifically, but anecdotally–I feel like I have been shredding fat with this amount of skating. The endorphins from this much working out have been one of the best parts. I also do additional cardio and am adding in more targeted core muscle workouts off the ice to help with my skating posture, but I don’t currently lift weights. I will when my ice season wraps in March.
My experience is mixed. In my eat less exercise more phase following standard advice I found no difference to weight loss exercising 1 day a week to 5 days a week. It was all about the food. Limit the food and I lost weight (temporarily!).
I trained for a marathon in 2016 before I discovered Keto. I was running at 80-100% effort for an hour on a track once a week, running at 60-70% capacity for a long run once a week for 1-4hrs depending on the week, another 50% recovery run, and then a swim. I got through the marathon in 6:30. Not fast at all but I was delighted to have finished it!
During the 20 week training I put on weight, about 3kg. Was constantly rangry (hungry/angry from running!). I think what benefit I got from “burning calories” was undone by putting the body under stress.
It was the NYC marathon, and I had a holiday in the US afterwards. That was the first holiday I’d had in the US where I lost weight. Eating all the delicious rubbish with abandon (Hey I’ve just run the NYC marathon!), but no running and I lost weight!
During the last year I’ve moved to strength training, swimming, and a bit of running, and that seems to support rather than hinder weight loss. I certainly found no ill affects of running in a fasted state and have ditched all those ghastly sugary energy gel things (though my longest run in 2017 was about 15km)
I’ll be continuing my n=1 experiment this year having just dipped my toe into Keto and also starting training in about April for another marathon in January 2019! Hopefully Keto will help me do that without putting on weight! It’s also a mindset change. I now run for other reasons, losing weight isn’t one of them.
Due to multiple knee and ankle surgery I’ve been doing zone 2 training to build a cardio base. Supposed to keep you in the fat burning zone and not in the glucose burn. Will see.
I suspect that like most things it’s going to vary. I get a weirdly (but good weird) disproportionate response from exercise from weight loss - I lose more weight than the activity would be expected to yield*.
So try it and see?
*This sort of thing is why CICO is problematic.
Well I used to do it the wrong way, and am doing it the “right way for me” now:
I started three years ago with a keto-ish/low carb diet. I did calorie restrict back then and exercised almost everyday a year HIIT 30 min every day. plus 45 min of cardio most days too. I pushed even though I was cramping and weak, causing many injuries. I was not even properly fat adapted. would not recommend that to anyone.
I was obsessively tracking calories in vs. calories out and that does not really work in the long run.
Now I just have my 20’000 steps a day goal, plus I go to fitness boxing twice a week. But I do that for balancing my hormones, building lean mass, increasing my endurance and stay mentally healthy. I will not push if my body tells me it isn’t able to go to training.
I do 3 - 5-day fasts most of the week,(Monday to Wednesday) and I notice that whenever I go to boxing class on Monday I deplete my glycogen levels faster, shooting myself into ketosis and makes the rest of the week so much more enjoyable. (especially if I had an evil cookie on Sunday)
For me personally, the closer I get to my goal weight the more exercise counts and contributes towards fat loss.
When I first started Keto I was not excising, but once I’d been doing the diet for 4-5 months the urge to exercise took control.
When first starting to work out my weight loss plateaued, I believe fat loss continued and muscle gain kicked in.
Hi! When we exercise strenuously, pushing ourselves through inner resistance and pain, we build muscle and retain lots of water. When we rest, we deflate.
I’m pretty sure exercising is good for you on any type of weightloss diet. I started on WW this time last year and lost 50lbs on the plan. I was exercising like a mad man. Since starting on keto in November I have moved on to weight training and cardio!!
My understanding of all this is a basic purpose of keto or very low carb eating is to reduce the amount of glucose going in to the blood stream and reduce the amount of time glucose spends in the blood stream. So there are several ways to so that. The medical way is to artificially iincrease the amount of insulin in the blood stream by injection. Another way is to decrease the amount of carbohydrates in the diet. Yet another way to reduce the amount of glucose in the blood is to increase demand by depleting stored glycogen by increased activity.
Over the past 10 months my calories consumed by activity (exerciise) has increased to 35-40% of total daily calories, which means, when glucose gets into my blood stream there are billions of hungry working cells eager to absorb and convert it to (non toxic) glycogen. Since I’m reletively lean (about 11.5% body fat) my fat cells aren’t resistant to absorbing glucose because they aren’t already over full. Because I also restrict carbohydrates in my diet keto style my body is forced to use more fat for fuel instead,
Diet and exercise may be comparably effective for reducing glucose in the blood stream. They certainly must closely compliment each other. That’s the way I understand things. Others may correct me if my reasoning is flawed.
I exercise 6 days a week,60 minutes per day, alternating between cardio (power walking) and weight training (super slow burn and kettlebell swings). It has been a game changer for me. Prior to Keto, I was running 11 miles per day and my body composition wasn’t nearly what it is now. The scale has remained the same for a few weeks, but I am losing inches. For me, exercise is definitely beneficial and it makes me feel good in general.
The biggest change for me is that exercise compounds the overall sense of feeling good. It makes me want to eat right. It makes me want to sleep well. It increases my appetite. It makes me feel great when I’m fasting. Exercise for me is a quality-of-life issue.