Exercise confusion!

[Madeleine]

It’s in his book, the Obesity Code. The way it’s organized is it go through 5 assumptions of weight related to calories and why they are wrong and then presents the hormonal theory and why it fulfills all the areas the 5 assumptions of CICO gets wrong.

Thanks, LeeAnn. I read it (and loved it!) but I only remember him talking about exercise relative to CICO, not relative to hormones. At some point I’ll take a look again.

[Madeleine]

You’re going to need to show me evidence that exercise has anything to do with insulin. To my knowledge insulin is stimulated and controlled by what we eat, not exercise.

This MDA post has a ton of links to various studies (and also a lot of non-food AND non-exercise things that affect insulin). I’m not sure there’s any one system of the body that is only affected by one variable, so the increased health that you mention will tend to have a regulating effect on body fat and all the things that control fat storage and appetite.

I get your frustration, though - I think that so many people see exercise as something they can plug in to lose a certain number of pounds. I love that it’s not seen that way in the LC world, but sometimes I worry that folks hear a lot of “it doesn’t matter if you exercise,” which is simply not true.

[Kris86]

My blood sugar sugar creeps to 100 after a weight lifting session.

Additionally, I’m losing weight and gaining muscles while eating omad/ carnivore. It feels like im on roids!

[xMar0x]

I see I’ve sparked some conversation here ! I love that because I see everyone gets to put in their personal and professional experiences and I feel like we can all take pieces of everyone’s knowledge and apply it to their own lives. I love it and thank you all !!! KCKO !!!

[lfod14]

It’s not that it does nothing for weight loss, because it does. But with the way keto attacks fat the weight loss differences can be pretty close if not the same exercise vs not BUT that doesn’t mean your not getting the positive side of cardiovascular health and endurance from cardio because you are. Same goes for lifting, it’s absolutely going to help as lifting helps keep your metabolism up all day long.

[charlie3]

I’ve been doing 20 net carb keto for 5 months and also exercising. I’m light headed every waking hour and I’m now quite sure my fitness progress is less than it should be for a diet related reason. The situation also slows me down at work, which can’t continue.

I’m considering several possibe culprits, low body fat percent (12%), electrolytes, not enough calories, and/or not enough carbs. I think low body fat and electrolyes are the least likely factors. Last Sunday I did an experiment (strictly for science of course) by visiting the ice cream parlor, down the road from my vacation place, and had 12 oz of ice cream, which has 65 grams of carbs. For the next several days my workouts, resistance and cardio, were noticably improved, especially the cardio. I bought a pint of ice cream today, along with the veggies, bacon and eggs, and will try 6 oz, 30 grams of carbs, to see if it spikes energy.

I use Cronometer and rely on it’s estimate of my BMR, 1400 calories. That could be too low by 100-200 calories so I set it to 1500 calories.

[dave_3]

[Silvian]

My issue was that someone said you can’t maintain or gain muscle /strength on keto. That makes zero sense to me. If that is true though, I don’t want to be on keto. If anything keto should help body composition, no?

[Silvian]

I also doubt it’s body fat, if you’re a man you are certainly lean, but still have plenty of wiggle room there. 6-8% in bare minimum for a man. You’re probably all over staying hydrated.

It’s likely your workouts. What do you do aside from lifting? I’ve been researching keto and exercise a lot. I want to figure this out as well. I want to do keto AND whatever sport or activity I desire well.

I like your experiment

1400 sounds crazy low. I need more than that just to maintain. Are you a man? What’s your height and weight? How long have you been keto?

[lfod14]

Whoever said that is a moron. You’re going to run into a LOT of that being keto, if it’s not the muscle thing, then the fat will clog your arteries, you’ll die from lack of carbs blah blah blah.

I’ve been lifting again for almost 2 years now, put on a noticeable amount of muscle in that time but didn’t track it too well through most of it. I switched to a structured program a while back which was a fast moving one to put on size fast. 12 weeks, and almost 7.5lbs of muscle! That’s not easy to do WITH carbs! Those numbers come from a pre and post program BodPod reading. I got lucky with that run and I’m pretty sure I’m not going to put that much on in that speed probably ever again, but it can be done.

• TO BE FAIR!
  During that I was NOT afraid of protein! Either in diet or supplemental (Averaged 150-175g/day Whey blends post workout and casein at night)
  I absolutely DID supplement with decently loaded pre/post workouts (all the typically muscle nutrients and BCAAs in there).

Yes, we ARE at a disadvantage with muscle building being as low on carbs as we are, but it’s just that we build it slower, it’s not that we can’t do it.

[charlie3]

On average I burn 800 calories per day with some combination of walking, 4-500 minutes per week, cardio, 3 30 minute sessions and lifting, 3 70 minute sessions. Walking is 75% of the calories and in July it added up to 174 miles. I do almost all that walking on lunch and breaks at work. 1400 BMR is what cronometer predicts. Recently I got one of those scales you get on with bare feet and it tries to predict BMR, body fat, etc. It was correct about body fat and it predicted a 1600 calorie BMR so I set it upwards to 1550 calories in crono and will do everything the same except adding 150 more calories every day.

I also don’t snack, eat 2 meals 6 days a week and eat nothing one day a week.

[Silvian]

I was thinking I would use BCAA’'s and a post shake for strength training. It helped while I was burning carbs.

Thanks for your input

[Silvian]

Hmmm… idk. My BMR is 1500 minimum and I’m a woman.

When I was really into competition for MMA I kept a written log book for a long time. I basically tried to eat “healthy”, but I ate what I wanted and counted calories. I also logged every single workout or training session. I logged how I felt and how I performed, how much I slept, etc. I measured my waist and weighed myself every day. A little obsessive maybe, BUT after a while I had a very good idea of how many calories I needed and what foods helped and what made me sluggish or gain. I could go through the book and pick out patterns.

I don’t work out like that anymore, far less intense and I’m older, so I expect things to be different now, BUT I maintained my fitness at about 1800 calories a day being a 5f 5i female. I also noticed that days where I worked out multiple times or trained extremely hard I actually ate less, sometimes 1200/1300 calories, and I had to make myself eat. Days I barely worked out or just rested I ate a lot more calories, like 2200. The average was about 1800/ day.

I’m telling you this because measured devices always gave me bad information. I’ve been told by some programs my BMR was 1200 many times. I’d starve lol. I also was teetering on “overweight” by BMI calculations even though I was at 17% BF (quite good for a female) and was in excellent shape.

I also wanted to point out that my calorie needs were not a set number every day. That’s like saying I should spend $15 a day every day on food, no matter what. Or only use 5 gallons of gas in my car every day, that’s all I get, end of story. Every day is different.

I’m suggesting you try logging everything for a while, not worrying about hitting exact numbers and see what you learn. Don’t restrict calories. Eat mindfully and eat what you want. Try to be wise with the “healthy fuel” mindset, but let go of strict rules and just watch and see what happens. If you do it for just a few weeks you’ll learn a lot about yourself. There are a lot of factors involved. Don’t let a computer figure out your calories, YOU figure it out for you based on reality and results.

[juice]

A little obsessive maybe, BUT after a while I had a very good idea of how many calories I needed and what foods helped and what made me sluggish or gain. I could go through the book and pick out patterns.

I’m in the “you can never have too much data” camp. However, I’m also in the “things fluctuate on the micro level” camp as well.

[Silvian]

Exactly! That’s just life and who knows, maybe we get exposed to a bug and need a little extra rest or food to fight off things? The mind/body relationship is so important.

This diet has helped me get that connection back. I’m not going to force anything. I did IF couple times because it felt right and I’m only 4 weeks in. I want to be in tune with my body again and you can tell it what to do, but must listen and respect it too. My opinion anyway