HIIT, weightlifting or low-intensity cardio?

(Bob M) #11

I do both Body by Science (slow lifts, few reps) (about 30-35 minutes) and HIIT (about 17 minutes) in the same workout. I do one longer HIIT (about 30 minutes) on the weekends, followed by cold therapy, where I walk outside for 20-25 minutes with reduced clothing. I remain cold basically the entire freaking day.

My HIIT is 1 minute of low intensity followed by 1:30 of high intensity. I had to drop my high intensity when I moved to flat shoes:

I use a heart rate monitor to get my heart rate fairly high for my age. (Though BBS can get just as high if not higher, depending on the exercise.)

I also had to lower the amount of weight I was using in many exercises, such as farmer’s walk, lunges, hack squats on a machine.

I worked out since I was 16 or so, and never stopped working out, even while gaining 90+ pounds. Would even ride my bike many 60+ mile rides in the summer. Exercise is poor for weight loss, at least for me.

(Joseph) #12

I’m old school and the energy demand/pathway used and being trained (fatigue resistance) is PCr so anything less than 150% ish of power output at VO2 max (Peter Coe regime?) is not HIIT. 6-7x of 15-20 sec intervals with half work duration for rest (Tabata IE1 regimen at 170% of VO2 Max) is about the limit of PCr and 30 secs is the upper limit (Tabata IE2 regimen, 200% of VO2 Max with 2 min rest). If you are using HRM as guide, you not doing it right. The work interval will be over before the heart catches up (lag). Also there a wide spectrum of work intensity that can be done at max HR so how can you determine the workload? Only a few sports (cycling, running, rowing) has tools (power meter) or published standards (running) that can objectively determine it or estimate it (running without a power meter and a very fine tuned RPE).

(traci simpson) #13

I don’t think I can ever give up exercising.

(Kirk Wolak) #14

I will chime in here. I know you have been at it longer…
But I think it is important to know that SLEEP is more important than exercise.
STRESS pushes Cortisol which pushes Insulin.

Sleep reduces stress. My biggest whooshes of weight loss came on sleepy days. Not on exercise days. Now if I exercise gently (lots of walking), I sleep better. Amazingly better. Like 3.5 - 4hrs of Deep sleep and an equal amount of light sleep! That is a MIRACLE level of sleep for me at 52… I wish I knew to track it 30 years ago. OMG. I think I get 2-3 times the deep sleep now.

Diet will help you lose weight, but you have to CLEAN it for your body. I had to go carnivore, and cut my eating down to OMAD. Eating 2MAD or 3MAD I will gain weight if I am not extremely careful. 2MAD will stall me from losing weight on an eating day.

Also, running out of weight to lose stalls me. LOL…

I would add de-stressing exercise first. Like walking while listening to podcasts or music (instead of sitting). And SMILE while you are walking, looking slightly up. PROVEN to improve your mood, and decrease stress hormones!

Good Luck!

(traci simpson) #15

Exercise helps with your all around total wellness. It’s great for the brain and may even help with issues like dementia and Alzheimer’s.

(Nick) #16

I’m curious about the 3 times a week max… Why is this? Serious question.

And the correct way to do HIIT is to go as absolute hard as you can for 15-20 seconds and then rest for AS LONG AS YOU NEED in order to perform another set at 100%. If you’re watching a clock during this time you are not doing it correctly. I shouldn’t say “correctly”, but it is a huge misconception that you go 1 minute on 1 minute off (example). There should be no time frame on your rest period. Only rest for as long as you need. Obviously that time will increase as the workout goes on.

For the OP, I would choose the one that I most ENJOY. Don’t force something that makes you miserable. Go play tennis or ride a bike, or whatever! With that being said, aerobic exercises are typically suggested while doing a keto diet.

(Joseph) #17

Work to rest/recovery duration is for HIIT intervals generally falls withing 1:1 to 1:0.5. The three (3) times per week recommendation is made to optimizing the cumulative training strain the body can handle and still able to perform at the same levels the following work week. See Banister Impulse-Response model and "Training and Racing with a Power Meter for discussion on stress/strain relationship. Also see http://www.owascoveloclub.com/Education_files/EXERCISE%20PHYSIOLOGY.pdf for general exercise physiology discussion.

What you are referring to, complete rest between work intervals, are more in-line with classical sprint training or HIT. The targeted physiological adaptation of the two are very different.

(David Brown) #18

I can’t believe some one said exercise has negligible effect on weight loss!! Truly shocking. I won’t go into the multiple reasons that exercise will help you but if looking lean and having a good shape is important to you then weight training on keto is extremely important. To put it simply you have to ask why a body builder weight trains when he’s getting ready for a show!!! It’s not to gain muscle because in a calorie deficit they won’t. So why do they??? If you don’t give your body a reason to keep your muscle your body will use it for other purposes. I have literally witnessed 100’s of people shed fat and hard earned muscle at the same time. Muscle, unlike fat is metabolically active. The more you have the more energy you burn

(Karim Wassef) #19

Losing fat on a keto way of eating does not require any exercise. Exercise can come later as a function of an abundance of energy.

Eating low carbohydrates and eating sufficient fat provides enough calories for the body to start using its own fat stores without exercise. I lost 90lbs with keto/fasting and then slowly put on 20lbs of muscle with weightlifting.

#20

You can never outrun a bad diet…

90% is food, the rest can be exercise…exercise complements the diet, but it won’t replace bad food choices. I work out, probably the majority of us does, but it’s not the key to weight loss :slight_smile:

(David Brown) #21

No one is saying that you need to out run a bad diet. They are asking about exercise Info whilst on a keto diet. Sure you can burn fat without exercise. You can also drive your car with your feet if you want to but that doesn’t make it a good idea!!! Muscle needs an excuse to be there. Especially those people who have worked hard to gain additional muscle. If burning fat was that easy without exercise then why does ever person who makes a living from being lean and being in shape train hard when cutting up? The Answer is simple… It’s to produce the best body composition possible. But like I said, if that’s not important to you and you just want to lose a few pounds then you’ll be OK with just the diet. However, even on keto you need a calorie deficit to lose weight. You can’t just keep reducing calories every time your body adapts. Personally I think creating a deficit with exercises is better than cutting calories to a low level

(Liz Ellen) #22

I have lost 40 pounds in five months with minimal exercise and am close to having a BMI that is considered “overweight,” not “morbidly obese.” I’m finding as I shed my fat layers, I’m quite muscular underneath — due in no small part because I was having to support so much weight. Now that I’m not so burdened by my own mass, I’m naturally moving more. I opt for the stairs at work. I use my standing desk more. I went for a walk yesterday with a friend “for fun” and then played frisbee at dusk for more than an hour “for fun.” I think that more activity will follow as I feel better and better, but given what we know about exercise and its affects on hunger signaling (it can make you quite hungry and spur you to overeat), I’m good keeping it casual for now. I’d rather move for fun than staying on a strict regimen, anyway. My two cents.

#23

I found it a lot easier to not eat 500kcal than to burn it off…

I always exercised and I still do, it makes me feel better and I feel I look better, at the same time hoping it’s doing its share to help my whole-body metabolism.
But maybe I see it from my the POV of losing weight on SAD and blaming it all on not exercising enough…once you figure out it was the food we were eating, it’s a lot easier to take exercise as a complement to food in our new-found quest towards healthz

(David Brown) #24

Off course you found it easier to not eat 500 over burning it off. I would much prefer to do that too!! Dropping calories to increase or take you to a new deficit level is OK until when? You hit zero calories? My sister example dropped down to 1000 and stayed there for months. This was against my advice and she is now metabolicy adjusted to this level. It’s going to take a careful reverse diet to effectively restore her metabolism back to an acceptable level. Most people don’t realise until its too late that they have become metabolically adjusted and wonder why when they finish a diet and return to their maintenance calorie level they pile it back on. My clients aside, I personally keto on 2300 calories and create great deficit with activities. That way when I reach my target body fat percentage my body isn’t desperately trying to restore itself and return to normal. The body is amazing how it naturally wants to restore your fat levels by being more efficient with the food your eating and signalling your brain to trick you with hunger hormones is astonishing. In a quest to stay trim we a fighting a losing battle from the start

(Karim Wassef) #25

Keto is not the same as caloric restriction.

The whole point is to not go back to the “exercise more, eat less” mentality that corrupts our health.

It breaks people’s metabolisms and keeps them depressed and unhealthy.

Even moderate exercise at 400lbs causes undue joint stress.

Exercise will come in time, but it’s not necessary and doesn’t really help much when you’re first opening access to body fat.

#26

I’m with you, and I find the “exercise isn’t necessary” thing really frustrating, since a good exercise program supports fat loss specifically and health in general in so many ways, and it certainly takes us in the body comp direction that most people are usually looking for when they want to lose weight. At some point out of exasperation I started a thread on this (“Exercise is not an effective tool for weightloss” is nonsense.)

Unfortunately, many people have had really rough experiences using chronic cardio + poor diet and watching their waistline and their health go in the wrong direction, and “eat less, move more” is horribly misused, so exercise is often associated with all of that failure and negativity. Also, starting an exercise protocol just when asking the system to adjust to a new fuel source can be really tricky, but keto folks do seem to spontaneously start moving more once their metabolism has healed a bit and they’ve lost some weight.

(Carl Wiatzka) #27

I personally found that while I did lose a lot of weight on ketoin the beginning once I started light strength training it made me much more toned and even increased my energy levels overall.

I think that even if exercise doesn’t have a severe impact on weight loss itself it is still very important and one of the most healthy things we can do next to eating right .

(Karim Wassef) #28

I absolutely agree. I just think that exercise comes when you’re ready, not when someone tells you you should. Many of us end up overweight following the old ways of diet and exercise. Keto brings energy and each person will sense when they’re ready to be more active, but it doesn’t have to start with any exercise.

(Scott) #29

I am in my seventh week of an experiment where I increased my running to 30 miles a week and started strength training three times a week. I think my belly is getting smaller but kind of hard to tell. I can feel the increase in muscle mass yet have lost a pound and my body fat went from 20% to 19%. I feel really good and expect slow results because I am only six pounds or so from what I would call my ideal weight. I am enjoying the combination of keto and exercise.

(Muhammad Nasim) #30

I spent around 3 months extended water fasting with no exercise. A further 3 months keto omad with no exercise. I then felt energetic and phased in weight training (for body shape reasons).
I never used exercise to create a deficit and I think there are very few people who create a signigicant deficit by exercise.
I found that when I started weight training some days I needed more food so I ketod up the volume of food. Strength progressing nicely as well as the other markers.
So it made sense for me to add exercise when i was ready!