Losing muscle while fasting

(Nikki) #1

Hi I have been full keto for almost 2.5 months and down only 12 lbs and I lost 4 lbs of muscle. I Intermittent fast from about 8-12 daily with only a preworkout drink then I work out fasted 5-6 days a week doing a mixture of yoga, Orange Theory and spin.

Post workout I have a fatbomb decaf coffee then don’t eat until 12. The good news is I am not hungry and when I do eat I only have a protein, fat and veggie then macadamia nut snack until a light dinner. However, I do drink wine at night and wonder if that is stalling my fat loss and I am concerned about the muscle loss. Any suggestions on how to keep and build muscle and increase the fat loss. Thanks in advance.

(Allie) #2

How are you tracking the loss?

(Windmill Tilter) #3

If you are relying on an bioimpedance scale to monitor muscle and fat %, be aware that they’re not even remotely accurate. My gym’s commercial grade bioimpedance scale said I gained 16lbs of muscle in 2 weeks. Total nonsense. Those scales are very sensitive to hydration. Keto totally messes with those scales measurements of fat/muscle. Even with a Dexa scan, 4lbs is within the margin of error. KCKO!

If preserving or gaining muscle is your objective, your best bet is to lift heavy things. Cycling at a high intensity is a great way to build VO2 max, but not a good way to build muscle and preserve muscle. If you want to build muscle tone, the most effective way to do it is to lift heavy. It’s more time efficient and a heck of a lot less expensive than Orange Theory as well.

I water fast for 3-4 consecutive days per week, have lost 32lbs in the past 8 weeks, and I have visibly gained muscle. All of my lifts have increased as well (I started lifting weight when I started keto in January). Many other folks attest to a similar experience.

There are lots of beginning weightlifting programs that folks on this forum use. Any basic or beginner program will get the job done. Here are the two that I see most often here on the forum:

Stronglifts 5x5
Body By Science

(Scott) #4

Everybody like to blame wine…except me!

(KetoQ) #5

Hi Nick –

I’m curious to learn how you schedule your training and water fasting for a typical week. I’ve been lifting diligently for the past few months and am ready to do some cutting.

(Nikki) #6

the bio scale that does weight and measures muscle and body fat at my club.

(Allie) #7

They’re not accurate, please don’t rely on this measurement to judge your progress. Judge by how you feel and what the mirror tells you, and a simple tape measure :heart:

I have two of these types of scale and one says I’m 37% body fat, the other says 16.5%

(Nikki) #8

Hi Don_Q Thanks for taking the time to respond. I was hoping the bio scale at the club would give me a reference point of how my body is changing. Good to know that keto messes with the readings.

I was thinking to add a heavy weight day back in and your response is showing I was on the right track. I am a female ex athlete now almost 50 (50th birthday in June thus my big push to get super fit!) with the ability to build muscle when I do lift and I know my way around the weight room. I’ll make this shift and keep with the Intermittent Fasting and see I can body hack even more :smile: Love the Body by Science book. Ill dust it off!

Water fast? and wow…great results… congratulations. Ill check out the water fast and see if that will give me my next bump and yes… KCKO!

(Nikki) #9

So glad I posted and you all responded re my tracking method. Ill get the measuring tape out and of course they way clothes fit is a great indicator but I like the numbers!

(Windmill Tilter) #10

You can still get bodyfat % with just your measuring tape. That’s how the military does it! The measurements of bodyfat with the Navy method are probably a little more accurate than BI scales for folks on keto/fasting because hydration level doesn’t affect the measurements quite as much.

Here is a link. Just take your measurements, plug them in, and voila, you’ve got a bodyfat percentage estimate. I don’t know why, but somehow it’s more motivating for me to see bodyfat % go down rather than inches. :slight_smile:

https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/navy-body-fat

(Windmill Tilter) #11

I’m not an expert by a long shot, but I can tell you what I’ve been doing. I’m not suggesting it’s the best way to go about it, but I like it so far. I water fast for 84hrs, then go to the gym in the fasted state and do the Body by Science workout. It takes 15 minutes total. Then I hop in the sauna for 20 mins to get an extra boost to growth hormone, then I go home and break the fast. Next I feast for 3 consecutive days. Repeat. The reason I do 3:3 is that I want 3 days anabolic and 3 days catabolic. The BBS workout is only meant to be done once per week; more than that can lead to over-training according to the author.

I don’t think it’s necessary to do any fasting whatsoever for an effective cut of course. It’s just something that I wanted to try. So far so good. The only thing I’ll add is that if you do decide cycle feasting with fasting for a length of time is that it’s important that you truly feast. I do average 3500kcal a day when I’m feasting. If you try to restrict calories on your “feast” days, you can drive your metabolism down to depths that slow down your weight loss. You don’t want to do that.

I’m not really cutting per se, and I’m really just lifting weights to avoid muscle loss. I think I’ve gained a bit of muscle, but body dismorphia is a real thing so who knows. Here’s my progress pic from 1/11/19 to 3/4/19. I’m happy enough, but you may have different goals than me.

https://www.ketogenicforums.com/t/don-tries-the-obesity-code-and-body-by-science-and-is-surprised/79146

(Nikki) #12

Thanks Don-Q - super helpful :smile:

(KetoQ) #13

Nick –

Ok, I see how you’re doing it. Great, and very noticeable, results by the way. Keep up the good work.

I should have read your previous post closer, I thought you were doing the Stronglifts program 3x a week, which piqued my curiousity.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #14

Okay so @Rclause is definitely a lover of the grape juice :sunglasses:. Wine may fit into your carb allowance depending on how much you drink. Just account for it. Also some people experience more of a stall than others maybe. And it kind of adds empty calories to your day. We don’t really count calories a lot on keto being more low carb concerned, but they do matter I think somewhat. Especially if you’ve been stalling and want to get going it’s at least worth monitoring to see if it’s pushing your macro/caloric limits.

Another thing to consider is that while you’re liver is busy at work converting a toxin to a nontoxic compound it’s a bigger priority than converting fats to ketones. I believe it suspends ketosis while doing this. :cowboy_hat_face:

(DougH) #15

If I could simplify it by controlling for sleep and stress, then losing muscle mass is a combination of one or two things usually:

  • You aren’t consuming enough quality protein at each meal, so you aren’t giving your body the signal to to maintain or grow lean muscle mass.

  • You aren’t doing heavy strength training with compound movements which stimulates muscle retention and growth.

Fasting unless done to the extreme shouldn’t result in lean muscle loss mass if you are lifting heavy and getting enough protein during the meals when you aren’t fasting.

Yoga is great, spin class is great. But none of them are exercise for the muscles. To stimulate muscles you have to lift things up and put things down using compounds lifts for high weight (for you) and lower reps. I will vehemently disagree to anyone who states otherwise.

(Nikki) #16

LOL David_Stilley. I am def a lover of the grape juice. Thanks for the response. You nailed it… I had gotten away from tracking the carb values in the wine and not measuring. I’ll add that activity for next week and I changed my workout cycle to include a heavy barbell day on top of the Orange Theory lifting I do. (I was sore this week so I know I got it right!)

(Nikki) #17

Thanks for the response. I appreciate the validation that fasting wont result in lean muscle loss. I have since added a heavy barbell day in addition to my two Orange Theory days and upped my weight when I do do Orange Theory. We will see what happens :):grinning: