Hello. I’m new here, and new to Keto, but I have a history with weightlifting. I’m a 50 year old man, so I know we’re not necessarily comparing apples to apples. With your age, I don’t know how best to advise you, but the principles of bodybuilding are pretty universal to age and gender.
A little background about me and my weightlifting and fitness experience. In my teens, I was a fat kid with no muscle and no friends until I joined The Marines and lost 60 pounds in 4 months in boot camp (yes, I was so out of shape, I needed an extra month to lose fat and build enough muscle to graduate). During my time as a young Marine, I spent a lot of time in the gym. I learned a lot from the guys there about strength, bulk and tone.
After I got out, I went through a nasty divorce, which was what really kicked my weightlifting into overdrive. It was either lifting or drinking. I chose lifting. That was 22 years ago. For about 5 years, I spent every day in the gym for 3 hours a day with about half of that time doing heavy lifting. I once put four inches on my chest in 6 months and went from a 46 inch chest to a 50 inch chest. I used to have 18 inch arms, but just measured myself right now and they still measure 16 inches. I guess I still got it.
Protein intake:
At my peak, (I’m using myself as an example, but naturally your situation will require much less protein than I was using) I was consuming 5 dozen eggs in a week and a half, as well as protein shakes and peanut butter. Naturally, on Keto, we can’t have the latter, so I recommend increasing your egg consumption and eating more red meat. I don’t know how much you’ll need at your age, so you’ll have to do some experimenting. Maybe add an extra egg to your meals or increase your red meat portion a little.
Also, it is beneficial to consume protein just before and right after a lifting session. This will help feed your muscle growth and improve recovery time.
Weight and reps:
Here’s a hard fast rule:
If you can lift a weight over 11 reps, that is muscle tone territory.
If you can lift a weight only 4 to 10 reps, that’s muscle building/bulk territory
If you can lift a weight only 1 to 3 reps, that’s strength training territory.
I would recommend a lightweight warmup set to get your muscles warmed up. Then increase your weight to a safe weight where you can lift it between 6 to 10 times before your muscles give out. Then increase the weight just a little (if it’s safe for you) until you can only do 4 to 6 reps. Then cool down with a high rep set with a very light weight. Give yourself a few minutes between sets to rest.
Give your muscle group at least 3 days to recover before working it out again. If you feel the lactic acid burn on days 1 and 2, you did it right.
Safety: If using free weights, start light until you build the fine-tune muscles that keep your body stable during the exercise. If lifting weights is a safety concern, use a machine with the appropriate weight setting and/or have a gym partner. Always breathe in on the extension movement and breathe out on the flexion of the targeted muscle movement. (e.g. breathe out when pressing weights on a leg machine and breathe in when yo let your legs retract) Always lift with proper posture and with smooth controlled movements. Jerking and straining cause injury.
I always shook my head at the guys in the gym flinging weights around, trying to impress people.
Good luck in your muscle building journey!
Tony.
I did a variety today and the ones that wore me out most were some abs done on the mats like planks, and the bird-dogs. The last one is just fabulous for balance and today was a good reminder I need more of that!! Then I through in some “I think they’re called” hip-thrusts? Also did forward and rear lunges, and squats using a belt sort of thing with handles.
I found a pic online of the type of columns they have:
denise 
and not without my harness:grinning:
