Somewhat new...some questions

[Elian]

I’ve been keto for 3 weeks and lost 10 lbs. I’ve since “hit a wall”.

IF (Intermittent Fasting) is a really great companion to the keto diet if you feel up for a challenge and want to give it a try. Ideally benefits are seen when fasting for at least 14 to 16 hours, but you can start small and work your way up to a comfortable level. You don’t even have to do it for the rest of your keto journey if you don’t want to, but only until you reach your goals. When you’re fasting, not only is your body cleaning and repairing itself, but also melting away the fat it stored and turning it into energy.

There are many types of IF you could choose from, all of them neatly explained all across the Internet. For example, I skip breakfast entirely, don’t snack and only eat two meals a day: lunch at 12 PM and dinner 5 to 6 hours later then fast until 12 PM next day. That’s worked for me and I’m not saying it will work for you; just giving an example.

I’m thinking some off the shelve Adkins bars I’m eating for breakfast are pushing me too high. Curious if anyone can recommend a breakfast bar low in carbs. (These were around 19 carbs but 3 net).

Everyone does keto differently (dirty/healthy etc.) while following more or less the same principles, but I’d say it would benefit your health and overall well-being if you stayed away from processed foods such as cereal bars and get your nutrients from natural sources.

[ctviggen]

Regardless of personal experience, exercise does affect insulin sensitivity and blood glucose levels, so I think that it can enhance the effects of a ketogenic diet and help enable weight loss.

I agree with everything until “help enable weight loss”.

I think it’s possible that exercise may affect “insulin sensitivity” (and I’m not sure what that even means anymore…). But whether that affects weight loss is a different story.

I think if you build muscle, you could provide more of an insulin sink. By this, I mean if you do eat carbs, the carbs (and insulin) have somewhere to go that’s not your fat. And this includes carbs made via gluconeogenesis. The same could be said with the actual exercise that you’re doing: “excess” carbs have somewhere to go.

So, I think exercise is helpful in that regard.

But this is such a massive amount of evidence that indicates exercise causes no weight loss, that I can’t say that exercise helps.

I also think CICO has clouded everyone’s heads. For instance, one theory that building muscle is good for you is because muscle burns calories. If you gain 10 pounds of muscle, you’ll burn more calories. But the amount (in reality) is minuscule, and there’s no evidence you wouldn’t eat a bite or two more of food per day to compensate.

It’s like the calorie counters where you enter your weight and it creates some number indicating how many calories you’ve burnt using the machine you’re using. I have a standing desk with a counter like that, and it tells me I’m burning 700+ calories per day by standing. That’s impossible. And even if it was possible, wouldn’t I just compensate by eating more (as I do on the days I exercise)?

So, I am hesitant to say that exercise = weight loss, even for low carb/keto. I see no evidence it’s true.