Strength training and protein

(Dasha ) #1

I’m very active. I go to the gym 5-6 a week , walk my kids to school (3 miles) and train with weights 4 times per week (always do some sort of cardio to warm up). I’m eating about 1700-1800 calories per day. Macros calculator recommended .9 of protein per lb LBM. I’ve been extra hungry lately. I checked my blood ketones and it’s .2 so I checked several times and it’s always low. I do eat a lot of vegetables but my net carbs are always under 30. Should I lower my protein or simmer down on the veggies? I don’t want to lose muscle mass with low protein. My trainer is really pushing me for high protein.

(Alan Williamson) #2

How exactly will you lose muscle mass? That doesn’t make sense. If you are trying to lose weight the key is to lower your insulin level. Eating will spike insulin. Eating carbs will spike insulin a lot. Eating to much protein will spike insulin. So a good strategy is to eat lots of fat. Another strategy is to eat one meal a day. Another is to skip eating a meal for a whole day. It depends on what your goal is. I lost 50 pounds just sitting on the sofa watching TV.

(Adrian Russell) #3

You’ll have to up your fat intake, I don’t think you should take more protein, likely up your fat and possibly cut a little on the veggies. You won’t lose muscle mass and you’ll feel less hungry likely as well.

#4

I would try one thing at a time for say a couple of weeks at a time. First thing I would do is drop carbs to 20g and up fat to quell any hunger. Keep protein as it is. See what happens with that and then tweak again. And so on. Something is off for your ketones not to be higher than that with all the exercise you do and if all your carbs come from veg. Have you had a fasting insulin test? I would be very tempted to check it out along with HbA1c.

(Dasha ) #5

I just had my blood work before starting keto in may and everything was perfect. I’ve also noticed my fasting glucose is higher than normal (102). Literally 95% of my carbs are from vegetables. Also 20 g net or all together. I cut my carbs down starting yesterday and did raise my fat a bit. I have one ketone strip left so I’m going to check in a few days. What changes would you make first?

#6

What was your fasting insulin when tested?

What is the other 5%? Stuff like bits and bobs in dairy etc. I am guessing? The insulin is a useful thing to know because it will give you good indication of your insulin resistance. If you are IR then dropping carbs could be the key to getting into ketosis. Is that 30g net or total? If you have good insulin sensitivity and are as active as you are, that level of carbs should bot be holding you back as much as it is. Is there anything else going on to impact fasting glucose? Stress? Sleep problems?

(Dasha ) #7

It my BG was 102 this morning but 90 a few hours after carb free lunch. The other 5% coming from dairy and sometimes nuts. I eat up to 30 net and I’m always under 50 total. I’ll post screen shots of today’s food diary but I didn’t eat my regular amount of veggies. I checked my ketones today and it was 0.4 a few hours after lunch. I’m always hungry. I’m losing weight and body fat because of simple CICO but I’d like to be able to stop taking my ADHD medication eventually and losing weight faster would be great :joy:

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(Dasha ) #8

I don’t track my strength training. What’s listed as activity is what’s tracked automatically.

(Dasha ) #9

My goal is to build muscle while lowering my total BF %.

(Dasha ) #10

Sounds like good advice. My trainer is pushing me towards high protein and low carb but I’m always tired and starving when I do this version of low carb. Cutting out veggies is so hard for me. I posted a screen shot of today. Am I in the right track?ill post nutrients from today as well.

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(Edith) #11

I don’t know what you LBM is but for me, I am finding if I eat more than 75g of protein for the day, my morning blood ketones are always borderline for being in nutritional ketosis. You may be eating too much protein.

Also, are you getting enough salt? Salt needs go up on the ketogenic diet. Since you work out a lot, that will increase your salt need even more. Too low salt in take makes me hungry.

Let us know what you end up finding about what works for you.

Edith

(KCKO, KCFO 🥥) #12

Some great advice here already. Only things I would add:

  1. eat fatty meats for your protein. That will probably help with hunger and the ketones.

  2. Strips are not that accurate. You might want to start using a breathalyzer or ketone blood meter. Atkins began telling people not to rely on strips over 10 yrs. ago, Dehydration really effects their readings as I learned from personal experience before switching to my breathalyzer.

All the best on sorting it out.

(Dasha ) #13

I’m using blood ketone meter :slight_smile:

(Allie) #14

I would try dropping protein. Even with my training schedule and generally active lifestyle, I don’t need more than about 75g daily and cope fine on even as low as 50g.

(Adrian Russell) #15

I’m not one of the zero carb, no veggies people at all, I also like and eat veggies, I just try to eat ones that are relatively low in carbs and high in fibre to reduce the net carbs yet still get some of the benefits of veggies. I have the same problem as you in that I train extensively with weights yet have a terrible time building muscle mass. In the past, prior to keto when I upped my carbs and protein I put on size but at the cost of poor blood sugar control. I’ve lost some muscle mass but am still quite strong and now have good BG numbers. I have to keep in mind what’s more important, to me anyway.

(Dasha ) #16

@Adrian_Russell what are your go to veggies? Mine is mostly zucchini. I cut down on tomato and cucumbers. I also LOve squash. I only prep meat so it’s easy to dump it on zoodles and mix with oil and avocado but I’m finding that I’m over my macros all the time.

(Davey B ) #17

I’ve been doing Keto for 11 months and happily counting on my first anniversary in October! I found it easier to kill off the carbs than I did to keep the protein in check - It seems so much of my fat is connected to equal amounts of protein (almost gram for gram), like cheese, steak, pork chops, eggs, bacon, etc.

So, I added butter to my coffee when on the road (12g fat/ 0protein/ 0carbs, When home with access to my blender I always do Keto coffee 80g fat/ 19g protein/ 4gfat), switched to juicy ribeye’s soaked in butter (a la Ruth’s Chris!), 35% full fat cream for my 10-12 berries in the morning, etc. Still looking for more tricks but building as I go!

Strength training much easier for me on Keto - much less soreness two days after the fact. In large due to less acid buildup on keto, as I understand it… Whatever the reason, It’s a very nice unexpected benefit. No need to up the protein, BHB rules! --> Try this Phinney & Volek easy-to-read and very informative book… No, I’m not related nor do I get a commision for selling books :relaxed:

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(Tim W) #18

Your trainer most likely has no idea of gluconeogenesis and they are pushing the tired old myths of training and eating. They may be the rare trainer but, in my experience and my training to earn a cert, there is little discussion of proper nutrition and what is taught is the old dogma, high carb, high protein, low fat blah blah blah.

The high protein dogma does one thing REALLY well, sells shakes/bars/powders for the supplement companies. There is a good deal of evidence supporting the idea that we need LESS protein than usually recommended by the old 1.0 grams of protein per lean kilo of body mass, many are reporting good success with less than that.

Check out the ketoathelete podcast, lots of good info there. Also, play with this calculator, it’s not perfect but it’s fun to play with: https://ketogains.com/ketogains-calculator/

Also, ask your trainer what happens with extra protein if you are consuming more than needed? (It could raise insulin levels, reducing the impact of your fasting efforts if you are using IF etc. or it just gets passed out of the body in the urine…).

Best of luck to you.

(Dasha ) #19

@DaveyB, thank you. I’m having such a hard time letting go of veggies :grimacing:

(Dasha ) #20

He is all for moderate good fats but high protein. I know I don’t feel as good when I go over my protein. I think I should really lower it from my calculated macros because I’m always hungry.