Hello all,
Apologies if this has been posted before, but I was wondering if anyone has had any experience in Strength training whilst on Keto?
I have been working out for a fair few number of years, with fairly pleasant results, however this was on a standard western diet.
I have recently transitioned to a targeted keto diet, as I was finding that there were times of the day when I would feel terribly lethargic.
Since my transition, I feel clearer and much sharper, however my strength at the gym has fallen considerably. I was wondering if anyone else has experienced this?
Also, I’m finding it hard to consume around 2500 calories a day (a target which I have set for myself), and was wondering if I could have some advice with regards to the highest sources of unsaturated fats please?
The reason being, that I have South Asian ancestry, and am therefore prone to high cholesterol.
As a result of this problem, I’m unable to use much coconut oil or butter in my diet, and there’s only so much avocados and pecans one can eat!
Any help would be much appreciated
Thanks
Strength Training
You may find that most people around here don’t worry much about LDL and they eat lots of saturated fat. I just finished a dinner of beef and salmon and now i’m sipping on ice coffee with heavy cream. Long live saturated fat. The lethargy thing is universal in the beginning. The transition from sugar to fat goes on for a long time. May be rapid progress in the beginning and continued improvement for years after that. I lift and had energy issues early on, not any more. There’s no such thing as targeted keto. There is falling off the wagon. I’ve managed 40 grams net carbs, all in a daily salad of non startchy vegetables with olive oil dressing and an avecado.
Many thanks for getting back to me.
I guess with it being a big change in how the body is run, I can expect a few hiccups along the way 
Me: Keto adapted for 4 years. Consistently having 1 or 2 strength sessions per week, compelmenting running of various intensities. The big picture is that now I can train more often, for longer, and for intense periods for longer, compared with pre-Keto.
My strength work is specifically tailored for my goals. It might be different for me if there was a bias in the sessions towards reps to fail or towards cardio from strength reps.
I watch my post-session recovery (foods, time to next session, double training sessions), hydration and sleep. If one gets out of kilter, I can feel it over the next couple of days, but that might be due to my age?
I see no reason for ketogenic-adpatation to impair strength training in principle, not for the physiology of a single rep of any kind nor for an entire strength session.
Due to tracking various measures, I am confident I have had many strength sessions with a liver either low/empty or “full” of glycogen.
Individual circumstances can matter: health; ailments; injuries; strength session components, order and overall design of the session; other exercise sessions in the week; food and hydration.
Assuming you stay in ketosis, you will need to work out your macros and timing for your training.
Best to keep a journal so you can track patterns of shortcomings and successes.
Have you checked before and after cholesterol SINCE switching to keto AND becoming fat adapted? Our bodies don’t react the same to fats when that’s our main energy source and we’re not consuming tons of carbs. I’d make your ancestry an after thought, not that our ancestory doesn’t play a role sometimes but people give WAY too much credit to it. I’m willing to bet you don’t eat the diet (especially now) that your South Asian ancestors did! How can you compare the two? See what works for YOU. With that said, IGNORE cholesterol results for the first 6mo after going keto, it WILL rise and it WILL be all over the place.
On the energy thing, given that you’re doing TKD how much are you taking in carb wise pre-workout, and it’s Dextrose you’re using right? Also, is your energy issue complete energy where you could curl up on the floor and take a nap mid workout, or are we talking muscle energy?
Thanks for your reply,
I’d say that my diet is quite different from that of my parents, so I’ll take your advice regarding the change in cholesterol levels. I last checked my cholesterol around 2 months ago, but I will need to take a more recent reading in order to make a comparison.
With regards to my car intake, I’m roughly taking around 50g a day, with 25g being either an isotonic sports drink, or a caffeine and dextrose pre-workout gel. That being said, my protein levels are quite high (140g per day), so I’m
Hoping that that doesn’t play too much into things.
Finally, my energy levels at the moment (during work) are fantastic, but they fall by quite a bit towards the end of my workout, and is mainly muscle fatigue.
I lift 3x a week consistantly while on Keto and I’m fat adapted. But I train a little oddly, because I work full body to failure all 3 of those lift days. It’s more for strength and endurance than it is for any kind of body building per se.
One of the major things I notice between lifting pre and post Keto, is that I just don’t barely feel sore, despite trying my best to get to failure every exercise I do. Pre Keto, I’d of course deal with the brace-yourself-to-use-the-toilet leg workout fallout. Eating Keto? I can go heavier, for longer, lean up quicker and my post workout soreness is so hella negligible. In fact, it still amazes me how unsore I get, and tbh, it annoys me a little. I kind of like that sore feeling, because I then know I pushed myself adequately. With Keto, I kinda gotta just trust I’m working as hard as I can, because I dont have the soreness as a compass. #ketopeopleproblems
If you’re doing dextrose you’re doing it right, being muscle fatigue and not (you) fatigue that’s unfortunately muscles running on little to no glycogen. It does get better over time but it’s really never the same muscle wise as when we have good glycogen stores. The energy is never the same, the pumps sure as hell aren’t the same. I take in enough starchy carbs 2-3 times a week to keep some muscle glycogen and it makes a huge difference. Finding that line for you can be tricky though. Did strict keto for years before I started doing it that way and it took a while to find my tolerances. Got sick of loosing muscle mass and not making progress with my lifts any more. Some people seem to do OK like that, I did for a while but plateaued huge after a while. There are also some “more keto friendly” ways to get some carbs in, for a while I was using Carb10 after workouts which lets you get 25g I think of carbs from pea protein in which the way it’s done doesn’t spike insulin or sugar. Worked good and it was noticeable… but it was another supplement to buy.
Thanks both, I really appreciate the depth of your replies!
It seems as if I just need to try and persevere for a while until my body has fully adjusted to keto
I’m doing low carb because I believe it promotes health. It also seems to make it easier to get leaner and stay that way. I think there is no advantage or disadvantage for growing muscle. I believe my liver can make sufficient glucose for restoring muscle glycogen. That migt not be true if I was taking steroids. All my calories come from whole food including protein. I see no need for processed forms like whey.
There’s huge advantages, mainly because more LBM equal a better/faster metabolism. Fighting sarcopenia as we age, and there’s be numerous studies that show people with more LBM are overall healthier and more resilient than those that have a low muscle mass.
Except that it doesn’t. If it did none of us would ever have to supplement with carbs to get our lifts real good, to have muscle endurance like we did when carbs were our fuel. Your liver will make glucose that you NEED to live. It’s not cranking out extra so you can slap on muscle efficiently.
All steroids do is allow you to recover super fast and push yourself harder. They don’t just put muscle on you.
Whole food is always best, but when your protein is high enough to make a difference in gains (if you were) concerned with putting on muscle mass, you’d realize it can be VERY hard to get enough in from whole foods. You can only stick so much in your facehole every day. I’m not talking professional bodybuilders I’m talking people eating around 200-250g protein daily.
Currently I’m getting about 130 grams of protein from beef and salmon. I’m certain that’s more than my body needs for all it’s purposes. As said before, if my body wasn’t restoring muscle glycogen eventually wouldn’t be able to move. A lifting session uses glycogen but 48 hours recovery is apparently enough to restore it. Steroids amp up everything. Faster recovery means more exercise volume which builds more muscle. I don’t believe extra carbs are necessary for strength training except perhaps if someone is not yet fully fat adapted or may be from using steroids.
I agree. I’m pretty deeply fat adapted, and I’ve experimented in added carbs on gym days, and for me, it made either no noticeable beneficial difference, or at certain times, made me sluggish and outright pouty.