Weight loss info( just curious)

#1

It’s not the weight loss right now but curious about how body works on keto . I eight about the same but notice lately going to gym at night the next morning might be down .1 pounds or .2 or up the same . When I don’t go for a couple days I seem to drop a pound or a little more . Just curious if a coincidence or going to the gym does something to body on keto . Mostly cardio and a little bit of weight s

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #2

I lost 80 lbs./36 kg by not counting calories and by being my usual couch potato self. For me, the change resulted from changing the foods I ate, not the quantity of food or the amount of exercise I was getting. Nowadays, my weight seems to be stable within a 10-lb./4.5-kg range, with no effort on my part except avoiding carbohydrate.

I have seen studies showing that exercise does not by itself cause weight loss, though it has many other benefits to health. If I were you, I’d be wary of using the scale as my only marker of progress, because it is possible to lose fat and simultaneously gain muscle on a well-formulated ketogenic diet.

As for how the body works on keto, my understanding is that the key is the hormones insulin and glucagon. They regulate each other and the liver processes involved in maintaining ketosis. When the insulin/glucagon ratio is high, the body is in sugar-burning and fat-storing mode. When the ratio is low, the body is in fat-burning, ketogenic mode. And carbohydrate is the type of food that has the most influence on that ratio. On a high-carb diet, the insulin goes up, the glucagon drops, and we shift to trying to get as much of the extra glucose out of our blood as possible (it goes into the muscles to be metabolised, and into the fat tissue to be stored as fat). On a low-carb diet, the insulin drops, the glucagon rises, and the liver is thus instructed to make ketones and the small amount of glucose the body actually needs.

In the latter context, it is then up to other hormones to control what the body does. If you are working to put on muscle, then growth hormones cause the muscles to use branched-chain amino acids to build themselves up, and so forth. The slight fluctuations you are noticing in scale weight are likely to be related to water retention or loss, not to actual changes in your muscle mass. A tenth of a pound is 45.5 g, which could easily be due to how much water you’ve drunk, or where you are in your waste-elimination cycle.

#3

Thanks i thought it could be the water drinking but thought since I went to vethroom when I wake up it would eliminate the water . Getting better at watch scale . Clothes are bigger . Just don’t want to sabotage and not
Know it

Thanks

(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #4

I wouldn’t worry about it, especially since the fluctuations seem to be staying in a very narrow range.

(Edith) #5

Going to the gym while a good thing in the long run is a stressor to the muscles post workout which causes them to swell and therefore hold water. When you take a few days off, your muscles recover and the swelling goes down. Of course, its the mild damage to the muscles in the first place that causes our muscles to rebuild stronger.

#6

The rules don’t change because we eat keto, only the fuel source does. Workouts will always have an effect on scale weight, typically minimal, Keto or not.