How’s your sleep? How long have you been doing the same exercise thing?
Why I had to STOP KETO after 2 years :(
AnnM
#84
Those symptoms worked for me pre-keto but don’t now. Sometimes I feel nothing and other times I feel some fatigue, and that’s all. I have to be pretty diligent about checking my BS several times a day.
AnnM
#85
Isn’t it true that a lot of people exercise while they are in their overnight fast, and then eat after they exercise?
@Nathan_Toben, perhaps you can weigh in on how you balance keto eating with all of your endurance exercise.
AnnM
#87
@gabe, your story reminds me of a professional football player who came into training camp overweight, according to the training staff. They had him on a special diet and training plan, and at the end of camp he weighed significantly more. They ended up fining him for being overweight, and he protested that he had followed all the dietary and exercise instructions to a T! The head trainer finally got the brilliant idea of testing his %body fat, which they did using the dunk tank. Turned out his body comp was well below 10%. Needless to say, the fine was rescinded and they left him alone as he was in top notch shape.
Nathan_Toben
(Nathan Toben)
#88
@AnnM I am a little confused where to start. This thread seems to have a myriad of interesting things being discussed.
I don’t have enough personal experience yet with running and keto to speak on a personal level however it has been shown by a number of ultra runners that lean muscle is built, maintained and optimized following a ketogenic protocol.
But I also agree with the original post about incorporating nutritive carbohydrates in order to get the benefits of a ketogenic lifestyle in a race or performance setting.
In short, here is how I am coming to see it as an athlete:
- Clear your calendar of races for 3-6 months.
- Withdrawal from the Standard American Diet.
- Become fat-adapted while running base mileage (a la Lydiard).
- Find your carbohydrate tolerance threshold relative to your current capacity for fat burning.
- Put a race on the calendar and devise a nutritional strategy for said race according to (4).
- Increase the quality of your training I.e., incorporate speed. Proportionate to speed-incorporation, incorporate nutritive carbohydrates prior/during/post workout.
- Race as a fat-adapted athlete that utilizes both substrates optimally, both endogenous and exogenous energy sources.
TLDR: Compose yourself with ketosis. Once composed, have fun. After fun, recompose yourself.
And lastly, elite runners typically have exceptionally low body fat, so for most of us, we can just stick to the “compose yourself with ketosis” part and still be seeing incredible gains fitness-wise. But I would not venture often into anaerobic territories because it seems like evidence is emerging that, without healthful carbohydrates priming the pump, anaerobic efforts can lead to burn-out, adrenal fatigue, roaming cortisol, injury etc. I wonder if these symptoms resonate with anyone in this thread?
Swiftynix
#90
Exactly!
Just had three days off. I was going away, for several celebrations and knew it would be tricky, so I made a decision to eat what I wanted, drink what I wanted, and then return to Keto on Tuesday. I had wine, and pastry, and bread, and even chocolate. Not masses of it (except the wine), but I ate it and I didn’t blink.
Back on track as of yesterday- keeping it strict and doing some IF. Done, easy. I’ve been fat adapted for a few months, and this blip may not have helped weight loss, but longer term this is sustainable. Its not a religion, its a WOE, for goodness sake!
CSue
#93
But if you don’t then no problem, right? I just did a 5 day fast and the last 3 days my glucose was 54mgDL (equal to 3 mmol/L). But I felt awesome and was running on ketones.
PaulL
(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing)
#94
It’s going to kill her! It’s also unsustainable. So she’ll fail at it, and then it will kill her! 
CSue
#95
Right, isn’t that the goal of fasting? When I was fasting my glucose was 54 for days, but my ketones were 7. I felt great. The problem would be if both were low, and I didn’t feel great.
gabe
(Gabe “No Dogma, Only Science Please!” )
#97
I WISH it was muscle. It’s basically all fat. The tape measure and tight pants don’t lie!
Saphire
#98
While I cannot speak to the hypoglycemia other than given that you were breaking keto and eating whatever you wanted once a week, which makes me think that you may not have been fat adapted even if you were in ketosis. Your body may never have learned how to properly run on fat.
Assuming you were fat adapted, perhaps you did not need to lose weight. Keto is not designed to help you become underweight. It is a weight regulating diet so if you only lost 7 lbs, then it may have been water. My son when I switched to keto lost 8 lbs from living with me for the summer. He is 5’8 and 140 and is in to team sports. He did not want or need to lose that weight and eventually he gained it back
I agree with the undereating, especially if you do not have substantial fat reserves. There is a formula that @richard came up with that you can only use 31 calories per day from each lb of excess fat you have if you are fasting or undereating.
Personally I do not feel deprived and I would happily eat Sicilian Pizza for the rest of my life if it agreed with me and did not make me fat. In 16 months I have cheated about 5 times (I do not count eating half a banana or the occassional peach cheating) where I indulged in pizza or pasta or cake. In one case it was over a weekend and by the end I was looking forward to my Monday morning fast. I did not even get to eat everything I planned because by Sunday at 5 I could not eat any more. There was another cheat where I plannned to have the Sicilian pizza and never got around to it (the pizza store is on almost on my corner!) Every once in a while I will take a bite of something that looks tempting. However, where previously one bite made me crave another and another, now one bite is usually enough to tell me that it is not worth eating and it does not taste the same. Even when it is absolutely delicious, which is rare now, it is still without that compulsive addiction used to feel. People can eat cake in front of me and it does not bother me. Every once in a while I crave something sweet after dinner but a keto dessert usually works. In fact, I made keto cinnamon rolls over the weekend and unless my son ate them, more than half are still in the refrigerator. That I could forget about dessert amazes me. Many nights I cannot be bothered to have dinner because I am not very hungry.
I cannot tell you how many diets pre keto were ruined for any excuse, the kids bought pizza, someone brought in cookies. This wedding has amazing food. I used to see everything as an opportunity to eat that might not come again. Now I do not care. I have no explanation, I am not someone with tremendous will power
Lesliemont
(Leslie)
#99
I believe you are getting close to the truth. Your body is more than capable of making all of the glucose you need. The standards of viable levels in the blood are established in world of carb burning persons.
Consider this; has anyone ever established a necessary level of glucose in persons who are in nutritional ketosis?
The human being is very efficient at using ketone bodies for energy. The ONLY cell in humans that cannot use ketones are erythrocytes.
Lesliemont
(Leslie)
#100
I would have absolutely no fear of dropping my BG, forcibly. I’m fat adapted. I get all of my energy from fat and the ketone bodies that result. The only cells in my body, in any human, that require glucose exclusively are erythrocytes. My liver will produce enough glucose for those cells, even if the ‘test’ says I should be dead.