Back again and scared to excercise!
 

I am returning to he LC lifestyle after two years away. One of the biggest detriments I found last time on he plan was total muscle exhaustion. A simple walk, that I do every day regardless, suddenly became a terrible experience. I could feel my arms and legs feel totally fatigued when on LC. I want to lose weight, yes, but not stop my walks or hikes. Any suggestions? Are some carbs more effective than others when walking or hiking hills? I realize that induction is a different thing. I am taking it easy the next two weeks but what about after? These are not marathons I am doing lol!

Are you eating enough? Are you eating enough fat? Are you getting enough sodium? Check out the salt thread!

I'm good with salt, I frigging love it, not sure about fat...I will definitely see what I am consuming in that respect. It may simply be I am not eating enough for what I put out when walking. I do hills and sweat like a beast. Maybe more of all three suggestions!

Love all of Nancy's suggestions for making sure you're eating enough salt, fat and food. I get the same muscle fatigue as you when I'm in induction. In fact, I only walked the first few months back on Atkins. No hill climbing until I had my eating way under control and had developed a good repertoire of low carb healthy fat meals. Give your body a chance to learn to burn fat instead of carbs for energy - it takes more time for some of us than others. And congrats on coming back to this wonderful woe after two years!

While most people make most of the adjustment to fueling their body on low carb within the first couple of weeks, it can take longer for some people or more moderate adjustments continue to happen for weeks.

Make sure you're eating enough protein. There's lots of emphasis in many LC discussions these days about eating lots of fat, but I think sometimes people don't eat sufficient protein. My introduction to LC was in Protein Power and they follow a common formula for minimum grams of protein per day that you can find around the web:

• Sedentary - multiply lbs of lean body mass by .5
• Light activity (e.g. walking) x .6
• Moderate (30 minutes of vigorous activity 3 days per week) x .7
• Active (1 hour per day 5 days per week) x .8
• Very Active (10 hours of vigorous activity per week) x .9
• Athlete x 1.0

They suggest that obese people go to the next highest category because you're doing that level of activity with extra weights.

It is probably a good idea to expect that your exercise tolerance will be lower for a bit, even with adequate salt, fat and food. Your body needs to, not only move from carbs to fat for most of its energy, it needs to get GOOD at doing that. And, as CityGirl said, that can take longer for some of us.

Rather than fearing exercise, maybe use it to gather information. Today I can walk X distance without feeling exhausted. What will it be tomorrow?

Keep track; get a little notebook, keep notes on your phone, whatever. But as your metabolism becomes more efficient at burning fat, and you adapt your muscles to the new way of working, you'll be patting yourself on the back for the increase in your exercise potential!

There's a guy on this forum whose forum name is Grav. He's gone from trudging short distances to nearly race walking to and from his work.

Actually I'm pretty sure it felt a lot longer back in the trudging days. :lol:

MS is pretty much spot on in my experience. In my early days I was actually doing it completely backwards; I started walking... no, that's too generous... shuffling to work in April last year, a full 6 months before I started LCHF since I hadn't discovered that yet. And while I did lose about 5kg/11lb during those 6 months, it was never much fun and it never really got any easier.

Things changed for me last October when I moved to a new office building at work which meant a slight change in the walking route. Later that month I discovered and began LCHF and, while the weight loss immediately kicked up a gear, the improvement in the walking for me felt more gradual.

The first improvement I noticed was the recovery time. My trip is about 2.5km/1.5mi each way. At first I needed about 30-45 minutes just to stop sweating and get my breath back, which was more than a little embarrassing at the work end (at least I could shower when I got home). But since October I started to recover more and more quickly.

The speed came later. I had gotten so used to being passed by everyone for so long, that just to pass people who were more interested in their phones than their movement was an achievement for me. Then later I began to graduate to rows of students just drifting along at their own pace talking to each other, then to tired parents yelling at their kids to STOP RUNNING AROUND AND COME BACK HERE, then to the kids themselves (if only because they never ran in a straight line) and so on. It was only about a month or so ago that I realised for the first time that I hadn't been passed by anyone not on wheels, without really trying.

Since my distance doesn't change day to day, I have made the odd recent attempt at pushing myself to go faster when weather and traffic lights permit. When everything lines up, I can powerwalk the distance in about half an hour; 10 months ago my best was more like 45 minutes.

There are a couple of key things that I've learned from all this:

1. It's the diet that enables the exercise, not the other way around. I was losing token amounts of weight from walking alone, but when I added LCHF on top, that's when things really started to happen for me. If you're struggling at first, that's fine, just limit yourself to what you can do, and let things improve naturally as your weight does. Give it time.

2. I have great calves, lol. I live halfway up a hill so it's an easy start to my day and the hardest part comes at the end. That final daily climb has really done wonders for my lower legs, but seemingly not much for anywhere else. Lately this has gotten me wondering if I should be mixing up the routine somewhat; likewise for you, if walking is giving you grief, is there anything else you could consider? I'm still in the early stages of considering my own options so I can't suggest anything concrete yet, but I am looking at some bodyweight exercises I can do at home for example, such as pushups and/or planking (both of which I am laughably terrible at).

Thank you all for your wonderful advice! You are correct, my recovery time, or as I like to call it, nap time, has been ridiculous! I am zonked after my walk. Please do t assume I am in anyway athletic lol! Au contraire! But as walking is really all I do I thought, geez if I can't even do this...but, I need to do this right and I like the idea of writing how far I go and how I feel after. I am sure feeling improvement will help.

Vitamins
 

You may think of adding a magnesium and potassium daily. I felt like you did until I added them. Your body flushes those things out along with sodium when your on LCHF. Good Luck!

It changes from person to person actually. Some people find it a lot harder to adjust. Make sure you're taking enough protein and fats. I don't think it's about carbs. Take it a little bit easier :)