Exercise and low carb
 

I do quite a bit of exercise. 1 hours zumba on Monday with a 45 spin class afterwards. 2 x 45 spin classes back to back on wednesday. Thursday 1 hour body pump (weights & aerobics) friday 2 x 45 min spin classes. The way I eat does not affect me being able to exercise & I believe it has increased my inch loss when the scales have decided not to budge. I started Atkins early January for the first time & started the exercise regime back in November. Dont know if that helps you any?

I have been doing 1 hour of water aroebics everyday 6 days a week. I feel great. Since there is no impact my joints don't hurt.

On VLC, my stamina and energy during exercise are reduced. As a competitive athlete, I find this difficult, but plan to increase my carbs somewhat as I near my goal.

Here is Peter Attia's experience....Peter Attia

Yea... I'm concerned about the same thing. At this time, there's no way I could train for any race, but I do relish some "extreme" workouts (for a woman in the shape I'm in). This could mean walking on the treadmill at 3.5 at an 8 incline for an hour... going straight to weights after.

Since I eat low carb, I REALLY feel the drain.... but I dare not deviate from the low carb regime due to the fact that I know my blood sugar would go nuts.

In my earlier years... (I was a gymnast... then later I was into body building), my trainers would insist on a clean carb 2 hours before a workout.. a combo of protein and carb within 1/2 hour after. Point being that I would need the energy from the carb... but would need to have an empty stomache before working out to avoid vomiting.

May I suggest.... (and I haven't tried this yet because I am attempting to keep my carbs as close to zero as possible), a low glycemic way of eating which allows some clean carbs.

It sounds to me like you'll need the boost with what you do.

Also, may I say ... GOD BLESS YA.. I wish I could train for a 10k. Last week I made the mistake of going right to 175 on adductors and abductors.. I just did it by some old habit not realizing at that point that I was coming back in at 145. WOW.. what a week that was after :help:

Good luck to you! :wave:

My experience is that in the first 2-4 weeks, I found my stamina and endurance greatly reduced versus my pre-diet levels. I literally cut my work outs in half and really had to work to finish them

After that the level gradually increased to my pre-diet levels in maybe a 2-4 week span.

I was working out fairly hard -- 6-10 miles on the elliptical at 12-13 setting 7min/mile. Not the same effort as running at that pace but strenuous. For me it was near the edge of "I cannot carry on a conversion without getting out of breathe" effort or what I think of as my 75% level.

You might enjoy reading The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate performance by New Atkins co-authors, Steve Phinney and Jeff Volek. Both are athletes (Phinney is an MD and Volek is an exercise physiologist), and the information is aimed specifically at athletes eating low carb. You are likely to experience a period of keto-adaptation lasting 2-6 weeks where glycogen is depleted and you may not have the full energy you need to perform at your best. Once you get through that period, you will be able to access 10x+ as many calories in the form of stored body fat as you were able to access in the form of glycogen when you were eating more carbs. There will be a period of adjustment, to be sure, but it will pay off in the end in the form of improved endurance.

i run on a regular basis and i have had no energy issues with a low carb diet even when i go on my long runs which are currently around 5-6 miles. i was already on the low carb diet (40 net carbs per day) when i started running so i can't compare to before, but i think if you give yourself time to adjust, you'll be fine.

I just watched this Utube video on exercise, whether it is good or bad, and how much is good. It was very interesting to me because I learned there are studies that show it to be good for a population in general, but typically in each study there are individuals who may not be helped by exercise or may actually be harmed (eg blood pressure or insulin goes UP with exercise, rather than down, as expected). They are working on genetic tests to determine ahead of time who might respond well to an exercise regimen and who might not. Fascinating stuff.

http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=450453

There are some great comments and advice in this thread imo.

Based on my own experience I wouldn't exercise much except perhaps something low intensity like walking during induction. When I did low carb the first time in 2005 I did an induction period during which time I attempted to continuing doing high intensity weightlifting workouts without much success. I had the usually loss of energy and headaches reported by many people during the ten days or so I did the induction.

This time around which started two years ago this month I didn't do an induction at all but just tried to get carb levels down and fat levels up while trying to eat mostly clean protein (lots of fish and chicken). I had zero problems doing high intensity workouts during my transition from a SAD to a low carb diet. Now that I'm thoroughly acclimated to the low carbing I feel like I have more energy and endurance than ever before. I frequently play singles tennis (USTA 4.0 fwiw) and have not had an instance where someone wore me down. At 50+ I'm still the guy running the wind out of guys 20 or 30 years my junior.

I still try to walk about 45 minutes every day because my dogs and I love it so but I think it has other benefits besides the psychological ones.

Also FWIW, I've come to the conclusion based on my two experiences with low carbing that induction isn't necessary. It may (and I think the jury is still out) speed up the process but I think a lot of the initial weight lost in induction is just water and glycogen anyway but imo you can get to a weight loss goal and better well-being without it.

As I mentioned once long ago, you and I are close to being twins, beernutz. I'm 6-0, 174, age 54. Avid 4.5 tennis player and cyclist. I lost my focus over the holidays, ate sugar and gained 8 pounds, but I'm back in the saddle and getting back to where I want to be.

I also still utilize a running game on the courts that wins me a lot of points, even against the young guys.

The one difference is that I notice that if I don't have something like a banana before a tough grueling match, I will have less energy. If it's an hour workout, say a focused practice session, I'm fine. But a match against a closely matched player -- I need some carbs to play at the same level. Wish it weren't so, but...

Hey and my 54th birthday is next week. My last weigh-in yesterday: 174 pounds and I also gained between 8 to 10 pounds over the holidays and just this month have gotten back down to my goal weight area.

I'm kind of cold natured and when it is in high 40s here and everyone else playing tennis is bundled up I'm usually the lone player still in shorts and a t-shirt though I do wear a hat as a concession to the weather. In those cooler months I don't need any kind of carb-up to play a long time. However, in the summer when it is in the 90s and so humid the air feels like a damp blanket I have to have carbs, usually in liquid form, to even function on a tennis court.

So at least we are not exact clones. :agree:

What are your goals in pursuing this exercise program, are those specific activities things that you enjoy and want to do, or are you doing them because you believe that you need to be doing them in order to be fit?

If the answer is the latter, anything other than very focused high intensity resistance training is pretty much a waste of time. If improving body composition and supporting metabolism is the goal, in practice I find the best bet is to pursue a program like Doug McGuff's Body By Science or Fred Hahn's Slow Burn.

Also carbohydrate restriction has zero long term effect on exercise performance, if anything it dramatically improves it. The caveats involved though are that your salt intake needs to be sufficient, and the program truly has to be high fat (if you get stuck in a no-man's land with insufficient dietary fat and overly high protein you're not going to do well).

Greenlion, I'm glad you can sustain the same exercise performance eating low carb, but I've studied this extensively in myself, and I find significantly better performance when utilizing carbs than not. Despite the other many benefits of low carb.