Keto & exercise

jessesmom00

Hi! I've been on keto about 2 weeks. I've lost 12lbs and would like to add exercise. I keep reading that LCHF or KETO people should keep cardiovascular to a minimum and concentrate on lifting. Any thoughts/tips?

VisofSer

Avoid cardio, especially high intensity work as on a ketogenic diet, you do not have the glycogen stores to fuel this sort of exercise. Even lifting is impacted as while carbohydrates are not necessary for life, they definitely are for intense and especially maximum effort work such as heavy lifting or sprinting. You may be able to get away with low level cardio such as swimming or extended walking, but that will be something to try and judge off of your own experience.

You can also target and take in some carbs just before doing the exercise so that you have the fuel, but depending on how sensitive your body is to them, how many you intake, how longer you have been in ketosis, and how well adapted you are, doing this may kick you out of ketosis, cause you to feel horrible due to this since early on switching in and out of it often causes brain fog and other symptoms until your body is well adapted and used to swapping between glucose and ketone bodies for fuel.

I would stick to low-impact and low-intensity cardio, if any at all, such as calisthenics, swimming, and walking. Lifting is excellent, but if you do not already do so, a pure ketogenic diet is not the greatest time to start.

I hope this helps.

ainarsraciks

Cardio on keto is fine. Any intensity is fine too, even high one, as long as you feel fine doing it. Generally you will feel weaker on keto for first few weeks up to first few months, until your body adapts, at which point your energy levels will be back to normal. This is why people say doing intense cardio on keto is bad, because they feel very weak. That's their personal preference, not everybody feels that way and even if you do you can still push through it, not gonna harm you. See what's working for YOUR body, we all are different genetically, mentally, etc, there is no one size fits all in fitness.

Personally, when I was on keto, I did kept doing my usual cardio for first couple weeks, I felt more tired tho and less energy but nothing that would be significant enough o stop em from doing it, just very slight barely noticeable change. After two weeks I got adapted and felt even more energy that on carbs.

yarwell

I've done 5k and 10k runs on keto, and cycled for 20 miles, if that's any help :-)

nvmomketo

All exercise on keto is fine. You may find that performance and energy is impacted in the first few weeks or months while your body is getting used to running on fats rather than glucose. It will pass, your energy will increase and I doubt you'll notice any difference in performance in the long run.

Carbs aren't needed for exercise, and exercising on keto is perfectly safe. Last night I played basketball for about an hour and was able to keep up to the 13 year old boys I was scrimmaging with. I can walk, jog, hike, and lift weights in the P90x program. No problems at all.

jessesmom00

Thank you!

jessesmom00

Thanks for all of your input!