Ketosis & Performance (Weight training)

littlemeowmaid

Not sure whether this is best posted in "diet" or "exercise" as I'm wanting to find out more/discuss keto in relation exercise performance, specifically weight training...
So my question - Is it counter productive to go on a keto diet to lose fat, if you're also trying to increase your weight training performance?
Previously I was more into hiking, endurance and HIIT, however I have been focusing more of weight training, lifting heavy and building muscle as of this year. I'm wanting to to reduce my body fat percentage and also help balance my hormones and insulin resistance (I have PCOS) and have heard people have a lot of success doing all of these things with keto - HOWEVER I have also heard one of the biggest complaints with keto is loss of performance and strength. How much will trying keto for a 3-6 month period truly impact my training? Am I better looking at IF to try and achieve a similar result from my diet and then training in between lunch and dinner to ensure my body/muscles are fueled? Or am I better off just forgetting any of that and just keep watching my calories/macros?
I have been working really hard and don't want to undo my results, but also really want to reduce body fat.
I have been fiddling with my macros a bit to see how I feel day to day, but nothing long enough to see results from the changes.
Any other tips instead? (In relation to increasing performance while losing fat/in a caloric deficit)

L1zardQueen

Loss of performance is for real.

Keto_Vampire

Agreed, keto is not ideal for performance...difference is night & day when going on carbohydrate cycles -> weight lifting uses glycogen primarily. Keto is not magic for fat loss either

Improving performance in a caloric deficit is a pretty difficult goal. Might want to reevaluate what you can do realistically (health or performance)

AnvilHead

Keto is probably the worst possible diet choice for strength training performance.

Infographic courtesy of Alan Aragon:

sijomial

Yes keto is counter productive to performance. How much will be very personal.
There's a reason why 99.9% of high performing athletes don't do keto.

Reducing your weight/fat will have positive impacts on your health irrespective of the dietary changes you make to achieve that. You must consider adherence very seriously when considering dietary changes, enjoyment of food is part of that and again very personal. I would find a keto diet appallingly restrictive and unappealing but you have to think that through for yourself.

How much a 3-6 month trial period impacts your training will be limited to the progress you could have made on a different diet in that 3-6 month period.

IF is separate and distinct and has its own pros and cons. I'm assuming you mean a daily restricted eating window as there are many different IF versions. Personally I would only look at it as a means of making dietary adherence easier - and that is personal and not universal. If you are looking to experiment then changing one thing at a time makes the results of that experiment far clearer.

"Just watching calories/macros" - neither keto or IF are incompatible with watching calories and macros. They also aren't going to achieve anything out of line with those calories/macros either. There's no free lunch.

"I have been working really hard and don't want to undo my results, but also really want to reduce body fat."
Unless you switch to a calorie surplus then I'm seeing your choices as possible performance impacting choices - they aren't going to add body fat without a calorie surplus. That's where watching your calories comes in!

"I have been fiddling with my macros a bit to see how I feel day to day, but nothing long enough to see results from the changes." Not really sure what you would expect to see from this? If you are doing very long duration cardio then you could see an impact but weight training doesn't require the same kind of attention to fuelling.

"Any other tips instead? (In relation to increasing performance while losing fat/in a caloric deficit)"
You understand that training and recovering when not fully fuelled is always going to be sub-optimal so you are down to optimising what you can.
Train smart as well as hard - a good training plan and a poor training plan can both be hard but clearly the good plan will yield better results for the same effort.
The bigger your calorie deficit the bigger the impact on both training and recovery. Downside is taking longer to lose your weight so there's a balance.
Timing of your calorie/food allowance can help - that's part of what the MFP "eat back exercise calories" method tries to achieve. (I did a fairly drastic method of two days a week eating very low and five days eating at maintenance which worked well for me.)
You seem to have dropped a lot of high calorie burn exercises for low calorie burn exercise - that's going to reduce your calorie budget markedly. Cardio and strength training aren't mutually exclusive (if you have or make the time for your exercise).

littlemeowmaid

To be perfectly honest, when I mean I want to lose body fat, I mean I want to do so faster, because I know that over time I will eventually achieve that doing what I'm doing already - but my fat loss, which was already slow, has gradually slowed throughout said last 3 month (of course). There also seems to be a lot of talk about keto currently and part of me is kind of just curious to know how it would affect me... But by the sounds of looking for a quick fix isn't going to work.

sijomial wrote: »

IF is separate and distinct and has its own pros and cons. I'm assuming you mean a daily restricted eating window as there are many different IF versions. Personally I would only look at it as a means of making dietary adherence easier - and that is personal and not universal. If you are looking to experiment then changing one thing at a time makes the results of that experiment far clearer.

I understand it is a completely different kettle of fish and I would want to do/try it for it's benefits in reduced insulin spikes/potential hormonal balancing, and yes I was referring to 16:8 or similar. I've done research on it but ended up just as torn because of mixed research (in terms of negative effects especially in women + cortisol increases). Dietary adherence isn't too difficult for me, but IF appeals to me more than Keto because I could still have a weekly or fortnightly cheat/treat meal without as many repercussions.

sijomial wrote: »

"I have been fiddling with my macros a bit to see how I feel day to day, but nothing long enough to see results from the changes." Not really sure what you would expect to see from this? If you are doing very long duration cardio then you could see an impact but weight training doesn't require the same kind of attention to fuelling.

Mostly - To see if I feel better/stronger during sessions? I feel like my strength can fluctuate a bit throughout the period of a week and I'm trying to work out if it's because of what I'm eating or something else (stress, fatigue etc).

I guess I'm feeling a bit lost as to how I can best continue losing fat and avoid/break a plateau, without a huge impact on my weight training progress or better yet to work hand in hand with it.
I'm proud of what I've already achieved in a short space of time in terms of a huge increase in strength, a shift in my body composition and fat loss, but I'm hungry for "more" hahaha. Thanks again!

sijomial

Keto does not have any advantage at all in rates of fat loss - there's been numerous studies and where calories and protein are matched rate of fat loss/weight loss are the same whether keto, low carb, high carb or whatever.

Certain evangelists mix up the fact that on a high fat diet you burn more fat, well of course you do as that's dietary fat. Body fat is lost in relation to calorie deficit.

If you want to speed up your rate of loss then eat less or move more. But faster rate of loss will reduce the performance of your workouts - which seems in conflict with what you are trying to do.

A performance plateau can be broken by a deload week or a refeed week - but again that's having an impact on your rate of loss. Everything is a balance and a compromise, especially when you have conflicting goals which is exactly what training for performance improvements when sub-optimally fuelled is.

andysport1

Omg

AllanMisner

I've seen quite a bit of work where the Keto (or at least low-carb) way of eating helps with PCOS. Intermittent fasting can get similar results, but that likely has more to do with the types of foods rather than when you're eating.

Your body stores enough glucose to perform for 90 minutes of strenuous effort. So, unless you're talking about marathon sessions of lifting, you will have enough energy to do the work.

In the beginning, you will experience some energy levels (carb withdrawals aka keto flu), but that subsides within 3 - 7 days. What you're doing is training your body to use both energy pathways (carbs and fat). Once you're fully adapted, your performance will be as good as before.

So, the real question: is addressing your PCOS and overall health more important than your performance on a few workouts (in the beginning)? Phinney has studied athletic performance and proven that once someone is keto adapted, their performance returns to baseline if not better (especially with endurance athletes).

psuLemon

AllanMisner wrote: »

I've seen quite a bit of work where the Keto (or at least low-carb) way of eating helps with PCOS. Intermittent fasting can get similar results, but that likely has more to do with the types of foods rather than when you're eating.

Your body stores enough glucose to perform for 90 minutes of strenuous effort. So, unless you're talking about marathon sessions of lifting, you will have enough energy to do the work.

In the beginning, you will experience some energy levels (carb withdrawals aka keto flu), but that subsides within 3 - 7 days. What you're doing is training your body to use both energy pathways (carbs and fat). Once you're fully adapted, your performance will be as good as before.

So, the real question: is addressing your PCOS and overall health more important than your performance on a few workouts (in the beginning)? Phinney has studied athletic performance and proven that once someone is keto adapted, their performance returns to baseline if not better (especially with endurance athletes).

A lot of the stuff Phinney works on is with people new to exercise, which is almost a guarantee to see improvements over the baseline. And while there is still limited data on keto as it relates to exercise performance, the current evidence shows keto being inferior to higher carb diets



http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10611377/anyone-read-the-latest-research-on-keto-by-alan-aragon/p1

Having said that, I would agree that you should address your medical issues first. But most people can get away with doing low carb to address their PCOS issues. Some people, like those with IR, may have to cut carbs a bit more.

OP, have you tried to just manager your carbs a bit and start with low carb. Statically, Keto will be outperformed in terms of strength when compared to keto diets. Fats just aren't as effective when it comes to energetic needs during anaerobic performance. There are plenty of women who can see good results when consuming sub 100g of carbs. So may it would benefit you more by starting with 80g and increasing protein needs to support recovery and training. Additionally, I would recommend timing your carb meals pre- and post - workout, where most is preworkout. This way, you will see the increase in glycogen and available energy. This tactic is similar to TKD (targeted ketogenic diet) where you time nutrients around training to support training requirements.

sijomial

AllanMisner wrote: »

I've seen quite a bit of work where the Keto (or at least low-carb) way of eating helps with PCOS. Intermittent fasting can get similar results, but that likely has more to do with the types of foods rather than when you're eating.

Your body stores enough glucose to perform for 90 minutes of strenuous effort. So, unless you're talking about marathon sessions of lifting, you will have enough energy to do the work.

In the beginning, you will experience some energy levels (carb withdrawals aka keto flu), but that subsides within 3 - 7 days. What you're doing is training your body to use both energy pathways (carbs and fat). Once you're fully adapted, your performance will be as good as before.

So, the real question: is addressing your PCOS and overall health more important than your performance on a few workouts (in the beginning)? Phinney has studied athletic performance and proven that once someone is keto adapted, their performance returns to baseline if not better (especially with endurance athletes).

Your body already uses both energy pathways! That's why we store away excess energy as fat - so it can be used at another time. Using fat for fuel is a totally normal part of every day life and exercise whether keto or not.

Once you are fully adapted (the duration of that is very, very debatable...) your performance will not be the same. There's every chance you will gain an ability to oxidise fat at a faster rate but also become carb impaired - it's a trade off.
Highly unlikely you will perform the same except for low intensity work where you aren't pushing performance limits. Slow plodders doing very, very long events where no food is available and no bursts of high energy are required may indeed gain an advantage. Not sure how common events like that are though.

Phinney is a bit of a dubious source IMHO - his work seems designed to confirm a desired outcome rather than to seek knowledge and then reach a conclusion.

Your question about health versus exercise performance is extremely valid though.

pdxhak

I have been following ketoish diet for 2+ years and have made gains in the gym. I run Spartan Races. I workout fasted. It is possible and is sustainable. There is a lot of n=1 opinions in this thread (including mine) but to say it is not good or possible or sustainable is not true.

tirowow12385

pdxhak wrote: »

I have been following ketoish diet for 2+ years and have made gains in the gym. I run Spartan Races. I workout fasted. It is possible and is sustainable. There is a lot of n=1 opinions in this thread (including mine) but to say it is not good or possible or sustainable is not true.

Propaganda is the name of the game.

littlemeowmaid

pdxhak wrote: »

I have been following ketoish diet for 2+ years and have made gains in the gym. I run Spartan Races. I workout fasted. It is possible and is sustainable. There is a lot of n=1 opinions in this thread (including mine) but to say it is not good or possible or sustainable is not true.

What do you mean by "ketoish"? Just low carb? What's your macros split? Do you check whether you're in ketosis?

Thanks

T1DCarnivoreRunner

Since it takes about 8 weeks just for skeletal muscles to become fat adapted, you are going to lose much of that 3-6 months just to adaptation.

Either do it for more time and get benefits for PCOS or don't do it at all and get the benefit for muscle growth. Trying to limit your time minimizes the first benefit and hinders the 2nd. With insulin resistance and a primary goal of fat loss, my suggestion is to go low carb and adjust down to keto if that isn't working well enough... wherever you end up, don't stop after only 3-6 months.