Would Keto be good for me?
Smirnoff65
Posts: 1,060 Member
Hi all, I'm absolutely fascinated by the Keto lifestyle although I haven't tried it myself, I started changing my own lifestyle at the beginning of this year, in the last 20 weeks I have lost 82lbs by keeping to a calorie deficit, exercising (mostly walking but that has progressed to jogging more in the past 6 weeks) and generally I feel great, have loads of energy, my blood sugars are great (I should have said I was diagnosed as type 2 diabetic at the end of 2013). The question I have is with me getting close to the target weight I want to be would Keto be good for shifting the last of the stubborn flabby fat?
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My first question before making a recommendation would be: How "great" is your glycemic control?
If your HbA1c is in the mid-to-low 5% range, that truly is excellent. If it's only "controlled" (IE: 6.0 to 6.9% range) I'd say keto is a good option for getting it back to normal.
If you've got normal HbA1c (FYI true normal non-diabetic ranges are between 4.6% and 5.4%) and you're steadily losing weight without keto, you don't *need* keto.
If your blood sugar is normal, whether or not you'll benefit from it would involve experimentation. (If it's not normal, you'd benefit
) It's certainly not hard to get there if you want to try. There's many threads, forums, websites, etc. dedicated to it.
Personally I find one of the BEST ways to GET into ketosis in a hurry is:
Day 1:
1. Engage in a 12-14 hour fast. (Generally started the night before)
2. Start at 20-30g total daily maximum of carbohydrate in your diet.
3. Complete a good/strenous "all-over-body" (ie: every major muscle group) strength-training workout.
4. Complete about 2 hours of moderate steady-state cardio.
(Steps 3 and 4 are optional, but will speed up the process by further depleting both liver and muscle glycogen stores, causing the body to more-quickly adapt.)
Subsequent Days:
Stay at 20-30g of total daily maximum carbohydrate
If exercising, time your highest-carbohydrate meal/snack to be just prior to exercise.
For improving insulin-sensitivity/glycemic-control your best exercises are HIIT and Strength-Training
Macronutrients: Typically men can get ketogenic on a ratio of 5/20/75 (carbohydrate, protein, fat) very easily. Women usually do better with less protein - around 5/15/80 seems optimum. Heavier exercises can eat a little more protein.
The process of keto-adaptation can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on your physiology and how quickly you personally adapt. It can be difficult for many people - the "low-carb flu" happens to most, but not all, of us - but it's temporary.
Once keto-adapted your capacity for steady-state cardio usually increases - but if you're diabetic, I personally recommend having the majority of your workouts involve either HIIT or Strength-Training. I engage in all three, because I do enjoy endurance cardio - I just limit it to once or twice a week at most.
Once keto-adapted you can also increase carbohydrate slightly to allow for greater anaerobic capacity when exercising. This is technically referred to as a TKD - targeted ketogenic diet. It's what I do, maintaining normal (non-diabetic) HbA1c levels but being able to exercise at high-intensity.0 -
Thank you for the reply and the information, that is great stuff there, my bloods seem to in the normal area at the moment which would be close between 5-5.5% just the odd time it would be up over 6% and that would usually be when I have consumed alcohol (bad me lol). I'm going to research as much as I can over the next week or two and see what I can come up with in terms of recipes that would suit me, but I am seriously going to give this a try.0
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If you like fats, meats and stuff like that you will fit right in to keto. If you want to get rid of tummy fat, the best way is Keto+ resistance training. If you can't go keto, do weight training on a low fat diet, you should still see some good results.0
