Insanity?

Asterie

Sorry if this has already been asked about before! I started low carbing last Monday (technically Sunday, but I had a small splurge towards the evening) and I'm in ketosis (yay!). I also have been doing Jillian Michael's 30 DS and it's been fine--which I shouldn't be surprised about, but this is just the most energetic I've been in my life.

Anyway, I was wondering if any of you have done Beachbody Insanity? I'm thinking of starting it, but I'm hearing a lot of bad things about mixing low carb with Insanity. I'm assuming that they don't realize that ketosis exists and we don't need carbs for fuel anymore? Any advice/input would be much appreciated--and if you've done it, I'd love to hear about your experience! Thanks in advance. (:

nickiboop

Hi, not done insanity but run and lift weights,

you will be fine doing insanity BUT not yet, give it a month or so for your body to get used to the low carb and then start to increase the exercise : )

kiramaniac

My understanding is that on keto, your body uses some ketones and free fatty acids, which are excellent energy source for long term, endurance exercise. But these are less effective than glucose for short energy, high intensity bursts. You can still do these activities, but if you were doing something like power lifting, you'd be unlikely to achieve personal records on keto that you could achieve otherwise.

Lyle McDonald's "The Ketogenic Die"t, as well as Phinney and Volek's "Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance" are resources to look at (and truthfully, my explanations are likely bastardizing their material).

Asterie

Thanks for the responses! Insanity doesn't have any weights, actually. It's all body weight exercises and the videos run from 30-50 minutes, if I'm not mistaken. (: The video I'm currently doing *does* have weights though and I've been okay with it, but definitely *not* getting into powerlifting haha! I think what I'll do is try out the video, and if I feel that my body's not comfortable enough with keto yet to support me through it then I'll wait until next month.

kiramaniac

Power lifting may have been a poor example. Any high intensity or workout activity would be the same.

witeowl

The only problem I see is that it takes about four weeks (individuals are different) to become fully keto-adapted for exercise or sports that would normally be carb-fueled. I agree that you can certainly try, then back off as needed.

Asterie

Ah, I see what you guys mean! Yeah I can imagine that continuous high intensity workouts would be strenuous--but I don't really think that's dependent on what types of food you eat (but I am probably wrong haha). What I mean is that they're going to be difficult either way. (: I'm starting day 4 of insanity tomorrow; the first three have gone beautifully, I actually don't eat anything until after because I don't have time to wait an hour for the food to settle pre-workout, but it hasn't affected the training at all. It definitely helps that he lets us stop for water every minute or so! Anyway, thanks for all your help. (:

albertabeefy

Just an fyi, regardless of whether a person is fully keto-adapted or not, while ketogenic we do have a reduced capacity overall when it comes to performing anaerobic (but not aerobic) exercise.

As many of you know, cellular respiration is fed not simply-through glucose or fatty-acids, but by ATP. (Adenosine Tri-Phospate). Both glucose and fatty-acids are further broken down into ATP to fuel cellular respiration. In a keto-adapted individual it's primarily fatty-acids that's used, thus the greater bodyfat loss when ketogenic.

It's true that we fuel aerobic exercise through fatty-acid oxidation wonderfully... However anaerobic exercise is not able to utilize fatty-acid oxidation for it's respiration.

When you engage in intense exercise, you can sometimes push past your aerobic threshold into the anaerobic threshold. Anaerobic literally means 'without oxygen'. Because it cannot use oxygen, anaerobic respiration initially fuels itself through creatine phosphate (which exists in the muscle itself, is quickly converted to ATP, but of which we only a few seconds worth), and then from glucose - which is in limited availability in the ketogenic body as we have both lower circulating glucose and reduced glycogen stores.

As such, we do have a slightly reduced ability overall for anaerobic metabolism, we'll generally reach OD (Oxygen debt) faster than a similarly fit but carb-laden individual doing the same anaerobic activity.

If you want to read up on muscle-metabolism, you can get the 'cliff notes' version of muscle-metabolism here: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/study_guide/Muscle-Metabolism.topicArticleId-277792,articleId-277596.html