keto diet - need to get energy levels up.....please help!

yorkshiredeb
yorkshiredeb Posts: 6
edited November 2024 in Fitness and Exercise
Hi, I'm on day 8 of a keto diet and I've found it an absolute doddle! I am only very slim but have a small pot belly and have tried for years to get rid of it. I'm very active as I am a karate instructor and also train myself most days. I was so desperate to get rid of my belly that I cut my calories right down to 800 a day at one point and basically lived off fruit and low fat yoghurt......ridiculous I know.
Anyway, I realised I couldn't live like that and wanted to get back into eating as I was getting dangerously close to having an eating disorder. I had also depleted my muscles badly. I upped my protein to gain my muscle back and started eating the right amount. This made me gain 3kg in a week.....I was mortified. It all went straight to my belly and thighs too!
After a lot of research I decided to try keto. I love it. I have a biochemistry degree and it just makes perfect common sense to me, I dont know why I didn't think of it before! The only problem is, now I've used up all my glycogen in my muscles I have no energy for karate! I now struggle to do 10 press ups even though I could easily manage 50 before! My muscle gain had been great from upping my protein (I can see the muscles in my arms again) they just aren't working!
I've read up on the cyclic keto diet and targeted keto diet and prefer the sound of the first one as I'd love a day where I could eat normally instead of panicking about going above 30g of carbs!
Can anyone suggest or advise what I should do?
It's also with noting that after only a week my belly is visibly much smaller! I am also back to 46kg (I'm only 150cm). The best thing about a keto diet is you can't cheat....on a normal diet you might think 'oh I'll just have two little chocolate bars, it's only 300 calories' but on this diet that would be enough carbs to kick you out of keto and it's just not worth it! I never cheat now.....I wouldn't dare!

Replies

  • vanguardfitness
    vanguardfitness Posts: 720 Member
    You definitely need a carb up. That fact that your reps dropped for a particular exercise means that muscle group is sapped. I'm doing a CKD now, and when I do my depletion workouts that's how I know that muscle group is toast - all sudden able to do 15 reps, next thing can't do 5.

    http://thinksteroids.com/articles/cyclical-ketogenic-diet-carbing-up/

    spelling's been off all night wtf
  • RelevantKnowledge
    RelevantKnowledge Posts: 41 Member
    Maybe you should try lifting heavy things.
  • yorkshiredeb
    yorkshiredeb Posts: 6
    Thank you.....the helpful post that is. I'll defo carb up today before my karate and gym session tomorrow.
    Not sure how the 'maybe you should try lifting heavy things' post helped. I can normally easily manage 50 full body press ups and now can only manage 10 because I've used my glycogen stores......so yes lifting heavy things is bound help?! :-\
  • vanguardfitness
    vanguardfitness Posts: 720 Member
    Carb up after. You can have about ~30g of carbs pre workout. Your body is more primed to soak up carbs right after your workout.
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
    Has biochemistry degree....and lives off low fat yogurt, ultra low carb diets and 800 calorie days, all while leading a very active fitness lifestyle....and then is shocked, shocked I say, when they have no energy to get thru workouts.

    Fascinating
  • yorkshiredeb
    yorkshiredeb Posts: 6
    I can't remember ever saying I was shocked that I didn't have energy, I knew reason why and fully expected it. What I wanted to know was the best way to reintroduce the carbs to give me energy but without the them being stored as fat again.
    Also I am pretty sure that I also knew full well that my eating habits were ridiculous but like I said I was bordering on an eating disorder which was due to certain things that happened in my life.....things that I have now got over. I have never been over weight which makes it very difficult for me to loose the little bit of fat that has accumulated which is I have chosen this method as nothing else was working...It's a lot easier for someone who has maybe 56lbs to loose weight than someone who wants target 4 lbs in one area without depleting any muscle...but please, feel free to mock the fact that I was so messed up that I felt I couldn't eat than 800 calories a day. I now eat more than enough, but yes I chose to eat more protein and fat like my body was designed to do rather than the processed carbs which are making nations more and more obese.
    What is wrong with you people? Have you nothing better to do than go around posting unhelpful and abusive comments on people's threads?! Is that how you get to 14000 posts...now I know why I have never felt the need to post on here before.
    Thanks again to the person who actually answered the question.
  • zerryz
    zerryz Posts: 168 Member
    Read that book, that should help. The Art and Science of Low Carb Living. Wishing you success.

    http://www.ebook3000.com/The-Art-and-Science-of-Low-Carbohydrate-Living_164438.html
  • danimalkeys
    danimalkeys Posts: 982 Member
    8 days in it's normal to have low energy. Give it another week and things will level out.
  • Fullsterkur_woman
    Fullsterkur_woman Posts: 2,712 Member
    I can't remember ever saying I was shocked that I didn't have energy, I knew reason why and fully expected it. What I wanted to know was the best way to reintroduce the carbs to give me energy but without the them being stored as fat again.
    Also I am pretty sure that I also knew full well that my eating habits were ridiculous but like I said I was bordering on an eating disorder which was due to certain things that happened in my life.....things that I have now got over. I have never been over weight which makes it very difficult for me to loose the little bit of fat that has accumulated which is I have chosen this method as nothing else was working...It's a lot easier for someone who has maybe 56lbs to loose weight than someone who wants target 4 lbs in one area without depleting any muscle...but please, feel free to mock the fact that I was so messed up that I felt I couldn't eat than 800 calories a day. I now eat more than enough, but yes I chose to eat more protein and fat like my body was designed to do rather than the processed carbs which are making nations more and more obese.
    What is wrong with you people? Have you nothing better to do than go around posting unhelpful and abusive comments on people's threads?! Is that how you get to 14000 posts...now I know why I have never felt the need to post on here before.
    Thanks again to the person who actually answered the question.
    But they weren't stored as fat. Surely you know that when you refill your glycogen stores, there are three grams of water stored for each gram of glycogen. 3 kg is well within the range of normal gain for a carb-up. At 137 pounds I gained and lost 2 kg every week when I was carb-cycling. So what's the point of losing the same weight over and over? Why not just eat a balanced diet instead of a ketogenic one, have energy all week long and carry the water that goes along with increased glycogen stores?

    You know you won't be able to target those 4 pounds to come all from your stomach without losing any muscle, so you can stop angsting over that point. Losing fat (from whereever your body chooses to lose it) until you are satisfied with how your stomach looks, however long it takes, by running a small calorie deficit, is the only way you're going to get rid of the pouch on your stomach.

    Hope that helps!
  • IVMarkIV
    IVMarkIV Posts: 116
    Give it at least another week; keto takes some time to get used to for both cardio and anaerobic exercise.
    Cyclical keto takes a ton of effort in terms of carb counting and timing exercise each week...IMHO just harder to stay compliant and too many highs and lows from switching into and out of fat metabolism; not to mention the drastic fluid changes accompanied by adding back in carbs and going back into ketosis. And then having inconsistent BMs is always fun (sarcasm)...at least they are consistent when staying in keto.

    I could easily "lose" about 5lbs in one day when transitioning between states doing cyclical but it's all fluid weight. Progress gets really hard to track too
  • chinadoll44
    chinadoll44 Posts: 2 Member
    Easily fatiguing while excercising in ketosis can be a sign that you don't have enough salt in your diet (I know it's hard to think about adding salt when we've all been told how bad it is for us for so many years)
    This snippet from reddit.com r/keto FAQ sums it up pretty well.
    Hope this helps. Ive had the same problem too and upping my salt was all it took to remedy it for me! Best of Luck

    When you become keto-adapted your kidney switches from retaining salt to rapidly excreting it. The body is getting rid of excess water and salt, which is a good thing. This also means that you need to drink more water and get more salt in the diet, because your body is now quicker at processing it. When your body is low in salt, the kidney tries to compensate this by releasing potassium. This loss of potassium is bad for your muscle mass. When you do not get enough salt, common symptoms are:

    You feel lightheaded when standing up quickly
    You feel sluggish
    You feel faint
    Fatigue if you exercise enough to get 'warmed up'
    Headaches
    Constipation
    Heart palpitations or fast heart beat
    Muscle cramps
    The best solution is to drink 1 or 2 cups of bouillon or broth daily. This will add about 1-2 grams of sodium to your daily intake. On days that you exercise, you might also want to drink one dose of broth within the hour before you start. Unprocessed meat and green leafy vegetables are high in potassium. If you grill your meat, potassium leaves with the drippings. Don’t discard ‘the solution’!

    Source: "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living", page 41, "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance", page 82
  • znewton234
    znewton234 Posts: 1 Member
    @chinadoll44

    Thank you so much for cross-posting this information. I've been easily exhausted over the last 5 days. It's been around 100 degrees F and we've been prepping for Burning Man.

    I'm going to try eating more salt over the coming days. I should be getting enough potassium, but it makes perfect sense that my salt intake is low. I'll report back.
  • LazSommer
    LazSommer Posts: 1,851 Member
    znewton234 wrote: »
    @chinadoll44

    Thank you so much for cross-posting this information. I've been easily exhausted over the last 5 days. It's been around 100 degrees F and we've been prepping for Burning Man.

    I'm going to try eating more salt over the coming days. I should be getting enough potassium, but it makes perfect sense that my salt intake is low. I'll report back.

    Are you the lead necromancer at the festival?
  • psuLemon
    psuLemon Posts: 38,432 MFP Moderator
    znewton234 wrote: »
    @chinadoll44

    Thank you so much for cross-posting this information. I've been easily exhausted over the last 5 days. It's been around 100 degrees F and we've been prepping for Burning Man.

    I'm going to try eating more salt over the coming days. I should be getting enough potassium, but it makes perfect sense that my salt intake is low. I'll report back.

    Sodium levels while following keto should be around 3000-5000mg a day. You should also focus on getting dark leafy greens so you can get adequate potassium and magnesium.
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