[skizm]

How does working out at a high intensity work when in a state of Ketosis? I lift weights and/or do HIIT 5x per week and occasionally add running on top of that. I've always been weary of going low carb or trying a keto diet because I feel like I just won't have the energy to continue my training regimen at its current intensity. The typical advice is to eat your allocated carbs 1-2 hours prior to your workout, however I feel like by not getting the right amount of carbs post-workout I'm basically wasting my time in the gym at best, and at worst asking for an injury due to not being able to recover completely in time for the next workout.

Thoughts?

[throwaway_tech]

I run marathons and prefer running in ketosis. In ketosis I will follow a long run with some protein for muscle recovery with fats just to maintain ratios rather than carbs to refill depleted glucose stores.

For lifting/HIIT training ketosis may not be ideal. I have done it and its fine, basically I swap whey for hemp protein powder and continue using creatine post workout.

I think for most people unless they are competing or trying to gain mass they would really like the results of ketosis and lifting. You will lean out (both fat loss and less water retention) and maintain muscle mass, don't be afraid of losing your gains. On the down side the adjustment period will probably be a little longer/harder than a relatively inactive person and initially you will likely notice a decline in energy in the gym, but it will be temporary (again your body is learning to use ketones as primary fuel source and that takes time). That said once you adjust you won't find any trouble lifting heavy or running sprints, in fact you will probably be able to go longer. One benefit you really notice is lack of inflammation and soreness following workouts, in my experience the body recovers faster, though this is still about the actual food you consume (healthy omega 3s and green leafy vegetables) and not some automatic benefit of ketosis.

[teraku]

Don't go low-carb. There is no need, it's not unhealthy. Especially if you are sporty (as it sounds).

The current state of affairs is: If you are insulin resistant (either because of genetics, obesity, whatever) then having a low-carb high fat diet is better for you. If your insulin resistance is high, then your pancreas produces much more insulin, meaning your cells will start storing energy instead of using it up. If this keeps up for a long period, your fat tissues, which are supposed to be your fat/energy storage, will fill up and your body (or rather the particles transporting the transformed sugar from the liver) will start sticking to your organs. This starts inflammations and makes your organs weaker, and in turn also raising your insulin resistance. And these malfunctions also spread to the brain and can cause alzheimer and the like. The exact chain of effects is not yet confirmed, so from here on it's a lot of speculation. But if you now are trying to lose weight, and you just reduce calories, but keeping a "high-carb/low-fat" diet, then you will be hungry. Because either you have too little protein to feed yourself, or you eat enough protein and you automatically eat too many carbs again, producing more and more insulin. This is how high-fat diets come in handy, as they don't spur liver activity and don't impact insulin as much. This in turn means you can reach ketosis, starting to work the fat on your organs (which is a lot more dangerous then some fat in fat tissues like your belly). Your body will recover, inflammation will go away and your insulin sensitivity goes up again (unless you are genetically diabetic). And with a healthy body your brain can also recover.

The studies for this are still coming in, but I find this explanation very logic and even this study, although the article is weirdly phrased, plays into it.

Some remarks at the end: - If you do a lot of sports, your muscles use energy even without insulin - Glucose is spread through the body, while fructose is directly converted to fat (tissue) - Sport also increases insulin sensitivity - Diets are very personal, try out things for yourself and see how it works! - Protein is also increasing insulin (since protein intake signals the body to start storing energy, i. e. protein into muscle cells)

[timbit42]

Are you familiar with Sami Inkinen?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKC9ZZ66jgc

[lhl]

There is a keto adaptation [1] period of at least 6-8 weeks where you might take a hit, but there are several studies that show that it's generally not a concern.

Cipryan, Lukas, Daniel J. Plews, Alessandro Ferretti, Phil B. Maffetone, and Paul B. Laursen. “Effects of a 4-Week Very Low-Carbohydrate Diet on High-Intensity Interval Training Responses.” Journal of Sports Science & Medicine 17, no. 2 (May 14, 2018): 259–68.

Greene, David A., Benjamin J. Varley, Timothy B. Hartwig, Phillip Chapman, and Michael Rigney. “A Low-Carbohydrate Ketogenic Diet Reduces Body Weight Without Compromising Performance in Powerlifting and Olympic Weightlifting Athletes.” The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research Publish Ahead of Print (October 17, 2018). https://doi.org/10.1519/JSC.0000000000002904.

Paoli, Antonio, Keith Grimaldi, Dominic D’Agostino, Lorenzo Cenci, Tatiana Moro, Antonino Bianco, and Antonio Palma. “Ketogenic Diet Does Not Affect Strength Performance in Elite Artistic Gymnasts.” Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition 9 (July 26, 2012): 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-9-34.

Kephart, Wesley C., Coree D. Pledge, Paul A. Roberson, Petey W. Mumford, Matthew A. Romero, Christopher B. Mobley, Jeffrey S. Martin, et al. “The Three-Month Effects of a Ketogenic Diet on Body Composition, Blood Parameters, and Performance Metrics in CrossFit Trainees: A Pilot Study.” Sports 6, no. 1 (January 9, 2018). https://doi.org/10.3390/sports6010001.

If you're interested in the topic of human performance and ketosis, I enjoy Volek's talks - here's one from a relatively recent Jumpstart event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeS_dhM8dsY

Anecdotally, I find my workout recovery to be much better on keto/fasting diet, but all my markers (and overall inflammation) has improved so much and I'm being mindful of other aspects like stress, sleep, etc that it's hard to necessarily pin down to one cause.

[1] https://blog.virtahealth.com/keto-adapted/

[Enginerrrd]

It seems people have pretty individualized responses to this. In general, the research shows decreases in performance except for endurance events. Personally, I found my recovery was great on keto. Better than normal even. I was doing a strength cycle so my weights were increasing at the time and I was getting stronger. I actually felt better in the gym, and I lift pretty heavy. A lot of the aches and pains in my joints seemed to go away. Downsides: my gut felt weird, and you have work hard at getting adequate fiber and stuff. Also, it's hard to eat socially.

I was eating a higher protein diet than usually considered keto, but urinalysis confirmed ketosis.

[ebg13]

> How does working out at a high intensity work when in a state of Ketosis?

I've done this. You get tired much faster, you will not be able to sprint for nearly as long, your maximum lift significantly decreases, you hit the muscle fatigue point (can't lift again unless you lower the weight) very quickly.

The usual solution among keto lifters is to have a carbload cheat day once per week _or_ to carb spike with I think (it's been a while) pure glucose syrup a measured amount just before your workout according to how much you think you'll actually use during the workout. The cheat day in practice works pretty well, because if you're slamming your body at the gym every day you can get back into ketosis very quickly after the initial induction phase is done, so you end up with a couple of days of keto per week but not the full week.

[sizzle]

Can you take vitamins like B complex with electrolytes and sugar free, no carb protein shakes with caffeine to get some energy back?

[ebg13]

The problem isn't lack of energy. The problem is muscle and cardio exhaustion. You feel great, not tired, just your muscles stop working and you run out breath. So I don't think that vitamin, electrolytes, or more calories will help. If you're lifting seriously, you're already consuming plenty of those things.

[pawelduda]

Agreed. The difference was noticeable and as soon as I started eating carbs again, my strength increased in a matter of day or two.

[wtetzner]

How long were you in ketosis before you stared eating carbs again?

[pawelduda]

Between 2 and 3 months

[achenatx]

this was my experience. My endurance was unaffected by ketosis but my ability to generate instant power over and over again (mountain bike) definitely took a hit.

[sputknick]

Not the author, but I have experience with this. For me it takes about a week of slugishness before my body adjusts. Once I'm adapted, my performance is actually better. This goes for heavy weights, low weight/high rep weights, and cardio.

[zadokshi]

The first few times it was like this for me.

After years of doing keto I can get that keto feeling/energy/effect by doing one day of super low carbs and super low calories, I’ll wake up the next day wanting to spring out of bed like you wouldn’t believe.

[wirrbel]

You have a very stable energy supply on keto. I am on keto right now and went for a run in the morning. For lifting weights and muscle building I am not quite sure whether I can give advice, but have a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/ketogains/ and the subreddits community as this subreddit is focused on working out with keto.

[ravenstine]

Depends on the diet. Low carb on its own can work because you can eat between 20 and 50 grams of carbs in a day, but ketosis is limited.(which might be okay depending on one's goals)

Keto is shit for working out, in my personal opinion. Some people claim they can have effective workouts on keto, but I hate it, and a lot of others have a hard time having energy when training on keto. Keto is good for weight loss, and I lost 60 lbs in 5 months doing keto, but it's total crap for building muscle, in my experience.

The best compromise, in my experience, is fasting. I'm talking ideally 48 hours between meals. I'll keep it short because I've been spamming threads about this topic recently; because fasting forces the body to solely burn through its glycogen stores, and then body fat once that runs out, ketosis becomes easier to achieve even if there are some carbs in meals, and the presence of carbs in meals provides glycogen for when you workout and train your muscles. I believe this is needed, especially for HIIT. In my experience, you can eat a modest amount of carbs when breaking a fast and still manage to get back into ketosis(fat burning mode!) within a few days. It totally outperforms keto in that it often takes people several days, possibly weeks, to get into deep ketosis.

That said, a low carb, but not necessarily keto, diet can work for someone doing HIIT. Everyone's body is different. A person may find that they want more carbs in order to be effective in the gym, but if they're trying to get lean, then that can compromise their goal, in which case they should reduce their eating frequency a la fasting. A person who is either building muscle or maintaining body composition may not need to do a low carb diet at all.

[zadokshi]

I don’t self test ketosis, it I believe I can eat slightly extra carbs during/post workout and not hugely interrupt ketosis. I don’t know if this is true, but certainly my body doesn’t feel ‘kicked out’ of ketosis when I do this.

(Keto vs non-keto is night and day for me, brain fog vs no brain fog, energy for life vs not being able to get off the couch)

[wpietri]

I confess I don't measure ketosis, and it sounds like we do different sorts of workout. But I do the intermittent fasting variant known as eTRF; I generally eat 7 am - 1 pm. I was worried about how that would interact with my runs, which I usually do in the morning before eating. Enough people online were positive about it that I tried it out and it has been great. On recent Sundays I've done 2-hour runs with little or no food. My times improved and I felt amazing. And the meal after running? Fantastic!

[tokamak-teapot]

I do similar exercise and when I started keto 8 months ago I had a dip in performance for about 3 weeks.

I do a similar set of exercises on the same day/time every week and it ends with 30 seconds of burpees.

Prior to going on keto I was doing 16 burpees in that 30 seconds. After the first week I was down to twelve. After a couple more weeks I was back to 16 - and two weeks after that I was on 17. I’m now on 18.

I’ve gone from 103kg to 88kg in that time, so it seems likely the weight loss has been a (or the) factor in the improved performance.

[rtkaratekid]

I’ve done it. I got extremely ripped and looked great, but actual performance suffered and I started feeling pretty terrible. I like how carbs solve those problems for me. However, if I’m doing 6+ hour efforts, I just eat fats and around hour 7 or 8 I’m still burning hot when I used to burn out when I was feeding with carbs.

[wtetzner]

I think it really depends on how long you've been in ketosis, and how well adapted you body is to running on fat.

At first you will absolutely have less energy, but it seems like the more fat-adapted you are, the more energy you'll have. At some point it seems like you actually have more energy to work out.

[timbit42]

Sami Inkonen and his SO rowed to Hawaii on a keto diet but were fat adapted first: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v