Exercise
**This was taken off the ketogenics.com's
FAQ on their web site**
Q: What is the best exercise for losing weight on a ketogenic diet
plan?
Q: Shouldn't aerobics be better and how much should I be
doing?
Answer: Ketogenic diets do
a nice job of maintaining lean mass while stripping fat from the body; but by
incorporating exercise, you can increase your lean mass while losing
fat.
Why is this important? Because the addition of lean tissue raises
our metabolic rate higher which makes it not only easier to continue to lose
fat, but makes it harder to gain back the fat lost, which is what happens to
many people (95%+) who lose weight on diets. The best form of exercise if our
goal is to lose weight and add lean tissue is resistance training, more commonly
known as lifting weights or bodybuilding. Aerobic training does not add lean
tissue but it does enhance the fat burning machinery in the body when done in
proper amounts. When overdone, aerobic training can hold back your progress by
stimulating gluconeogenesis, the conversion of protein to glucose which inhibits the fat burning
process.
What you end up doing is building good endurance but you stop
losing body fat efficiently. So limit aerobic training to no more than 30
minutes, 3 times weekly and always do it after your weight training to take
advantage of the suppressed insulin and glycogen levels
caused by the weight training. You'll burn slightly more fat this way and you'll
get a more productive weight training workout. Weight training can be done on
your aerobic days, three days per week. There are many good books on the subject
to get you started.
**end ketogenics clip**
The 30 minutes of exercise is required for people who are normally burning
stores of glucose. Most bodies preferentially uses glucose because it can be
converted to energy anaerobically (without O2). It typically takes about 30 min
long for the body to use the carbs available in the blood before it turns to
using fat.
The good news is that if you have low levels of glucose, you will start burning
fat earlier.
Because metabolizing fat takes O2, this is one of the reasons you may feel like
you are losing stamina early on the diet until you become more efficient at
converting fats to energy. To burn fat most efficiently, make sure you are
working out at a level which does not leave you breathless (be aerobic, not
anaerobic). If you reduce available O2, the body turns to sources of energy
which don't need O2, or else you will bonk.
Read writings of Covert Bailey ("Fit or Fat?") for good info here.
ps> any exercise is good exercise!
**Info on running marathons** (written by a gal who has
been training for and running in marathons)
The way I understand it is this:
All marathon runners eventually will use stored energy (fat) to fuel their
long-distance run: marathon runners go into lipolysis (ketosis) during the
marathon and the stored fat provides energy for the run. There is no
biological reason that you would need to use ingested glucose to fuel your
aerobic exercise at any point. All you need to have for aerobic
performance is a fuel source (EITHER glucose or lipos -- fat) and oxygen.
You surely have enough stored fat to do a marathon: even 3-4% body fat long
distance competitive athletes have enough stored energy to run 3 or 4 marathons
IN A ROW! (The tricky part is training your muscles and cardiovascular
system to perform for 4 hours! The easy part is having enough fuel).
What I'm saying is, don't worry. You can train for and run a marathon
while in ketosis. There is no biological reason you need to ingest sugars
to fuel this effort, and in fact, you will burn your stored fat for fuel whether
or not you "carbo load" before the race - people just disagree on when
you would start to use fat as opposed to carbs for fuel. The one advantage
of eating carbs before and during a run is that carbs are more accessible as an
energy source -- it is easier for your body to burn that jelly bean than stored
fat. Thus, if you want to give your body an easy boost of energy just
before or during a long run, sugars (carbs) are an easy answer.
Nevertheless, they are not necessary since you do have an alternate source of
fuel.
My doctor confirmed that I don't need to "carbo load" to run a
marathon (in fact, there is little evidence that carbo loading 12 hours prior to
the run helps at all!). He does say, however, that I might have problems
losing electrolytes during the run if my only fluid replacement is water.
I think I may have solved this problem, though, since I found a gatorade that is
sugar free! It seems that electrolyte replacement is more of a worry than
carb fueling.
Anyhow, even if you opt to up your carbs before and during a long run, be
sure to FOLLOW the run with some protein since that is what your muscles will
need after the workout.
Good luck!
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