Atkins Diet, Cardio, and Weight Lifting

Try Google, there have been thousands of posts here discussing this.

In news:[email hidden],
Rob <[email hidden]> stated
| Does anyone have any experiences with doing the low carb dieting and
| exercising? I did the low carb 2 years ago, made through 6 months
| lost 35 pounds but started getting major carb cravings, changed jobs,
| and other life events and stopped. I am going to start again, but I
| want to know how I can expect it to affect my lifting (I lift ~3-4
| times a week) and cardio. I expect I will shed pounds much faster,
| but what about muscle loss? What intensity of exercise is too much?
| given the lack of carbs in your blood stream?
|
| I have read some different articles about it, but wanted to know if
| anyone had any personal experieces?
|
| thanks!

Rob said:

Does anyone have any experiences with doing the low carb dieting and
exercising? I did the low carb 2 years ago, made through 6 months lost
35 pounds but started getting major carb cravings, changed jobs, and
other life events and stopped. I am going to start again, but I want
to know how I can expect it to affect my lifting (I lift ~3-4 times a
week) and cardio. I expect I will shed pounds much faster, but what
about muscle loss? What intensity of exercise is too much? given the
lack of carbs in your blood stream?

I have read some different articles about it, but wanted to know if
anyone had any personal experieces?

thanks!

What has been the consensus of the "diffferent articles about it" ?
What has been the source of doubt or concern?

Have you read Chapter 22 of the Atkins book.... "Exercise - It's
Non-negotiable"

There are people who lift weights and do low carb with, seemingly, no
problem.

Perhaps if you were a competitive mile (5K, 10K or other) runner or
marathon runner, there could be some specific issues of performance
related to low carb.

--
1) Eat Till SATISFIED, Not STUFFED... Atkins repeated 9 times in the book
2) Exercise: It's Non-Negotiable..... Chapter 22 title, Atkins book
3) Don't Diet Without Supplimental Nutrients... Chapter 23 title, Atkins
book
4) A sensible eating plan, and follow it. (Atkins, Self Made or Other)

"Rob" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Does anyone have any experiences with doing the low carb dieting and
exercising?

Quoted message said:

What intensity of exercise is too much? given the
lack of carbs in your blood stream?

I'll second the recommendation that you do a search of the group on Google.

You'll still be able to lift and do aerobic exercise, although you'll likely
notice a fall-off in energy right at first. As your body readapts to
exercising on a lc diet, your exercise capacity will improve significantly.
The extent to which people do adapt to strenuous exercise while on a
ketogenic diet apparently varies from person to person. The adaptation
period is measured in months, not weeks, BTW.

You will still have "carbs in your bloodstream" on lc. If you don't realize
that your body maintains a more-or-less constant level of blood glucose,
despite what you eat, you need to go back to whatever low-carb diet book you
are on and re-read it.

The issue with lc and exercise is *stored* glucose, which is mostly
unavailable while in ketosis. The body instead will turn to fatty acids for
energy, and the efficiency with which it does that appears to be variable.
It's probably not sufficient in many or most people to sustain very high
level aerobic exercise or very heavy lifting. But... in the YMMV
tradition... there are people who have posted here claiming prodigious
weightlifting feats on lc. I personally found that back when I was biking a
lot, I did a lot better on climbing on lc than I ever had on a higher carb
diet, but it took several months of adaptation to get to that point.

HG

Rob said:

Does anyone have any experiences with doing the low carb dieting and
exercising? I did the low carb 2 years ago, made through 6 months lost
35 pounds but started getting major carb cravings, changed jobs, and
other life events and stopped. I am going to start again, but I want
to know how I can expect it to affect my lifting (I lift ~3-4 times a
week) and cardio. I expect I will shed pounds much faster, but what
about muscle loss? What intensity of exercise is too much? given the
lack of carbs in your blood stream?

I have read some different articles about it, but wanted to know if
anyone had any personal experieces?

Personal experience:

I started LCing around when the Taubes article came out (around August of
'02); lost ~60lbs and maintained the loss. I wasn't doing formal exercise
at the time, but I didn't own a car, and so I walked a *lot* and did quite
a bit of heavy carrying (the down side of drinking soda is that you have
to carry it home). Spring of '04 I started getting more serious about
doing cardio. At the beginning I was pretty pathetic, but it didn't take
long to ramp up to the point where I was comfortable doing an hour on the
elliptical at a rate of 6mph.

At the beginning of the summer, I started working w/ a personal trainer.
As part of the initial evaluation, she commented that I was unusually
cardio fit for my non-athletic background (I could keep talking long past
the point that most people would be too winded). I had one experience of
overreaching at the beginning (I just pushed too hard), but other than
that, have had no problems making steady progress. At the end of each
workout, I know that I've put a good bit of effort into it, but I've never
run out of energy such that I had to stop or ask to go easier.

I haven't written down my weights, but they are getting progressively
higher (unlike some women, my preference is to lift heavy as I'm not in
the least concerned that I'll get <hyooog!>.

If you start exercising at the same time you start lowcarbing, your
induction flu might be a little rougher than otherwise, but as long as you
ease into it, my experience suggests you should be fine.

Martha

--