Exercising when starting LCHF

[milly_moo]

So, I'm planning to start an LCHF diet gradually over the next few weeks, but will also be walking and skating several times each week at lunchtime - my current plan is 1-2 mile walk then skate for 90 mins then 1-2 mile walk, followed by another 1-3 mile walk with the dog a bit later (probably 4-6 miles walking in total).
I know it's important to eat little and often, but I don't want to eat just before skating so I'm trying to plan what I should eat at what time - would I be ok having a large breakfast /brunch around 9am then having a small snack around 2pm and something more substantial around 3pm?
I'm not a fan of exercising just after eating but from some of the information I've read it seems to be recommended - or am I just misunderstanding?

 

[jack412]

Hi and welcome
these are the links and stuff that I would have wanted to be told first off, in my uninformed opinion,, 3 x 1/2 hour walks a week, or its equivalent, may be enough, if you aren't into exercising.
If you are a T2 carrying weight, you may be insulin resistant and better on 3 LC meals no snacks. can even do one day eat, one day fasted for bad IR

some people can wean themselves off carbs, some need to go cold turkey
get a codefree meter and strips off amazonuk

http://lowcarbdiets.about.com/od/lowcarbliving/a/Food-Cravings.htm
http://www.phlaunt.com/diabetes/14045524.php
http://www.dietdoctor.com/lchf
[url]http://www.myfitnesspal.com/[/URL]

 

[Brunneria]

I think, in your situation, it'll be trial and error.

I go wobbly (hypo) if I exercise without eating. So I need a snack or a meal beforehand. But then I wouldn't want to do anything strenuous while digesting...

You may be different though.

There are some good threads on how people manage strenuous exercise (like running), if you search for them. Elydave is a runner who uses carbs as fuel, while borofergie runs in ketosis. If you search for their names and posts you will find masses of info...

 

[Andy12345]

Hi, well done for taking the plunge i hope you find it as awesome as i did, i started low carbing at the same time as exercising, i found the days after exercise i was more hungry so ate more, just made sure it was low carb of course, that is the min benefit to low carbing, you can eat as much as you like, i used to go to the cafe in the gym or down the road for a full fry up after the gym, it was also a reward for the hard work, i just ate normally to be honest i didnt try to fuel the exercise i just ate when i was hungry as i still do, i never even worried about eating strategies until i got to half marathon distances and even that want really anything clever, it was more knowing what seemed to give me the energy, how much fat etc the day before and certain meals, if drinking coffee was a good idea before a run, i assumed it was because id read it, so did it for a while until one day stopped and found it better without it lol hydration i found was vital, drink lots of water everyday, not just when you exercise, i used to and still buy the cheap bottled water in packs of small bottles and i keep them on the front seat of my car, whenever i drive i drink it, its easier to keep track of how much your drinking in the small bottles and somehow for me i find it easy to drink more, maybe the small target thing i dunno, i was told by my running club to carry some cashews and to only eat half a dozen, i dont think if we feel the need for energy when exercising we need to eat 6 mars bars, just a few nuts will do the trick, dont use energy drinks like lucozade they are poison, and just see how you go and play around with food to see what works for you, remember its a marathon, not a sprint so take things easy until you know what works for you, all the best

everything is just my opinion, no medical or nutritional training obtained lol

 

[milly_moo]

I've been thinking about this and I'm going to try to take some Greek yogurt and berries with me as I had some today and would have felt happy doing exercise afterwards. This is all so new to me and I just worry that if I don't have a plan I'll end up tempted by the chocolate machine.

 

[Totto]

I don't think the eat little and often is true, and I think it is plain wrong when you do LCHF. Much better to eat proper, filling meals two or three times per day.

Be careful of low carb flue at the beginnig though and have some extra salt if it hits.

 

[ElyDave]

I think, in your situation, it'll be trial and error.

I go wobbly (hypo) if I exercise without eating. So I need a snack or a meal beforehand. But then I wouldn't want to do anything strenuous while digesting...

You may be different though.

There are some good threads on how people manage strenuous exercise (like running), if you search for them. Elydave is a runner who uses carbs as fuel, while borofergie runs in ketosis. If you search for their names and posts you will find masses of info...

I'm probably half way between to be honest.

I can do early morning fasted exercise easily enough, and I have much lower carbs than the texts would suggest when on a long run/ride, I'm definitely not in ketosis though, but I do think I have a higher degree of fat burning than the norm.

 

[milly_moo]

Thanks all for the advice.

I'm not sure I would survive exercising without eating but I really don't want to be digesting a full meal. It sounds like having a large breakfast then a large dinner with some snacks for lunch is what I'm going to try first, then I can see how I feel and make some adjustments.

 

[Bebo321]

Hi there milly_moo,
Another website to take a look at would be www.teambloodglucose.com, and follow the links to the diabetes 'kit bag'.
Exercising after eating can be useful as a means of managing the postprandial 'peak' - obviously that's more geared towards someone who is eating carbs in the meal. If you had a meal that was low carb, then obviously the advice wouldn't be so pertinent. It's not about the size of the meal, but the carb content.
Your commitment to exercise is admirable, but quite demanding. I am not sure how physically demanding skating is, but it might be worth considering taking up some additional form of exercise that is at a higher intensity. This will give you far better results in the long-run, for far less investment in time.
As I say, have a peek at the above website - hopefully it will explain a little bit better how to manage your BG's, and what to expect when you exercise.
Keep up the great work!

 

[milly_moo]

Thanks for the link - there's some great info there.

According to DH I expend more energy walking to / from the rink than I do skating

 

[ElyDave]

Hi there milly_moo,
Another website to take a look at would be www.teambloodglucose.com, and follow the links to the diabetes 'kit bag'.
Exercising after eating can be useful as a means of managing the postprandial 'peak' - obviously that's more geared towards someone who is eating carbs in the meal. If you had a meal that was low carb, then obviously the advice wouldn't be so pertinent. It's not about the size of the meal, but the carb content.
Your commitment to exercise is admirable, but quite demanding. I am not sure how physically demanding skating is, but it might be worth considering taking up some additional form of exercise that is at a higher intensity. This will give you far better results in the long-run, for far less investment in time.
As I say, have a peek at the above website - hopefully it will explain a little bit better how to manage your BG's, and what to expect when you exercise.
Keep up the great work!

Higher intensity over shorter time, i.e. HIIT or similar has been shown to be more effective in the completely untrained population over a period of about 6 weeks or so, with the benefit/imporvement then levelling off.

Over the longer duration, it loses its effect and like it or not, if you want to improve CV fitness, time spent exercising becomes more important, but so does intensity. The mistake that is commonly made early on when starting to exercise is to try and do everything at the same intensity and that intesity being too hard. This then leads to a reduced volume overall as people do day 1, find they hurt in day two, skip that day, maybe day three as well, go back on day 4 and before they know it, that's just two sessions a week.

That's why I'm an advocate of using heart rate as a measure of intensity as it's easy to measure and respond to - just stop and count you rheart beats in 15s, multiply by 4. For general fitness (not talking about racing here) take a figure of 180 minus your age and use that as your maximum heart rate. For 2-3 months do not exceed that, this will give you a massive base level of fitness, but more importantly will not over stress you from one session to the next and will mean that you can do more overall. This also effectively trains your fat burning mechanism, which will help with low carbing.

I would also advocate some strength or mobility training for everyone - something like yoga or body weight exercise like press ups, sit ups, burpees and so on.

Then you can start getting more intensity into the picture as you need.

As for low carbing, it's not a problem. Last Friday for example i did a 7500m indoor rowing session, total carbs for that day was 70g.

Give me a shout if you want any more detailed tips

 

[Bebo321]

Higher intensity over shorter time, i.e. HIIT or similar has been shown to be more effective in the completely untrained population over a period of about 6 weeks or so, with the benefit/imporvement then levelling off.

Over the longer duration, it loses its effect and like it or not, if you want to improve CV fitness, time spent exercising becomes more important, but so does intensity. The mistake that is commonly made early on when starting to exercise is to try and do everything at the same intensity and that intesity being too hard. This then leads to a reduced volume overall as people do day 1, find they hurt in day two, skip that day, maybe day three as well, go back on day 4 and before they know it, that's just two sessions a week.

That's why I'm an advocate of using heart rate as a measure of intensity as it's easy to measure and respond to - just stop and count you rheart beats in 15s, multiply by 4. For general fitness (not talking about racing here) take a figure of 180 minus your age and use that as your maximum heart rate. For 2-3 months do not exceed that, this will give you a massive base level of fitness, but more importantly will not over stress you from one session to the next and will mean that you can do more overall. This also effectively trains your fat burning mechanism, which will help with low carbing.

I would also advocate some strength or mobility training for everyone - something like yoga or body weight exercise like press ups, sit ups, burpees and so on.

Then you can start getting more intensity into the picture as you need.

As for low carbing, it's not a problem. Last Friday for example i did a 7500m indoor rowing session, total carbs for that day was 70g.

Give me a shout if you want any more detailed tips

Hi ElyDave,
Just out of interest your comment about HIIT and effectiveness over 6 weeks etc, what is that in relation to and which 'benefits'? I would be interested to read your data on studies on the effects of higher intensity exercise relating to diabetes over an extended period of time - particularly in the context of diabetes and insulin sensitivity.
So far I have only seen data that shows positive outcomes irrespective on how many weeks it is done for. This link talks about high intensity intermittent training having excellent benefits over 15 and 24 wks for example. (I have perhaps wrongly extrapolated that these benefits would last with a continued program of exercise - perhaps not improve further, but certainly not decline which is how I interpreted your statement above (and apologies if I've misinterpreted you) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991639/

At the end of the day though, any for of exercise is good right? You're absolutely right that it is far better to do something you feel you can do and maintain doing, rather than doing something overly strenuous and it putting you off.

How's your training/healing going? Are you back out running yet or are you still in recovery mode?
Have you been following the mhealth Tour? Take a look - it would be great to have you along next year! Vienna to Stockholm. www.teambloodglucose.com
Bx

 

[Mud Island Dweller]

l lchf and have breakfast about 1hr before excercise. l used originally to take a bottle of protein drink along to pt and a snack. l have found both a waste just take a bottle of water. And my pt really puts you to work...hard.
For what you suggest l would only take water and eat at least an hr before excercise but that is thigns like pt.
If it is just walking then l wouldnt bother worrying about when l ate.
As stated you will find your own rythmn but be careful falling into the trap of thinking you need food going in unless you get mega liver dump. Which is unlikely at the level you are talking of.
l did on the ocr race and white water course for things like that l have a steep learning curve...l out worked what my liver had in to dump

 

[Scandichic]

Thanks all for the advice.

I'm not sure I would survive exercising without eating but I really don't want to be digesting a full meal. It sounds like having a large breakfast then a large dinner with some snacks for lunch is what I'm going to try first, then I can see how I feel and make some adjustments.

Works for me!

 

[ElyDave]

Hi ElyDave,
Just out of interest your comment about HIIT and effectiveness over 6 weeks etc, what is that in relation to and which 'benefits'? I would be interested to read your data on studies on the effects of higher intensity exercise relating to diabetes over an extended period of time - particularly in the context of diabetes and insulin sensitivity.
So far I have only seen data that shows positive outcomes irrespective on how many weeks it is done for. This link talks about high intensity intermittent training having excellent benefits over 15 and 24 wks for example. (I have perhaps wrongly extrapolated that these benefits would last with a continued program of exercise - perhaps not improve further, but certainly not decline which is how I interpreted your statement above (and apologies if I've misinterpreted you) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2991639/

At the end of the day though, any for of exercise is good right? You're absolutely right that it is far better to do something you feel you can do and maintain doing, rather than doing something overly strenuous and it putting you off.

How's your training/healing going? Are you back out running yet or are you still in recovery mode?
Have you been following the mhealth Tour? Take a look - it would be great to have you along next year! Vienna to Stockholm. www.teambloodglucose.com
Bx

I think you're reading a bit more between the lines than I intended.

Based on my reading of various studies into HIIT (too many to cite and I didn't keep all the references), it has it's place but is not the answer alone, as no exercise methodology is, despite the protestations of the various protagonists.

Take a completely untrained individual and get them to do HIIT alone, and you'll see an improvement in most measures of fitness; strength, muscular endurance, CV. Do the same to me and you will see nowhere near that kind of benefit, if any at all.

Carry on with that HIIT with the untrained individual and the improvement will plateau quite quickly (most of these studies don't go very far which is the problem with the extrapolation), so that's why you need to start increasing the endurance work, but also keep in some strength/flexibility. There's a growing body of evidence that shows that overall fitness is maintained and improved further with a mix of training types as both strength and endurance decline if we don't look after them. We're talking about the average mortal here, not the Sir Brad's of this world. Although even people like Mo will probabaly be throwing in some strength work.

As you say, any exercise is good, particularly if you're starting from not much and the important thing is to maintain interest adn not get injured by TMTS (too much too soon).

As for me, the achiles remains a little precarious, with a HM in 8 days. I'll be tapering the running and doing plenty of yoga and a new weights programme

 

[Mud Island Dweller]

Dave l have also got a damaged Achilles strained walking 2 weeks ago. And advice with what you do for your one please? I am seeing a physio again next week but looking for all advice.
The little man who walked by my foot for the first week slamming a red hot poker has retired to part time work but not gone away. Because my walking has gone to pot my knees are suffering and today l have done a really good twist on the opposite knee it sort of crunched round so walking is interesting.

 

[flossyc]

Higher intensity over shorter time, i.e. HIIT or similar has been shown to be more effective in the completely untrained population over a period of about 6 weeks or so, with the benefit/imporvement then levelling off.

Over the longer duration, it loses its effect and like it or not, if you want to improve CV fitness, time spent exercising becomes more important, but so does intensity. The mistake that is commonly made early on when starting to exercise is to try and do everything at the same intensity and that intesity being too hard. This then leads to a reduced volume overall as people do day 1, find they hurt in day two, skip that day, maybe day three as well, go back on day 4 and before they know it, that's just two sessions a week.

That's why I'm an advocate of using heart rate as a measure of intensity as it's easy to measure and respond to - just stop and count you rheart beats in 15s, multiply by 4. For general fitness (not talking about racing here) take a figure of 180 minus your age and use that as your maximum heart rate. For 2-3 months do not exceed that, this will give you a massive base level of fitness, but more importantly will not over stress you from one session to the next and will mean that you can do more overall. This also effectively trains your fat burning mechanism, which will help with low carbing.

I would also advocate some strength or mobility training for everyone - something like yoga or body weight exercise like press ups, sit ups, burpees and so on.

Then you can start getting more intensity into the picture as you need.

As for low carbing, it's not a problem. Last Friday for example i did a 7500m indoor rowing session, total carbs for that day was 70g.

Give me a shout if you want any more detailed tips

Hi Dave,

I would be really interested to hear how you excerise on so few carbs, I would really like to be more active, but excercise usually equals hypos! and therefore more food, now would be a good time to mention my average daily carb intake on a non excerise day is around the 230 mark (I like my carbs). I eat pretty healthily, I cook all my dinners etc, but I really struggle to find filling low carb or no carb foods and meals, any tips you have would be really appreciated.

Thank you

 

[Mud Island Dweller]

Filling no carb low carb foods and also on the low carb forum, boy oh boy you eat high carb not low carb meals at that amount a day.can not say l think that lot is healthy but each to their own. And as l think l said l eat aprox 30g carbs a day and have done total warrior and also a white water kayak 2 days course with no extra and both were very gruelling.

 

[flossyc]

Filling no carb low carb foods and also on the low carb forum, boy oh boy you eat high carb not low carb meals at that amount a day.can not say l think that lot is healthy but each to their own. And as l think l said l eat aprox 30g carbs a day and have done total warrior and also a white water kayak 2 days course with no extra and both were very gruelling.

I have been Type 1 for over 30 years and as can happen, the carbs get set by the hospital and become habit, with a BMI of 22.5 I have never really worried, but I found this thread and was interested to know if anyone had any tips that was all, sorry for any offence caused by posting this on the thread.

 

[Mud Island Dweller]

wasnt offence caused was attempting to help The link l posted highlighted in red click on that is to the base of the diet l use the comments are to show that low carb fitness is fairly easy although l am t2 l am sure adaptable for t1 and so l am not sure how you are offended by anything posted however this site has become very strange last few months so l generally avoid posting much. And shall refrain from attempting to help you in future.