Ketones and Intense Effort - Some Personal Data

[cristi]

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It's interesting how the numbers look when your body is adapted to a high-fat ketogenic diet. I'm talking about blood glucose and blood ketones.

So, I've been tracking my numbers (ketones and BG) at least twice daily since last December. If I weren't I'd probably not be in ketosis. Long story short, it took a lot of tweak, drastic carbohydrate reduction and daily measuring to get the ketones elevated.

When the metabolism changes so much, energy substrate dynamics also change near exercise. While I did not experience any downsides when it comes to my lifting performance, yesterday I had a high intensity competitive swimming race. In the first lap, it was all out effort and it kindof hit me hard. But then, after 1-2 minute break I found a relatively high intensity pace that I could keep up to. And I maintained that high pace for the 40 minutes of the competition. Heck I think I would've been able to keep on for another half an hour (at least).

Before race ketones were pretty high - 3.7mmol/L in the fasted state. Yesterday I had 2 meals, both after the race (at 4 hours and at 10 hours). Ketones were even higher last night after meal, while blood glucose was relatively low.

There's nothing to prove with this, just a simple experiment of the dynamics of energy metabolism in high intensity exercise with keto-adaptation. Looking forward for more experiments.

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To stay in touch with me, follow @cristi

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Cristi Vlad Self-Experimenter and Author

Comments

[olumideolowoyeye]

Well for the sake of those who do not understand what the basic meaning of ketosis. If you don’t know and you’re just seeing the meaning then go back and read the post after seeing this comment

Ketosis is a metabolic state characterized by raised levels of ketone bodies in the body tissues, which is typically pathological in conditions such as diabetes, or may be the consequence of a diet that is very low in carbohydrates

Glad you found your energy yesterday, the result of ketosis

[stejie93]

Very interesting post

[jmhb85]

I understand that you have a very low carbohydrate diet and taking your body's fats as your sole source of energy.

[cristi]

sole source? nope.

[tomilolafadipe]

So in essence exercise increases ketones and keeps blood glucose low
Great experiment.

[mistakili]

Hey thats a good news. A lot of people lay back and do nothing, becoming self aware of ones body system is a right move to help sustain a healthy body. Keep it up i must say, kudos

[timewarp]

that was good news.thanks

[khaidiral]

Articles that are very useful for us fat, I have read through and I have followed you I am very happy to follow you.

[beachbodycoach]

Keto and Ketones have changed my life! Thank you for the post!!!