How long does it take to fully deplete glycogen stores

[nutritionfreak1]

I know there are alot of variables, but lets say you did 0 carb, how many days would it take to make your muscles really receptive to carbs (so you could load on carbs for a day and not worry about your muscles not being "starved" enough to create that desired sponge like atmosphere?

Like 3 days? 5 days?

[Random907]

most say 2 days

[RU4A69]

[QUOTE=nutritionfreak1;241221211]I know there are alot of variables, but lets say you did 0 carb, how many days would it take to make your muscles really receptive to carbs

[QUOTE]

Even just 16hrs will increase receptivity, but I'd go 24-72hrs personally.

[Lemonzest]

After a carb up it takes about 1 to 1.5 days to get rid of my glycogen (indicated by pissing like a mule) and thats without exercising

[driven1]

After I do a carb up, I do a depletion cardio workout. How long it takes will depend on your glycogen storage capacity in your muscles and liver. This will depend on how muscular you are and how large your liver is. Generally, a larger person will have a larger liver than a smaller person. You can actually have a sports physiologist tell you exactly how many grams of glycogen you are capable of storing.

Anyway, what I do (under a sports physiologist's supervision) is a depletion workout. This involves working at a relatively high heart rate until the signs of glycogen depletion occur. The signs are headache, fatigue, dizziness or weakness in the knees. As soon as I note any of these beginning to happen, the work out is over. My last depletion workout took 69 minutes before I 'hit the wall'.

Without doing this, it has taken me as long as 4 days to deplete. This is even if I do a zero carb diet for 2 days. For me, I get better results if I quickly get rid of the glycogen after my carb up. Otherwise I seem to just end up going back and forth and not really losing weight.

(PS) When you stop the workout, the headache and other symptoms disappear on their own within about 15 minutes. Drink LOTS while you are doing the workout.

[lbendall]

After I do a carb up, I do a depletion cardio workout. How long it takes will depend on your glycogen storage capacity in your muscles and liver. This will depend on how muscular you are and how large your liver is. Generally, a larger person will have a larger liver than a smaller person. You can actually have a sports physiologist tell you exactly how many grams of glycogen you are capable of storing.

Anyway, what I do (under a sports physiologist's supervision) is a depletion workout. This involves working at a relatively high heart rate until the signs of glycogen depletion occur. The signs are headache, fatigue, dizziness or weakness in the knees. As soon as I note any of these beginning to happen, the work out is over. My last depletion workout took 69 minutes before I 'hit the wall'.

Without doing this, it has taken me as long as 4 days to deplete. This is even if I do a zero carb diet for 2 days. For me, I get better results if I quickly get rid of the glycogen after my carb up. Otherwise I seem to just end up going back and forth and not really losing weight.

(PS) When you stop the workout, the headache and other symptoms disappear on their own within about 15 minutes. Drink LOTS while you are doing the workout.

hmmm thats actually quite good to know , will try reaching those 'signs' next delpetion.

[rickboy77]

After I do a carb up, I do a depletion cardio workout. How long it takes will depend on your glycogen storage capacity in your muscles and liver. This will depend on how muscular you are and how large your liver is. Generally, a larger person will have a larger liver than a smaller person. You can actually have a sports physiologist tell you exactly how many grams of glycogen you are capable of storing.

Anyway, what I do (under a sports physiologist's supervision) is a depletion workout. This involves working at a relatively high heart rate until the signs of glycogen depletion occur. The signs are headache, fatigue, dizziness or weakness in the knees. As soon as I note any of these beginning to happen, the work out is over. My last depletion workout took 69 minutes before I 'hit the wall'.

Without doing this, it has taken me as long as 4 days to deplete. This is even if I do a zero carb diet for 2 days. For me, I get better results if I quickly get rid of the glycogen after my carb up. Otherwise I seem to just end up going back and forth and not really losing weight.

(PS) When you stop the workout, the headache and other symptoms disappear on their own within about 15 minutes. Drink LOTS while you are doing the workout.

What is this carb depletion you speak of? I have never heard this. Can you explain it. I work my tail off and eat well. I just think my timing and amounts are off. I'm always up for learning and trying new methods. I was military for so long and a hard gainer to boot. I've never been able to keep the mass I wanted. Now older, 35, I can't get rid of the small tire around my stomach. GOALS: build muscle and burn fat. Yes I know you can't do both. Right now I'm trying to lose body but maintain as much muscle mass as I can without losing my strength gains. Am I chasing my tail?

[esgibson]

I know there are alot of variables, but lets say you did 0 carb, how many days would it take to make your muscles really receptive to carbs (so you could load on carbs for a day and not worry about your muscles not being "starved" enough to create that desired sponge like atmosphere?

Like 3 days? 5 days?

5-10 days. depending on your training and other aspects of your life..

[DustyChicago]

To echo other posters, it depends.

Liver glycogen will be depleted from daily movement or low intensity cardio, probably within 2 days. Muscle glycogen will be recruited as necessary depending on the intensity of the exercise. On the muscle tip, you'll feel it when you feel empty and almost flabby.

[Leadreign]

Maybe Im missing something but why are you doing a depletion AFTER a carb up? Last I remember you do a depletion workout to remove all glycogen from the muscles, THEN refill with a carb up, thus giving you muscle energy for the rest of the week.

[JimmyBroscience]

A few hours to a few days, even a few weeks. It depends on how you go about trying to do it, how much glycogen you already have stored, how much you exert yourself, and what you eat before, during, and afterwards, and what, if any, supplements or medications you are taking. Sound complex enough? It's even worse than that.

That's why you will get answers from all over the ballpark. For me, it takes less than a day when reenetering keto. This is because I will begin a fast by eating high fat, low protein, zero carb foods, use ECA stacks, initiate hard anaerobic activity, followed by consistent and lighter aerobic activity, all while fasted. This will deplete stored muscle glycogen extremely fast, and easily get to your liver stores.

Many people over think this way too much, and worry about their precious muscles and fitness being zapped in a few hours, neglecting that a prolonged and erratic entrance to lipolysis is actually more detrimental in many ways, if not for the felt effects alone. That's why many will half ass "try keto", be miserable for days, never learn all the required information or even bother to test blood ketone levels or anything, then forever condemn it due to never actually reaching an actual state of continual lipolysis/ketosis. So I reach a state of chronic lipolysis as quickly as possible and get it over with, because as many ketoers know, once you are fully keto, any negative effects not only stop, but reverse themselves and you open yourself up to huge stored body fat loss and muscle gain potential, all while generally feeling positive and energetic.

To answer the question again, it can be a few hours, or a few weeks, anything inbetween and beyond. The longer it takes, the more adverse effects you have to deal with and feel chronically.

Maybe Im missing something but why are you doing a depletion AFTER a carb up? Last I remember you do a depletion workout to remove all glycogen from the muscles, THEN refill with a carb up, thus giving you muscle energy for the rest of the week.

If fat loss is the priority, not neccisarily muscle gain, and/or you don't want to give up that carb rich food cold turkey, then continually depleting your new glycogen after carb feeds will allow you to continue lipolysis with only some hindrance, so it's a great plan if you can't layoff the garbage. The problem is, as soon as you stop constantly "working off" the new deposits, you stop being in a state of ketosis and you begin storing fat all over again, so yea, it's playing with fire...

[DustyChicago]

Yes, carb up after depletion workout to reach super compensation of muscle glycogen.

I think its important to make the distinction between muscle glycogen and liver glycogen. I would say that preserving muscle is a worthwhile goal. Therefor retaining stores of muscle glycogen while in ketosis is favorable. Fortunately it is the amount of liver glycogen that determines ketosis and a calorie deficit (absent metabolic or hormonal abdormalities) that determines breakdown of fats into their constiutents-ketones. Muscles can retain their glycogen (this does not impact ketosis in a keto-adapted person) until it is recruited for intense exercise.

[xgraforlockx]

i'd say 3-10 days

but depletion =/= ketosis, and ketogenic diet does not especially mean that you are or will be in ketosis. it does mean that you will generate ketone bodies to be used for fuel, it happens even during short term fasting.

full ketosis takes 2-5 weeks to kick in (depending on training), & what do i mean by full -> the state of ketosis where there is too much of FFAs, body can't use them and then again body has to make more ketones so ketones build up massively. after that body becomes ketone dependent and later on keto-adapted after (but this is a different story).

ketosis is very anticatabolic, and so i really advise to do carb ups only after 4 weeks, given that you workout hard and deplete glycogen stores.

[BlueRev]

After a carb up it takes about 1 to 1.5 days to get rid of my glycogen (indicated by pissing like a mule) and thats without exercising

Doubt it very much LOL

Anyways @ op it all depends how hard you go etc in the gym, But anywhere from 5-20 days

[azstrengthcoach]

Your body stores about 2,000-2,500 grams of gylcogen. So about 1-2 days your glycogen levels will be depleted of you consume no carbs.

[Calesthenicking]

Glycogen is a type of energy. Once you begin to exercise, your body taps into your glycogen (glucose) stores first. Once all your glycogen is depleted, your body taps onto your secondary fuel or energy, which is your fat stores. However, if you engage in exercises in extreme intensity such sprinting on 90%-100% maximum effort, you'll find that you will deplete your glycogen much faster than you could imagine compare to doing exercises on lower intensities such as jogging and other steady state exercises. The 50-100m sprints are great for depleting glycogen as it is more of an anaerobic type of workout which rely on your glycogen 90% of the time and 10% oxygen. And as Driven1 had mentioned, once your glycogen is out, the side effects come in. The signs are, dizzyness, headache or light-headed, nausea or vomiting, sometimes you feel like fainting. I have experienced these signs first hand when I was engaging on 100m sprints with extreme intensities and max effort. It is best to have some snack bar loaded with carbs such as energy bar food for fast absorption the moment you feel one of the symptoms occurring.

[T3mpest]

Doubt it very much LOL

Anyways @ op it all depends how hard you go etc in the gym, But anywhere from 5-20 days

Any links to support that.? As as long time keto'er I have to echo his sentiments. Dropping into keto, which should signal that my body has depleted all it's glycogen usually takes about 3 days if I eat high fat and very low carbs, as in less than 20 grams/day. I know that not only from the tell tale signs of being in keto (peeing like crazy, funny taste in your mouth) BUT also the presence of ketones in my urine, using test strips. That's coming from a carb heavy diet, if I just have a cheat meal and was in keto prior, 24-48hrs is about right, with little to no exercise. Exercise can get it down to 12-24 hours, depending how grueling the workout is. I have never heard of anyone saying it takes 5 days to deplete liver and muscle glycogen, let alone 20 days.. If it took that long most people might never even get there as the trace carbs even on a low carb diet would likely add up, keeping you out indefinetly.

[sampattison]

I work out twice a week at the gym and sometimes my workouts can last longer than 3 hours. I eat two tins of soup before I train then when I get home I'll immediately have some rice while my chicken cooks. Am I in danger of losing any muscle? My workout is weight lifting no cardio. The soup I have is chicken broth.

[bearjewcometh]

After I do a carb up, I do a depletion cardio workout. How long it takes will depend on your glycogen storage capacity in your muscles and liver. This will depend on how muscular you are and how large your liver is. Generally, a larger person will have a larger liver than a smaller person. You can actually have a sports physiologist tell you exactly how many grams of glycogen you are capable of storing.

Anyway, what I do (under a sports physiologist's supervision) is a depletion workout. This involves working at a relatively high heart rate until the signs of glycogen depletion occur. The signs are headache, fatigue, dizziness or weakness in the knees. As soon as I note any of these beginning to happen, the work out is over. My last depletion workout took 69 minutes before I 'hit the wall'.

Without doing this, it has taken me as long as 4 days to deplete. This is even if I do a zero carb diet for 2 days. For me, I get better results if I quickly get rid of the glycogen after my carb up. Otherwise I seem to just end up going back and forth and not really losing weight.

(PS) When you stop the workout, the headache and other symptoms disappear on their own within about 15 minutes. Drink LOTS while you are doing the workout.

Why not just do some fasted cardio over a couple days time and not have to feel like your brain is going to split in half?