how do refeeds work? rep'n

[BigDakota]

Do I understand refilling glycogen stores correctly? If you eat enough carbs to completely fill your glycogen stores in your muscles you will have better lifts but it wont throw you out of ketosis. but if you fill them up and have extra sugar in your system it will kick you out? im trying to decide between ckd and tkd for maximum weight loss and still being able to operate in the gym.

[abendm]

Do I understand refilling glycogen stores correctly? If you eat enough carbs to completely fill your glycogen stores in your muscles you will have better lifts but it wont throw you out of ketosis. but if you fill them up and have extra sugar in your system it will kick you out? im trying to decide between ckd and tkd for maximum weight loss and still being able to operate in the gym.

Hi Big Dakota, I think you were better off posting this in the Keto forum, but here's my 2c based on reading and experience.

1) For a true refeed you purposefully kick yourself out of ketosis for 1-3 days.

2) Yes, all carbs will go to refilling muscle (or liver) glycogen until those stores are full. Any excess carbs that are consumed before glycogen stores are full will be burned for energy (Lyle McDonald thinks it likely that all excess carbs consumed will be burned for energy as long as the refeed is less than 5 days or so and the surplus isn't THAT huge).

3) See above, you HAVE to be out of ketosis for a refeed to work properly.

4) Refeeds of 5 hours can be enough to get glycogen stores up to "normal." Refeeds of 36 hours or more are necessary to get the full benefits (i.e., upregulation of important metabolic hormones). The longer the refeed the higher the jump in water weight the next day.

5) Getting back to ketosis is as simple as eating a keto diet again the next day... you should be in ketosis by bedtime (although ketostix might not show it). You can speed up this process by doing cardio of some kind AFTER the refeed. While higher intensities will burn liver glycogen fastest (which is your goal), they will also compromise muscle glycogen (which you're saving for lifting). Therefore, 30-90 minutes of LISS is recommended.

6) Being in ketosis isn't the goal of any diet, don't worry about it to much. As long as you're eating keto you'll get the hunger blunting effects of that diet, and as long as you're eating at a deficit you'll be losing weight.

TKD is much easier to stick to, and you're heavy enough that the hormonal issues with a low calorie keto diet won't be an issue for quite a while. I'd go TKD.

[dylan82]

Refeeding in the sense of excess calories when in deficit while cutting (not especially ketogenic) also has benefits to hormonal levels such as your thyroid hormones, leptin, and your sanity .