Depletion workout

[SneakyWaff1es]

Hello there! I need a little help understanding why a depletion workout is necessary before the carb load. If you're in ketosis, you're depleted of glycogen. I'm clearly not understanding something...would someone please try to explain it to me? Thank you!

[stactum]

I also have the same question.

My Friday workout is at 5:30am (generally I workout early in the morning) so how should I adjust to start carb loading?

[Eileen]

Ketosis does not necessarily mean you are carb-depleted. It just means your carb levels are low enough that your body fuctions more efficiently on ketones.

The depletion workout is designed to use up every last drop of glycogen, so that when you start your carb-up, your starved muscles will grab then carbs and use them to repair and replenish your thrashed muscle fibres.

[SneakyWaff1es]

Thanks for the response, repped! That was my time repping someone, I feel so official.

[TeamCHRISTOPHER]

The way I understand it is you use up the glycogen in your liver first, then your muscles. You can be in ketosis after your liver is deprived of glucose but still have some in your muscles (kind of confusing). That last workout is supposed to squeeze out as much glycogen as possible. Think of wringing a sponge out of water. I hit ketosis on Monday this week so I've been working out all week like this and going to kill it in the gym tomorrow and start the load Saturday like usual

[DustyChicago]

This is correct. Your liver hold about 50-120g of glycogen, which will be sucked out by a brain relatively quickly when eating a ketogenic diet. Muscles can hold significantly more. Muslces also reserve glycogen as a quick burning fuel source for intense exercise... evening retaining a little bit past when most people imagine their depleted. You will truly know you are depleted when you get soft and it seems you are incapable of intense exercise.

In a glycogen depleted state and after an intense workout, muscles can supercompensate for glycogen, meaning that a muscle will absorb and hold onto more glycogen than it normally would had you just been eating a SAD. In CKD, this allows for intense workout for 1, 2, or 3 weeks.

Finally, something MANY people screw up. If you've been eating a high carb diet for a sustained period and you're not blessed with excellent nutrient partitioning to begin with, your brain and many other bodily functions are set to recruit glucose to function. In ketosis, many bodily functions will create glucose using proteins (bad, and what happens when you eat too much protein) or the glycerine backbone of fatty acids (good, and what happens in a ketogenic diet.) To gain the full benefits of a ketogenic diet, people must adapt their bodily processes to switch easily from glucose to ketogenic metabolism... which takes 2 to 4 weeks (hence the adaptation phase in Atkins, McDonald's diet, and many more.) Many people fail by carbing up too early when starting a CKD.

[SneakyWaff1es]

This is correct. Your liver hold about 50-120g of glycogen, which will be sucked out by a brain relatively quickly when eating a ketogenic diet. Muscles can hold significantly more. Muslces also reserve glycogen as a quick burning fuel source for intense exercise... evening retaining a little bit past when most people imagine their depleted. You will truly know you are depleted when you get soft and it seems you are incapable of intense exercise.

So people with more muscle would hold more glycogen than say someone like myself. I'm obese with not much there. It would seem like I would be pretty depleted by mid week since I don't have a ton of muscle and I'm doing a full body workout (AllPro's beginner workout) M,W,F and a little bit of cardio 3 days of week. I'm so out of shape I'm fairly incapable of what people here would call intense exercise even the day after I carb load.

Thank you for laying it all out there for me. I've used this diet with some success in the past when I was actually fit and just wanted to lose some fat when my ex-wife was coming home from a deployment. It worked like magic then and it seems to be working well now. I've just never understood the point of the depletion workout when I already felt depleted by mid week.

[DustyChicago]

Sounds like you're doing well. Intensity is in the eye of the beholder, so what is intense for you, might not be what is intense for someone else. That said, muscles are stingy dudes, they like to hold onto glycogen in case a tiger were to chase us or something, so you really do have to intensely work out if you're wanting the supercompensation effect.

You might try some supps to boost your mid/end of the week workouts. I recommend white flood or good ol' fashioned Coconut Oil + Coffee

[Pishko]

This is correct. Your liver hold about 50-120g of glycogen, which will be sucked out by a brain relatively quickly when eating a ketogenic diet. Muscles can hold significantly more. Muslces also reserve glycogen as a quick burning fuel source for intense exercise... evening retaining a little bit past when most people imagine their depleted. You will truly know you are depleted when you get soft and it seems you are incapable of intense exercise.

In a glycogen depleted state and after an intense workout, muscles can supercompensate for glycogen, meaning that a muscle will absorb and hold onto more glycogen than it normally would had you just been eating a SAD. In CKD, this allows for intense workout for 1, 2, or 3 weeks.

Finally, something MANY people screw up. If you've been eating a high carb diet for a sustained period and you're not blessed with excellent nutrient partitioning to begin with, your brain and many other bodily functions are set to recruit glucose to function. In ketosis, many bodily functions will create glucose using proteins (bad, and what happens when you eat too much protein) or the glycerine backbone of fatty acids (good, and what happens in a ketogenic diet.) To gain the full benefits of a ketogenic diet, people must adapt their bodily processes to switch easily from glucose to ketogenic metabolism... which takes 2 to 4 weeks (hence the adaptation phase in Atkins, McDonald's diet, and many more.) Many people fail by carbing up too early when starting a CKD.

I totally agree with you, your information is great!