Hello!
I was wondering if long durations of cardio after the carb up is a good thing. My initial reaction is that if it is after the weight training it should be good to get back into ketosis.
For example, hiking - not strolling on gentle hills, hiking up steep inclines with scrambles for 2, 3, 5 hours.. is that good or no?

Thanks!
Meg

If you like it and that's your thing, then more power to you. And yes, it probably will help you get into ketosis faster. I'm no expert, but my only 'howevers' would be 1) you'll burn out all your glycogen before you get into your heavy lifting for the week and you may bonk your lifting, and 2) that much time doing cardio is very likely catabolic, i.e. you may lose muscle.

The rest of you should feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Cheers,

Friday

-I would suggest something like that be done the day after the 'carb-up' (like you stated). However, doing this type of activity following weight-training...well, that won't be fun. Personally, I think a heavy/intense session of weight training followed by some light cardio (15-20 min.) is enough for one to est. ketosis rather quickly.

Personally, I do intervals on Monday morning cardio and then lift heavy Chest/Triceps Monday night. I still feel good Monday night and get thru the training session.

Cardio on Tuesday morning however, sucks. LOL. I am tapped by then and drage myself thru it.

I asked the question because I love to hike, but have cut back drastically (used to hike minimum14 hrs/week) since beginning weight training.

I am just hoping that it is not counter productive to hike say, twice a week for 2 hours at a time.

Another question: If my carb up is 12 hours long, and I start early in the day.. can I begin exercise the night of the carbup, or do I have to sleep on it?

(laugh) now that I am thinking about it, I don't know if I'll be able to wake up out of my carb stupor to exercise anyway! But I'd still like to know.

Meg

If you are overexerting yourself and need extra energy, bring a bottle of water and some maltodextrin or dextrose, or grab a high gi food like some smarties or whatever ( pure maltodextrin in water with protein is probably best ) take what you need before you start 'over' exerting yourself, you'll immediately use the pure carbs you ingest during your strenuous exercise and it should all be awash, I'd also take some ALA before doing that too, the maltodextrin coupled with the protein and ala will shuttle mostly all that good stuff to your muscles making your overexertion non-catabolic. And at the end you'll basically be right where you left off.

Off course if you don't care about catabolism and just want to get back into ketosis, taking nothing will get you there quicker.