Losing weight, but too much muscle

[jurgwhitehouse]

I'll have a bit of a read into this, although I do expect a lot of "eat yourself thin" websites...

Good luck navigating that rabbit hole! Read the keto websites and you'll be told to eat 20g carbs a day, little protein (because it spikes insulin) and chug down olive oil and full-fat cream by the gallon. But if you have the physical conditioning to do lengthy, mid-intensity endurance exercise, you can eat plenty of carbs, burn those carbs and and still (mostly) reap the benefits of a ketogenic diet.

What I've learned is that 'low-carb' can mean anything you want if you have easy access to a rowing machine. I say I'm on a low-carb diet but some days I'll eat ~500g of carbs (2000 kcal) if I've done a long tough workout. Conversely on an easy day (eg, max HR of 70%) I'll feel like eating maybe 100g total.

(Treat these numbers with caution - I'm not little, about 110kg and c.15-20% bodyfat, I don't weigh my food so it's probably inaccurate, but you get the point.)

Everybody's different but I think that generally as we age we become less able to deal with glucose and the associated insulin spikes. And if we can't shift it to the muscles and liver quickly and efficiently it gets stored as fat.

Thankfully for us, the rowing machine is probably the most effective way of extracting stored energy from the body.

[Dalos]

Hi all, turned out to be something medical in the end. Thyroid issue found (autoimmune, likely had been there a while) followed by a bad drop foot for a couple of weeks (now functional but still numb from the shin down) and some ligament / tendon issues so far, still trying to figure it out what it is and not even sure they're related or just coincidence that they happened together. Big worry would be MS but way too early for that to really be on the horizon yet thankfully.

Well enough (add in a week of flu for good measure) to get back to it, but going solely by feel for now (recent row had much higher HR at a slower pace that before) to stay active but easing off the over-analysis or any heavy set goals, at least I wasn't going crazy thinking something didn't add up to previous experience! Putting in the kms, eating clean and staying at a healthy weight can only do good at least. Down to 82kgs even when not able to row and eating supposedly maintenance level kcals so eating well is certainly the main weight driver.

[iain]

Thanks for the update, glad you found the reason. Look forward to hearing your continued success.