Runner Girl to Lifter Girl? Doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
After unexpectedly participating in the Loco Half Marathon in October, I have been pretty focused on one thing: building muscle. I've been lifting weights 3-4 times per week, eating a ton of calories, and not doing much running. I did go out for a long run with Amy a couple of weeks after the half, and had a bit of a disastrous run. My asthma made the first 7-8 miles hellish, and we ended up walking a bunch to get the 10 miles in. After that I decided I would lay off the running a while longer while I was still adapting to keto and focus more on the strength stuff. I ran a few times in November, but not much at all, and ended the month with a 5K Turkey Trot to see how easily I could manage it. I ended up running it a bit harder than I had planned to, and finished in about 31 minutes. Not too bad for running without any gas in the tank.
This may be the first running hiatus I have had where I didn't really care if I ran or not, because I am totally all in on the weight lifting thing. I've gone back and forth between a few different lifting programs as my goals have changed. Initially I started with StrongLifts 5x5 as it was a simple, full body plan for beginners and I really liked the bare-bones aspect of it. Then as I was still running a bit here and there, I decided to switch to an upper and lower split to give my legs some more recovery time, and to work on hypertrophy (more reps with less weight for better muscle gainz). As I am not running much now, and really want to hit my muscles as often as is optimal, I switched to a pyramid based plan called GZCL, which uses a combination of short sets with heavy weights and longer sets with less weight. I've been slowly but consistently improving across all lifts, and have started to notice significant changes in my body composition. The flabbiness is giving way to a firm stomach and hips, muscles are slowly forming in my legs, and my arms look amazing when I lift that barbell up over my head. And I have a butt now! It's tiny, but it's there. No more pancake butt for me!
The weight gain has been incredibly slow, which I suppose is a good thing. I've gained less than a pound over the past 3-4 weeks since my initial water loss from keto. The crazy thing is that I am eating a TON of calories. My RMR is about 1384 calories per day (what I burn when I am at rest), and even factoring in every single calorie that I burn during exercise and work (my fancy new watch calculates all of this for me), I am still consuming upwards of 1000 calories above my daily expenditure. During Thanksgiving I consumed 4,500 extra calories over the week, and still only gained 0.2 of a pound, thermodynamics be damned. Keto is great for a lot of things, but weight gain doesn't seem to be one of them. I am not about to give up on keto though. I am gaining weight, and slower is much better than faster because you can only build a small amount of muscle at a time, and any extra over that is guaranteed to be fat gain. So I will stick with my slow, lean bulk. Keto for the win!
I am also pretty sure that I must be fat adapted by now. I am rarely spilling any ketones in my urine (TMI, I'm sorry), so I must be using all of the ketones more efficiently than when I first started keto and was registering purple on the ketone test strips. I am sure that I am still in ketosis though! I'm definitely sticking to my carb/fat/protein targets, especially keeping my carbs under 20 grams. My energy is fantastic, my skin is clear, and I'm looking forward to beginning my fat-adapated marathon training later this month.
I was going to wait until January to begin running again, but silly me, I accidentally signed up for another spring marathon. This one will be held on April 8th, so I will need to begin training a few weeks earlier than planned. No biggie. I plan to *attempt* to train for this one, and Sugarloaf in May, using a heart rate zone training method. Since I'm working on some fat adapted running, and coming off of a major training burnout from the summer, I figure I will baby myself with some really light heart rate training to start. I'll keep up with the strength training - I hope! - and work in some hills to prepare me for Sugarloaf. I'll also do some long back to back runs as it warms up in the spring because I'd really love to go for another ultra at Pineland Farms. And maybe the Big A 50K if I really want to suffer, ha ha!
This may be the first running hiatus I have had where I didn't really care if I ran or not, because I am totally all in on the weight lifting thing. I've gone back and forth between a few different lifting programs as my goals have changed. Initially I started with StrongLifts 5x5 as it was a simple, full body plan for beginners and I really liked the bare-bones aspect of it. Then as I was still running a bit here and there, I decided to switch to an upper and lower split to give my legs some more recovery time, and to work on hypertrophy (more reps with less weight for better muscle gainz). As I am not running much now, and really want to hit my muscles as often as is optimal, I switched to a pyramid based plan called GZCL, which uses a combination of short sets with heavy weights and longer sets with less weight. I've been slowly but consistently improving across all lifts, and have started to notice significant changes in my body composition. The flabbiness is giving way to a firm stomach and hips, muscles are slowly forming in my legs, and my arms look amazing when I lift that barbell up over my head. And I have a butt now! It's tiny, but it's there. No more pancake butt for me!
The weight gain has been incredibly slow, which I suppose is a good thing. I've gained less than a pound over the past 3-4 weeks since my initial water loss from keto. The crazy thing is that I am eating a TON of calories. My RMR is about 1384 calories per day (what I burn when I am at rest), and even factoring in every single calorie that I burn during exercise and work (my fancy new watch calculates all of this for me), I am still consuming upwards of 1000 calories above my daily expenditure. During Thanksgiving I consumed 4,500 extra calories over the week, and still only gained 0.2 of a pound, thermodynamics be damned. Keto is great for a lot of things, but weight gain doesn't seem to be one of them. I am not about to give up on keto though. I am gaining weight, and slower is much better than faster because you can only build a small amount of muscle at a time, and any extra over that is guaranteed to be fat gain. So I will stick with my slow, lean bulk. Keto for the win!
I am also pretty sure that I must be fat adapted by now. I am rarely spilling any ketones in my urine (TMI, I'm sorry), so I must be using all of the ketones more efficiently than when I first started keto and was registering purple on the ketone test strips. I am sure that I am still in ketosis though! I'm definitely sticking to my carb/fat/protein targets, especially keeping my carbs under 20 grams. My energy is fantastic, my skin is clear, and I'm looking forward to beginning my fat-adapated marathon training later this month.
I was going to wait until January to begin running again, but silly me, I accidentally signed up for another spring marathon. This one will be held on April 8th, so I will need to begin training a few weeks earlier than planned. No biggie. I plan to *attempt* to train for this one, and Sugarloaf in May, using a heart rate zone training method. Since I'm working on some fat adapted running, and coming off of a major training burnout from the summer, I figure I will baby myself with some really light heart rate training to start. I'll keep up with the strength training - I hope! - and work in some hills to prepare me for Sugarloaf. I'll also do some long back to back runs as it warms up in the spring because I'd really love to go for another ultra at Pineland Farms. And maybe the Big A 50K if I really want to suffer, ha ha!
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