A little confusion over vlcds and exercise

Hi everyone. I'm not new (to minimins or vlcds) however, I still have some confusion about exercise on vlcd, especially strength exercises. My muscles are very week, to the point that at times I stop exercising, I put on weight quite easily and I have little muscle to burn fat with. What I wanted to know is, can you build muscle whilst in calorie deficit? Is it worth strength training still? Or should I stop? I really want to build up some core strength (and not be over 50% fat, because I feel like only half a person). The other thing about exercising on vlcd is that in the past I've found this seems to slow my losses down (1.5-2lbs a week instead of around 3lbs a week without exercise on average). Has anyone else had this problem?

LT advises not to do lots of extra exercise as it slows weight loss and can put your body into starvation mode.

Slim &save tell you to listen to your body, and that light to moderate aerobic exercise is ok


8lbs down 36.5lbs to go :)

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Originally Posted by and

LT advises not to do lots of extra exercise as it slows weight loss and can put your body into starvation mode.

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Originally Posted by Welshtigger

Slim &save tell you to listen to your body, and that light to moderate aerobic exercise is ok

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I don't do extra exercise per se, just what I'm used to. I'd say moderate but I don't go till I get exhausted. I have always found that it slows me down though, which I hate. But I went away and looked at a few pubmed articles whilst I was waiting for replies, and came across an interesting article Effects of adding exercise to a 16-w... [J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012] - PubMed - NCBI

I don't mind losing weight slower, if more is from fat. (All diets tend to lead to loss of *some* muscle mass). I think I'll stick to the 3 hours total in the study. They interestingly had more losses with the added exercise. Between that and other articles, I was interested to know that the vlcd had great benefits over normal diet/exercise, but for long term keeping it off, the people who did better were the ones who had stayed on the normal diet/exercise. I'll make sure I'm careful when switching to food again.

I started taking martial arts classes on week 5 of Cambridge. No way was I ready for it before that, but suddenly had this extra energy and wanted to use it for exercise (quite an alien feeling for me I can promise you!). I now train for 3-4 hours a week and feel awesome for it. On the days I exercise I have one extra shake, and find this makes all the difference for me (having had at least 2 occassions where I only had 3 shakes on training days and felt rotten!). My losses remain good and I have now lost 65lb in 12 weeks, I definitely seem to be toning from it, I am on a real high afterwards, and my inch loss is brilliant. More importantly, for me at least, I have found something that I enjoy doing and that I will continue to do once the diet is over to maintain my weight loss! The martial art that I do means that the higher up the belts you get, the more intense it will get, which I really hope helps me when I return to "normal" eating. It also helps that the club I train with have classes I could go to every night of the week if I wanted to :D

I've been berating myself for adding some protein (choices that still keep me in ketosis) on the night before I exercise in the morning and on the day of the exercise. Perhaps it's not such a bad idea based on what you've just said (although it is an extra 250 to 350 calories per day, roughly equating to what I work off at the gym!). That's great about the martial art and great that it will up in intensity as you move towards eating normally!

I've noticed that the weeks I go to the gym I lose more than the weeks I don't. However, I don't do a major workout and don't tend to spend more than an hour and a half there. In terms of building muscle you won't be able to do anything major on a VLCD because of the nature of it though I know some people have taken an extra protein shake or meal a day to help with building a bit.

I would suggest that strength exercise is fine - core and other - a bit of extra protein is also ok on thise days - but only if you can be disciplined about it and not let it slip into more... It's cardiovascular exercise which I would be wary about doing much of.

You might lose less weight when you exercise but you will be healthier at the end.

Personally I didn't exercise when on the plan. I didn't do any before I started and if I'd tried to introduce it at the same time as changing my eating habits I'd have probably given up. As it is I lost 9 stone, reached goal and then started exercising. I love my physical activity now! I'm off on an activity holiday in May (hiking/mountain biking/caving/canyoneering) and I can't wait! I reached goal last June and see the fact that I can happily go on an activity holiday almost 12 months later as a huge success.