Hi Y'all,

Just a question about exercising. Does most people on IP really not exercise and still see really great results? I am just nervous about the no-exercising thing. I am pretty active at my job and usually get in 7-8k steps just from work. But since starting on my own weight loss journey (have lost about 20 pounds on my own), I have been doing 60-90 min of cardio probably 4-5 times per week. Opinions? Have you personally had better success without exercising? Or with? If so with, what kind of intensity and duration? Thanks so much for the advice!

I was just thinking about this the last few weeks myself. I have lost 60Lbs in 6 months without doing formal exercise, which I just recently added. My job is sedentary by nature, but I am active in my non work hours. You should be more than fine.

You have to remember that IP is NOT a conventional diet. Your nervousness stems from what you know about "normal" diets, so it's understandable that you'd be concerned as to whether it will work without exercise.

The Ideal Protein diet does 2 things:
1. lowers your carb intake to the point where you no longer have glycogen stores for energy. Your body actually CHANGES the process by which it functions, and starts tapping into your fat stores for energy instead of glycogen stores (this is ketosis). Since you have fat to burn, your body is constantly tapping into those stores.
2. lowers your calorie intake to generate a big difference between the amount of calories your body needs to function, and the amount of calories you are eating. The diet is designed (between the packets, your food intake, and your supplements) to give you the right nutrition at the lowest possible calorie threshold.

Exercise becomes a tricky subject because exercise burns calories. On a conventional diet you create the calorie gap by lowering your food intake a bit and increasing your activity level. On IP, the calorie gap is already created for you by the structure of the diet, and the calorie intake is too low to sustain exercise.

Some people do add mild exercise after the 3rd week in phase 1 - not to burn more fat (because that very often backfires and causes a stall in weight loss), but to improve muscle tone and because it makes them feel good. Those who do choose to add back exercise must also add more packets to their daily food intake so that they replace the calories they burned.

Hope that helps a bit!

Okay so now I have a question - how much exercise warrants an extra packet? Any/all? Over a certain amount? If you "feel" like you need it?

I answered you in the daily thread

Steady state extended cardio can easily catabolize your muscle and deplete your energy stores for little gain and very likely a negative at those time frames. I would use lower timeframe and more intensity. I used to use a concept 2 rower, on and off in 20 minutes top and it full body. I now have an airdyne that uses upper and lower together. I would use a work/ rest model like HIIT with lower intesity especially at first.

I am on round 2 on IP things may be different biologically it been 4 years so I am older now. But I did 8/2010 - 1/2011 and dropped 80#. 2014 wasn't a good year for me health wise.
Back then working out wasn't hard and I did a lot of volume. For my food used I pretty much only used the unrestricted packages and only the amount allotted by the phase one chart. The restricted foods slowed down weight loss too much. I might have use more olive oil than the sheet but it wasn't much. Got to use something to get all those leafy veggies to pass down the throat. Outside of the oil my foods themselves 98% unrestricted. I did one other tweak as I got alot closer to my goal and started to plateu but that isn't what this thread is about.

To give a context of what I was doing for exercise. Kettlebells circuits, concept 2 rowers, heavy old school weight lifting, (no biceps and bench press). On top of that 4 nights a week or more training with MMA athletes and college level wrestlers on the mats. If anybody doesn't know how hard college wrestling practices are think running for 3 minutes against the flow of a river holding your breath, get 1-3 minute break then do it again, and again, and again. for 1-2 hours.

I was on rotating shift work so my sleep was also always disrupted.

People claiming they couldn't workout was one of the aspects I had a hard time hearing by others I knew on IP. After you get fat adapted the body can can do up to the athletic base it had created previously. I was a fat athlete before IP. A heavyweight division wrestler. So I had a pretty good engine to work with. If you aren't athletic as most aren't your capacity will be far smaller. That isn't the diet that is the body itself.

Fat adaptation is more related to fueling exercise in ketosis than protein is. Protein intake on IP is a muscle sparing practice aspect and if too much is consumed you start gluconeogenisis (say goodbye ketosis). Ketone is a fractured fat molecule used as energy, protein relation is limited. You can perform at a pretty high level it just take adaptation and understanding the fueling mechanisms. I have nerded out extensively since the 90's on ketosis and the metabolic events that happen. Look at an athlete like Ben Greenfield who is an high level triathlete, Ironman, spartan racer running who is in ketosis all the time even as competing.

Many in the weightlifting world get very strong and lean while in ketosis. Mark 'Smelly' Bell is one of them. If you have tender ears don't listen to his podcast it isn't PG. Dr. Kiefer has body.io podcast that is around ketogenic exercising predominately. He is a researcher also and he nerds out on the mechanisms alot. And he is a keto athlete himself. Alot of what he says can be plugged into the IP program without breaking the program.

I don't see why people can't train at a pretty high level relative to their pre diet capacity. But you have to be on the same page as your coach because fueling has to be tweaked. If your fueling is wrong you will catabolize your LBM and down regulate your resting metabolism rate at minimum or worse more in the endocrine system. Not good. The better your muscle the more you burn at resting. You have to be on the page with your coach and getting proper guidelines.

Simple get real strong lift heavy crap routines 2 - 3X a weak shouldn't even be an issue on 100% compliance phase 1 after your break in period of a month +/-.
Skip pink weights use regular iron and basic movement. A good trainer can design something around your fueling. Or look at a push/ pull sled. If you don't have time for much and want some huge bang for the buck and don't want to be destroyed afterwards.

I can't say when to know when a body is ready for the taxing of an external stimulus of exercise but for me my markers for adaptation is an energy boost, mental clarity, I get more stuff done at work, I sleep well and rested, I start to do tasks at work and home faster without procrastinating. Everybody probably different and I can only say these markers are for me.

Thanks! I figured I should move the question

@Wylothar, nice comprehensive post there. Where would you place walking as exercise in that framework?

I actually struggled with not being able to exercise as I have been religiously doing crossfit 3-5x/week for almost a year but eating like crap, hence why I am doing IP. I also play basketball once a week. In my second week I played basketball once, had an IP pack before and after for a total of 4 that day (one extra) and I had NO energy. Every time my heart rate elevated I felt like I was going to pass out I also tried cross fit with adding an IP before and after and that was do able, I had lots of energy. SO basically I found that too much cardio (basketball) left me exhausted and depleted but crossfit was fine although I modify my weights and dind't lift as heavy as I can.

If walking is your capacity it is a start. If someones capacity is pretty low Turkish getup with no weight would be a great strength mechanism. And may just save a life.
When a human loses the capacity to get itself off the floor the wheels come off as humans and longevity.

Personally look at the mechanism of how extended steady state cardio works.
http://fitness.mercola.com/sites/fit...t-dangers.aspx
walking lacks intensity so it is the duration is biggest measure. When adaptation to walking happens I wouldn't move walking farther or to jogging/ running. If you can walk a decent pace for 20 minutes I would move to a rower or airdyne (not a regular bike). Rower and airdyne have a strength component and are upper and lower body. The airdyne has the ability for constant push pull. The rower has a deload phase as you bring yourself in. I always did about 10 mins of low intensity cardio (walk, row easy, or light bike) to get the joints lubed before I started the circuits. It just kept it brief no longer than 15 minutes. Then I would do strength work or burst cycles like HIIT. And honestly it has to suck for while on the rower and airdyne or it just steady state. But it is over in 20 mins +/-. I believe I started with 30 seconds of work and 60 sec active rest. i didn't stop rowing or pedaling I just eased up to warmup intensity. I would do that for a specific number of sets then have a cooldown period 5 minutes. As my engine improved I increased work phase and reduced rest phase. 25 - 30 minutes done.

Crossfit is good also in my opinion I had to scale. Gravity sucks for big people. I could deadlift 400 lbs but couldn't do a pullup without a big rubber band to help. I did CF after moving to a new state and not having a outlet that matched my previous volumes. I was in transition of IP to paleo, I didn't want to have to start over with a new IP coach (mistake I was only phase 1). I did fine and felt great in CF. I was new to CF so a lot of it was scaled for me. But I had the previous engine to work with also.

I think a great bang for the buck even for those very untrained is push/ pull sled. Push pull sled helps all three measures below and doesn't tax the body like other forms of exercise. I seen people push empty sleds as a start so it is very scalable.
http://www.fringesport.com/collectio...n-prowler-sled

Cardio burns fat at that moment. When you wipe the sweat off the fat burning stops. Moving to a more muscle building component, is muscle building and fat burning. studies show a fat burning effect upto 24 hours after weight training through what is known as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption). I know my choice.
A infamous quote from a training coach I like. 'Strong people are harder to kill, and more useful in overall.'


http://daily.barbellshrugged.com/3-t...-about-muscle/
3 measures of health in older ages who had great longevity
#1 leg strength
#2 good VO2 Max
#3 good healthy amount of lean body mass (muscle)

I started about a week ago walking 4 miles a day, it takes me about 1hr and maybe a few min over depending on the pace. My upper body strength has always been good but I am adding in some basic, and increasing pushup and situp reps each day. I could run and work on that, but I would rather walk 10 miles than run one. Even at 18 years old running 5 miles a day in the Army I never adapted well to it.

Good point on the longevity and mobility, I see people bailing into those scooters and taking the elevator when stairs are right next to it and you may as well be slitting your own throat. If your getting too fat to walk your the one that needs to be walking the most. And the whining "I have medical issues..." The only medical issue they usually have is an overdose of twinkies. I wish more of those people could get IP in front of them, it can really turn you around.

If you enjoy the walking great. They estimate paleoithic man had to walk 5 - 10 miles a day as part of their everyday life. I look at it as a utility if it is monotonous and isn't something you particularly enjoy I would add strength work and shorten my walking. You aren't building much if any muscle walking so you are either only burning fat (best case) or going catabolic. Casual locomotion is the fastest adaptation. Very little hypertrophy in walking. I am not familiar with walking rates so I google fu'd 4 miles in hour is 15 minute mile a typical fitness walking rate.
Alot of people just don't like the uncomfortable nature of strength training or they go too far and injure themselves. Me personally I rather be 'shark tanked' than walk. Shark tank is every 3 minutes you have to wrestle a fresh wrestler for a total of 20 or so minutes.

Strength training builds muscle, muscle burns fuel even at rest. Increasing muscle is a win win win by every measure. Cardio does burn fat but that mechanism shuts down when your done exercising, strength training does also and the mechanism goes for 24 hours and people don't even notice it.

Being able to train on IP is going to depend on your bodies efficiencies before the diet, how much glucose you have to burn for fuel (yes in ketosis you still have glucose in body primarily in muscle), and your bodies ability and rate at which it can convert ketones for fuel.

Factors exist and fuel and expenditures need to be weighed. Relative to a persons prediet capacity exercise is doable on IP.

Thanks, wylothar.

I am one that exercises during IP. Largely for my mental health. I am active and 1) will not lose the strength and endurance that I have by skipping my regular workouts and 2) will take whatever negative consequences (I am a slow loser) because my sanity depends on the gym.

I agree - so much - about what you were already doing prior to IP. I still go to the gym 4 times a week and snowboard (hard, with hike outs after each run) once a week during the season. My body is conditioned to support that even now and ketosis helps with my stamina.

Obviously this will be different for those with different activity levels. But pre-IP condition will say a lot about what you can and can't do during IP. Post WOD fueling is obviously important - listen to your body and coach.

I love everything that you said, I can't even quote the things that stand out to me!