[UPDATE: I incorrectly identified the 18th as the new end date, it will actually be the 17th — corrected below]
My Resistance Training Experiment has been quite interesting. But before dishing on the details, I’ll just say that I’ve decided to extend it another week. I’ll now be taking it to the morning of the 17th (this coming Monday).
Design Amendment to Add an Extra Phase
The Face of Tired
As if this writing (Thursday night, Sept 13th), my cholesterol is below the baseline of the washout period (August 29st-Sept 5th). The mean average of TC and LDL-C during this run-up period are 382 and 314 respectively. [Note: these levels are higher due to the baseline diet being around 500 calories lower than my typical, ad libitum keto diet.]
I’m awaiting the baseline to return to this roughly this level before “triggering” another intervention of another intense workout. I figure a 3% offset should be sufficient. Thus, if either the TC comes to or above 370 (97% of 382) or LDL-C comes to or above 305 (97% of 315) for the 10am reading, then I’ll initiate the intervention on the following day.
Change to Intended Exercise Regime
While I had set up my vibration plate machine for exercise in the hopes I could fully quantify it for perfect replication, I quickly found out that I couldn’t easily do a full upper body workout to the degree I was seeking and that it was taking a bit of time working with the operation of it. Thus I altered the intervention phases as follows:
Intervention Phase I: Completed four exercises on the vibration plate for 20 minutes. Completed half of a free exercise video on YouTube for 15 minutes. Played 20 minutes of Knockout League for PSVR (Lots of rapid arm swinging, variety of motion), one lap around my block with a 500ml water bottle in each hand.
Intervention Phase II: Went to a nearby gym and had 5 minutes of warmup cardio, then 45 minutes on various upper body weights with extra emphasis on the arms and chest. I did another 15 minutes on the vibration plate afterward.
Change to Diet to Add More Salt
As many who follow me already know, I consume a lot of salt in my normal keto diet, usually targeting about 10g a day (no, that’s not a typo). At the beginning of the washout phase, I was consuming roughly 5g with my meals on top of a Sports Salts supplement of 1.5 servings at the 10am meal.
Alas, this was not enough. I began experiencing leg cramps a couple days in and so added an additional teaspoon (6g) of pink salt to water each day and this resolved the issues.
Final Thoughts
As with so many of these things, I find I’m living a schizophrenic existence. Human Dave is pretty sick of this experiment and ready to get back to real food and a far less structured life. Scientist Dave is all too happy to tack on this extra week because the data will be so promising. We know who keeps winning these rounds…
Dave, have you experimented with more potassium from sources such as cream of tartar and potassium chloride to help with leg cramps? I take magnesium and potassium, in addition to salt, to help rid my nights of leg cramps.
Potassium is only 1/3 of the weight of cream of tartar, so you’d need to consume a lot to get a meaningful amount of potassium. Potassium chloride is also half chloride, and salt is half chloride. So, if you’re getting enough salt, overdoing potassium chloride will overdo total chloride as well. Potassium citrate is probably better, but the best place to get potassium is food due to potential toxicity in certain people.
I played with Mg and K levels quite a bit. Ultimately, the bullseye just appeared to be salt. Just took me a while to realize it.
Magnesium supplements ( 2000 mg at night – good for sleep as well) and Epsom salt bath is excellent for muscle cramps.
Also BCAA supplement during/after workouts.
Potassium will help your muscles contract better and magnesium will help ease the cramping also provides great sleep but a liquid supp would be optimal because its 100% bio available
only absorb a miniscule amount from a pill check out
eidon.com
Add taurine supps for cramps
I had cramp problems. I started mixing approximately 1tbs of UNFILTERED Apple Cider Vinega in a quart of filtered water. This is my drink of choice when I’m thirsty. ….no cramps !
Can’t remember how long this took, but it worked !
Hello Dave…. I was wondering what you would think of this… I was reading comments from a YouTube video (not about cholesterol but about lowering blood pressure quickly) where the person suggested a morning routine of completely dissolving (a good pinch) of the pink himalayan salt on your tongue and then drinking one cup of water… They instruct drinking a total of 4 C of water (each preceded by the good pinch of pink salt fully dissolved in the mouth) over the period of 1 hour @ 10 – 15 minute intervals first thing in the morning before any food consumption (then eat 45 min later). They say they do this because they feel the absorption is more beneficial through the mouth than adding the salt to your water and absorbing through the stomach….. Being the biohacker extraordinare that you are, I was wondering what you thought of this or if you have ever tried something like this….. The comment to which I am referring was submitted by Alex K and the video I was watching is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lwYseaL4m8
Haven’t tried it yet, but I might give it a shot eventually. Thanks for the tip. 🙂