No energy/endurance for sports page

[docpearce]

Went primal(ish) in Jan of this year. Went from 177 to 162 in about 2-3 months. Around the 2 month mark I had a boost in stamina for about 2 weeks. I could run in basketball all out without getting tired. That used to happen occasionally for whatever reason a few times per year, but it happened for 2 weeks (6 days of playing) in a row.
Since then, however, that has stopped and now I have little stamina and am sometimes tired/winded within a few minutes of playing. That happened today and my legs just felt so heavy. Trying to figure out what the problem is??

The only 3 things I can think of:

1. I still cheat and drink beer. I think initially when I started paleo I was drinking very little beer and was drinking wine instead??
2. Maybe I'm not getting enough calories although I'm eating about the same as when I got the stamina boost. A typical day would be a protein shale with vanilla NOW protein, a few ounces of chocalte almond milk, a few ounces of almond milk, and a half banana. 5-6 pieces of bacon with 4 eggs, and about 12 ounces of steak for dinner with steamed vegetables and maybe some cottage cheese if I'm still hungry
3. Overtrained... I typically play 4-5 hours of basketball per week, 2 hours of volleyball, and list for 30 minutes twice per week

Any toughts

[magicmerl]

too much / too little carbs?

[sbhikes]

Not enough real food?

[not on the rug]

not enough real food and not enough carbs

[jakey]

carbs, i think. ketosis worked great for me for about 8 months, and then utterly stopped working. some people adapt better than others.

[pace2race]

Hard to guess one.
Are you 5'4", 6'4" or somewhere in between. Hard to gauge fitness on weight alone.
What 's the intensity of basketball? Full court 40 minutes of hell or stand around, half court make it, take it?
How's sleep quality, duration and the rest of life going? It takes quality sleep and recovery to keep a string of good athletic performance going. Work or home worries can wring energy levels out of you too.

My guess is for any number of reasons including what you've listed, you're just over reaching a little with the intensity you want to play at. The simplest thing would be to cut a basketball day for extra rest until you feel the energy coming back.

[docpearce]

Hard to guess one.
Are you 5'4", 6'4" or somewhere in between. Hard to gauge fitness on weight alone.
What 's the intensity of basketball? Full court 40 minutes of hell or stand around, half court make it, take it?
How's sleep quality, duration and the rest of life going? It takes quality sleep and recovery to keep a string of good athletic performance going. Work or home worries can wring energy levels out of you too.

My guess is for any number of reasons including what you've listed, you're just over reaching a little with the intensity you want to play at. The simplest thing would be to cut a basketball day for extra rest until you feel the energy coming back.

5'10..37 yoa. Full court 5 on 5 in pick up...so not crazy competitive. Sleep is good (even with a 1 year old)

[Neckhammer]

Yeah, my guess would be calories/food. You may just not be eating enough. You lost a good deal of weight which makes it obvious that you have been using up your fat stores....could be now that you are leaner you have less stores to draw on and need to bring your calories back up a bit to sustain that activity level.

[iateallthepies]

Hi, I experienced this kind of thing.
What seems to have sorted it for me was ,in the morning half a teasp of sea salt in water and three tabs of potassium. I think if you are drinking loads you get through a lot of electrolytes. In the evening I take magnesium , helps with sleep and keeps things moving !

[docpearce]

I may have it narrowed down to 2 possibilities:
1. I'm chronically dehydrated. I'm rarely thirsty and seems like I never drink more than about 4 glasses of water per day
2. I'm not getting enough calories. Added up the bacon, eggs, steak, brocolli, protein drink, and beer.... only about 2400 calories. At my exercise level I'm supposed to be getting about 3500 per day

I'm going to focus on drinking a lot of water. Not sure how I'm going to get that extra 1000 calories though