Ketogenic diet - fad or phenom?

[thesloth]

Would your wife share the recipe if we asked nicely?  Please.

The basic:
30g butter
30g coconut oil
10g xylitol
15-20g coco powder (need the good stuff, the cheap unfortunately tastes cheap)
Melt and mix, pour into silicon moulds and refrigerate to set

There's another variety where one add's ground almonds to the mix (about 10g). Can also place chopped browned almonds or cocoa nibs in the moulds prior to pouring in the liquid.

I'm keen to try out the pemmican, but like you not that keen to make it. I've seen that a commercial  "pemmican" bar is available in the US, but it looks like it contains a lot of undesirable stuff along with the fat.
I rely on droëwors for long rides. It tastes good and is easy to get hold of. Fat content is very high.
I did give pork scratchings a good try out. Not that keen. They make me feel sick, or rather I the idea of them makes me feel sick. Once the bag is open and they are living in a top tube bag they go soft and soggy pretty quickly which doesn't help.

On the bike snacks:
Droëwors, almonds and few cubes of mild cheddar cheese

[ChillyPanda]

On the bike snacks:
Droëwors, almonds and few cubes of mild cheddar cheese

So no carbs at all when you're on a ride?

What distances can you go on this?

[thesloth]

On the bike snacks:
Droëwors, almonds and few cubes of mild cheddar cheese

So no carbs at all when you're on a ride?

What distances can you go on this?

In addition to the "snacks"  of droëwors, almonds and cheese for longer rides I take "food" ("Banting bread" made with ground seeds, eggs, with added cheese & bacon - all very high fat, low carb)
Nuun or High 5 Zero electrolyte in the bottles.

I've found I can go pretty much as far as required. On the 24hr TT pretty much only the above items - the exception was half a sweet potato.
On PBP I carried and ate those same items. I ate my own food  until Carhaix - 500ish km. I then started supplementing it with control food (trying to be as low carb as the selection allowed, which admittedly was at times not very). The reason for this was solely the quantity of food I was carrying was not enough for the complete trip. In hindsight I think I would have gotten a better result if I'd carried even more of my own food and avoided the control food stops.

When I was a carb eater I couldn't make it to the front door without breakfast. At my ketosis peak 100km fasted rides were no problem.

[Chris S]

On the bike snacks:
Droëwors, almonds and few cubes of mild cheddar cheese

So no carbs at all when you're on a ride?

What distances can you go on this?

Speaking for myself - audax distances (and speeds); so typically 10 hour 200s, 15 hour 300s, that kind of thing. No need for carbs, although they're sometimes a nice treat (ice cream on a hot day?).

Racing speeds might need more adaptation, but 200W steady output seems possible at 90%+ fat burning for some, at least.

[mrcharly-YHT]

On the bike snacks:
Droëwors, almonds and few cubes of mild cheddar cheese

So no carbs at all when you're on a ride?

What distances can you go on this?

Almonds are 22% carbohydrate

[thesloth]

On the bike snacks:
Droëwors, almonds and few cubes of mild cheddar cheese

So no carbs at all when you're on a ride?

What distances can you go on this?

Almonds are 22% carbohydrate

True. I think you'll be very hard pressed to eat literally zero carbs. Not because I feel they are required, but there are not a great many foods that one would want to eat solely which are pure fat/protein.

So probably a more accurate answer to ChillyPanda is I ride on low carb, rather than no carb.
...I'm not exactly scoffing a sack of almonds though. A small handful for a 200km is fine for me.

[ElyDave]

For me it's a balance of insulin vs carbs.

I turn the pump down to 30% of normal background about three hours ahead of aerobic exercise which I've found to be a good compormise between not letting blood glucose get too high and not having too much circulating insulin (I may try 20% this weekend as a trial).  With an active insulin duration (in my system) of about 4 hours, I generally see a big drop in BG in the first 90 mins, requiring 30g carbs/hr. Essentially higher insulin sensitivity with exercise plus the GLU4 receptor activation.

 I then see things stabilise a bit more so I guess I'm drawing on more fats and gluoneogenesis/stored glycogen. 

I think the lowest I've got away with post diagnosis was three fig rolls on a two hour ride.

Carbs during exercise are OK as they do not contribute to BG elevation, but just maintenance and fuelling.  That's not to say though that they are my first choice.  Getting food in though is easy as I stop every 45 mins for a blood test and eat at the same point if necessary.

[Ningishzidda]

On the bike snacks:
Droëwors, almonds and few cubes of mild cheddar cheese

So no carbs at all when you're on a ride?

What distances can you go on this?

In addition to the "snacks"  of droëwors, almonds and cheese for longer rides I take "food" ("Banting bread" made with ground seeds, eggs, with added cheese & bacon - all very high fat, low carb)
Nuun or High 5 Zero electrolyte in the bottles.

I've found I can go pretty much as far as required. On the 24hr TT pretty much only the above items - the exception was half a sweet potato.
On PBP I carried and ate those same items. I ate my own food  until Carhaix - 500ish km. I then started supplementing it with control food (trying to be as low carb as the selection allowed, which admittedly was at times not very). The reason for this was solely the quantity of food I was carrying was not enough for the complete trip. In hindsight I think I would have gotten a better result if I'd carried even more of my own food and avoided the control food stops.

When I was a carb eater I couldn't make it to the front door without breakfast. At my ketosis peak 100km fasted rides were no problem.

'Banting bread' named after William Banting, I assume,, 

[sojournermike]

On the bike snacks:
Droëwors, almonds and few cubes of mild cheddar cheese

So no carbs at all when you're on a ride?

What distances can you go on this?

Speaking for myself - audax distances (and speeds); so typically 10 hour 200s, 15 hour 300s, that kind of thing. No need for carbs, although they're sometimes a nice treat (ice cream on a hot day?).

Racing speeds might need more adaptation, but 200W steady output seems possible at 90%+ fat burning for some, at least.

Dr Ferrari has an article on his site where he analyses Nibali's performance during one TdF stage and hypothesizes potentially around 300 watts on fat consumption. Clearly Nibali is (a bit of) an outlier, but Ferrari quotes LCHF experts in giving his view.

200 watts steady seems much more than required to a 10 hour 200?

Mike

[Ningishzidda]

My math model.

16 deg C, No wind, 200km circular, 1500m climbing.

10:00:00 duration including stops of 3 x 15 minutes.

Cruising Watts on the flat ( 25 kmh ) = 114

Overall average Watts = 92.

[simonp]

To low. I've typically seen up to around 5MJ output over 200km. More like 150W given 8.5h moving time.

[ElyDave]

To low. I've typically seen up to around 5MJ output over 200km. More like 150W given 8.5h moving time.

Where did the 5MJ come from?  Not that I dispute it, but I've looked at Garmin vs turbo, or garmin vs rowing monitor and there are large discrepancies.  It all depends on the algorithms in use.

The other thing is that 5MJ energy expended, or 5MJ put into the pedals, the human being being less than 100% efficient in energy conversion.

[simonp]

Source was powertap wheel - output at the wheel hub. Consistently between 4MJ and 5MJ for a 200k.

Power output varies a lot dependent on terrain. With that wheel I've seen as high as around 295W for 5 minutes on a steep climb. That kind of effort is above threshold for me and would probably be entirely carb dependent.

My session on Monday was 3x9x50s at 349W. 135% FTP. Anyone following LCHF able to comment on how that kind of session goes for them?

[sojournermike]

I did 83 miles on Tuesday with a moving average over 15mph and an overall average of 14.2. My average power was shown as 161 watts, but that may be a bit out due to Garmin idiosyncrasy (or idiocy).

Dropping to 12mph would save a bit on the average I'm sure, but the numbers are broadly consistent.

Mike

[sojournermike]

Source was powertap wheel - output at the wheel hub. Consistently between 4MJ and 5MJ for a 200k.

Power output varies a lot dependent on terrain. With that wheel I've seen as high as around 295W for 5 minutes on a steep climb. That kind of effort is above threshold for me and would probably be entirely carb dependent.

My session on Monday was 3x9x50s at 349W. 135% FTP. Anyone following LCHF able to comment on how that kind of session goes for them?

I think the challenge is how to perform at higher outputs on low carb. I imagine that the optimum is to be very efficient on fat, amd to be able to access carb when additional effort is required.

Mike

[ElyDave]

Source was powertap wheel - output at the wheel hub. Consistently between 4MJ and 5MJ for a 200k.

Power output varies a lot dependent on terrain. With that wheel I've seen as high as around 295W for 5 minutes on a steep climb. That kind of effort is above threshold for me and would probably be entirely carb dependent.

My session on Monday was 3x9x50s at 349W. 135% FTP. Anyone following LCHF able to comment on how that kind of session goes for them?

Not that directly in terms of bike efforts. 

Experience of intense weights sessions for strength endurance is that my blood sugar rises with them 5.2 to 7.0 recently
A 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 minute pyramid on the indoor rower, equal rest saw my BG go from 4.4 to 5.8
Running intervals sees a similar sort of rise.

The main reason is adrenaline, which causes a dump of the stored glycogens from the liver, to fund what is essentially the fight or flight primitive response i.e. a short intense burst of energy, rather than the fat fuelled steady plodding.  The released glycogen can then be re-absorbed causing a later BG crash.

As long as you have that adrenaline response you can do those short bursts, and I would not say my erg pyramid was slower than expected based on curent level of training in that.  The pre-Christmas running intervals were where they should have been.

[Ningishzidda]

Source was powertap wheel - output at the wheel hub. Consistently between 4MJ and 5MJ for a 200k.

Power output varies a lot dependent on terrain. With that wheel I've seen as high as around 295W for 5 minutes on a steep climb. That kind of effort is above threshold for me and would probably be entirely carb dependent.

My session on Monday was 3x9x50s at 349W. 135% FTP. Anyone following LCHF able to comment on how that kind of session goes for them?

Not that directly in terms of bike efforts. 

Experience of intense weights sessions for strength endurance is that my blood sugar rises with them 5.2 to 7.0 recently
A 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 minute pyramid on the indoor rower, equal rest saw my BG go from 4.4 to 5.8
Running intervals sees a similar sort of rise.

The main reason is adrenaline, which causes a dump of the stored glycogens from the liver, to fund what is essentially the fight or flight primitive response i.e. a short intense burst of energy, rather than the fat fuelled steady plodding.  The released glycogen can then be re-absorbed causing a later BG crash.

As long as you have that adrenaline response you can do those short bursts, and I would not say my erg pyramid was slower than expected based on curent level of training in that.  The pre-Christmas running intervals were where they should have been.

This is a discussion for another thread.

The Wattage required to travel along the flat through still air is estimated by performing a down hill freewheel, measuring the vehicle's maximum achievable speed for the gradient.

10 mph - 50 W
12.5 mph - 70 W
15 mph - 110 W
17.5 mph - 155 W
20 mph - 220 W
25 mph - 395 W

CdA = 4.26

Good enough for me.

I'm building a fixed from an old MTB. Slick tyres.

With 44 ring and 20 sprocket ( 53" ), it should give me 12 mph at 76 rpm for 80 - 85 Watts on the flat.
Or, 13.5 mph at 85 rpm for 100 Watts.

Or 9 mph ( 3 x Walking pace ) at 57 rpm for less than 40 Watts.

"Hey, THREE times the walking pace of a horse for the same exertion as me walking. These bicycle contraptions might catch on!"
Good ole J.K.Starley.

[chrisbainbridge]

For those who are practising the LCHF diet.

i seem to babe getting happier at the audax riding.  88km on friday and 100 on Sunday with no bother.  kept heart rate below 130 for the vast majority and soared round the 100.

However what do you do when doing a training ride.  I did a turbo session this evening heart rate in the intervals between 155 and 175 so pretty much glycogen burning and/or anaerobic.  So do you then just eat your normal LCHF diet and push the body to find its own glycogen through gluconeogenesis or do you take some carbs to refill your glycogen?

Second, are you using some form of protein after the turbo session or again just eating normally?

thanks  for your help.

[L CC]

Protein afterwards. Otherwise as per usual. You really don't need many carbs at all.

[chrisbainbridge]

Thanks fboab, That was what I was leaning towards.  I do find this fascinating.  3 slices of bacon and 2 eggs this morning.  Double espresso with double cream x3 during the day.  Broccoli soup, 3 Babybel and a small pepperami for lunch and I am feeling fine after a fairly intense hour on the turbo.  pProbably have a sugar free jelly and some more double cream and that will be all today.  Totals out at about 1300 calories and I do not feel hungry.

[LMT]

Fad

Look at the blood values of those that are on this diet - high in cholesterol and saturated fat.

We are not designed to eat meat/dairy products, compare the bio-chemistry of those that are born carnivores with human beings. Their system is acidic and they can metabolise dietary cholesterol, we cannot.

Carbs are not the enemy - carbs high in fat are.

Ketosis is not a healthy state to be in, the vast majority of people I've seen need stimulants to help them through their day as they cannot function, the body is designed for glucose consumption. Don't confuse weight loss with your body dumping a shit load of water because you are not taking on carbs which need water in order to metabolise (roughly 3g to every 1g of carbs)

Look at those that advocate this piece of shit diet that rapes the natural world, contributes to global warming, world hunger and results in a billion + animals needlessly being killed a year. We grow enough grain to feed 10+ billion people yet half of this is given to livestock, which we then kill and eat - nice one.

Prof Tim Noakes - diabetic
Dr Loren  Cordain - Fat, looks ill.
Jimmy Moore - Fat, blood values are shocking.
Mark Sisson - Heart Attack

[LMT]

Hello WCTD

There are lots of possibilities as to why you're struggling. First and foremost, a couple of weeks isn't that long - it might take a couple of months to fully adapt.

The good news is, there's lots you can do to ease the path to adaptation. Firstly, re-read this thread - follow the links various of us have posted; there's lots of info out there but it takes some digging to find it.

Don't be afraid to eat more fat. Fat helps satiety - which will reduce your hunger issues.

Drink plenty of water - and put salt on everything! Turns out, salt is really only a problem (hypertension) when it's in conjunction with carbs. Once you reduce carbs enough, your body will dump salt (and also potassium, and magnesium) and this loss of electrolytes can make you feel pretty crappy ( so called "keto flu" ) so keep your electrolytes coming.

Don't stress the loss of performance. It does come back - your body will learn, it will adapt. I've been low carb since New Year, and after a month of being pretty rubbish, I'm now happily lifting weights, and riding longer distances.

As they say on reddit/keto - "Keep calm and Keto on"

Nope, that's Cortisol running through your system which as a result your T cells are suppressed thus making you ill

[chrisbainbridge]

I am not going to argue with you about the meat, but actually our protein is decreasing as we eat the diet.  as you become less hungry you naturally eat less and that specifically includes protein which can lead to gluconeogenesis.

Your comment about ketosis being unnatural and most people needing stimulants is just wrong and is the exact opposite of the reality.

My understanding is that Tim noakes was either pre diabetic or type 2 diabetic and has now reversed that with his diet.

You need to read a bit more about cholesterol.  Cholesterol is not 'bad', it is the ratio of LDL and HDL.  This normalises on LCHF diet.

Anyway we will have to agree to differ on this one.

[Adam]

Fad

Look at the blood values of those that are on this diet - high in cholesterol and saturated fat.

We are not designed to eat meat/dairy products, compare the bio-chemistry of those that are born carnivores with human beings. Their system is acidic and they can metabolise dietary cholesterol, we cannot.

Carbs are not the enemy - carbs high in fat are.

Ketosis is not a healthy state to be in, the vast majority of people I've seen need stimulants to help them through their day as they cannot function, the body is designed for glucose consumption. Don't confuse weight loss with your body dumping a shit load of water because you are not taking on carbs which need water in order to metabolise (roughly 3g to every 1g of carbs)

Look at those that advocate this piece of shit diet that rapes the natural world, contributes to global warming, world hunger and results in a billion + animals needlessly being killed a year. We grow enough grain to feed 10+ billion people yet half of this is given to livestock, which we then kill and eat - nice one.

Prof Tim Noakes - diabetic
Dr Loren  Cordain - Fat, looks ill.
Jimmy Moore - Fat, blood values are shocking.
Mark Sisson - Heart Attack

What a load of unscientific rubbish.  Humans have only been cultivating crops since about 7,000 BC, so our digestive systems haven't had nearly enough time to evolve to deal with such a diet properly.  Bearing in mind the body can only store a very limited amount of glycogen, it's clearly not evolved to handle glucose or any form of sugar properly.  Ketosis is a perfectly normal and natural state to be in, and is what humans survived on for hundreds of thousands of years.

About the only vaguely accurate thing you've stated is about feeding grain to fatten animals.  However if someone wants to be a vegetarian in ketosis, it's perfectly possible.

I'd be far more concerned about the waste of resources in producing High Fructose Corn Syrup.

[LMT]

I am not going to argue with you about the meat, but actually our protein is decreasing as we eat the diet.  as you become less hungry you naturally eat less and that specifically includes protein which can lead to gluconeogenesis.

Your comment about ketosis being unnatural and most people needing stimulants is just wrong and is the exact opposite of the reality.

My understanding is that Tim noakes was either pre diabetic or type 2 diabetic and has now reversed that with his diet.

You need to read a bit more about cholesterol.  Cholesterol is not 'bad', it is the ratio of LDL and HDL.  This normalises on LCHF diet.

Anyway we will have to agree to differ on this one.

Eating less meat still contributes to the undue suffering of a billion + animals every year. 'Eating less meat' with all due respect is some half measure bullshit.

Ketosis is an unhealthy state to be in, why you would think otherwise I'm not quite sure. I'll state my point again, the body, i.e the trillion + cells run on glucose - not fat. So why an earth would you want to substitute giving your body whole foods carbs (which it desires) in exchange for fat.

Choloresterol is not bad?!?! 

And I don't see how Noakes can reverse this, when it has been proven with medical science that meat has the same insulin load as eating pure glucose.

And we won't agree to disagree at all. Your ignorance regarding what is essentially the atkins diet reworked is contributing to climate change, world hunger, and the unnecessary killing of animals.

You crack on though and be your like your 'hunter gatherer' ancestors hunting meat - as you drive down the local supermarket to buy some more animals products.

Question:

When was the last time you actually hunted for meat, are have you just been suckered/socially engineered in to an utterly bullshit fad diet?