CanadianBiker32

i came across some small advice, couldn't find the articles to back it out but talks about how even for endurance athletes that doing low carbs is better for you and use fat as your main fuel source.
it is about adapting apparently to eating way less carbs and just have fat as your main fuel . would that actually work, and get same effect. as the traditional high carb meals for endurance athletes

anyone back this up? anyone do this? does this work? anyone know the links to the approved articles
i like to experiment with this if true. thanks

Heathpack 

Google 'ketotic diets for athletes'

Ive never done it, it does not make sense to me based on my understanding of physiology to go full-on into ketosis. It's also a very unusual diet, hard to follow.

I do use some of the same principles to improve endurance performance without going ketotic, however.

There are smart, accomplished cyclists who do follow this diet, so I could be wrong- there might be something to it.

chasm54

Last I read on the subject suggested that performance wasn't impaired by going low-carb except at the highest intensities. So if you're talking ultra distance events, ironmans and the like, might be fine. Maybe less helpful if you want to be able to deal with the repeated high-intensity surges in a typical bike race.

That was a couple of years ago. I don't know if any useful further research has been done since then.

katzenfinch

Have a look at Grant Petersen’s book, Eat Bacon, Don’t Jog. There’s a companion blog although he hasn’t updated it since last August.

Seattle Forrest

I don't understand this and haven't been able to find anyone who can explain it to me in a way that makes sense.

As your fitness improves, you'll get more of your energy from burning fat and less from carbs, no matter what you eat. And regardless of your diet or fitness level, exercising at a low to moderate intensity is going to mostly burn fat. That's why HZ2 is "the fat burning zone."

So what does a ketogenic diet offer above and beyond that, other than severe restrictions on what you can eat? I'm very suspicious of any diet that won't let you eat an apple or handful of raspberries.

Finally, after a long, spirited ride, I'm hungry and I want carbs. I would have to change the way I ride to accommodate a diet like this, I'm pointing it out because I think most people would.

chasm54

I tend to agree.

I guess there's room for debate about your last statement, in that those who go low carb probably adapt to the point that they don't "want carbs" after their ride to the same extent as you. And to be fair, I'm not sure that I'd feel deprived if I ate a high-protein, high-fat but low-carb meal after my ride.

But for the rest, I'm pretty much with you. It seems to me that if you get fitter, and especially if you encourage your system to prioritise fat-burning by riding for a while before ingesting any carbs, then the threshold at which you move from mainly fat-burning to mainly glycogen will rise even if you eat a fair bit of carbohydrate. And like you, I find it difficult to buy the idea that severely restricting fruit and vegetable intake is a great idea.

kzin

The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance | Art and Science of Low Carb

I 'think' this is a good source. You can probably google most of the information in the book but its only about 5$ anyway.

I'm a very low carber who also rides some. I have no problems riding long and moderate on fat or short and intense on my probably limited glycogen supply. Max performance means nothing to me.

I think everybody sane admits that maximum performance in long and intense racing or competitive group rides requires quite a lot of carbs at least around the time of performance.

Keto training may have a place but it would have to be an 'endurance' phase with limited time pushing the aerobic/anaerobic border. Or possibly cycled like some lifting programs - like 3-5 days of keto with long easy rides followed by a day or 2 of eating carbs and riding hard efforts.

Seattle Forrest

It might be that you would go through hell as your body transitions, and then it might come to feel perfectly normal. Or, it might not go like that, but I'll admit it's entirely possible. I think a lot of it will probably depend on the individual. And where and how they ride, it's probably easier to avoid burning too much glycogen in Florida than Colorado. And it's probably easier still if you're trying not to go beyond moderate, I guess.

Jarrett2

Mark Sisson (Primal Blueprint / Mark's Daily Apple) is a good source on this topic:



He's changed my approach to weight loss and exercising.

Here is a podcast he did recently with Joe Rogan that is extremely informative if you have the time:

chasm54

Sissons views on what Paleolithic people ate are somewhat eccentric. In the first place, there's good evidence as I understand it, that humans were eating grains and legumes 30,000 years ago. Secondly, diets varied hugely depending on conditions in different parts of the world, but the various populations seem to have managed to thrive. Thirdly, we've changed a lot in the past ten millenia. Lactose is absolutely fine for most Europeans, and the Masai, for example depend on dairy as a staple.

So, in my view a lot of what he says is pseudo-science. Appealing to our fantasy of the noble savage sells books. I applaud his advice to avoid refined carbs and other processed food, though. Pick out the stuff that makes sense and ditch the dogma, would be my view.

beatlebee 

Fat can't be converted to fuel quickly enough at high intensities. Ride hard, ride lots, eat lots of veggies, some lean proteins, some fruits, some good fats and get very fit.

Carbonfiberboy 

I think everyone agrees that if your body is more fat-adapted your FTP will be higher and your endurance will be greater. I first read about this in Base Building for Cyclists by Thomas Chapple (2007). Since then, I think fasted 1-2 hour training rides, trying to eat less on longer training rides, etc., has become common practice and definitely works to improve the percentage of energy coming from fat throughout the aerobic range.

So the question then becomes, "Does eating a ketogenic diet further improve the ability to burn fat while cycling?" And if this is true, "Does it also increase FTP beyond the level reached simply by pursuing ordinary modern fat-burning training?" AFAIK, the answers to these two questions are unknown. There have been some studies by ketogenic advocates which claim to demonstrate that the first question has a "true" answer, but I haven't seen an RCT by a disinterested researcher or anything of that sort.

The answer to the second question is of more importance for most of us, and from what I've read, the answer to that one is "no", and in fact a ketogenic diet will probably decrease FTP. The reason for that is that when you train, you basically are training your body's chemical factories. Other than muscle growth and capillarization, that's really all that's happening. When you train your body to run on only fat, it "forgets" how to run on carbohydrates. You've detrained that part of your chemical factory. That's the reason that LCHF dieters find that they lose high-end power.

There's another angle to all this for most of us: if you're touring or on a long endurance ride, you'll need to replenish your food supply by eating at a rest stop and picking up foods to take with you. If you're eating the usual HC cycling diet, no problem. But if you're eating LCHF, what do you get at the 7-11? Just nuts? What do you find to eat at the food tables on charity rides? Pretty much everything is forbidden.

That said, some cyclists eat LCHF in training and then switch to a HC diet when racing or during event rides. That does work, but does it work as well as just eating the usual cycling diet? We don't know. However my guess is that the answer to that is also "no," because if the answer were "yes" we'd see all the pros jumping on it by now. They seek every advantage, and have already jumped on the fat-burning during training thing.

Jarrett2

Which is what he has done. The caveman stuff is just schtick to sell books. Listen to that podcast for some hard science.

If you have anything that refutes it, I would love to see it.

chasm54

Sorry, I'm not going to spend two and a half hours listening to him. I've read a fair bit of his stuff in the past.

"Hard science" is not what he does. What he does is cherry-pick some research findings and use it selectively to support broad assertions that aren't provable. The fact is that many millions of people, and their parents and grandparents and, and... before them, have been living refutations of a lot of what he says. Grains and legumes and dairy have been staples of their diets for a long, long time without giving rise to the current epidemics of obesity and type 2 diabetes and other degenerative disease, which are of more recent origin. Nutritionists and physiologists dispute his assertion that eating these things promotes a systemic inflammatory response. Most people are not gluten-intolerant or lactose-intolerant.

He's probably right about lots of things - polarised training rather than endless sub-threshold work, avoiding processed foods, reducing sugar intake, I'll buy all that. But for a great deal of his schtick, as you put it, "hard science" is not a reasonable description.

Jarrett2

It doesn't bother me either way. Others may choose to listen and learn though.

CanadianBiker32

thanks guys quite interesting

wolfchild

I have followed a very low-carb style of eating for about 6 months but I have since stopped and went back to a higher-carb way of eating. The main reason why I stopped low-carb was because of massive weight loss and I was a little bit worried about long term effects of very low carb diet... I am 6 feet tall and I went from 185 pounds down to 155 pounds, with body fat percentage in single digits. The first two weeks were the worst and after that your body starts to adept and reprogram itself to use fat for energy. I managed to preserve most of my strength and ended up with better strength to weight ratio, however the muscles didn't look as full as when on a higher carb diet. Energy levels were good for up to about 50%-65% intensity but anything higher was difficult and performance was compromised...Forget about 75% or 80% or 90% efforts on a low carb diet because it's not going to happen...Since stopping low carb I have decreased my fat intake and greatly increased my starchy carbs, muscles look a lot fuller now and I hope to gain about 10 pounds so I can weigh 165 pounds. My energy levels are great with higher carb intake and it's a lot easier to maintain higher intensity efforts...One thing I noticed was that since switching to higher carb diet my ability to burn fat is just as good as when on lower carb diet...I really wouldn't recommend a low carb or keto diet as a long term lifestyle.

Senrab62 

I have done paleo/primal and choose to be lower carb. I do not have any endurance issues and most all modern primal diets/way of thinking, increased carbs are fine, source is the issue.

it has helped me lose weight, get healthy, keep my weight low and strength high. But that is me. Oh and lean. Without much effort of deviation. And I am probably at 90% because I like beer and rice, but those are my cheats. First 2 weeks were miserable for me though.

hclf does not work for me. My recovery was bad, surgically repaired knees hurt all the time, and skin and hair issues.

One must know their own body. But the ingestion of micro/macro nutrients, focus on fresh/local/seasonal/non-processed foods, regular varied exercise, ingestion of healthy fats, avoiding anti nutrient ingestion are all positive. It works for some but not all.

Seattle Forrest

Maybe you can help me understand why a cyclist would adopt a restrictive diet in order to burn more fat when doing a lot of zone 2 rides achieves the same thing? I can understand why a person who doesn't exercise regularly might make that choice but for a cyclist...?

Jarrett2

That's a false equivalence. Try as you might, but you can't out ride a bad diet.

Carbonfiberboy 

Well, let's see . . . my wife and I have had our tandem since 2007. We went out last Sunday on a familiar 50 mile hilly course and out of the 12 Strava segments on it, had 7 PRs, two 2nd best and one 3rd best. Our team age is 136. Felt to me like we outran the crap out of our "bad diet." I ate ~500 calories of carbs, my wife had 2 Ensure, also mostly carbs. All highly refined carbs at that.

wolfchild

Here is an article about why low carb diets are bad for athletic performance:Why Low-Carb Diets are Terrible for Athletes: Part 1 « AnthonyColpo

Seattle Forrest

I've asked twice in this thread why a person (a cyclist in particular) would adopt a ketogenic diet. Not "can you out-ride a bad diet," but why a person would choose this one in particular. You're an advocate of this type of diet, you posted a three hour video selling it. If anybody here can give an intelligent answer, it would be you. And you don't have one. I don't think there is a good reason for somebody who exercises to adopt a ketogenic diet.

Jarrett2

I'm sorry you misunderstood my point. To help you understand, a "restrictive diet" (which you asked about the first time) and a "ketogenic diet" (which you asked about the second time) are not the same thing. I did not post a 3 hour sales video for ketogenic diets. I don't do ketogenic diets, I just follow Sisson's Primal Blueprint. They are also two different things. I do it for weight loss since riding a bike isn't an effective form of weight loss.

If you are asking specifically why an actively competitive athlete would want to use a ketogenic diet, I have no idea. Since I'm not a competitive athlete, nor on a ketogenic diet; I don't have an answer to share other than read what Sisson has to say on the matter. Or don't. It doesn't matter either way to me, just offering info in a thread.

dachshund

I've been on the low carb high fat diet for a year and a half. I'm a 60 year old woman, and I did this to to keep weight off. My situation may not help anyone else, but the attraction was to eat well and prevent the balloon effect that plagues women my age. :-) I happen to like the foods on this diet, and while I miss bread, I believe that avoiding sugar and gluten is going to be a good thing in the long run. My diet is pretty close to a Mediterranean diet, just not much bread, and no pasta or processed starch.

I haven't found it to affect my riding. I'm training now that the rain in California has died down. I can get close to my max heart rate for extended periods. One benefit is that I don't need to eat sugary gel packs every hour. I bring nuts and semi-sweet chocolate instead, but don't need a lot of it. But that's me, and I have read that it can effect performance.

But I will admit it's an odd diet, and for women my age it's not a quick weight loss solution the way it is for younger people: I had to count calories to make it work. I became intrigued on the promise of weight loss, then I liked being able to eat whole milk dairy products, cheese, cook with butter, and avoid starchy food like pasta that tends to fill the plate. My energy level's the same all day, and I can skip a meal if I have to without feeling all that hungry. I'm pretty sure I've been in a ketonic state the whole time.

When I started this, there was a long thread here about the LCHF diet. This was mid year 2014, possibly in the 50+ forum. I found a lot of info online. There are plenty of books by now, starting with the ones about the Atkins diet. I read a few of the books but they weren't much better than online info. The transition took about a week, and the first few days you don't have any energy at all.