lenA

How long were you in a ketogenic state? Takes a while to kick in.

Sixty Fiver

I roast a lot of meats or cook them over lower heat... I prefer baked liver to fried liver and make stew with beef heart fairly regularly.

Roasted bacon is the bomb.

I often make souvlakis in the oven and suspend the skewers of meat over a roasting pan that has a few cups of water in it... this keeps the drippings off the hot oven and adds a little convective effect which browns things up nicely.

Clean up is negligible.

lenA

I'm probably the thread extremist

Fatty fresh meat, chicken thighs and legs with skin, some cured meat, fatty fish, dairy, eggs, nuts and non starchy and leafy veggies

Coconut oil and butter

No grain of any kind. No sugar of any kind, or sugar substitutes.

No veggies oils

No starchy root veggies

No fast food, no junk food, no convenience food

No alcohol

I'm retired so it's easy for me to just grab something when I'm hungry and follow my golden rule of eating to live, not living to eat.

No set meal schedules, no menu planning

I can go touring with just a bag of nuts, some cheese and sausage and be good for days.

Pretty much it.......

bikebreak

Sounds like you read something out of Weston A. Price. Check out: https://www.westonaprice.org/thumbs-u...l-degeneration
for a book review. The whole book is here:
https://journeytoforever.org/farm_lib.../pricetoc.html

Bottom line is various "primitive" cultures enjoy better health than "modern" ones due to a more nutritious diet. These diets tend to be lower carb and higher fat than what our food pyramid recommends. However, there is not a single magic diet that cures all ills, rather various approaches to the problem of feeding people and keeping them healthy.
Our food pyramid is designed to feed people, not keep them healthy, and it shows.

bikebreak

Good for you.
I try to avoid grains, but I ate two muffins yesterday and my stomach still hurts!

How do you keep the cheese good for days of touring?
Do you ever do hard anaerobic efforts? How does that work with no carbs?

Spld cyclist

Very few people actually follow the food pyramid, typically either consuming a lot more saturated fat and/or simple carbs and fewer fruits and vegetables than the pyramid recommends. I think the food pyramid is a more healthy diet than most Americans follow, so it shouldn't take the blame for the current state of affairs in US health.

bikebreak

The USDA pyramid states "6-11 servings bread, cereal, rice, pasta group" and the myplate just says "grains". Is that cereal Wheaties or frosted flakes? whole wheat pasta and brown rice or white? Raw or refined grains? It doesn't tell us.

Do people follow the food pyramid? Hard to say, but the USDA research shows that between the 1970s and 1990s Americans ate less fats and more carbs, less whole milk and more lowfat or skim, slightly more fruits and vegetables, less eggs.
https://naldc.nal.usda.gov/download/29140/PDF
So someone was listening.

Sixty Fiver

The less fats and more carbs, low fat dairy, and less eggs seems to be the problem here... the increase in beverage consumption during this period has also been rather shocking as it seems lots of people have been drinking their calories.

Fat Boy

I went for a full ketogenic diet for about a month, which was about 25-40 grams of carbs per day. After that, I went low-carb for another couple months at maybe 75-100 grams/day. Is that long enough to fully adapt? Probably not if you listen to people that are really strong proponents of a ketogenic diet. It was pretty interesting to see my power on the bike normalized to 150 bpm heart rate. There was a very strong connection between the lowest power while ketogenic, somewhat better power when increasing the carbs somewhat and then back to 'baseline' numbers when taking daily carbs up to more like 150-200 grams/day. This is still significantly fewer carbs than I was consuming before.

Spld cyclist

I don't think it's hard to say at all. Most people don't follow the food pyramid, nor have they over the last few decades. How many people do you know who do? I don't know many, but the few I do know aren't overweight and don't have the diet-related illnesses (e.g. diabetes and heart disease) that are rampant in the US.

I just went back and looked at the 1992 food pyramid. Added sugar is at the tip of the pyramid, which is the "use sparingly" category. That being the case, it should have been crystal clear to anyone paying attention that Frosted Flakes and any other number of processed foods were to be eaten sparingly. It's obvious both from food sales figures and simple observation that huge numbers of Americans did not follow that advice. It's simply not true that the average American diet over the last few decades can be seen as a vast experiment about the impact of the food pyramid.

(Edit - further thought: most Americans also eat fewer fruits and vegetables than recommended by the food pyramid, which is another reason why the collective state of our health shouldn't be blamed on it).

The 1992 food pyramid recommended 6-11 servings of complex carbs, 3-5 vegetables, 2-4 fruit, 2-3 dairy (eggs not in that category), and 2-3 meat, poultry, fish dry beans, eggs, and nuts. Going by the minimums, that would be 6 servings of complex carbs vs. 9 servings of other foods. Some will say that's too much carb and not enough fat (there's plenty of protein in that diet), but that proportion is certainly compatible with good health. (We'll have to agree to disagree on that, because after considerable reading on nutrition from a number of perspectives, you're not going to be able to convince me otherwise).

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=...ed=0CCkQ9QEwAA

Unfortunately, the food pyramid did not differentiate between good fats and bad fats, nor did it emphasize whole grains. This has been rectified in more recent USDA guidance.

Sixty Fiver

My wife just checked the scale (it is no longer her enemy)... she has now lost 60 pounds and is getting pretty close to her goal weight.

wolfchild

I could do the same thing if I wanted, but I just don't want to... My body is very well adapted to using fat for energy, I can ride for many hours without eating any carbs as long as I keep the intensity at around 55-70% of my max, as soon as I increase intensity and start sprinting or riding up and down the hills, then my body starts using glycogen, so I do need to eat a little bit of carbs. Another thing is that when I go very low carb I start losing weight like crazy. Right now I am trying to bulk up and build a little bit more strength and muscle , my 45 min strength/weight training session is a lot more intense then my 3 hour bike ride, I need carbs or else I wouldn't be able to put in max effort into my workouts...Human body has two fuel tanks one of them is fat and the other one is glycogen...For me fat fuels most of my bike riding and other daily activities.. and glycogen fuels my workouts such as sprinting, plyometrics and strength training.

akohekohe

I've been thinking of going to a low-carb diet. Any advice on the best was to get started? For example, is it better to ease into it by slowly reducing carbs and adding fat or to dive right in and try to target 20-30 grams of carbs a day from the start? Any thoughts on why some people are successful at making the transition and others aren't? Is there an "adjustment" period where you might decide it's not working for you but it would have if you just stuck it out a little longer? Any tips or tricks to increase the chances of success?

Fat Boy

First, if you're going ketogenic, I'd make some goals for yourself. You have to have a reason for doing what you're doing. Not all goals are consistent with a ketogenic diet. Weight loss is a good match. Adding muscle is a bad match. Be smart about it.

Second, if that's the road you're going down, then embrace the fat. Don't try to put big limits on calories (at least to start). Just try to eat to satiety. Chances are, you'll quickly start to consume fewer calories naturally.

Third, if you're going ketogenic, then you have to keep protein relatively low. It's not a 'high protein' diet. I'd stay under 1.5 g/kg bodyweight for protein.

Fourth, don't stop your bike riding, but understand that you're going to lose a good chunk of power. You'll be fine to ride around at a conversational pace, but if you try picking up the pace, there's not going to be that 'next gear'.

Fifth, I think the first week you might feel a little low energy, but after that you'll be fine and possibly even more (or at least more consistent through the day) energy than on a 'regular' diet.

Let us know how it goes.

bbbean 

I spent 3 months gradually cutting out the worst offenders (cokes, bread, pasta, rice) and saw moderate results, then I got serious about it and started using tracking software (carbsmaster, but any good food tracker would work). I did some research, set reasonable limits I could live with (long term change was my primary goal and criteria), and I managed to meet my goal (down to 165 from 325). For me, I was happy with 100 gr of carbs and 1700 calories a day. YMMV.

BB

MEversbergII

I don't suggest going Keto right off the bat. It would be like learning to swim in ice water.

Shoot for ~100g/day for a week or two, then move down to ~75, then if you want to go Keto, go down below 50.

M.

RonH

I have a question. My wife and I have been on the low carb diet for 4 weeks today. We've been losing weight and I've have enough energy to ride. But I haven't lost a single pound in the last 7 days. She has only lost one pound in the last 7 days. Nothing different about our food choices during the last week.
Got any thoughts?

Fat Boy

How low is 'low carb'? If you're running in the 50 gram or less range, then you're about at minimum. If not, you can try to get there. For me, ~75-100 grams was the worst. Athletic performance sucked and I had little/no ketone production.

If you're already tight on carbs, then you just need to eat less. I know there are some ketogenic proponents who argue that you'll lose weight regardless of intake when low enough carb, but honestly, I just don't buy that. I think that going ketogenic allows you to eat fewer calories because you have a stronger sense of satiety and it ramps up resting metabolic rate, but in the end, if you're eating a jar of coconut oil a day, you're going to gain weight (and God help your toilet).

Sixty Fiver

Some folks have told us that dairy seems to stall weight loss (for them) and if your protein levels are too high your body will convert this to glycogen and you won't be able to engage fat burning mode.

Weight loss also seems to come in cycles... after holding steady for some weeks my wife got weighed at the doctor today and was 5 pounds lighter.

I do this to maintain my weight and energy levels so stay around 75 grams of carbs a day, 75 grams of protein, and 130 grams of fat per day.

There are also days I just eat less as I don't really have food cravings and although I am pretty trim have enough body fat to power me well into the day.

bbbean 

Weight loss is rarely linear, and there are a host of variables that can influence daily or weekly loss/gain rates. An infection, a larger than usual workout, stress, and sleep deprivation are just a few of the things that can slow weight loss temporarily. Plateaus and daily fluctuations are the rule, not the exception. You'll see the best results in the long term, not the short term.

BB

Sixty Fiver

https://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/s...ow-carb-pt-ii/

Sixty Fiver

More good reading... besides eating more food the issue is that we are eating more processed foods, vegetable oils, and copious amounts of sugar.

https://authoritynutrition.com/11-gra...h-modern-diet/

Of course, a bunch of us weirdos have concluded that this modern and so called healthful diet is really bad for our health.

elcruxio

The whole idea that the website lumps all vegetable oils in one group and proposes that margarines contain hydrogenated vegetable oils remove all credibility.
I mean yeah, some vegetable oils are bad. Some are not and some are actually beneficial. Canola oil and extra virgin olive oil are very beneficial. So buy canola oil. Problem solved. Why would you use anything else?
And margarine used to be made from hydrogenated oils back in the 50 years ago. That is not the case today. Using the whole hydrogenated oil thing is so tired in this day and age.
Eggs do not cause heart disease due to cholesterol but there are indications of Choline and TMAO correlation. Saying eggs are the most nutritious food in the world and have no detrimental health effects is false just because the evidence on the situation is not clear yet. Further research needs to be done. Before that, declaring anything is purely beneficial or purely detrimental is just full on BS.

The website seems extremely biased (as most paleo websites do). The only reliable info I find trustworthy these days are the major studies conducted and the outlines given by scandinavian governments (very little corruption especially in the science field). Most of the conclusions of both of these sources are careful and conservative, mostly for a reason. It seems there are as of yet, no extreme miracle diets according to mainstream nutritional science. Then again maybe it's all a conspiracy by the big pharma to keep us sick to sell more drugs...........

I personally believe that hardlining some extreme angle on nutrition is always, always wrong. Current knowledge promotes a moderate view on all nutrition as it is the single thing that has been shown to reduce all kinds of disease. Less meat (carcinogen), more veggies (anti carcinogen and antioxidant), more oils (good oils beneficial for heart) more margarine (no hydrogenated oils, good stuff consists of good oils which are beneficial for heart) less processed foods (duh!) less butter, cream and animal fats (controversial but until an actual consensus is reached excessive animal fat consumption remains an extreme view)
Carbs are nowdays a big topic but what has been shown to work for most is moderate consumption.

Sixty Fiver

The graphs show a lot of patterns and trends and the author states that even though correlation does not always equal causation this is stuff to think about and more and more, the word on sugar is that it does not take a lot of it to mess you up and it is especially bad when you drink it.

There is no disagreement here that olive oil is beneficial, canola oil a highly processed oil made from genetically modified canola / **** seed and would not put this on the good list.

I'll keep eating butter, full fat dairy, and eggs and continue to skip the margarine (as I have my entire life).

I am actually fairly moderate and am not caught up in this keto-obsessive behaviour... we eat simply and most of that is raw and un-processed, we roast most of our meat dishes and eat a lot of vegetables with our primary fats coming from olive oil, coconut oil, nuts, and of course... bacon (which we eat sparingly).

Processed foods, processed oils, and anything with added sugar does not make it to our table... the only sweetener we have here is unpasteurized honey because it has so many known benefits.

elcruxio

Canola oil can be processed or cold pressed. I can't find information regarding how the processing is bad since it leaves a healthy fat profile and no detrimental substances in the oil.
Secondly, if by genetically modified you mean traditional plant breeding then yes, it is genetically modified. That however leaves you in a situation where every plant ever cultivated by man is left inedible for you. And most animals as well. The canola we get isn't "spliced". Also canola oil has a better omega 3/6 profile than olive oil so that's going for it as well.

On the whole topic of sugar. I don't think anyone here believes sugar is a good thing. However it's very difficult to eat great amounts of sugar in a healthy balanced diet unless it consists mainly of fruit (but that isn't balanced again).
Carbs on the other hand are not detrimental in any way when consumed in moderation. I get the feeling people try to actually talk about carbs when they talk about sugar and there is a difference.