I think I can make that oral glucose tolerance test happen. The bad news is that I have to drink that crap. Besides that, it's no big deal. If I rode beforehand it would throw it too far out of whack, huh? I'm thinking eat breakfast, make sure I've fastest for at least 8 hours and then do the glucose test / carb feed at night. I know it's usually a morning thing, but that's just a little less convenient for me.
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So I did some testing today. I decided to ride some intervals to benchmark where I'm at. I rode 2x10' intervals with a 10' rest between. I rode them pretty hard. I would say an RPE of 8.0-8.5 for the first and 8.0-9.0 for the second. By the end of the second, I was hurting. These were as hard or harder than I would ride a threshold interval in terms of RPE.
Int
#1 - 250w avg. - HR avg. 188
Int
#2 - 247w avg. - HR avg. 191
This should be SST pace for me, but it most definitely was not. Just as a comparison, about 2 weeks before I started this diet, I did a fasted ride on a Sunday morning (at the end of a 300 mile week and after a reasonably hard workout on Saturday). During that ride I did 40 minutes straight at 250w, and it wasn't really that big of a deal. My average HR was 163. My longest at 250w is 90+ minutes when on good form and rested.
Another point of comparison would be a 8 1/2 minute climb I did in July, which was at 292 watts and 173 bpm. When rested and on a 'normal' diet, my lactate threshold heart rate is 183 bpm (although this has maybe dropped a bit over the last 2 years). I could have continued to climb at this pace for another 1 1/2 minutes, no question.
So what does this mean? Well, I guess it means that my heart rate is running about 25 bpm higher than normal at a given wattage. It also means that at a given RPE, I'm maybe 35-40 watts below normal.
I'm definitely a fat burner right now. Hell, I have to be, I don't have any carbs left to burn! I don't think this afternoon's ride was powered too long by the carbs I got out of my broccoli or asparagus that I had for lunch (maybe 10g carbs total).
So the next game is going to be to do the big carb-feed and see if I can put up strong numbers.
I will say that I am not dragging through the day. I have good, consistent energy through the day and don't have the urge to snack between meals. Sometimes I feel like I'm only eating because it's that time of day. When talking about doing that glucose test which requires an 8 hour fast, I don't think it will be any big deal to do that during the day. I just don't get crazy hungry eating this way. When on a 'normal' diet, I definitely do. At the very least, I think when I'm done with this, I may keep a fatty-very low carb breakfast in the mix. It really does set you up for a good rest of the day, and I like omolettes. I've started my day off with a big (really big) bowl of oatmeal or green veggie shake for a while and I think that may start me on a blood sugar/insulin yo-yo for the rest of the day that doesn't happen if I'm starting the day with eggs or my 'nut cereal'.