SethAZ 

Yeah. I'll think about it. I still have this container of creatine, actually. I've thought about cracking it open and using it. What's stopping me right now is worry over the water weight I might gain in the short term. Long term it would almost certainly be worth it. Right now I'm having to do the careful balancing act of attempting to strengthen and tone my muscles while also losing fat weight really fast. Once this immediate crisis is past I'll concentrate on losing enough weight that the weight itself isn't an issue for me and I'm free to do what's best for my strength and endurance without regard to weight.

MovingViolation

OP: Re Acid Reflux:

Sorry to be a scold, but go google Barrett’s Oesophagus and Oesophageal Cancer. One of the most aggressive tumors out there and the operation itself has a significant mortality rate (not that this generally matters because metastasis generally does the rest in short order).

Figure out root causes of your reflux issue and stomp on them.

Seriously: Correct Diet >>> Exercise. You need to start researching thinking very analytically about your system inputs. Don’t just ‘Gut It’. Please.

SethAZ 

No doubt. I never knew anything about this but have read some things, and it has me concerned. I think I've identified the likely greatest contributor to the reflux and am working to eliminate it. I'll do whatever I have to eliminate the reflux. The very last thing I need is cancer.

SethAZ 

Been doing well so far this week. Held my weight steady over last drill weekend, and have seen three more lbs off the scale so far since Monday, and was on the verge of showing a 4th lb drop this morning. My prediction is that if the trend continues (and I'm doing everything to make sure it does) I'll be down 7 lbs next Friday at the postponed physical fitness test over what I was at last Saturday when we were first supposed to take it. That weight drop alone should probably chop 20-30 seconds off my run time.

Some changes I've made to try to counteract or avoid acid reflux seem to have resulted in much milder or absent symptoms when I wake up in the morning. Been doing more running, I've walked an extra 3 miles each night before bed both to burn a few more bonus calories each day and also to get my metabolism going a little faster, and I've done really good pushups, kettlebell swings, and some small dumbbell and light kettlebell exercises. I only need 25 pushups to pass and two days ago I managed to do 50 pushups in a single set one time. If I do 59 I'd get the maximum score for my age. Not sure if I'll pull that off but it would be nice. I got back into ketosis and have been feeling good, if a little fatigued from the various exercises and whatnot on a fairly low calorie intake with very low carbs.

SethAZ 

Well, the PT test was today and I passed the run with 44 seconds to spare, and passed the pushups and situps extremely well, so I'm good to go.

After the misfire of the PT test being postponed two weeks ago, I got back into my hardcore low-carb mode, got back into ketosis, was really good at getting my daily exercise in, and by yesterday morning I was down 9 freaking pounds from my weight going into the drill weekend two weeks ago!

I introduced a small amount of carbs back into my diet two days prior, and then yesterday added oats back into my morning porridge for breakfast, had a small bowl of spaghetti for lunch, and a medium sized bowl of spaghetti for dinner. During the evening and into the night I ate two small granola bars that had carbs in them. By taking in these carbs throughout the day my hope was that my glycogen stores were topped off and whatnot. I ate a granola bar and drank a Gatorade (for the sugar calories) on the way in this morning. I felt really good, and did more pushups for the test than I'd been able to do in a single set at any time in recent weeks (most I'd done in the last few weeks was 50 in one set, I did 55 this morning, 59 would have been a maximum score but I was smoked at 55), did more situps than I've done on any PT test in the last several years, and passed this run that I'd been worrying about.

So I think my plan to pull myself out of ketosis in advance of the PT test and energize with carbs, plus the 2-day break to recover to 100%, worked perfectly.

But there's something else I learned in the last 2-3 weeks. I've been testing for ketones (pee on a stick) pretty religiously for several weeks. What I observed was that on days when I only had exercised once and then a few hours had gone by the ketone level dropped after a few hours and I still was getting ketones, but at a low level. Every time I exercised the ketone level would go up for the next 2-3 hours or more. So one thing I did a lot, nearly every day over the last two weeks, was to break my total exercise up into several sessions separated by time. So I might go for a run in the morning, then do a couple circuits of my pushup/kettlebell/dumbell exercises at lunch. Do another set or two of this circuit in the early evening, and then every night before going to bed I'd go outside and walk for an hour (3 mile walk). On days when I did this I was consistently measuring high-mid to heavy concentrations of ketones. If I'm understanding this correctly, the ketones in my urine represent fat that was broken down for energy but not burned, so it was flushed out.

This means that by getting into ketosis, staying in ketosis, and repeatedly stimulating my metabolism through several exercise sessions throughout the day, I kept my body breaking down even more fat than I was actually burning through the exercise and low daily calorie intake. Hence the 9-lb drop over two weeks, which was better than I'd averaged most weeks prior to this. It seems I got that system dialed in pretty well. I'll keep doing this for another few weeks and see if that kind of progress is maintained or if this last two weeks was just a fluke.

canklecat

Sounds good. I'm going to try a theory (attributed to Australian trainers) that even very brief high intensity interval training can kickstart the body into suddenly and temporarily increasing glycogen stores. Theoretically this can enable both fat burning diets and training while also enabling the body to top off the tank for short term energy needs.

I plan to try that this weekend, with a short, high intensity ride (after swapping stems on my road bike to tweak the fit), followed by a longer fasted ride Sunday. Normally I'd either need a rest day after HIIT training, or a good breakfast or carb meal before a longer ride the next day. If the theory works for me I'll know it within an hour Sunday. And I'll carry some gels just in case I bonk.

SethAZ 

Are you saying that according to this theory you can store more glycogen than usual after a brief HIIT session? I'd be interested in hearing how that works. I did quite a few fasted state longer bike rides last Fall, and I'd like to get back into this more in the next few weeks before I deploy, if for no other reason than I can burn way more calories on a 2-hour bike ride than I can in a 30-45 minute jog. The future for me, though, in the next year is going to be more running and such simply because I can't bring my bike on this deployment. I'll be interested in trying my 32-mile route in a fasted state while in ketosis to see how it goes. I'd bring some energy with me of course as a backup in case my body can't keep up, but I think if I keep my heart rate firmly in zone 2 I can probably do it.

canklecat

Scroll down halfway on this article on carb loading to read the method on brief HIIT to kickstart the body into more efficient glycogen storage. I'm still looking for independent corroboration of the method described, since I don't see any link in the article.

But it's easy enough to try. I already do something similar, although with a gradual warmup -- I need about 30 minutes to warm up before attempting any HIIT. Then I need a cool down period. In effect, it's similar to my usual 90 minute rides of about 30 miles. But I've been trying the methods described for Kenyan marathon runners, mixing in Fartlek training -- irregular bursts of sprinting along with the more gradual continuous training, without the rigorous timetable of HIIT.