My take on this is that we are endurance athletes and as such, most of our training is done in “fat burning zone”. Suffice to say, our ability to burn fat is pretty much as good as it can be.
Our body is still going to dig through glycogen the store as the intensity increases, so there is absolutely no way around it.
I say, keep it simple, stick to a good balanced diet and let this amazing machine called brain, work out its magic.
Tim.
I tried low carb, lost loads of weight and felt great, but struggled with endurance rides of more than a couple of hours, felt like my legs were filled with acid and they were always sore… quite odd feeling… could be just my body … i want to give it another go over the winter period where the efforts are less and my focus moves to maintenance as feel i just needed to push through it ??
I would focus on just finding alternatives for your food choices that you want to eliminate, and continue fueling with carbs if you want to perform well on high intensity intervals. No carbs = no watts, no matter what the adaptation.
I don’t follow the nutrition aspect as much as I should, but I listened to this podcast recently. It has some very interesting (and possibly controversial?) comments from Dr. Tim Noakes.
Episode 25: Is a Ketogenic Or Banting Diet Ideal For Cycling?
Podcast – FLO Cycling (main site, with access to various podcast options)
I quite liked it… seemed balanced around what you do and what your situation is…i certainly think as i am in my mid 50’s and basically an enthusiast cyclist not a racer, i don’t need all those carbs and the sugar that tends to come with it… finding the balance is the hard bit … i did try limiting carbs and legs went really sore… but i am thinking i did not give it enough time and over did the restriction for hard days ride and had should have pushed through it at lower intensity and then built up from there … i am 3kg heavier by eating more carbs and feel good in most cycling rides, but no happy with the belly i now have… age and body type plays a big role i suspect
Try adding strength training to your fitness regimen. This
Or this post
i can share two experiences:
the best thing i learned from keto was to eat more real food (less processed) and more veggies (replacing carbs in my macros).
That’s pretty spot on
There more of us than you think.
This is one place UCANN excels, it’s not cheap; but it’s original goal of being for diabetic children has lead to a product that you can fuel with during a race and not knock yourself out of Ketosis. Also works for V02Max training days. Just wish it was cheaper.
The people I know that are doing this are after weightloss first and foremost but still like to ride and train so any performance changes are secondary (even inconsequential) which makes to sense to me.
Plain old raw cornstarch powder is probably sufficient vs spending on UCANN. I think it was actually created for glycogen storage disease, not diabetics.
I keep meaning to give it (corn starch) a try one of these days – right now I just grab a gatorade if I’m feeling weak, but I don’t generally even think about it unless it’s an over/under session or 2+ hours.
Was very surprised to see a top Worlds XCO athlete apparently “experimenting” with this diet. Curious to see if it affects her results this race season. Thumbnail pic is a bit of a click bate 
.
Watched this the other day (homegirl! 
). Don’t think she mentioned how she fuels for races…? And her “smoothie” recipe 
…yeah, super functional but probably tastes like old donkey! Also love how shocked she was that sometimes she would eat THREE bananas a day…I once read when Jan Ulrich was racing he would eat 20 a day. 
And I hope to god, being sponsored by Red Bull, she doesn’t actually put that crap into her body!
For myself, I’ve been thinking more and more about changing to daily LCHF and fueling HC for events (if and when I can ever race again).
[edit: from another Red Bull/World Champ, Wout van Aert — “A lot of base miles and low-carb training sessions can make your ‘engine’ bigger. This is what I focus on the most between the CX Worlds and the first classic [1 month!]…In the long races we try to take 90g of carbohydrates per hour.” ]
Tried that. The breath tester reports that porc knocks me out of ketosis. The ucann drops me from level 10 of dietary ketosis to level 2 or 3 and i am back to 8 or 9 by bed time
i think you are correct on the history it has been a long time since i read the background info
Her struggles this season would seem to indicate that the low carb is not a great option for 90 minutes of all out XC.
This podcast episode has some important data on fat adapted elite endurance athletes. [#282: Louise Burke, PhD – Project Supernova: The Science of Fuelling Elite Athletes | Sigma Nutrition](http://SigmaNutrion 282)
Topics
Basically- like @Nate_Pearson, carbs are awesome 
The Empirical guys covered this topic in the most recent episode: Watts Doc #10: Can Fat-Adaptive Diets Lead To Better Performance Through Glycogen Sparing? - Empirical Cycling
Based on the above podcast Re: Batty, it would make sense that if she were doing a cyclical keto diet that her performance would be bad when switching bad to a carb centric diet since it can take your body quite a while to transition.
Thanks. I’ll check it out
Dr. Stephen Phinney claims it takes ~2 years to become truly ‘fat adapted’…so maybe Batty will be a powerhouse next year…?
I’m watching the video… so far 1/2 or 1 sweet potato… rice cakes… honey-mustard… smoothie with banana and slightly carby whey protein. Polenta for dinner?!? I hope this is her carb-up day. No-true-Scotsman fallacy aside, I wouldn’t call any of what I’m seeing keto (even cyclical keto), merely low-carb. I notice she’s wholly avoiding fat, which makes keto pretty tough.