LCHF/Keto diet - effect on training/performance

Nutrition
66

I mean this with no ill-intent, but outside of pure experimentation, why do folks embark on this LCHF diet? What drove you to do so? I haven’t read a single study or article that leads me to believe that LCHF diets improve performance as a whole. Possibly some nice adaptions for those that only care to ride longer distances at lower intensity factors or pure endurance. Outside of that, it seems that nothing supports a LCHF diet for the racing athlete that encounters high intensity.

These are some pretty serious cons that you list…enough to make my mind up. I’m guessing your W/KG increase came at the expense of a lower overall threshold though. So while your W/KG increased, your raw watts suffered.

67

Exactomudo. The emboldened section is exactly why I’ve undertaken HFLC eating. I’m currently restricted to riding “longer distances at lower intensity factors or pure endurance”. The one other time I engaged in HFLC was during civilian life (aka not racing).

When I started training to race again, I immediately switched to HCLF. It’s pretty simple, just match your fuel to your activity level. :+1:

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68

I’ve done low carb once, as a kick start to walking off 40lbs gained from inactivity sitting in front of a computer for decades. That lasted about 3 months and then went back to a normal healthy diet. Currently doing a lot of low-intensity riding, and naturally losing about a pound a week with normal carb intake. Really don’t see a reason to lower carb intake. When intensity starts rising I’ll add carbs to baseline diet.

69

A definition which still has yet to be set in stone.

Funnily enough, the one thing both HC & HF camps agree on is that a diet of ~50% carbs seems to be provide optimal “health”. :man_shrugging:

Definitely, if you have intensity in your future, leave some carbs in your diet, otherwise your body will jettison the ability to process carbs and you’ll end up behind the :8ball:.

70

Most of my life has been spent near agricultural areas. Since I was a kid every house has been filled with fresh fruit, vegetables, whole grains, dairy, and lean meats. Spend a lot of time at farmers markets, roadside stands for fresh from the farm, u-picks, and our garden. We cook. From what I understand, that appears to be a natural evolution from what my ancestors ate but of higher quality and always available. Seems pretty normal and healthy :man_shrugging: Feel free to argue the point but I’m happy with that definition. :smiley:

71

I think it definitely depends on your level of adaptation when dropping the carbs in your diet. If you look for example at a recent elite level half-ironman race that was here in Australia recently. Pete Jacobs is a professional triathlete and placed 5th in the elite crowd at the race, an amazing effort. Thats around 4.5hours at flat-out intensity. He did this on zero carbs. Zero carb loading leading into the race, zero carbs before the race, zero carbs during the race and finally zero carbs in recovery after the race. The body has an amazing ability to produce its own glucose when it needs it, once you’ve re-trained this function to operate at full capacity.

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72

I don’t mind which avenue you take, everyone is free. But I will mention that 3 months is I would say a minimum amount of time to actually adapt to running on low-carb after a lifetime of eating high-carb. Its only really after this time that you can really experience how it can affect and improve athletic performance, not to mention the health or weight loss effects.

Exercise should be used to improve your fitness.
Food/diet should be used to manage your weight.

Once you are low-carb adapted (or what I would call a “normal and healthy diet”) then you can consistently and constantly lose fat (not muscle) without any exercise. The exercise being important for many other factors.

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74

I did it for health. I had an extra 20-30lbs of weight that came on despite casual exercise and cooking my own meals. Gerd/reflux. Hypertension since I was teen. I discovered I was starring to have random blood glucose readings way too high for how far they were out from the most recent meal. None of this crap is good, and I’ve shed all of it, except the hypertension which is merely way better (off 2 of 3 meds for it).

As for fitness, I’ve gone from 2-2.5 W/kg to a flat 4. The weightloss was done way before I started working on fitness gains, so this isn’t some artificial weightloss boosting. Could I already be 4.5 W/kg if I’d just stayed carbed up? I suppose I’ll never know, but I’m certain I’d be on a pile of medications still and starring down a T2DM diagnosis, too, and the chronic, progressive decline that entails. No thanks.

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75

And only a few generations ago lean meats were no where to be found. Favoured were full fat meats, whole milk, and lard. Currently the consensus is leaning towards saturated fat (see examples) not being the evil they’ve been portrayed over the last few decades. Seems to me that science and popular culture ensure “healthy diet” is always in flux.

76

What macro ratio were you at before? What ratio are you doing now?

77

Does he talk about this somewhere?

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78

Found these podcast with some notes:

Topics covered with Pete:

  • Pete’s background in triathlon and years as a pro.
  • Pete’s approach to training and diet in those years leading up to the 2012 victory.
  • Experiencing massive fatigue issues since 15 years old, but after the 2012 win, instead of a day or a few the fatigue would last a month or two.
  • A vicious cycle: Feel good for 6 weeks, train hard, get fit, sign up for a race, then get to the race feeling burnt out again.
  • Diet changes: In 2016 Pete removed meat with feet, dairy and all grains, and saw improvements (3rd at Ironman Cairns regional champs). But then got sick and never bounced back.
  • Pete then turned to Dr. Phil Maffetone – what did Phil advise Pete do?
  • From Phil’s advice: Pete cut out the carbs, rested and relaxed going into Ironman Arizona 2016. On very little race fuel (some honey) and sticking to a moderate heart rate he had one of the easiest Ironman’s he’d ever done in under 9 hours.
  • From then, he started looking at the keto diet along with tons of research, podcasts, reading, trial and error to begin understanding his body better.
  • Reintroduced meat this year and started training at MAF 95% of the time.
  • Previously, training involved a lot of threshold efforts, but over 150 HR recovery would be slow, and often couldn’t get power.
  • Blood glucose management & why fasting doesn’t work for Pete.
  • Still would see fasting glucose goes high; helps to eat many smaller meals often.
  • The build to Kona and making a comeback on the world stage this year.
  • And much more!

Its here:

Fatigue issues since 15 years old. Interesting.

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80

He described it as a flat-out effort, his words not mine. His description/break-down of the race does suggest he went harder on the bike than he might normally do, it sounded like more than just a tempo effort.

He does a good breakdown of the race in this podcast episode:

81

Yes, he does a great breakdown of his race in this podcast episode:

I’ll also note that he backed up the effort just one week later with another elite race, which he talks about as-well.

82

4.5hrs at tempo is flat out for most. Just like 8hrs of Z2 might be flat out for many.

84

I think most of these conversations about diets are being held in vacuum - performance. The bigger picture is long term health, not just performance.

From what i read, a large portion of the population has a degree of insulin resistance - how many people do you know can eat what they want an not put on weight?

Insulin resistance is not too much of an issue for most of us on this forum given high level of activity - we burn the sugar but for a lot of people, at some point in time people develop metabolic diseases.

For us cyclists, we enjoy a high carb diet and use our activity to justify our sometimes poor eating (cake rides etc)… I think over the long term, we can develop bad eating habits.

My suggestion, get checked for insulin resistance (fasting insulin), then decide on how to fuel your body for performance and long term health.

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85

Exactly. After listening to Peter Attia for a short while, I’ve learnt that our habits and diets we think are good aren’t exactly the best. I’d love to do time restricted feeding and adapt to that. But the whole crit racing thing doesn’t allow for it, nor does it allow for LCHF.

You can’t say how well a LCHF diet works for you without mentioning what sort of cycling you’re into. It’s not going to work for intensity, but it’ll work wonders for ultra endurance. And marathon running is so far away from crits that it’s pointless even mentioning them lol.

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86

Never tracked macros before, but definitely high in carbs, but I also didn’t try to avoid fat per-se. I rarely ate breakfast. Lunch would be something like a sub from subway or jimmy johns, no chips, but a sugar-sweetened beverage. Dinner was usually homecooked, by me: a protein, a starch, and a veg. I like cooking, and got pretty good at it.

Now I’m keto. Lots of meat and some added fat, with a low-carb veg like broccoli or brussels sprouts. I still don’t track, but weight has been trivial to maintain. Pretty much no starchy/sugary-carbs except for some special occasions. Certain HIIT or long long duration sweetspot workouts (I’m thinking TR build phases or century rides) get in-workout gatorade, but this pretty rare (I leave myself a note about it in my workout comments for future consideration).

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87

I’d have to disagree. I don’t think you can always determine the intensity just based on the time. Otherwise I could say “flat-out” is only the intensity you can maintain for a 100m sprint. Can you hold that for 1 hour? What speed/intensity is the 1hr effort? Is that only tempo? I myself race Tri’s and thats about 2:15 efforts, and those are flat-out, almost 100% Zone 5 HR, which is definitely above tempo for me. Everyones ability to endure above threshold is different, just like everyones aerobic and anaerobic gates are different. All of which can be trained to improve.

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88

Two years ago I was 89kgs. At age 35 and 5’6, definitely obese. I didn’t think I was obese because i always compared myself to others - there is always someone bigger than you!! That was my excuse. When i complained about my weight, i would hear things like “you have lots of muscle under there or big boned or its just water” no. it was FAT!! With 6 kids, i decided that my health is very important. I want the live for a long time.

In the past, I have always been active, running, basketball and weight lifting but never had a six pack. I have dieted, lost weight only to put it back on. Yo-yo.

It was time for a change. Jan 2018 I decided i would ride to work - every day without fail. By May 2018, i weighed 75kgs. Lost 14kgs. But my diet had improved but not changed. Got fitter, ate more cake…my weight started creeping up. i rode more and more…by July 2018 i was almost 80kgs. Something had to change.

We had a weight loss challenge a work. This was the motivation i needed. That’s when i discovered keto and intermittent fasting 16/8. I won the challenge at 66kgs in 12 wks. I have never been 66kgs in my entire adult life. I think the last time i was 16yrs old. AND my six pack finally showed up. My kids loved it. The love fit dad…

At 66kgs, i felt fatigued. No energy. I knew this was not the right weight for me. A month later, i went back 70kgs. Felt great!! I had a dexa scan, had 10% body fat and 62kgs of lean muscle…Happy days. Since then,my weight has remained between 70 - 74kgs. The main change for this has been adopting a keto/low low carb diet.

These days, i just don’t get hungry or think about food. I have days when i eat higher carbs for workouts but never higher than 100g - 150g. My average day is less than 50g - net carbs. Feel great. Look awesome.

The other benefits, i have become sensitive with my body especially how different foods affect me. For example, when i eat cabbage, broccoli and cashew nuts, i get inflammation bloating for days. In the past i never realized this. I just though i was eating too much…

In terms of performance, I joined TR around Aug 2018. Not racing, just wanted to get faster. FTP was 185. By Jan 2019 FTP had increased to 250. Had an accident in Feb which took me off the bike until June. FTP back up to 250. haven’t been structured in my training - family / work - but working to improve. Goal 4w/k…280 - 290 FTP

I have noticed that on longer rides, I dont need to eat. Some days SS and threshold efforts are hard - after maybe 45mins. This is when i might supplement. They are hard anyway!!

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