Big drop on the Ramp Test today, but not surprised. On a Keto style diet atm, so energy is low. Probably should have had carbs a few hours before the test and I might have done better. I’ll take the score and work off that but as I’m doing Keto right up to Ride The Range on October 11. Plenty of time to bounce back for Tour de Brisbane in April next year.
I’ve just finished a Speciality Phase for an Imperial event that never happened, so I did my own ride then had a rest week. Now I’m beginning another Speciality Phase for Ride The Range in October. Do you think I’ll still improve fitness on the lower FTP while doing Keto or do you think I’ll crash and burn?
keto is a good way to lose weight but makes you slow.
it will take at least four or five weeks of fueled training to get back to normal.
expect to lose 30-40% off your ramp test result while in keto.
Using the recent ramp test results makes sense. I’ve never done keto but I imagine if you’re able to complete the workouts consistently you should improve, at least relative to your other performances while in ketosis. Whether or not that results in a net gain in the scheme of things is a lot more complex (and probably depends on what your fitness goals are- obviously your top end will be impacted more.)
Best-case scenario I would expect improvements to come a lot more slowly, because limiting your potential output during individual workouts will in turn limit the adaptations as a result of those workouts. You might also find you recover a little slower, which will impact the amount of work you’re able to do overall. I’d be curious to hear how it works out for you though! 
Having gone though keto process, I’d say it’s certainly useful in selected training phases. My <AeT remained constant throughout, but anything over FTP was neigh on impossible.
Zoinks, you mean if I carb-up I should expect 480+ FTP?
Long term I was thinking Keto would be OK during Base Phases and then going back to carbs for Build and Speciality?
Would probably work. Sweetspot at first may be tough, but would get easier.
Played with keto during an Ironman prep and the outcome was great. Weight loss, could do a 4:30 fasted ride with the final hour at Zones 3 to 5 so I guess the metabolism did adapt.
The only negative outcome was a loss of 10% in PMax.
Soon after I kept the low carb approach but started carb fuelling the longer and/or intense workouts.
My ability to consume carbs while riding was enhanced a lot. I had almost 500kcal/hour during the bike leg on the Ironman. Science seems to negate this since it was proven that put simply without consuming carbs the body becomes less capable of processing them. Not my N=1 experience.
A big negative of keto for me is the degree of commitment needed and the stress that comes with it.
On the first time the first weeks were awful but now I use it as a fast weight loss strategy and can adapt to the process in just a couple of days. It is still stressful nevertheless.
To keep the same weight after getting back to “normal”, it is also very stressful because either I start counting calories and work with a decent deficit or the weight loss starts eroding fast.
I am sure everyone has a different result/experience with keto.
I am really mostly talking about when you first start on keto. Once your fat adapted, it’s a different story.
Go keto to go slow!
On overall CHO strategy, heard a great phrase from James Morton the other day. Paraphrasing, but something along the lines of “not high carb, not low carb, but SMART carb”.
Really resonated with me, aligning with fueling the work, aims of the session, and time within macrocycle.
Now that I’ll agree with. Performance and endurance sucked for a few weeks. But it snapped back in about a month and when it did it was pretty much immediate. Really weird.
Fat is stored as triglycerides: 3 fatty acid chains connected by a glycerol. 2 glycerol’s will be combined into a glucose by the liver. Presto, glucose, and it’s more than enough to supply resting glucose need. Also, the brain will easily take up half it’s energy as ketones, which are produced by the liver from the fatty acid chains. So really, the brain is covered.
This is an interesting bit. DEXA measures bone, fat, and considers everything else as “lean tissue”. So there you get weird effects where as the glycogen (primarily in the liver; muscle glycogen is maintained in long-term keto athletes, although short term this may also decrease) is depleted it looks to the DEXA like you’ve lost lean mass. Everyone hears “lean mass” and thinks “muscle”, but that’s not a given. Drink a 16oz of water before the scan and your lean mass will magically grow a lb of “lean mass”.
I’ve been meaning to watch the GCN video. I expect it to be a travesty, but hope springs eternal.
why do you wanna fuck up your metabolism?
no, just a balanced diet
most people fuck up their metabolism by eating a high-octane diet of processed carbs AND fat, no need trying to balance it out by another freak diet, no?
Carbs, Fat, Protein (the least processed the better)
*and by carbs I don’t mean fruit loops
That’s not true at all.
You made the initial claim, therefore you’ll need to provide proof.
The above statement is what’s called being intellectually dishonest.
I will have to say it depends. In my case (51yo long distance triathlete) it was a piece of the puzzle that made me faster.
If I were a coach, I will never prescribe keto as a performance helper without the athlete asking specifically for it and, even in that case, we would have to be talking races above the 5 hour mark or so.
In general I would say that caloric control together with smart carbs (periodification) are the way to go.
In a couple of years time, I hope some testing that currently is only available in physiology lab, became widely accessible with decent accuracy.
By then we will be able to know periodically where the athlete stands in terms of substrate utilisation and how the conditioning (nutrition and training interventions is moving the needle.
I was watching GTN (GCN triathlon partner) a week or so ago about how to squeeze a proper swim workout into a very compressed time and, talking about the importance of the cool down, the presenter mentioned something like “it will also help to flush out the lactic acid”.
I hit the unsubscribe button immediately and did the same to GCN.
So, I really do not expect from them anything more than at best a kind of a mix between bro and real science.
It surprises me that this isn’t really talked about. I have friends who get super into keto because they lose a fair bit of weight in the first couple of weeks, and swear up and down that they “balloon up” whenever they eat carbs for a day. I think doing keto successfully requires a good understanding of how the process actually works and the ability to be fairly realistic/objective about your results.
“messing up” your metabolism is largely a myth. Though it can be influenced by things like lean mass and activity levels, macronutrient composition or dietary history aren’t going to impact it to any significant extent unless you’re heavily restricting calories for an extended period of time- and even in cases of severe anorexia it bounces back within a couple of weeks of eating at maintenance.