First of all, let me say I'm a huge proponent of eating carbs for optimal performance, but I do have a decent amount of practical experience with KD. This study has a few areas where I would have done things very differently:


"Compliance with the dietary regimen was monitored by measuring urinary ketones daily"

1. I would have thought that for a scientific study, they wouldn't choose the least reliable measurement method. Urine is least accurate. Blood and breath are significantly more accurate.

2. " limit their carbohydrate intake to a maximum of 20–40 g/day "
That's way too low for an athlete. There is an optimal range for athletes - under 4 mmol blood measurement of ketones. Which usually would be 150g per day. With my own testing, I could maintain 3-4 mmol levels on intake upwards of 200g per day.

If I were designing a test to fail, I would design it exactly like theirs. On the opposite side of the spectrum, Volek's faster study is also ridiculously flawed.

But at the end of the day, I agree, if you want to go fast, eat enough carbs!

---

____________________________________

Are you ready to do an Ultraman? | How I calculate Ironman race fueling | Strength Training for Athletes |

Everybody knows keto falls on its face at say mid tempo and above. If you are doing aerobic exercise that requires that type of power then you should do targeted keto for that event or training.

" Everybody knows keto falls on its face at say mid tempo and above. If you are doing aerobic exercise that requires that type of power then you should do targeted keto for that event or training. "
Apparently I am outside of the "everybody" group. I have been eating in a similar manner to what is described by RobGrey- for over a year, and my training and racing performances have all improved. I know a number of other people on this type of diet who have all noted positive results. As RobGrey pointed out the study on this post is very flawed in a number of ways, including a conclusion that first states that there was no significant impact on measured fitness, and then concludes that it might be an issue for competitive athletes.
My main purpose for the training I do is to improve my health- to me in seems counter intuitive to spend time building the fitness of my body, then turn around and subject it to all of the problems associated with a high carb diet- (insulin pikes, hormone imbalances, diabetes risk, Alzheimer's risk, constant inflammation...) . There is a BIG difference between eating a diet at about 30% carbs (which is a solid, healthy number), and the 60-70% carbs that is the average in North American diets.
Lastly, there is that little known triathlete- Mark Allen- who after modifying his training was able to run low 5 minute pace at a dominant fat burning energy level. That seems pretty competitive to me!
Why are so many people offended and/or upset that you can actually be competitive AND healthy ?[

Reminds me that this might not have been raised on the forum before: along the same lines but a high quality well controlled study in elite endurance athletes by some of the best people in the world at this type of research:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28012184

no one found this interesting??

so seems beneficial for fast twitch folk? weight lifters, sprinters...

Too big of a stretch based on this data. A small increase like that, while statistically significant is nothing much. And it could just be due to testing order due to the study design.

---

Simplify, Train, Live

The Mark Allen example doesn't really correlate to this study or question from the diet side of the equation. Training adaptation, with or without the presence of skewed metabolic expenditures, are a different discussion and perhaps when both are altered they can potentially "feed" off each other producing some sweet spots for certain intensities or individuals.

60-70% carbs that is the average in North American diets.

Do you have any evidence to back up that assertion?

Because on the face of it it's ridiculous - even those athletes who desperately want to get to 70% carbs have to be highly disciplined to do so, much less the "average North American" who eats at McDonalds on a regular basis.

If this is what I think it is https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/diet.htm the typical American diet is about half carbs (I'm going to hazard a guess that a lot of that is highly refined grains and sugar), a third fat, and the remaining 15% or so protein.

the cycling test also had a similar change to that degree

Let's let the performance element on the side for the moment. (I am not entirely sure but do believe that performance is hindered to some extend with low carb. Especially when you need intensity).

But lets look on the health side. There are good and bot so good and downright bad foods you can eat. But by no means is an entire macronutrient bad for your health.

People tend to hop from one extreme to the next. Years ago all fat was deemed to be bad. When one found out that they are essential and some of them really healthy some people just switched their belief entirely and now carbs are the new devil. But carbs are not just pasta and biscuits and sugar and can enhance ones health.

The problem with diabetes is not just sugar but a combination of fat and sugar and too many calories. There are some native cultures that basically live off carbs. They have no diabetes and metabolise their carbs with no insulin. And they are perfectly healthy. Their body is just so well adapted to it.
Nor is insulin itself a bad thing.
Risk factors for diabetes are also casein consumption, too much meat or too much fat.

Another thing is cancer. Sure, there are cancer cells that feed off carbs. But there are other forms of cancer that are fueld by fat. It is not yet possible to determine what a particular form of cancer cell craves.

Also keto diets have shown to be too low in fibre and lead to unfavorable gut ph. Thus ones good gut bacteria is killed.

I think one can be healthy on a higher fat OR a higher carb diet. It might be a personal thing. But go too low with carbs and it can mess up your metabolsim.

It can also be a self fulfilling prophecy. One abstains from carbs religiously because one think it is bad. Ones body loses its ability to process them. One eats them on an occasion again only to see that it leads to problems. One feels reassured.

I eat more on the carb side and I feel great. My mood is good, my energy is high and i can still go for hours without eating.

I say I eat high carb but I hardly ever eat pasta, bread, processed sugar or cakes etc. My foundation is potatoes, (white) rice, millet, quinoa, oats, fruit, veggies, chickpeas.
Of course I also eat meat and have my fat sources, but carbs are my main thing to go.

I don't want to attack you or your way of eating but just show that there are different sides of the coin. One (myself often included) is usually trapped on one of them.

I try to listen to vegans, paleo guys and native cultures or tcm at the same time. Vegand eat lots of different veggies and fibre, paleos value high quality meat and promote fasting. I think the most important thing is that you eat unprocessed stuff and listen to your body.

---

10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

And the last thing is really where you lost me as I have tried most of the diets (or ways of eating) that you mentioned about and find a loose version of paleo works best for me and my body. Telling anyone to listen to there body when food supply in any form is abundant is complete crap and simply does not work. In America at least and possibly most of the developed world our lives are built around conserving energy (or increase efficiency for companies) and have food (mostly processed) thrown at us in every way. We center our whole lives around eating meals and enjoying food and I believe that we are programmed to take in calories whether we need them or not. If I were to listen to my body I would probably gain 30 lbs quick as I want food that is savory and sweet.

I think nutrition and diet is probably the most important topic that is just not being discussed enough in and especially outside of endurance sports.

I wish we had 100 more people like Rob Gray trying different things and reporting results.

Agreed.

I had the opportunity to listen to Dr. Louise Burke (Head of Sport Nutrition at the Australian Institute of Sport; team dietician for the Australian Olympic team) speak at a conference this past year. Most of what she talked about re: low-carb diets is summarized in her review article linked below (free!).

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26553488

I see what you mean. But I didn't mean it in the way; oh that biscuit looks so good I need it now.

I mean listen to your body how you feel after you have eaten something and the day after. Do you have energy, how is your mood? How is your satiety? Are you comfortably full?

To truly listen to the signs of your body you need to stop eating processed junk food first and replace it with natural stuff. After some time your body tells you very well what it needs. You learn to differentiate between true hunger and cravings.

---

10k - 30:48 / half - 1:06:40

I just did Ultraman Florida a couple of days ago.
I know some wouldn't say my result is exceptional but if I count a 500m longer swim due to getting off course, having 12 red lights on the bike on day 1 and a gazillion stop signs. On day 3 I was dealing with hip and keen injuries since I had two bike crashes on the same hip and knee in a three month period prior to the race - and all my training runs and the majority of my training bike rides were painful.

On the top of that I'm 48 years old and all that while on a ketogenic diet.

My nutrition was very simple - 90Cal of SuperStarch each 1.5h for all thee days. The day before day 1 I ate breakfast in the morning and my next meal was after I finished day 1 - more than 24h later.

I switched to a ketogenic diet in August 2015 sacrificing Kona 2015 (and I sucked) since I new I would not be able to adapt in such a short time.

Boki

Metabolise carbs with no insulin? As a type 1 diabetic I would like to see the literature on that one

"The problem with diabetes is not just sugar but a combination of fat and sugar and too many calories. There are some native cultures that basically live off carbs. They have no diabetes and metabolise their carbs with no insulin. And they are perfectly healthy. Their body is just so well adapted to it.
Nor is insulin itself a bad thing.
Risk factors for diabetes are also casein consumption, too much meat or too much fat. "

A lot of strange claims in this quote. I can assure you that a normal physiology in those cultures is producing insulin in response to carbs. Insulin in the body does much more than to just help move glucose into cells, and is being emitted in small amounts all day (in healthy people).
And I'm not sure how you came up with the claim that dairy products or "too much fat" can cause diabetes.
Type 2 is generally associated with a sedentary lifestyle, too many calories, particularly in the form of simple carbs, overweight/obesity, then eventually a resistance in the cells to the body's own insulin, and then declining pancreatic function (insulin and other hormones, which will cause a host of other problems).

How did you feel during the race? Shoot me an email at texafornia at the gmails and let's chat! This could be good interview material. I had Rob on twice to detail what he did and people loved it.

---

----------------------------------------------------------
Zen and the Art of Triathlon. Strava Workout Log
Interviews with Chris McCormack, Helle Frederikson, Angela Naeth, and many more.
http://www.zentriathlon.com

I just wanted to say congrats on your UMFL finish given all the crashes too.

In terms of this thread, I am just reading and absorbing. I've tended to lean towards the high carb end while maintaining fairly low body fat all my adult/triathlete life. Being exposed to Rob Gray, in the last 2 years, I have added a lot more good fats to my diet. The only thing I have really noticed is desire to eat a bit less frequently....probably the calorie total is the same over the day. I have not really done any long course racing in 2 years, but I had a riding camp in the Alps last summer where I felt I was on fire between hours 4 and hours 7 of our daily 5-7 hours of riding. But there could be many factors at play, but if my body is gradually training itself to consume available fats for energy better, I figure it is worth the experiment (as long as I don't turn into a complete pillbury doughboy in the process which does not seem to be happening as I am 2-3 lbs above race weight with no races in the horizon).

Hey Brett,

I listened to your interviews with Rob and I enjoyed them. :)

I felt great energy wise. The only two problems I had were injuries from two previous crushes and on day 3 I didn't go to restroom #2 "all the way" before I started to run.

I'll send you an email. Currently I'm out way to Tampa, - my wife is running the Gasparilla 1/2 mara. I have a short trip to Serbia coming up. But we can chat during my visit while there.

Boki

Dev,

Thank you very much.

I was on a high carb diet almost whole my life. Part of my family is from Italy so, carbs were in my diet by default. A whole loaf of bread was my daily allowance. But, I was lean my whole life.

5-7h bike rides
I did many 5+ hour bike rides taking just water and electrolytes.

Two weeks before UMFL I forgot to take my nutrition on my long-ish run. I said to myself - well, it is what it is... I did 30 miles on Clermont hills just on water and electrolytes. I was waiting for the moment when I'd bonk but that moment never came.

My motivation to switch to ketogenic diet had two main parts:
- I was curious and wanted to learn from my own experience
- I felt really bad taking 250-300Cal/h from gels and other sources of carbs while racing - there is no way that was/is healthy

Boki

Interesting point about the 25-300 cals per hour from gels etc not being healthy. I never realized it, but as I have not raced for ~2 years now, I've only had gatorade or sports drinks a few times, and in general no nutrition that you can buy in a bike or tri store has entered my body for that time. I just realized this when you said it. Before that, I would never use gels or any sports nutrition in training, just on race day, but I raced around 10x per year so plenty of "practice" and plenty of opportunity to kind of mess up my body with bad quality nutrition. In any case, I did not really have a chance to see the impact of higher "good fat" on my endurance other than that 5 days in France doing long rides every day. In any case, I will try to increase my evening good fat and good protein intake and see if it reduces the desire to snack between 8pm and midnight!

I love these studies.

A hflc diet helped me from a ~9.40 Ish athlete and 4.30 70.3 to 4.15 and 9.08. Trust me with life issues at the time it had nothing to do with training.

How to hit the harder sessions? Bring in some good carbs. White rice for lunch to hit a arvo session but coat it in good fats ie coconut cream. Sweet Potato with dinner for a hard morning session. ~100g carbs a day keeps me ticking over well enough to hit any session and any really high end stuff I can have a swig of tailwind.

Raceday you bring the carbs back in and watch the performance go to the next level. A thing that I was not capable of training high carb.

The 40g per day they talk about is what I did in the adaption period where you back right off training. 2-6 weeks depending on each individual. Of course performance will drop your body is switching energy systems.

Happy to be told it doesn't work. Won't stop me doing what I am doing.

Anyone that is half curious though get in touch with Peter Defty. That guy puts people on the right track. Less than 50g carbs per day that some keto groups recomend is for BOP if you're mop or fop don't try and do it alone it's much easier with the help of an expert.

Did your performance gains have anything to do with you losing excess weight? Were the gains on the same or similar courses?

---

leslie myers
http://www.foodsensenow.com

No excess weight been hovering at 5% body fat for about 5 years.

Course was ironman new zealand and closest race was ironman cairns 7 months before.

70.3 was at sunshine coast comparing my previous time from same course.

5% on caliper test maybe... not even bodybuilders can hold that for more than a few days near a show. lower than than organs fail, hormone production stops etc.

Yeah caliper test....

Anyway I was just answering that weight loss wax not a contribution to the performance increase.

My 4-step super secret diet that got me from a 195lb mid-FOPr to a 180lb Kona and 70.3 Worlds qualifier in M30-34:

1) 1.5-2g/kg of protein
2) ~1g/kg of fat
3) All of my caloric needs on top of that (based on Garmin burn) from fruit, veggies, and whole grains, then subtract a couple hundred calories in order to slowly lose weight.
4) Shut the fuck up.

Don't tell anyone. I might write a book someday.

One thing always to keep in mind when interpreting research is to look at who was the study population, the outcome measures, and the population to which you're wanting to apply the findings. The people in this study did lose weight. Most of the people I know who are KD devotees are primarily involved in triathlon for weight management (like me). I don't actually follow KD precisely, but my diet plan is largely based on Maffetone which is also a relatively high fat low carb plan. I'm not on the podium much, but I'm not 300 lbs anymore either.

This is typical of the "fuel crossover point." At 1/2 and IM power outputs you are burning mostly fat anyway (if you are fit), so lack of carbs at that distance (especially IM) is less of a concern. I can easily see performance being preserved at these race distances on a ketogenic diet. However, I don't see any compelling reason to switch to ketogenic if you are not insulin resistant. I remain unconvinced that keto improves performance over high carb. On the other hand, individual response to the ketogenic diet is quite variable. Some people see a troubling shift in lipoprotein profiles. Below is from Jeff Volek's data. My 4 month experiment with keto resulted in a tripling of LDL and an increase in LDL particle number (NMR spectroscopy). Not good. Everything normalized to my normal excellent levels after going back high carb.

---

Simplify, Train, Live

I'm no scientist, but two things I have noticed are:

• HFLC and Ketogenic diets appear to be advocated with similar language to religious cults. Every time contrary evidence is raised, it is treachery, heresy, or conspiracy.
• So often they are advocated on social media by people who 5 days ago posted to their personal journey blog about how they raising their FTP so quickly to 156 watts.

Just my observations.

Kent

Like anything in life there are outliers, or extreme believers in something. I think there is value in a HFLC diet for athletes, but not all the time. I eat LC, but LC to me is still around 150g a day, I just eat it at specific times. I did a 6 week block of keto (40-50g carbs a day) about 6 months ago, felt like crap during it with my training, but after resuming using the carb intake again it made a dramatic increase in how far I could go one a certain amount of carbs vs the pre keto block. For athletes I think there is a time and a place for it, and it's not all the time, it needs to be strategically used.

Now the general population on the other hand, well IMO anyone who is overweight doesn't deserve to eat carbs, they don't need them, and they do more harm to them than good. The other day I saw an obese woman with her two young children on the day to school stop in at the service station, pick them up a chocolate milk and a chocolate bar each for breakfast. Both kids would've been under 10 and already massively overweight. Absolutely disgusting and disgraceful, it took all my will power not to say something. If overweight people started eating HFLC the world would be a much healthier place

Fair point- yes, my comment was only vis-a-vis sports performance.

And yet there is plenty of FOP athletes who are using it to achieve low to sub 9 hour ironman times.

It's nothing to do with "deserving" to eat carbs.
It's also ridiculous to suggest everyone overweight should switch to HFLC.
The solution to a bad diet and sedentary lifestyle is not an extreme diet, it's balance and easy sustainability.
Sure, eating sugary food contributes hugely to calorie cravings but too much of anything is the problem. Carbohydrates are not an inherent problem. Excessive anything is a problem.
If the people you're disapproving of were willing and able to switch to a HFLC diet, I think they'd be just as willing and able to switch to conventional balanced diet with suitable calorific intake. A suitable balanced diet would surely accomplish similar, arguably a better or slightly worse, health improvement. The obesity problem does not result from ignorance of HFLC diet concepts. It results from effectiveness of the convenience food industry's product development and marketing efforts over the past few decades and the normalisation of over-eating in western society. Especially harmful, and very much cultivated by marketing industry, is the use of consumerism including the consumption of food to provide the illusion of satisfaction in unsatisfying lives. HFLC most certainly doesn't solve these problems. I think your comments quoted above come across as incredibly simplistic, ignorant and judgmental.
If people didn't take addictive recreational drugs or drink excessive amounts of alcohol, wouldn't that be great. Oh and lets tell people it'd be best if they don't commit any crimes too. Aspiring to solving these problems is great, but I don't think over-simplification or a superior dictatorial attitude is the least bit useful.

Please explain to me how a HFLC diet causes type 2 diabetes. And further, please explain how overweight people that already have type 2 diabetes manage their condition while still eating lots of carbs. Excessive carb intake, especially high gi carb, causes type 2 diabetes.

Yes the fast food industry/sugar industry is a big part of this. But so is portion control. I think people would be far less likely to eat large portions, resulting in higher total calorie intake, if they were eating a HFLC diet. Carbs simply don't satiate the way good fats and protein do.

I kept my post simple because I didn't see the need to go into the science on this. It is a hugely complex issue. The comment about not deserving carbs I stand by. If you're carrying 30+ percent body fat, you should not be eating carbs

I think you missed my point entirely.
The current obesity crisis is not due to ignorance of HFLC diets. It's absurd to say they are the solution. You appear to be suggesting that HFLC is the easy solution that everyone is missing. Nonsense. That's like saying the solution to terrorism is Buddhism.
Sure, if everyone was a committed Buddhist, there would likely be no terrorism. But that doesn't make it a useful "solution". Why? Well obviously, many people have no interest in becoming Buddhist, and certainly not those those involved in terrorism but more importantly, those who are violent "Christians", "Muslims", "Jews" or atheists, would also be violent "Buddhists". It's an absurd fantasy not a legitimate solution.

There are any number of diets that would solve the problem. The biggest challenge is not knowing what they should eat, it's eating it.

Incidentally, why the request to justify HFLC causing type 2 diabetes? I never made such a claim or any other claim about diabetes.

Also:
No, it's a silly comment.
If you're carrying 30%+ body fat you should reduce intake in general. Your apparent obsession with eliminating carbs as opposed to reducing consumption in general is my criticism. You're prescribing specific dietary solutions to essentially societal problems. The problem is not knowing what people should eat, it's getting them to eat it. Saying they "don't deserve" food groups just makes your comments ignorant, judgmental and inflammatory.

The primary risk factor for type 2 diabetes is obesity. I'm not aware of research suggesting that what you ate to become obese matters terribly for developing the disease. Although it's important for controlling the chronic hyperglycemia that causes the complications from the disease once you have it. The second major risk factor for the disease is low aerobic fitness but it's not as important as obesity.

As I think someone else pointed out there are (or have been) any number of subsistance agriculture societies that ate a very, very carb heavy diet where type 2 diabetes was all but unknown. Probably because everyone was pretty lean from a lack of excess calories and the need to perform lots of daily physical work, so they were in good aerobic shape.

hflc is more sustainable solution because these people are addicted to carbs... there satiety chemical system and insulin regulation system are f*ed up. non damaged fats have the satiety signalling hormones to stop eating . those who do lose weight while still eating carbs have a much stronger mental will power


true, but then look at the other side athletes sponsored by carbo bloat powders hashtag instgram / whatever social media their non stop IV drip of that stuff for every training and recovery session. not a good long term sustainable diet

Sample size of 1n here.

Day before I tried Keto I timed myself holding my breathe and ran 4x800's at tempo pace.
30 days into Keto did the same tests. Breathe hold went up 60% and I ran 800's 15 sec faster and felt like I was in college (i'm 39). In short it felt effortless.

I think there is something to be said for endurance folks. I found it to be an interesting way to live and eat. Completely a pain in the ass but running those 800's while being in Keto was the best running experience i've had in years.

That's all I know.

I believe rock is making the point that most obese Americans are in fact obese because of excess carbs. They may eat too much of everything, but I wonder how many cases of obesity are solely due to excess fat and protein? I would think that it is difficult to consume fat to the point of obesity without a similar "overconsumption" of carbs. It is so much easier to drink a soda than to eat a stick of butter. Hence, the proponents of HFLC recommend cutting carbs.

I'm not a scientist nor am I sold on KD, but cutting out easy carbs makes sense to me.

---

2017 races: St. George 70.3 May 6 | Madison 70.3 June 11 | IM Zurich July 30 | Chicago Marathon October 8

Saying someone is addicted to carbs is misnomer. Not all carbs are equal and thus you can't just say all carbs are bad or all carbs are addictive. If you take time to actually look at the research you can find that quite a few studies which compare different foods (mostly related to processed vs unprocessed and the effect of refined sugar). The University of Michigan has done some good research on this topic. I'd recommend an article published in 2015 in PLOS titled "Which foods may be addictive? The Roles of Processing, Fat Content, and Glycemic Load." Their findings were that fat, high glycemic load, and highly processed foods were all positive predictors for problematic, addictive like eating. There is also research showing that the brain responds differently (on an MRI) after a person consumes glucose versus if the consume fructose. In addition, diets high in fruits and vegetables (gasp, carbs!) have shown to have better health outcomes across the board time and time again. So the big argument shouldn't be fats vs carbs vs protein, it should be processed vs unprocessed foods.

---

Matt

I tried this and found.......


Another andecdote here and some additional observations:
I modified my diet for 2 months to around 65% fat, 15% CHO and 20% protein. I lost 5lbs, had great workouts but did notice some decay of higher efforts (but wasn't really doing a lot of planned higher efforts during this time). I played around with it enough to know how to overcome the high end limitation and still reap the benefits of the lower CHO. Many of the things I noticed too are mentioned by various others in this thread. I found it manageable to maintain this eating style but may not want to do it all the time, rather during specific periods of a training cycle (at least that is how I plan to employ what I learned). Tracking my diet in MyFitnessPal was very revealing to me.

Additional observations:
Almost all the threads about a controversial subject sound the same. A few with good data and experiences that ACTUALLY TRIED IT and then a bunch of know-it alls that just argue words. Every comment should start with either "I tried this and found...." or "I didn't try this and think....." so we can more easily cut out the noise from the signal I'd encourage you to just try things, make observations and tweak things or scrap things if they aren't working.
Nutrition is a very individual thing. Research is by nature generalizable and can only give clues to what could happen in your own body, but there is NO WAY TO KNOW HOW YOU'LL REACT until you try things out yourself.

Exactly!

And more broadly, the fact of the matter is that the general population have been educated on the 'food pyramid', 'food guidelines', 'balanced diet' piece for decades now. How is that working out for them? This race is the fatest it's ever been on balance, in history!

We could continue to tell people to eat a balanced diet, with minimal success. Or rather than getting on their know it all high horse they could actually try something different, after all if people want different results it's madness to keep flogging the same donkey with mediocre results.

I've never understood this argument. I think almost no one follows the govt. recommendations for eating so to blame that for the obesity epidemic seems misguided. Not to mention we were a decade or two into the obesity epidemic when the guidelines came out that some people like to blame for the problem, which poses a bit of a logical problem.

People who are obese are not obese because they are following some misguided guidelines for a healthy diet, they've spent too much time eating whatever, which is generally fat and sugar laden calorie dense highly processed foods.

Just some general comments.

Saying that carbohydrates are bad is way too brad.
What kind of carbs are we talking about?

If you eat crappy any diet will be better and you will feel progress. It is that simple.

Saying that you should not eat to much fried food does not imply that you should replace fried food with sugar.

I am struggling finding bread here in Seattle without sugar. That is not a problem in other countries. So carbs are not equal.......

Your approach is pretty much spot on. To be honest most people do not give themselves enough time to adapt and are not willing to train slow enough or hard enough. Just a happy middle ground, all the time.

If you follow MAF principles (180 - age) and just slow down and forget the "no pain, no gain" theory you will make huge gains.

Then when it is time to go hard then go very hard. There should be no in between as it serves no purpose.

If you rev your engine every day (IE exceed the MAF heart rate levels) you will always be a sugar burner and a higher fat real food approach is not for you.

Use carbs strategically and don't be afraid to experiment. There is not a template that will suit everyone so you do need to experiment and not just go and see someone and be told what to do. Just Eat Real Food and if food is advertised it isn't actually food, just processed junk.

No, it is not obligatory to try something in order to have legitimate input. Logical argument and evidence based discussion which you would like labelled "I haven't tried this and think" are every bit as valid as "I tried and found". In fact, I would say it's far more valid. Personal experience is by definition anecdotal. There is huge potential for bias and subjective misinterpretation of data when it comes to one's own experiences. That doesn't make personal experience irrelevant, but it does as a rule on forums, make the personal experiences of others unreliable.

"a bunch of know-it-alls that just argue words"
What? I think I need more explanation of that - unfortunately that would require words!
It sounds like you're saying anyone who has a different opinion to you and who is willing to argue their point is a "know-it-all"?
And what are we supposed to argue with if not words?

http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...;;page=unread#unread

Just cross-referencing a thread that will be of interest to those following this one....

Tebow is on this diet.

Why do you hate football, baseball and Christians?

---

How does Danny Hart sit down with balls that big?

interesting and I want to contribute with my sport nutritionist suggestion: on low carb days, she told me to never go below 2gr of carbs per kg of body weight.
I weigh 65kg so i never go below 130gr of carbs

does it make sense to you?

6-weeks might not be enough for your body to fully switch, it's like 8-weeks HIT training... do you expect to win ironman after that?

Systemic changes are always longer than 6 weeks, nice study but doesn't really proof anything.

Yes - I think for an athlete that sounds reasonable. For women maybe even 20% more to ensure regular hormonal function.

---

____________________________________

Are you ready to do an Ultraman? | How I calculate Ironman race fueling | Strength Training for Athletes |

I guess what some of my points were trying to get at is that we are trying to discuss a very complex subject, human nutrition and performance. It seems that we are all putting the original research study into many different contexts and arguing from different angles. Some are talking about obesity, some are talking about general health, some are talking ketosis and some are talking low carb. EACH is a highly complex problem. In order to break it down and make the problem a bit less complex (but still very complex) maybe the context should be discussed relating to triathlon performance in yourself. Also, information must have a hierarchy of "believeability". You simply cannot give all bits of information equal weight, that means that it all matters when that is not true. My personal hierarchy puts experienced opinions above unexperienced opinions most of the time. Your hierarchy sounds like it is different than mine and that is fine if it works for you. Who is more likely to have better information if you have a question (say) about Zwift?: Someone that has read the Zwift manual only, or someone who has read the manual and spent 10 hours riding on Zwift?

Of course personal experience is biased and anecdotal. As long as that is acknowledged and you know the shortcomings from thinking about your own experience and how you COULD be mislead, biased and anecdotal evidence is what you want for YOURSELF. This is not science. Science is generalized information. This is personal experimentation and observation which is SUPPOSED to take into account who you are, biases, idiosyncrasies and all. Afterall, if we are arguing the context above (triathlon performance in YOURSELF) then that is all that matters.

Yes, you are just arguing words and ideas if there is no experience behind them. I think you are taking this a bit too literal because of course we are using words to communicate on this forum. My point is that words have less meaning (to me) when they are just stemming from uninformed opinion.

Put in context as you have here, your remarks are more reasonable (to me), but I still wouldn't agree with big chunks of it.

I don't consider your Zwift analogy applicable. It's a simple, easily understood, man-made, rule based system with no real variability most elements of which can be easily quantified. Quite the opposite to what we're talking about here I would say.

I also disagree with you about the relevance of biased and/or anecdotal evidence but some of this may come down to what's meant by those terms. Small and uncontrolled data sets or biased interpretation of the resulting information is NOT what you want for YOURSELF. Or at least it shouldn't be unless you wish to deceive yourself. I don't think that's exactly what you are suggesting though. I think you mean you are only interested in how things effect you, not someone else? However, by using a single subject on a topic with so many different variables and outputs with significant psychological and subjective aspects, I'd argue it's very difficult to be sure the information you gather really means what you think it means.

I don't quite know what you mean by "This is not science. Science is generalized information."
I think that's a misunderstanding of the use of statistics in scientific testing.

Anyway, this ancillary discussion could continue ad infinitum to no benefit, so probably best to leave it at that!