You have the answer. Cut the crap from your daily nutrition. Fuel your workouts with carbs.

^^^ what he said. It's marketing crap. Cut the simple sugars in your diet except for energy drinks during your LONGEST training rides and runs. Eat complex carbs at about 65-70% of your calories, and track the sugars in your foods by adding only your own.

Example: oatmeal with raisins and a bit of brown sugar is fine, bc you know what you put in it, as opposed to some cereals and most bread, that has added sugars. Don't drink ANY fruit juices, because they have many times he amount of sugars you'd get from whol fruits, and not much more nutrients. Go from there, and you'll be well on your way.

"Paleo" is also crap. Very little of what you can buy in the meat section is at all like what humans ate long ago. Unless you can eat lots of venison, wild turkey, goose, bison, wild rabbit, and wild-caught fish, you won't find anything similar to ancient diets. But that's not even the main criticism: humans all over the world across thousands of generations have eaten remarkably varied diets. Inuit, !Kung, Andaman Islanders, Polynesians, Lapps, Maasai, Celts, etc etc etc, ate whatever they could find, with huge variety between populations across millennia. Humans are omnivores, and make do with what they find or can grow.

This literally can not be overstated: intake vs. expenditure. It's really as simple as that. And for the love of god, solid advice for life would be to do exactly the opposite of what Gary Taubes tells you to do. His explanation of how insulin influences storage and liberation of fuel made my fucking head explode.
If you're serious about structuring a weight loss program, check out Power Eating by Susan Kleiner. I think they're on a 4th edition now, but I largely still operate on the information in edition 1. And regardless of whether or not you have a background in biochemistry and nutrition, you'll learn a lot from the book. Good luck, I know it can be frustrating, particularly with people like Taubes passing on misinformation as fact.

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I was actually surprised how bad the podcast with Mark Sisson was in terms of wrong information.
The guy has written a keto book yet seems to know nothing about ketosis.

Does ketosis make you more metabolically flexible? NO! It makes you inflexible the other way!
Does it burn more fat? NO! Ketones inhibit lipolysis.

Etc.

The Taubes interview was actually better, but still with considerable bias.
Yes, Sugar is a massive problem as it's pretty addictive.

Try making the minimal change, take all the junk food out of the diet, then add a few bits of comfort food back in if you want to at the right times, I.e. After a hard workout would be a good time.
See how you feel.

Then start there. Eat clean, keep your protein intake reasonable, cut all crap, cut carbs when you don't need them. Have you realistically done that for several months and waited for the results?

Also, don't just start adding random things to your diet. Fat coffee? Just adding fat to a random meal without other adaptations is a sure way to make you gain weight. More calories in, same calories out? Weight gain. Simple math.

since no one else said it

#1 issue to fix first dont listen to that podcast.

To lose %bf, I’d start with not adding fat to my coffee, but that's just me.

This.

Not listening to those three in general is also a good idea. There are no secrets. There are no shortcuts.

All very fair points. Last June, I tracked my calories for a week. I realized I was drinking 9,000 calories of wine (and this was my normal intake, not a special occasion). All wine, every night, up to #234. Yeah, so it was a problem. I quit cold turkey on June 2, and haven’t had a drink since. I took my life back, dusted off my bike, and signed up for some races. About that time, my wife got a Keto book from a friend. I started the coffee with MCT, cacao butter, collegen peptides, and hemp seeds. I have that, and I’m full until like 1:00pm. I also noticed that I was not just drinking 2 bottles of wine each night (told you it was a problem....) for the alcohol, but had developed a carb addiction. For the last 6 months I have had ice cream every night instead. As I say it out loud, I can see how lame it’s been.
Fast forward to this week. I’ve been really great getting back into shape, and my CTL is steady at 50 for now. My weight loss stalled, but I think I can see the issues. Like a moth to something shiny, I heard those podcasts while driving to UC Berkeley this week. Looking for something new, I thought “this is going to fix me”.
Maybe I should have put all that in the first post. The generally consensus here is enough for me. Clean, high-quality foods, and fuel for the workouts.
Now can someone explain why I can’t exceed 144 heart rate on ANY run or Phil Maffatone says I won’t get any faster??????

You either have a knack for selecting cranks for your advice, or you're trolling. First Greenfield, now Maffetone.

Just keep running, build your base, and as you lose weight and gain fitness your max HR will raise. Or, as a venerable old ST poster whose name I forget, once said: "Speedwork is the icing on the cake, and you don't have a cake yet".

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Citizen of the world, former drunkard. Resident Traumatic Brain Injury advocate.

I wouldn't take nutrition advice on Slowtwitch. You'll get a lot of n=1 examples.

If you want a good discussion of the role of carbs and fat in your diet, check on Dr. Jason Fung.

The comment was actually made in jest. I forgot the pink....

I havent had a chance to read all the responses you have got here.

I use hflc to improve my performance but note for athletes that does not mean keto. keto will not help you achieve anything other than breaking you.

There is a balance, for me its in the 50-100g of carbs a day range, normally a bit closer to 50 but 100 on higher intensity days.

Good luck.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdMOsnILT00

This is a video by Dr. Andy Galpin on Carbs vs Fats. There is a lot of confusion on the subject and a lot of people making the confusion even worse.

While I haven't looked through diet research recently I do remember that the majority of diets work bc people watch the # of calories consumed and tend to make healither food choices while on these "diets".

IOW stop eating shit and eat healthier while watching the total amount you eat.

It's basic math. Ingestion needs to be < expenditure. If the amount you eat is > the amount you're expending you're gaining weight.

9,000 cal from wine a week...impressive, very impressive. How many bottles is that?...asking for a friend

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

I drank 2 bottles/night, 7 days/week for a few years This summer I woke up, decided to stop killing myself and quit that day. I was in a nose dive, but pulled up with my marriage and job in tact. Now I have to rebuild my health. Seriously not trolling. Just have a lot to learn.
Just finished 8 mile run in a balanced brunch and feel amazing. No fat coffe, and I didn’t need a bathroom halfway through...

Unless you have chloroplasts, this is it, right here. People seem to want to complicate the solution, but regardless of the macronutrient composition, net caloric balance dictates the flux of body fat stores. That's the end of the story. Of course, personal anecdotes are largely meaningless, but I'll share mine anyway. I hate spending money on expensive (healthy) food, so I buy almost exclusively based upon calories per dollar. To that end, my most common carbohydrate sources are walmart brand pop tarts, bulk pasta, rice and ice cream. Of course, my micronutrient profile is abysmal, but that has nothing to do with body composition. I'm too cheap to eat salads and designer healthy foods. They're delicious, but I can't justify it.

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For weight management, it's a reasonable starting point. But food provides way more than just energy. Plant matter and fibre for gut health. Oils (fish/vegetable, not fat) for nerve myelination. Proteins for building blocks. Your body doesn't process them all in exactly the same way, so calories in vs. calories out isn't necessarily true.

But back to basics. Dieting is crap. Just eat well. We aren't all supposed to be the same size.

Eat Food.
Not Too Much.
Mostly Plants.

Totally. But if we're exclusively discussing body composition, specifically the dynamics of adipose storage vs. liberation, the only players in the formula are macronutrient intake and caloric expenditure....because mammals neither create nor excrete calories (with the exception of several metabolic disorders). Like you wisely pointed out though, it would be a miserable idea to formulate a diet plan where macronutrient composition is the only factor.

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A person after my own heart!!! I too buy foods based on calories per dollar expended. I buy Kroger brand cola and Mtn Dew, de-fizz it, and use it for long workouts and as a recovery drink. Typically they are $0.75 per 2 liters (67.6 oz), and they have 100-130 cal/8 oz so about 845-1100 cal/$0.75 = 1125-1465 cal/$1.00. also, recently i bought some choc chip cookie mix and made 3000 cal of cookies for $2.00, or 1500 cal.$1.00. First time i've ever made my own cookies. I buy Ramen noodles, bulk chicken at $0.69/lb, WalMart hamburger patties at 1.49-1.90/lb, etc. Just can't see spending too much money on food.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

That's hilarious! I just yesterday walked out of Kroger with two 2lb slabs of refrigerated cookie dough (peppermint and sugar cookie!) for $1.50 each! I didn't even bother looking at the calories because I knew they were a freaking steal.
Anything more than about 1000kcal per dollar is a perfectly legitimate menu item as far as I'm concerned. And yeah, when I was a poor graduate student, Ramen was my gold standard for caloric efficiency.
You know, if you think you'd use it, you should pick up a bread maker. A 25# bag of flour is ~$5 or $6, putting home made bread at something like 6000 or 8000kcal per dollar. And it's freaking delicious! Best birthday gift I got that year. No kidding, it's a great buy.

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

I could never get away with eating crap while watching out for CICO alone and stay lean. Macronutrient ratios and sugar intake makes a huge difference.
Weight management by itself I could probably swing, though... As long as I did watch the calories, since there's no way around it. But never tried.

Diets of elite athletes to apply to average Joe recreational athletes, especially when they gained a good amount of pudge to earn a metabolic disorders. Thus low carb / keto would be perfect for this guy to get to race weight. Once hitting that weight bring back the carbs reasonably. Annoying how lots of fatso out there want to brag about there 300w FTP pounding down sugar-ade drinks yet are near 300lb . The 3 month performance loss will be worth the speed gain for your race

The thread title may as well have been about gun control. It's often a hotly debated topic.

The book I'm following is for people who have to train on minimum time allowances. It doesn't recommend keto for life/time crunched folks. But it also does not write off its merits either.

Let's be clear though, low carb can simply mean getting yourself into a proper well rounded diet to begin with. As most non athletes and some athletes diets have way more carbs than necessary to begin with.

I'm an example of that. I was always pounding the beers back at night, lots of poor portioning of my meals (too many carbs vs. veggies or lean protein). Poor snack choices (chips). Poor breakfast choices, carby breads/cereals and no protein. Always was having gatorade mix in the bidons.

I went from 181 to 170 pretty easy without diet. Now to get to 158 and falling, I had to change it up. I'm pretty sure now that I pay attention, I only eat about 1/3 the carbs I used to. I feel I'm only down to a "proper" or normal carb diet now.

So when you make bread, how many loaves do you bake at a time, and how long does it take to make the loaves??? Did your bread-maker come with loaf-shaped pans??? Interesting idea as i do eat a lot of bread, about 6-8 slices/day. I just buy the Kroger bread at an avg price of 1.10/loaf, so at 24 slices*60 cal/slice = 1440/1.10 =1310 cal/1.00 but that's high compared to your 6000-8000 cal/1.00. What various ingredients do you put in your basic white bread??? Flour, yeast, water, and...???

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

I copied a quick (very old and very lame) video demonstration below. They usually make a single, 2lb loaf. Basic ingredients for plain white bread are flour, sugar, yeast, water, oil and salt. There are tons of recipe books and websites available that specifically deal with bread machines, but each bread maker also comes with a handful of recipes. And you can get as fancy as you like: parmesan and cracked black pepper, pesto, garlic/onion, cinnamon raisin, etc. My sister uses it for pizza dough because the kneading and rising is automated. My brother makes a killer sage and sausage bread. Aside from my microwave, it's probably my next most useful "maker".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNVg_I0IlPw

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

Good quality bread like sourdough does not need oil

Very interesting, thanks. That video was quite OK IMO, not too lame. :) So, changing subjects, what have you found to be the cheapest source of protein??? I think my 10-lb bags of chicken at 0.69/lb, or about 1.00/lb of meat when you take out the bones, is the cheapest i've found. I burned out on it though and so don't have a bag to calculate the grams of protein per dollar. Personally, i find ground beef to be the most "satisfying" and it goes for $1.40 to 1.90 per lb at WalMart. Do you ever find hamburger at lesser prices??? Or do you know of a cheaper protein source??? Milk is a pretty cheap source also.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Canned tuna or eggs are going to be the cheapest protein on a grams per dollar basis

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Matt

Ah, thanks. I don't care much for tuna but I'll load up on eggs tomorrow when we go to the grocery store!!!

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

As cheap as I am with carbohydrates and fats, I kind of just bite the bullet with protein. I drink a lot of milk and eat a variety of chicken preparations, from boneless skinless, which is never more than 1.99/lb here, to leg/thigh combos to whole roasters, like you mentioned. Pork loins and ham occasionally go on sale for less than $2/lb, but unfortunately beef tends to be pretty expensive and rarely goes on sale. I also have a big chest freezer, and if there's a really substantial sale, I'll kind of load that thing up. Also, if you have a Gordon Food Service, or other bulk distributor, cheeses and cottage cheese can be pretty cheap. I consider anything under ~45g of protein per dollar to be a viable option, but if milk, for example, doesn't make that cut it's still going to end up in my cart.

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https://connect.garmin.com/modern/profile/domingjm

We're on the same page here as $2.50/lb is my cut-off for meats and cheeses. Speaking of milk, I too drink a fair amount of it and milk in my area generally passes the 45 g/1.00 test; at $2.69/gal and 8 g protein/8 oz milk, that's about 47.6 g/1.00.

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"Anyone can be who they want to be IF they have the HUNGER and the DRIVE."

Many people unknowingly suffer metobolic syndrome since it seems being fat is accepted as the norm. Thus first repair the body... Not much exercise needed http://bigthink.com/...n-diet-with-exercise

French baguette:

Water
Salt
(Fresh) Yeast
Wheat

That's it. No oil. No sugar...

The problem is you can't seem to get a good baguette outside of France.

I've found several spots in the US with good baguette.
One DC bakery I can think of. Couple of spots in Seattle and SF too.

What bakery in DC?

Paul has pretty decent baguette. So does Boulangerie Christophe. You can find better in Paris but they are still good.

I'll be in the area in the next few days and give them a shot.

For the last 7-8 years, I have kept a pretty primal low-carb diet. I have experimented with keto, zero-carb, and intermittent fasting - and trained in all of these conditions.

I personally have found great benefits in training my body to not rely on a constant stream of carbs coming into my system. I suppose that means that I have become more "fat adapted." This is a gradual process and it takes a lot of time for your body (and metabolic machinery) to adapt, but I think it's worth it in the long haul -- in sport but also in life. It's very liberating not to have to eat carbs every few hours, and I have experienced cognitive benefits as well.

Everybody is different. I seem to have adapted pretty well to this, but I know a lot of people have trouble and it takes longer for them to get used to it.

I would definitely recommend experimenting with training in fasted or carb-depleted states. Start with shorter, easier workouts, and then go from there. Even if it doesn't workout perfectly, you'll learn that you won't die without carbs and you may gain a psychological edge in your racing.

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TRIATHLON ART FOR YOUR PAIN CAVE: https://www.matthewmillerart.com/...art?category=Ironman

I would recommend...... you do what works for you! I went Keto about a month and a half ago. Went from 188 to 167. I’m 29 years old, reasonably fit and athletic. I graduated HS at 182 and have been there for really the last 10 years (gained a few lbs in 2017). Now I feel light as a feather. I’m waiting to see what this does to my training! Time will tell. Also for what it’s worth I dislike Greenfield, his “Keto” race was aided by Coke every 15 minutes. Ehhh.

I have been doing Keto for a week because my wife wanted to try it. I was curious as to the effect it would have on my training. I lost 8 lbs this week. I was 5'8" and 147 lbs, so IMO I didn't really have 8 lbs to lose... I would say that the diet definitely works. I personally am going to have to start eating a lot more (even though I am never hungry now) to maintain weight, which is okay with me as I like to eat.

Been thinking about Keto and even bought a book a few years ago which overwhelmed me.
Is there a "Keto For Dummies" kind of resource available? Or, more generally, what are some good resources to help understand the diet requirements?
Thanks!

scroll down from here https://www.healthline.com/...t-101#foods-to-avoid

My 2c - You should absolutely, 100% try LCHF. It may not work wonders for you, it may not be compatible with your lifestyle, it won’t be the forever answer to managing your weight (unless it somehow really, really works for you & your lifestyle).

But it’s a great way to learn about carbs and your body, and a great way to force yourself to take control of your diet and find radically different ways to shop, prepare, eat & relate to food.

And if your carb metabolism is in a stressed, unhealthy, or otherwise damaged state (I.e. some level of pre-diabetic) then you’re almost certain to lose a lot of weight fast. And again, if you’re in that state, then a period of very low carb is probably the only realistic way to do so.

Then when you’re done with teally LCHF, you’ll have to learn a whole new diet that isn’t so restrictive and allows some carbs. Keto isn’t a forever diet for many people, and as it’s been said, it’s far from an optimal performance diet (except as far as it helps you regulate your weight).

That last step is a transition that most people mess up, I’m my experience. I know I have. But getting it right is the key to making all this work in the long run.

Best of luck with whatever strategy you end up trying.

This is a good idea! Keto not only promotes weight loss but also has plenty of health benefits. Above all, it can help reduce the risk of health conditions like cancer, acne, diabetes, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s disease. You can check this article https://betterme.world/...es/keto-diet-basics/ for details. I've been on Keto for about a year and feel well. It is definitely worth trying.

Considering that ketone bodies come from fatty acids, this is a bizarre statement. Please expand on this.

Your other advice of removing junk and making gradual changes seem reasonable enough.

I did a little bit of research on Keto when I first hear about it. I knew I person who had used it successful to qualify and compete at Kona and he followed the LCHF diet very strictly and had some good insight and advise. I also found two very informative case study/test/research articles on low Carb diets that also had some good insight and advise. All the information I got lead me to the conclusion that if you have special dietary restriction like being diabetic, glucose intolerant, or have celiac disease that it is something that you should try, but that Keto would no improve your performance so carbs is the best option for most people. I do fine with carbs, so I decided to not go the Keto route. Yes, I have bonked at races, and yes there is a greater chance of blowing up in long races when you are using carbs, but the longest races I have done is a 70.3 and the last time I did one of those was before Covid. For sprint or Olympic races I don't have to refuel to make it to the finish like so Keto doesn't even come into play in those events. It might start to come into play in 70.3 events and defiantly in 140.6 races. But I am not doing them and when (if) I do carbs will still be the best for me since I don't have dietary limitations.