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.

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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.

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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.

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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....