I’m flirting with beginning a keto diet now that I’m in my off season. Looking to drop 10-15lbs or so before Ironman specific training ramps up again in January and quite frankly, pretty curious about all the talk around keto. I’m not convinced keto will be realistic once the mileage ramps up later into the build phase, but I’m curious if anyone else has done something silimar, or have even trained for an IM eating keto?
This discussion has been going on over in the other forum, not exactly sure why it is there and not here, but it has been lively and going on for awhile:
I did keto before it was cool. It works, but like any diet you need to control the transition back to normal. I like carbs too much to seriously give it another try.
If you are in my AG then please do Keto.
By the time the season roles around your thyroid will be shot and testosterone in your boots.
Keto with minimal training is fine
High carb on Ironman training is fine.
Keto on Ironman training is a massive mistake
High carb on minimal training is a mistake
Match carbs to training, it ALWAYS works
And on this Dave Scott is so far wrong it’s untrue. Phil Maffetone couldn’t even convince Mark Allen to do it.
Unfortunately the impressionable Pete Jacobs spoke to Phil and did Keto on IM training. We all saw the result.
Need to drop some weight. It will take a good year or 2 to drop that weight, take it slow and address your food habits
If you are in my AG then please do Keto.
By the time the season roles around your thyroid will be shot and testosterone in your boots.
Keto with minimal training is fine
High carb on Ironman training is fine.
Keto on Ironman training is a massive mistake
High carb on minimal training is a mistake
Match carbs to training, it ALWAYS works
And on this Dave Scott is so far wrong it’s untrue. Phil Maffetone couldn’t even convince Mark Allen to do it.
Unfortunately the impressionable Pete Jacobs spoke to Phil and did Keto on IM training. We all saw the result.
Need to drop some weight. It will take a good year or 2 to drop that weight, take it slow and address your food habits
Thyroid , testosterone, won’t be shot. Hormones are made from fat and protein which on keto you eat a lot of. Only anaerobic ability will decrease.
Read over what TriBryan wrote thoroughly and carefully.
Do NOT be swayed by anything else.
My wife and I have been coaching a few athletes who seem to be all caught up in the Keto hype . . . it’s not gone well for them. Despite all the information out there to the contrary. Despite, me having a, albeit undergraduate degree in Human Physiology with a minor in Nutrition and passing on what I thought about it all, despite sending on articles and studies from far more learned people than I, these athletes STILL thought Keto was some kind of secret bullet - until they nearly ran themselves into the ground with it! Sometimes people need to figure these things out on their own.
If you are training for triathlon at a moderate level of effort and above (10 hours a week or more), carbohydrates HAVE TO BE a moderate to large part of what you eat every day and while training!
You might also want to look into recent research.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180828085922.htm
.
IME, (Doctor working with high performing athletes) you are wrong.
Keto is a pseudostarvation state. At some point the body reacts. Sometimes it’s a week, sometimes a month, or 6.
I should know, I did it to myself!
Ask Ben Greenfield, he did his best to hack the Keto diet and IM training and it took him 2 years to recover his thyroid
Care to provide your credentials?
Don’t do a diet. Make meaningful change to your diet and lifestyle that will last a lifetime. It doesn’t happen overnight baby steps every day you’ll be there before you know it
Keto with minimal training is fine
** **This guy might not agree with you.
Please don’t link me anything with Volek and Phinney in it.
We ‘real’ researchers have a fairly low opinion of those gents.
Phinney fudged so many of his numbers I bet he can’t even remember what the originals showed.
Volek has a hand in Superstarch, a placebo sold to low carb athletes, conflict of interest much?
If the linked guy is zach bitter he is low carb and definitely not Keto. There is a huge difference.
Next…
**Please don’t link me anything with Volek and Phinney in it. **
**If the linked guy is zach bitter he is low carb and definitely not Keto. There is a huge difference. **
But it was Jeff Volek who convinced Zach to change to a low carb diet, maybe he did have some input.
https://blog.mapmyrun.com/surprising-diet-trick-fastest-man-run-100-miles/
Given the current state of health in the Western world maybe we need someone to look at an alternative approach. It may or may not be best for endurance athletes but I certainly am not dismissing it out of hand.** **If the OP wants to try something different, he could at least look at it.
https://blog.mapmyrun.com/surprising-diet-trick-fastest-man-run-100-miles/
If you are in my AG then please do Keto.
By the time the season roles around your thyroid will be shot and testosterone in your boots.
Keto with minimal training is fine
High carb on Ironman training is fine.
Keto on Ironman training is a massive mistake
High carb on minimal training is a mistake
Match carbs to training, it ALWAYS works
And on this Dave Scott is so far wrong it’s untrue. Phil Maffetone couldn’t even convince Mark Allen to do it.
Unfortunately the impressionable Pete Jacobs spoke to Phil and did Keto on IM training. We all saw the result.
Need to drop some weight. It will take a good year or 2 to drop that weight, take it slow and address your food habits
1-2 YEARS to lose 10-15 pounds? At a modest 500 cal/day deficit, that’s more like a matter of weeks. Three months at the outside.
You might also want to look into recent research.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180828085922.htm
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32252-3/abstract
IME, (Doctor working with high performing athletes) you are wrong.
Keto is a pseudostarvation state. At some point the body reacts. Sometimes it’s a week, sometimes a month, or 6.
I should know, I did it to myself!
Ask Ben Greenfield, he did his best to hack the Keto diet and IM training and it took him 2 years to recover his thyroid
Care to provide your credentials?
You might also want to look into recent research.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180828085922.htm
https://www.thelancet.com/…(17)32252-3/abstract
Complementary… One points out that you have a higher risk of getting heart disease with one diet, the other points out that you will die faster with the other diet. Pick your own poison 
Putting the diet to one side; what % of your existing bodyweight is that 10-15lbs? M/F? Probably more relevant.
Why do people make this so complicated?
For general diet - read up on the thoughts of Michael Pollan
For endurance sports training and racing at moderate levels and above - keto is NOT helping you. Carbohydrates NEED to be a part of the diet everyday, and in training.
I had to retire from racing / training due to an autoimmune disease last year. And after wallowing aimlessly through life and putting on about 7 pounds in 5 months, I decided to try keto (Jan 1, 2018), in an effort to quickly lose 5 pounds before my Mexican beach vacation. I’m female, 53, starting point of 5’5" - 131 lbs. Please note, I have no ability or desire to return to Ironman level racing, so it is a case of IDGAF about the aftermath. For the record I had podiumed at IMAZ, 70.3s and did 70.3 worlds. I actually still do very low carb, as I found my digestive system is INFINITELY happier NOT eating sugar / carbs.
Here’s my experience and my activity.
Lift 2 / 3 X per week (pullups, pushups, squats, lunges, crossfit like lifting). Nothing heavy. 2x back surgeries prevents heavy leg weights. Ride 2x per week around an hour / 90 mins. Run 2/3x per week around 40-80 minutes.
Week 1 and 2: Felt okay. Somedays I had crazy crack like levels of energy. No effect to running or riding, sometimes lightheaded when lifting. Very thirsty, leg cramps (water and needed potassium / magnesium supplements) most of the whole experiment.
Week 3 and 4: The struggle bus pulled up, and I got on. Runs become death marches, esp after 30 minutes, just no bueno, out of gas. I could make it 40 minutes on my trainer. Heart rate was ridiculously high. Intervals, FT stuff, take the nope train to fuckthatville. Lifting was actually the only thing that I could do, but my recovery was non-existent. My muscles hurt much longer than normal due to lack of glycogen (refueling with cheese, well, no, it doesn’t work).
Week 5-7: Started to adjust, but still runs avg about a minute per mile slower, completely out of gas around 40 minutes. Bike got better, could go back to the full hour or even longer on the trainer, and even some days did the intervals. However, power decreased easily by about 20%. Again, no issue with weights.
I did lose 5 pounds in this time frame, but already being relatively fit, it was all i was looking to do.
So here’s what my experiment tells me. There is NO FUCKING WAY you can train with the same pace and power in a ketogenic state. I would never recommend anyone half serious about doing triathlon or any endurance sport adopt this way of eating. Unless you like feeling like shit, walking on your runs, unable to recover.
Now, considering you are doing it off season, just be prepared to suck at everything, except maybe the gym.
Don’t do a diet. Make meaningful change to your diet and lifestyle that will last a lifetime. It doesn’t happen overnight baby steps every day you’ll be there before you know it
agree with this. people always want the quick magical fix. it’s developing good habits. I don’t eat nearly healthy enough but it’s a work in progress and I just start small and keep working on improving it. there is always some other magic bullet “solution”. keto is not the first. it won’t be the last.
This is great, thanks for posting.