What’s your opinion of it?
How long does it take to get adjusted to it?
I’ve been doing it for about 2 months now. First few days I felt horrible - like a flu. Took about 2 weeks for the cravings for sugar and grains to dissipate. After that it’s been smooth sailing and I feel better than ever. We’ll see how it goes race-wise tomorrow as I’m doing Buffalo Springs with no plans to take any gels, traditional sports drink or sugars of any kind. It could be good, it could be bad and it could lead to a spectacular blow up. Should be interesting.
I’ve tried a low carb high protein diet (protein just for hunger management). It wasn’t exactly easy but it wasn’t too terribly difficult either. Carbs in the morning, like cereal. No limit on fruit/greens. Strict limit on carbs the later the day went on. Gearing up for nationals I started carb loading. Weight loss worked up to nationals week, and felt like crud because started the carb intake. Race morning felt phenomenal though. Dropped 15 lbs in about 3 months.
well, i m curious how it will go but i m concern for you. You are going to prive yourself from the #1 source of calories for racing? racing with a bottle of honey??? why?
As an athlete, I would caution you to ensure your definition of “low carb” is consistent with your performance goals. Most athletes eat well over 500 kcals of carbs per day. You could get down to 150-200 with a bump in quality fats. There will be an adjustment period that for some people takes as long as a month to start feeling additional energy. Hard training days and races will require more carbohydrate than just day to day eating as I’m sure you already know. Unless you are looking to get into Ultra-distance running or cycling, the usefulness of trying to compete while very low carb is rather paltry. If you are seeking metabolic efficiency through the adjustment of your macro nutrient ratios in your day to day eating that’s one thing, but if you are looking to compete while in ketosis that’s another ball of wax. The first can be done rather easily, the second is a pain in the ass and will almost assuredly negatively impact performance in the long run.
For the extra calories/carbs while exercising (and not spiking blood sugar very much at all) you may wish to consider tinkering with Generation UCAN and nut butters.
I have a few athletes I work with who are on the Paleo diet (or some manifestation of it) and they are performing well. The trick is to ensure you balance the need to keep glycogen stores up while tapping into as much of your fat stores as possible.
Good luck.
I did Paleo for Athletes last year on Francois’s (coach) recommendation. A doctor would diagnose me with IBS, high FOMAD foods absolutely destroy my guts.
My will is quite weak and without an IM this year, I eat bagels, bread, and pasta… onions/beats/cauliflower/broccoli/cabbage are still a big no-no.
I still eat 3 eggs, 1 hot italian sausage, half a medium yam with salsa and a handful of spinach or kale for post workout breakfast and consider it the best meal ever.
I started this on Wednesday and felt like absolute poop for the first two days… Mostly headaches.
Much better the next two days, but really struggled on the bike today and cut it short.
Although this isn’t driven by weight, it has helped me drop over 5 lbs in 4 days… Well, weighed myself before and after the bike today and lost 1 lb… Hot here in TX. 155 lbs down to under 149, 5’10 (and yes, I needed to lose the weight, I’m usually close to 142ish, under 140 when really marathon training). Just been lazy/bad diet recently and needed a change.
I’m not doing full Ketosis or focused on “can’t have.” Just trying to keep it to about 50-60g/day of carbs. Shock to my system after an entire life of probably close to 75% of my diet being carbs (complete guess).
I lost weight really quickly, but was took me longer (a year), to dial in how much carbs I needed on a daily basis dependant on level of training. I.e. heavy training day work better with some simple/complex carbs during and complex carbs after. Just less than you probably currently have. And significantly less when doing light training, or no training. The longer I do it, and become more fat adapted, the easier it gets for longer training sessions, but it’s not an overnight thing - at least for me. If you are talking about ketosis as per what another poster mentioned, then a different ball game all together. Havent done it, but would assume it would be tough, at least for shorter than ironman events or events with more speed.
I think the Torborne Sindballe notes in Triathlete magazine from a few years ago has some basic useful info and was republished on line last week here: http://triathlon.competitor.com/2014/06/nutrition/inside-triathlon-magazine-fat-burning-machine_31034 Specifically, it’s better to go less carbs (or no carbs), during training and becoming more fat adapted over time, but you race on carbs (albiet less carbs than you probably used to use). This now seems to work for me.
Loads of information that is relevant to triathletes here: http://profgrant.com/2013/06/14/q-a-how-do-i-get-fat-adapted-and-train-for-tris/
Grant Schofield is a New Zealander than is an ex pro triathlete, who is now a professor who specializes in this area.
He’s got a post about how he trained a elite triathlete to move over to full low carb and the guy was the best age grouper (I think - read it a few months ago), using very low carbs, but amping up the gels (too many for me), during the race. WIll be somewhere on his blog if you look.
The link to fast age grouper at NZ ironman is here: http://profgrant.com/2014/03/04/how-to-win-the-ironman-on-lchf/
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If you are seeking metabolic efficiency through the adjustment of your macro nutrient ratios in your day to day eating that’s one thing, but if you are looking to compete while in ketosis that’s another ball of wax.
From the research I did a few months ago when this came up, it seems doable for some at least. But you’d need to severely restrict carbs for months initially. And suffer. Once you body gets accustomed to ketosis, you can switch back and forth more easily.
It amazes me that we have this completely different energy path that allows us to function efficiently and exercise at high intensity with no carbs… and most of us have never experienced it.
I’ve been on it for 18 months and would say that the health benefits have been incredible. I’ve summarized some basic changes that occured below…
Total Cholesterol (CHO), an increase
From 135 to 186… but looking closer…
HDL (good CHO) has skyrocketed from 86.5 to 112, LDL (Bad CHO) has dropped from 91.5 to 66. Changing HDL/LDL ratio in a very positive way.
Triglycerides
From 112 reduced to 39.
TSH (thyroid) from 2.1 to 1.5 - good reduction.
Without repeating the rest of the comments in this thread, I would suggest that you get a blood panel completed beforehand so you can get a baseline measurement to assess improvements from the change. I used WellnessFX baseline which is comprehensive enough to get info on HDL/LDL ratio’s, Triglyceride levels and a few more relevant markers. Test before the diet and at 6 months in.
For training, I would suggest starting the diet at the end of your season and gradually becoming accustomed to it. The usual sugar withdrawal will occur.
Low carb doesn’t mean no carb. You need to refuel post exercise to save yourself from hormonal meltdown and poor recovery.
Some good web resources are…
http://www.optimumnutrition4sport.com/
http://www.bengreenfieldfitness.com/search/ketogenic+ironman
Welcome to the world of butter coffee and tasty food!
I hate to ask this, but would eating the foods on… Ben Greenfield’s… “superhuman” food pyramid be a good way to follow a high fat low carb diet, or is it just overly neurotic? Has anybody taken a look at it?
I only paid $1 for it ok? Don’t laugh.
I also managed not to get tricked into buying one of his magical accessories…
I hate to ask this, but would eating the foods on… Ben Greenfield’s… “superhuman” food pyramid be a good way to follow a high fat low carb diet, or is it just overly neurotic? Has anybody taken a look at it?
I paid $1 for it ok? Don’t laugh.
I managed not to get tricked into buying one of his magical accessories also!!!
http://s722.photobucket.com/.../TheOneRing.jpg.html]
Ben provides some pretty solid nutrition advice, but I would agree he can be a bit too far in the weeds. But in general his food pyramid is sound.
http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com.au/2014/06/calorie-intake-and-body-fatness-on-high.html?m=1
Some reading on the topic.
Diets are as polarizing as religion. I got turned onto Peter Attila’s HFLC eating recommendations in January. I was plumpy for me (189 lbs) in January. I lost 20 lbs in 3 months. I felt like absolute shit for a month. Riding the bike was like having a full bonk the entire ride. But I stuck with it and anymore, I feel great. I do 3-4 hour rides on water and no food with not issues at all.
As a society, we’ve become far too simple carb/sugar oriented. Your specific body makeup will greatly impact how you react to the diet. I’m a carboholic, my wife is a proteinite. She didn’t loose any weight, I lost a bunch. Again, it depends.
I agree, he sells everything way too hard which is a big turn off and is hard to stomach, but…
That shouldn’t take away from how interesting his ketosis experiment when Ironman racing was, and the subsequent study he took part in which looked at ketogenic athletes. Particularly considering that this was thread related to HFLC and Triathlon.
A ponigent question is: where was the weight lost?
Not all weight loss is created equal.
4% measured body fat loss.
Well 20lbs from 189lbs is over 10% BW loss. What was the rest?
I’m on Low Carb High Fat. Personally I am on the ketogenic diet, but with clients I recommend lower carb (especially when away from training) and higher fat from proper fat sources.
I have been on a LCHF diet for around 5 years and Ketogenic for 2-3 now.
What I have learned/gained.
- Weight down from 75-80 to 67kg at 6’1 race weight. Very lean but healthily so.
- Significant increase in endurance, but I have also trained more in this time. However I can definitely do a lot more on very little.
- Race speeds increased/performance, but again confounding factors from better quality training.
- No more highs and lows in energy, its a complete constant now.
- I use a starch based carb in races, no more sickness from gels etc.
- My skin, hair, every metric I can use/see for body health has improved. I wake up every morning with bags of energy.
- I can go a whole day without eating and not notice, my body just seems happy.
- Far more enjoyment of food - which would you rather, 12 hour pulled pork or porridge?
What I have struggled with.
- Carrying food, sandwiches are easier for work etc. but salads are ok.
- Race day nutrition. This took me a while to nail, but now it is I am doing the best I can do!
- Eating out. I struggled with the idea of eating a restaurants, using veg oils and all the crap stuff. But now I accept I can control 99% of my diet, I just have to accept that I can’t control this one.
Good luck!
And If you fancy a nutrition session over email/skype let me know.
Or have a quick look at the website for a slideshow with some tips.