A boat full of carbs

AstraMonti · 25-09-2015 11:28am

AstraMonti wrote: »

A friend is asking me for a nutritionist as he doesn't have time to research it himself (aka lazy fecker). Any recommendations for dublin based nutrionists?

Just some good news on that. I brought him in the LCHF world and he couldn't be happier. He lost more than 20 kgs in the last 3 months without lifting a finger. Apart from light walking, the only difference was his diet. He came by the house yesterday and he looked so much better and he never feels hungry.

ford2600 · 19-10-2015 8:08pm

http://sigmanutrition.com/episode86/

23mins on is interesting especially for lads doing racing

Anyone want to go guinea pig on the ketone salts:D

AstraMonti · 27-10-2015 9:57am

For anyone who got scared over the weekend about how much bacon they are eating, this article put things into perspective.. http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2015/10/world-health-organisation-meat-cancer/

ford2600 · 27-10-2015 12:27pm

AstraMonti wrote: »

For anyone who got scared over the weekend about how much bacon they are eating, this article put things into perspective.. http://www.zoeharcombe.com/2015/10/world-health-organisation-meat-cancer/

From a leaf through same as this article in many ways. Colpo's article is kinda prophetic, replace Harvard with WHO and report reads similarly.

http://anthonycolpo.com/red-meat-will-kill-you-and-other-assorted-fairy-tales/

His lchf articles are interesting if contrary to most here.

Expect a week or two of defending your lifestyle and why you are killing yourself

ford2600 · 09-11-2015 11:33am

http://www.metabolismjournal.com/article/S0026-0495(15)00334-0/fulltext

Volek & Pinney's study on keto athletes, fat oxidation far in excess of what was thought possible with no variance with control hc atheletes in terms of glycogen level. From hearing of study previously Zach Bitter, can run 2.40 marathon pace completely on fat!!

Barry Murray on Power of Subtraction; less is more, just do it is cliff notes
http://www.primal3.org/primal-3-podcast-episode-2-the-power-of-subtraction/

http://sigmanutrition.com/episode92/

Includes 2 year study of non obese individuals eating 25% below maintenance, all health markers improve and subjects typically feel better and continue new lifestyle after study in the main.

Choose saturated fat (and monounsaturated according to article) for cooking rather than poly is now getting attention
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11981884/Cooking-with-vegetable-oils-releases-toxic-cancer-causing-chemicals-say-experts.html

Paul Kiernan · 20-11-2015 6:55pm

Notwork Error wrote: »

Consider that glycogen contributes 20% of energy needs towards walking. Those claims are complete BS.

Have you read any of this thread?

AstraMonti · 23-11-2015 5:16pm

Interesting news, http://www.cochrane.org/CD005051/VASC_wholegrain-cereals-for-coronary-heart-disease

AstraMonti · 01-12-2015 10:29am

At last they are moving towards the right direction

http://www.cell.com/abstract/S0092-8674(15)01481-6

Here, we continuously monitored week-long glucose levels in an 800-person cohort, measured responses to 46,898 meals, and found high variability in the response to identical meals, suggesting that universal dietary recommendations may have limited utility.

snoopytoop · 12-12-2015 1:52am

The real life evidence has proven what you quoted about "universal dietary limitations to have limited utilities" to be incorrect. ALL the blue zone populations on earth (where a high percentage of people reach the age of 90) eat a high carbohydrate, low protein, low to moderate fat diet. Their diets are low in animal products and typically around 75% carbohydrate. University studies have uses but real life evidence from multiple populations is better.
You don't have to agree with me, but I think high fat is BS.

Vincenzo Nibbly · 16-12-2015 4:34pm

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139817

"This trial-level meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials comparing LoCHO diets with LoFAT diets in strictly adherent populations demonstrates that each diet was associated with significant weight loss and reduction in predicted risk of ASCVD events. However, LoCHO diet was associated with modest but significantly greater improvements in weight loss and predicted ASCVD risk in studies from 8 weeks to 24 months in duration. These results suggest that future evaluations of dietary guidelines should consider low carbohydrate diets as effective and safe intervention for weight management in the overweight and obese, although long-term effects require further investigation."

MediaMan · 21-12-2015 4:40pm

Vincenzo Nibbly wrote: »

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0139817

"This trial-level meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials comparing LoCHO diets with LoFAT diets in strictly adherent populations demonstrates that each diet was associated with significant weight loss and reduction in predicted risk of ASCVD events."

I don't disagree with this, in fact I think it bears out anecdotal evidence from friends, family, etc.

However, there's something funny going on here. At the abstract level, if I have a diet that's composed of 3 macronutrient groups, and I get health benefits from reducing my intake of group 1 OR group 2, then that says to me that this is not the whole story.

Either:

1. The benefit is actually from increasing my intake of group 3 food (in this case protein) to compensate for the reduction.
OR
2. The benefit is from something else, that is not adequately described by the term "Low Carb" or "Low Fat".

I think this is mostly about #2 - the "something else" hypothesis. If I go Low Carb, I am unlikely to compensate by going for a massive increase in trans-fat intake. Likewise if I go Low Fat, I will not make up for it by living on refined carbs (although I guess some people might).

Although there are big differences between low carb and low fat, the common ground (with good versions of these diets) is that people focus on eating natural, unprocessed food, and my hypothesis is that this is why both approaches are beneficial.

doozerie · 21-12-2015 6:06pm

TLDR: I dunno. *musings* *more musings* No, I still don’t know. Aren’t Dublin houses ****e though.

After a couple of years of being on a (version of) LCHF diet about the only thing that I can say conclusively is that, while I see real benefits for me since moving to this diet, I honestly don’t know why. I have various theories, but they are really just educated guesses at best.

One of my theories is that I simply wasn’t getting the nutritional benefit of all the food I used to pile into me. I’d eat high-carb foods all day long, people sometimes remarked that the volume of food I’d eat was out of proportion to my size. I was certainly burning off some of it, but my body was also very good at getting rid of it, I was constantly reminded that the human system is simply a tube with openings at each end. So my theory was that the food was not staying in my system long enough for all of the nutrients to be extracted, my rate of consumption was effectively running just to stand still. Things have slowed a lot on a low carb diet, maybe I’m getting more of the full benefit of the food I consume now.

For me the definition of an LCHF diet remains a bit of a mystery too, which muddies things further. The closest I’ve seen to a definition of *strict* LCHF is a diet where you consume less than 20g carbs per day. I don’t aim for that, an average day for me is between 50g and 70g carbs, some days I hit 100g which would have committed LCHF advocates chasing me with crucifixes and burning torches. So by at least one definition I’m not even close to being on a strict LCHF diet, I’m half-heartedly and lazily dabbling, or something, at best.

So I’m seeing benefits without being on strict LCHF. Does that mean I could see even more benefit by dramatically reducing my carb intake further? Or does it mean that there is more involved here than just reduced carb intake and increased fat intake? I honestly don’t know but I suspect that the truth lies more in the latter.

My high-carb diet was reasonably “good” before, I was never a huge fan of processed foods so they didn’t feature much in my diet. However I used to casually overlook the likes of the energy drinks and energy bars (though mostly bananas) I consumed while cycling before, as if they never counted because I just burned them up. I question that mindset now, of course they count(ed) and the fact that I seemed reasonably healthy and didn’t put on weight was no indicator of anything really.

My next significant adjustment will be to improve my approach to recovery, rather than try hard to refine my diet further. My sleep/recovery regime is terrible, I regularly stay up til the small hours of the morning, usually doing something constructive admittedly, as if that matters (DIY features large in that for a while now and will do for some time yet - if any of the cowboy arm of the building trade are reading this, let me just take this moment to convey a heartfelt “FCUK YOU!” to the lot of ye). I suspect that if I get enough sleep regularly, something I’ve always sucked at, I’ll see far greater benefits than tweaking my diet further.

That goes back to the bigger picture, I’m convinced there is a lot more to it than how many of which nutrient you pile into you. That seems like stating the bleedin’ obvious but some of the LCHF blurb seems determined to define LCHF as the be all and end all of health and well being. I certainly don’t believe that. Neither do I believe that LCHF is nonsense of course, I’d certainly find it diverting to watch that “No. YOU smell!” argument being waged between the militantly pro- and the militantly anti- LCHF camps but I’ve no interest in engaging in it myself. Discussion is good, belligerence is boring.

ford2600 · 21-12-2015 9:04pm

http://sigmanutrition.com/episode92/

If you listen to this they talk about a well controlled experiment where lean subject consumed 20% below maintenance for 2years(with good observance) and despite losing weight all subject health markers improved. Seems eating less in general is a good thing.

Despite, generally always eating "healthy", before switching to low carb I educated myself on what exactly my body needed to survive/thrive so it is quite difficult to separate out any benefits solely for low carb element rather than general increase in quality of food irrespective of macro breakdown.

On what defines low carb, eating sub 50g (throughout the year, whatever about seasonally) so that your probably in ketosis is not a good idea for any guy looking to put out high power i.e. From what I've read, it seems the body down regulates it's ability to burn glycogen when ketones are plentiful; not a good idea if your trying to hang on on a climb/drag...

I'd imagine a lot of the benefits for switching for a "normal" low fat diet to lchf is the simple increase in fat and the benefits in terms of hormone production. If you are producing more testosterone and hgh your are going to be feeling better. Also my veg intake has increasing very significantly, there seems to be almost universal agreement that that is a good thing. In general eating whole foods is going to keep the gut microbe happy; given the importance of gut bacteria on general well being I wouldn't be surprised that a lot of benefit comes from keeping those lads happy. Whatever diet you choose, choose one which allows for healthy gut bacteria. There seems to be a lot of interesting research on their role on health(of course it'll probably be sidetracked by some food company with fancy sounding names which they can charge through the nose for!)

In any sample size of 1, its going to be really difficult to distribute where the improvement came from, the role of recovery, sleep, stress managment, training regime are going to have a massive impact.

It's not that difficult to construct a diet which will probably work for most with all types of extreme macro breakdown(and everything in between) as long a s food quality is good and essential micro nutrients are provided for. Being a lazy fcuker it's just easier to add 80g of fat than going peeling and roasting even more sweet potatoes, parnsips etc.. Given how horrible most people diets are a diet based on wholefoods, irrespective of macros is going to be a vast improvement. I'd even think it easy to thrive on a vegatarian diet, although after eating beef brisket slow bbq for 20 hrs last night that won't be happening anytime soon!

On the militant camps, there is an awful lot of nonsense and dishonesty about. If you listen to Taubes, Americans got fat when they started eating more carbs, this doesn't seem to be the case. Americans eat more than they use to in general and lots has changed like
*more added sugar(about a 20 fold increase I think over a 100 year period)
*huge swing in 100 years on amount of food cooked as against restaurant food/supermarket food
* huge swing in fat type from saturated to plant omega 6 PFA
* change in cattle feeding resulting in even lower omega 3 consumption

Barry Murray is pretty eccentric in ways, but separate to diet there is a lot to be learning from examining the way he approaches things; cold adaptation is the next one on the list- it may help in reducing the amount of crap needed to be carried on long rides

On who can/can't handle carbs(or in this case starch) this video is excellent. If you jump in at 7mins, you see discussion on how human population varies in adapation to handle starch. They test for an enzyme in the mouth which responds to starch and show how that adaption or lack thereof in some, leads to a very different insulin reponse

MediaMan · 28-12-2015 12:54pm

Came across this while searching around articles on low carb:
http://cristivlad.com/why-keto-not-low-carb-pitfalls-low-carb-nutrition/

This guy reckons that being low carb without being in ketosis is not good - that the body is stuck in no-man's land for energy production. Some references to other authors' work also.

ford2600 · 28-12-2015 3:33pm

MediaMan wrote: »

Came across this while searching around articles on low carb:
http://cristivlad.com/why-keto-not-low-carb-pitfalls-low-carb-nutrition/

This guy reckons that being low carb without being in ketosis is not good - that the body is stuck in no-man's land for energy production. Some references to other authors' work also.

Not sure if that author understands all the ways how the body produces ATP and how body recycles glycerol from triglycerides along with certain proteins to make glucose.

With adaptation the body can do an awful lot on fat without the need for ketosis. The most annoying thing about that article is the absence of any allowance for variability between people.

bottom is cut and paste from Barry Murray's site.

This is also good discussion on ketosis and fat adaptation.

http://sigmanutrition.com/episode86/

Good podcast on ketosis and the other option of fasting to force body to switch to fat without the need to restrict diet to 20g of carbs.

From optimumnutritionforsport.com

Energy Systems

Now for the science bit. I don’t want to go into too much detail, but understanding how your body functions is the key to understanding how food works. So very briefly, here are the different ways your body can produce ATP (i.e. energy)

PhosphoCreatine System: ADP +Cr P –> ATP

This system is used to produce the first 10-15secs of energy that we need for sprints. Obviously, this is not a system that ultra endurance athletes use very often. It doesn’t require glucose or oxygen and it is fuelled through the use of creatine, a natural molecule produced in the body consisting of 3 amino acids.

Anaerobic System (Glycolysis): Glucose –> Pyruvate + ATP + H+

This is a system more familiar to people which burns glucose quickly and coverts it to lactic acid. The result is quick energy, the type needed for high intensity exercise like interval training or hill climbs. This process doesn’t require any oxygen but the trade-off is a large production of hydrogen ions which decrease the pH resulting in muscle fatigue.

Cori-Cycle (The Lactic Acid Cycle): Lactate + ATP –> Glucose

Despite what people think, lactate is not the bad guy. The acid builds up and muscle fatigue/pain is mainly caused by an increase in hydrogen ions (which lowers the pH). The lactate produced in the muscle can be recycled in the liver and converted back to glucose. This glucose can then be shuttled to the muscle and used again to produce energy.

Aerobic System (The Krebs Cycle/Citric Acid Cycle): Glucose + O2 –> CO2 + H2O + ATP

This is the main system that our cells use to produce energy. It’s a series of enzyme controlled chemical reactions that use oxygen to breakdown glucose. The first few steps of this reaction involve converting glucose into a smaller carbon chain intermediate. What’s important to note here is that both fats and proteins can be broken down and converted into this exact same intermediate. In other words, as well as pure glucose, our cells can use fats and proteins to fuel the aerobic system. This is a complicated pathway but here is a very simple diagram to illustrate what I mean

Lipolysis/Beta-Oxidation

Lipolysis is the conversion of triglycerides into glycerol and free fatty acids. These free fatty acids can then be transferred to muscle where they are further broken down through beta-oxidation to prepare them for the Krebs Cycle. The advantage of using fatty acids is 1. The amount we can store is far greater than carbs and 2. They provide roughly twice the amount of energy per gram. So we have lots more of this type of fuel and it produces more energy. The only disadvantage is that because they are much bigger molecules than glucose, they require more oxygen for their combustion. Therefore, fatty acids from the plasma and adipose tissue are oxidised at a higher rate when the intensity is low (i.e. when you can take in more oxygen, i.e. breath more)

ITMG (Intramuscular Triglycerides) Fat Oxidation

So when fats are used to produce energy, they can come from three different locations. 1. Adipose Tissue, where the majority of itis stored 2. Muscle and 3. Blood Plasma. The fat stored in muscle is called Intramuscular Triglycerides. It is this which gives meat its marbled appearance. As ITMG’s are already present in the muscle, transport and delivery is not an issue. Therefore, the ability to use them is increased especially as exercise intensity increases.

Glycolytic Proteins/Protein Oxidation

Amino acids (such as Leucine, Isoleuncine and Valine) can also be converted into Acetly-CoA (the intermediate that both glucose and fatty acids are converted to) and then used in the Krebs Cycle. It is estimated that 5-10% of energy can come from the oxidation of proteins. However, this is not ideal if amino acids are not plentiful as it means that the source of amino acids will be from muscle tissue. This can be reduced by supplying amino acids and increasing the rate of fat oxidation to spare the use of protein.

Glucose Alanine Cycle

Just like the Cori Cycle, where a waste product is converted back into glucose, the same can be done with amino acids. The amino acids Alanine and Glutamine can be used to convert Pyruvate back into Glucose.

petethedrummer · 05-01-2016 3:28pm

ford2600 wrote: »

cold adaptation is the next one on the list-

I'm pretty good with the cold showers now. I did the following...

1) About 1 week of doing Wim Hoff Method. Not necessary but you need to motivate yourself somehow... https://youtu.be/A9zS94x2nd8?t=3m
2) Another few days of just getting in but having to gee myself up, flinching and involuntary breathing while in there.
3) Now I can pretty much get in with minimum fuss. No motivation required.

Some things I noted...
Putting your face under the shower will calm your breathing down.
Shoulders and underarms are the worst part for me.
The centre of my back is the best bit, cold water feels bizarrely warm.
I mostly do them do them in the evening, it sets you up nicely for a good night's sleep.

OleRodrigo · 07-01-2016 4:14pm

Cold shower? Pfft :pac:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2016/jan/07/cryophile-winter-swimmers-club-in-pictures

petethedrummer · 08-01-2016 12:23am

OleRodrigo wrote: »

Cold shower? Pfft :pac:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2016/jan/07/cryophile-winter-swimmers-club-in-pictures

That's the goal.

AstraMonti · 12-01-2016 11:45am

I 've been experimenting with intermintent fasting the last week or so. My last meal is around 6-7 in the evening or I might have a protein drink around 11 after the gym. My next meal is around 1pm. The first couple of days my stomach was doing all sort of noises, but it has now started to slow down now and accepted that it's not going to get food until 1. Regardless, I already lost 3kg in a week (of course I also cut all the crap from christmas). I am not sure what I am trying to achieve here to be honest (apart from losing some unwanted kgs) and I don't know if I will keep doing for more than 2 weeks, because I still think I don't eat enough. But I don't know where to fit another meal at this stage.

Ryath · 12-01-2016 2:36pm

AstraMonti wrote: »

My last meal is around 6-7 in the evening or I might have a protein drink around 11 after the gym.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGLzm-Gy0dQ

ford2600 · 12-01-2016 3:41pm

AstraMonti wrote: »

I 've been experimenting with intermintent fasting the last week or so. My last meal is around 6-7 in the evening or I might have a protein drink around 11 after the gym. My next meal is around 1pm. The first couple of days my stomach was doing all sort of noises, but it has now started to slow down now and accepted that it's not going to get food until 1. Regardless, I already lost 3kg in a week (of course I also cut all the crap from christmas). I am not sure what I am trying to achieve here to be honest (apart from losing some unwanted kgs) and I don't know if I will keep doing for more than 2 weeks, because I still think I don't eat enough. But I don't know where to fit another meal at this stage.

Do you eat more for lunch and evening time?

I would have my first meal at lunchtime about 3/4 days per week. Irrespective of health it's just really convenient when driving with work, physical work and mornings that I cycle. I will feel more like food at lunchtime if I have breakfast that if I skip it, but even then a glass of water and I can easily wait for hours further without eating.

When lifting heavy weights I will always eat breakfast the following morning. Also after longer audax rides I'll generally add breakfast for a day or two after.

In saying that some of my post exercise meals would contain same amount of calories as many people's daily allowance! Adding fat makes it really easy.

AstraMonti · 13-01-2016 11:24am

ford2600 wrote: »

Do you eat more for lunch and evening time?

I wouldn't say so, it's normal portions, seems I am satisfied with the same amount of food. Which is really weird for me. Even on a strict lchf I had the need to munch something every so often.

ford2600 · 13-01-2016 11:33am

AstraMonti wrote: »

I wouldn't say so, it's normal portions, seems I am satisfied with the same amount of food. Which is really weird for me. Even on a strict lchf I had the need to munch something every so often.

Do you want my best attempt at Bro science?

AstraMonti · 13-01-2016 11:39am

Haha hit me!

ford2600 · 13-01-2016 11:47am

AstraMonti wrote: »

Haha hit me!

You put on a little fat over Xmas, say you went from 15% to 17% for arguments sake.

Your body is set to defend for 15%. Fasting in morning is allowing you to run primarily on fat, which your body is happy with; for now.

Once you drop a little fat, lower leptin levels will lead to lower metabolic rate and increased appetite until you stabilise at 15% again.

There is a load of other hormones involved and the brain and all kind of fancy receptors and you can get that full Internet diagnosis once you click on the premium link ðŸ˜€

AstraMonti · 13-01-2016 2:24pm

I had another explanation in mind, which was that the body slowed down since it's not expecting food that often, although that would mean that it would want more when food was available. I don't know, our body is weird

In other news, have you seen this documentary?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-m9ijPl1ok

AstraMonti · 26-01-2016 2:58pm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26795746

Does artificial light-at-night (ALAN) exposure contribute to the worldwide obesity pandemic?

CONCLUSION:
This study is the first population-level study that confirms the results of laboratory research and cohort studies in which ALAN was found to be a contributing factor to excessive body mass in humans.

AstraMonti · 17-03-2016 9:43am

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/76384972/Nokia_et_al-2016-The_Journal_of_Physiology%20exercise%20and%20brain%20development.pdf

Running title: Aerobic exercise promotes adult neurogenesis

MediaMan · 23-03-2016 12:27am

Just when you think you've got the cholesterol thing figured out, along comes another study...

'Good' cholesterol not always good, study suggests:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-35775318

AstraMonti · 02-08-2016 8:41am

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2540540

Conclusions and Relevance High animal protein intake was positively associated with mortality and high plant protein intake was inversely associated with mortality, especially among individuals with at least 1 lifestyle risk factor. Substitution of plant protein for animal protein, especially that from processed red meat, was associated with lower mortality, suggesting the importance of protein source.

Queue dailymail: RED MEAT KILLS AND CAUSES CANCER.

ford2600 · 02-08-2016 9:23am

AstraMonti wrote: »

http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2540540

Queue dailymail: RED MEAT KILLS AND CAUSES CANCER.

http://www.spanish-food.org/images/product-jamon-2.jpg

Just got a present of this, should I just throw it out now or go vegan after I eat it?

AstraMonti · 02-08-2016 9:31am

I can give you an address to throw this away if you want haha

rondog · 05-08-2016 12:53pm

ford2600

I have just skipped through this thread and found it very interesting.The bit you post about converting to fat from carbs as a source for endurance sports/cycling.

Can you give a brief description on how you made your body adapt to utilising fat instead of carbs?

How long did the transition take?
I experimented with this before half heartedly and was getting the Bonk at about 80KM and through sheer panic reached for an energy gel.
I wanted to properly try this out rather than my previous half ar*ed attempts.

ford2600 · 05-08-2016 1:30pm

rondog wrote: »

ford2600

I have just skipped through this thread and found it very interesting.The bit you post about converting to fat from carbs as a source for endurance sports/cycling.

Can you give a brief description on how you made your body adapt to utilising fat instead of carbs?

How long did the transition take?
I experimented with this before half heartedly and was getting the Bonk at about 80KM and through sheer panic reached for an energy gel.
I wanted to properly try this out rather than my previous half ar*ed attempts.

http://sigmanutrition.com/episode86/

That's good, it's a brilliant website in general.

From my amateur hour reading we use fat/glycogen all the time and fat adaptation just swings the balance more in favour of fat(we also can use other fuels but that's not here nor there!). I'd imagine Chris Froome is fat adapted to an extra ordinary degree probably without ever thinking about it much. I remember coming across research where one of primary difference between elite endurance athletes was the ability to utilize fat, the glycogen use was very similar but can't remember where.

In order to fat adapt the surest way is go keto, you then have no choice as the brain will fire up it's backup system in the absence of glucose. Even if you switched easily, keto is really hard to maintain in the modern world;your talking about weighing your non green veg ffs. You will aslo be slower less powerful all things being equal. (DR Louise Bourke has some research on the body down regulating it's use of glycogen in it's absence and presence of ketones) So if you want to have a fairly quality but not too restricted diet I'd be inclined to
*eat well, not necessarily hflc but, if you are going to eat a good percentage of carbs have them decent with plenty fibre, low gi etc etc. Good clean quality food with minimal sugar, processed foods
* try intermittent fasting, say one day a week when doing something sedentary. Whether any physiological changes happen or not(they probably will) it'll help you mentally when exercising fasted.
* start with a short spin and build up. My first spin was 30km I think. Bring an apple, the world champion of cycling foods, tastier than a banana and rugged as fcuk! A lot of it is in your head, sip water when you think you are hungry.
You will adapt slowly.
*If you feel miserable, eat. It's not a misery contest.
*If you are ever travelling use it as a chance to avoid airport, convenience a do a 24hr fast. If you are used to IF it's surprisingly easy

Edit: how long? I'd think within 4 weeks I was up to 100km. That's about 3 years ago. If doing a 100km ride now I often don't have money or any food and similar up to 130km.

Any longer and I'll eat something around 130km depending on pace/climbing.

I'm slower than I used to be but I don't do any speed work hiit work although that should change when I get my mtb sorted! I'd imagine if I trained the way I used I'd get back to my "fast" ceiling without any dietary changes.

BTW when you finished your fasted cycle carbon the fcuk up! At least a little. Carb backloading is the buzz word for that if you want to Google it. Fruit salad with cream followed by meat veg and spuds if you want to save yourself the hassle!

rondog · 05-08-2016 2:13pm

Great stuff-will have to read up on it.thanks

MediaMan · 31-10-2016 11:51pm

MSG may not be bad for us after all...

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-msg-got-a-bad-rap-flawed-science-and-xenophobia/

MediaMan · 23-12-2016 7:56pm

There's a lengthy extract from the book "The Case Against Sugar" by Gary Taubes at https://aeon.co/essays/sugar-is-a-toxic-agent-that-creates-conditions-for-disease.

The most interesting aspect for me was that German and Austrian researchers were producing solid arguments that hormone regulation, specifically of insulin, was the root cause of obesity. World events cause that to change and then the American model, that obesity is caused by eating too much food, emerged.

By 1930, Julius Bauer of the University of Vienna – the ‘noted Vienna authority on internal diseases’, as The New York Times called him – had taken up von Bergmann’s ideas, arguing that obesity had to result from a dysregulation of the biological factors that normally work to keep fat accumulation under check. Bauer argued that fat cells are clearly being driven by these factors to hoard excessive calories as fat, and this in turn would deprive the rest of the body of the energy it needed to thrive. In this hormonal/regulatory conception, excessive fat-accumulation causes hunger and physical inactivity, not the other way around.

...

In 1940, when Hugo Rony, an endocrinologist at Northwestern University in Chicago, published the first academic treatise written on obesity in the US, he asserted that the hormonal/regulatory hypothesis was ‘more or less fully accepted’ by the European authorities.

And then it vanished. The German and Austrian medical-research community evaporated with the rise of Hitler, and the nexus of medical science shifted from Germany and Austria to the US, a nation not devastated by the war; the lingua franca of medical science shifted as well from German to English. With those shifts, arguably the best thinking of the era in medical science would no longer be read, nor would it be referenced. The conception of obesity as a hormonal regulatory disorder faded out of fashion.

ford2600 · 23-12-2016 11:41pm

MediaMan wrote: »

There's a lengthy extract from the book "The Case Against Sugar" by Gary Taubes at https://aeon.co/essays/sugar-is-a-toxic-agent-that-creates-conditions-for-disease.

The most interesting aspect for me was that German and Austrian researchers were producing solid arguments that hormone regulation, specifically of insulin, was the root cause of obesity. World events cause that to change and then the American model, that obesity is caused by eating too much food, emerged.

Discussion here of a study funded by Taubes's NuSi which doesn't really do much for insulin model (seemed a bit short to me but pretty heavyweight credentials with research team)

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ie/2016/07/nusi-funded-study-serves-up_6.html?m=1

Gueynet fairly hammered it here in a 2011 review

http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.ie/2011/08/carbohydrate-hypothesis-of-obesity.html

His own area of study on food reward and the role of leptin/hypothalamus is pretty interesting

http://boingboing.net/2012/03/09/seduced-by-food-obesity-and-t.html

Signal_ rabbit · 09-11-2017 8:05pm

I arrived at this thread as I’ve just started thE LCHF diet. I spent the last two hours reading the entire thread. It’s very interesting.
My question is, out of all you guys who started the diet, how many of you have kept to it?

petethedrummer · 12-11-2017 11:29pm

Me.

In my case it's good for easy weight maintenance, raised mood levels, mental alertness, day long energy... blah blah blah... what the LCHF converts usually say.

Caveat: if you plan on competing to the best of your abilities at a sport that involves sprinting, you need glycogen in your muscles.

CramCycle · 13-11-2017 11:45pm

I didn't although I wish I had, my weight and mental alertness did go down. I used to get alot of free food in my old job and it was far easier to keep to the plan.

I am slowly working my way towards a low carb diet, as in what I really need to keep me ticking over rather than what people think they need which is way in excess of what is required. Hopefully back to a healthy diet by months end.

The key is a low carb rather than a no carb diet, which alot of online people seem to get confused with.

doozerie · 17-11-2017 11:08pm

I'm still on it. But I don't follow a "strict low-carb" diet, which from what I understand requires you to eat less than 20g carbs per day. In my case I generally average somewhere between 40g and 60g per day, and as much as 100g on days where I train (because of my added carb intake immediately after training).

I generally get weird looks when people learn that I eat low-carb. As CramCycle says, many people hear "low-carb" and assume "no-carb" and try to educate me on why I'm destroying my health, or something. And for many more people, LCHF is associated with weight loss and nothing else, and no-one would look at me and think I needed to lose weight so I get a different variety of weird looks in that case.

For me it has levelled out my energy spikes/drops during the day, has largely eliminated symptoms of IBS, fits well with fasted training rides (which I like a lot in themselves), etc. I still struggle with balancing it with racing though. For races I take one bottle with water in it and one bottle with energy drink, but I find I rarely drink the latter, most I've had during a race was less than 100ml I'd say.

Most of my races this year have been less than 1.5hrs though, and as hard as I found some of them to be, I didn't run out of fuel even with drinking no energy drink at all. My longest race was over 2 hours, I pushed myself hard from the gun on that one and although I got dropped in the last few kilometres I couldn't blame that on lack of fuel, I simply ripped my own legs off.

So I'm still trying to figure out where that tipping point is, the point at which my choice to not throw carbs down my neck during something as demanding as a race impacts negatively on my performance.

doozerie · 29-04-2018 11:51pm

I've only done a handful of races so far this year, it's not enough to answer my many questions about my diet, like that above of whether it's a bad choice for racing, but it gives me something to go on at least. Here is a brief breakdown of the longer of the races I've done in recent weeks:

* 103km, 757m climbing, 2h41m, 38.5kph avg speed
* 99km, 562m climbing, 2h25m, 40.9kph avg speed
* 75km, 394m climbing, 1h54m, 39.5kph avg speed

These were hard (for me) races, but I was competitive in all of them in the sense that I worked hard at the front for all or most of each race and was still in wth a chance of placing at the end. I finished in the top 20 in two of them and finished in the large front group in the other. So no placings at all, but enough to convince me that my nutrition during the races was not disastrous i.e. I reckon the limiting factor was me, not my nutrition.

The races were all 09h00 starts, and I had my regular breakfast (coffee, eggs, nuts, fruit - approx 9g carbs) a couple of hours before. During the races I ate nothing at all, but for two of them I had a single sip of energy drink (about 50ml, or approx 4g carbs) more out of curiosity than out of any sense of needing fuel (as I mentioned earlier, I'm still experimenting). Even that minimal intake of energy drink sat on my stomach each time, left me feeling a bit nauseous for a few minutes in fact, which might suggest I couldn't actually consume more even if I wanted to (which could obviously be a bad thing, depending on your point of view).

All of this is proof of nothing at all, but it does fuel (ha!) my scepticism of nutritional guides which advise consuming multiple grams of carbs per kilogram of body weight per hour (plus pre-loading with huge, for me, quantities of carbs both the day before the race and the morning of the race).

I'd actually love to believe that I'm shooting myself in the foot here, that if I were to massively increase my carb intake before and during races then my performance would improve massively too, but I really don't consider myself to have such untapped potential. I consider myself an average rider whose choice of nutrition is not holding him back, despite that nutrition flying in the face of conventional nutritional advice.

It's still early in the year though of course, plenty of time for me to be proved wrong yet, but so far so good.

ford2600 · 30-04-2018 9:19am

The thread that won't die!

http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/h10-089

That's worth a read I think; seems you can keep your fat adaptations but get a bounce on your CHO storage by "carbing" up 1-3 before your big event.

Louise Burke, who has huge experience with Australian Olympic team, has a lot of useful research done. She certainly has one study, which of course I can't find now, where part of conclusion was down regulating of glucose pathway when eating hflc and fasted training.

May try adding one super hard training session a week after some carbs and see what you notice? Best of both world hack!

doozerie · 30-04-2018 2:09pm

ford2600 wrote:

The thread that won't die!

That’s ‘cos all things LCHF live forever. The fountain of youth isn’t filled with water at all, but lard! :pac:

Thanks for the link, I’ll have a read.

Re carb intake around training, it’s not really an answer to your question of whether I’d notice any difference if I ingest carbs beforehand, but generally speaking any morning training session I’ve been doing for many months now has been fasted. There are obviously many things beyond diet that distinguish fasted morning sessions from evening training sessions (some pre-dinner, some post-dinner, my dinner would typically include less than 50g carbs), not least the various (mental) stresses of a day’s work before the evening sessions, but broadly speaking I perceive the morning sessions to be “easier” by comparison, regardless of their level of intensity.

I’ve dabbled a little with increasing my carb intake on the day before a race, but given the number of variables involved I’ve yet to be able to draw any firm conclusions - I couldn’t say with any confidence what factors contributed to my feeling really good/strong in one race and the opposite in another. I’d clearly suck as a scientist. Having said that, I’m convinced that my sleep patterns and mental stress levels play a huge part but determining to what extent, and even prying those two apart, is itself a challenge - I can have slept well/enough but stress puts me in a negative frame of mind and physical exercise (training or racing) is a challenge, or I can have slept badly and be stressed but physical exercise can be a welcome outlet/distraction and I can push myself harder than I’d expected.

Clearly, this is about a lot more than diet/nutrition, no surprises there, but I continue to be pleasantly surprised that my diet doesn’t seem to be impairing my ability to train or race hard. At least not in any way that I currently recognise anyway.

A boat full of carbs

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