Keto adaptation

I have had a number of periods of late where I have spent 2 or 3 days overeating, following what I thought was overtraining. It has happened mostly after 10 mile runs, the last of which I struggled all the way around, and also following a climbing competition. It seems to be my body's way of restocking depleted glycogen stores.

But why should I need those glycogen stores when I have around 400 miles worth of fat stores sitting around my middle?

Having read "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living" and "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance", along with a few stories about low-carbers running ultra races and triathlons, I thought I'd give it a try.

I've been easing myself into it, and doing some shopping. For the past few years I've been on a low fat diet and have become quite accustomed to it, so the fatty taste in cheese and meats is something I'll have to get used to. Usually a 250g bottle of nut oil has lasted me about a year.

Breakfast this morning was mackerel, Greek yogurt and blueberries, followed by coffee with cream. That's 5g/20kcals of my target of staying under 50g/200kcal carbs each day.

I went from 165->142 lbs (75kg->65kg) within the last 3 months getting down to ~8% bf which I am pretty positive I can maintain (I eat super veggie rich and historically, I lose fat and wont gain it back). Before I knew how to lose fat, I tried keto. Lol. It doesn't work in any special way. 

It is all about calories. Don't bother tiring your body out that much if you are so active. Although, if you are still trying to lose the weight, you may have to dive real deep in calories, and spend a ridiculous amount of time working out.

Moreover, my fiance's brother went from 300lbs to 185 lbs pure, shredded muscle in a year, but he did above. He felt utterly miserable at the end (400 kal/day and and 1 hr strength training and 1 hour cardio a day). He wasn't in such a total deeply-low calorie period for most of it though.

I hit the point where my body stopped burning the fat stores around 8%, but as a medical student, I couldn't afford the time to exercise more, or the dip in calories because I needed the mental power.

Anyway, my point is, don't go keto if you are thinking it will bestow magical power to lose the fat. You will lose plenty of water weight and drop sodium (look skinnier b/c of that though), but if your calories are too high, even with high exercise output, you wont relinquish that last bit of fat.

How much do you weigh? I am betting you are a small guy, and your abs are small? If you are too small, even at a low bf% you might not see your abs.

Also, I read the scientific literature on ketogenic diet (papers cited by keto people) and that whole diet is bunk in my opinion.

Take my word as it should be for someone over the internet though: as my 2 cents.

Edit: Also, low-fat, high-fat, super high protein: Stay away from extremes. You need plenty of fat. Ditching carbs solely in my opinion is only a convenience of dieting because they are the easiest to cut out without getting too hungry, but don't confer a magical loss in fat--It is all about the cals.

Hi Prometheus

It's not about looks or weight. I'm already pretty skinny/light (60kg @ 174cm) and around 6-8% bf. It's about being able to better utilise fat over carbs and avoid the bloated feeling from overeating, and also be able to run further. I think there's an ultra-runner in me trying to get out.

https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/8415-paleoprimal-and-the-role-of-carbs/?fromsearch=1

I started this thread ages ago and Naterman gave some excellent information.

I've done keto in the past and honestly found it more hassle than it's worth. Very difficult to be social when you don't consume carbs. I find eating whole foods instead of focusing on macros to yield consistent results and easier in the long run to keep up.

If it works for you great but any deficit WILL work. Find the one that's easiest to stick to. I do miss eating steak every day though... I love steak.

Thanks for the link, Murray.

No worries. Keep us up to do date with what you decided to do. I know some people do spells of keto as part of cutting and bulking (carb cycling...I think) and have success stories.

Into day 3 now. Day one was spent with a headache, not from the diet, but from peering at food nutrition labels and trying to calculate carbs, fat, cals and protein. Yesterday I was more prepared with a printout of my new foods. I was quite attuned to my intake before on a low fat diet, and had my 300 kcalorie 'meals', so losing that point of reference was disorienting. I went climbing yesterday, though only for 2 hours, and felt no performance degredation or improvement. Not surprising as I probably still have my glycogen levels intact. I even survived whizzing around last night at my youngest daughter's 10th birthday party and avoided all sugary temptations.

My daily targets are 120g protein, 50g carbs, 150g fat for 2000 Calories.

Keeping the carbs down requires some thought, so no porridge, bread, jam, cereals, bananas or potatoes for now.

First big test of my new diet yesterday. I had a full day bouldering and dyno competition with slacklining and dry tooling at one of the local walls. There were some strong climbers I have been competing against regularly, so I was expecting somewhere between 4th and 6th place. I came 2nd, but I'm not sure what to put it down to. It could have been the diet, or the associated weight loss (I was 60.2kg in the morning, pretty light for me) or maybe I was on form and having a good day regardless. The format was probably to my advantage - 40 boulder problems in 3 hours with as many attempts as you liked at each one.

The only difference I noticed was that I was super thirsty, and went through 800ml of water. Usually I wouldn't have had more than a cup of coffee and a sip of water.

My packed lunch for the day, which normally would have been a j&pb sandwich and a tuna and spready cheese sandwich washed down with a few chocolate bars, was 5x25g corned beef cubes, 3x25g cheese cubes, 100g mixed nuts, 50g mixed seeds, a few tomatoes, coffee with 50g of cream and 20g of protein powder, which lasted me from 9am to 8pm.

Well done on placing

Well done on 2nd place. I think becoming fat adapted takes a few weeks, quicker if you're used to being in that "state".

Some people feel "carb flu" after a couple of weeks and they feel awful. If you get this apparently eating more fat helps.

Your brain performance will suffer severely with a low glucose diet. Hopefully you are not a student or do a job that requires a lot of critical thinking. Even the simplest of mental tasks can become unreasonably difficult when glucose intake is low.

There are huge trade offs for attempting to "better utilize fats"; most of them are not worth it in my opinion. Don't want to feel bloated? Eat slower and have smaller portions. And try to limit/time foods with a high GI more effectively.

gravy said:

Your brain performance will suffer severely with a low glucose diet. Hopefully you are not a student or do a job that requires a lot of critical thinking. Even the simplest of mental tasks can become unreasonably difficult when glucose intake is low.

There are huge trade offs for attempting to "better utilize fats"; most of them are not worth it in my opinion. Don't want to feel bloated? Eat slower and have smaller portions. And try to limit/time foods with a high GI more effectively.

Whilst some people experience some "cloudiness" I never did. Took me about 3 weeks to become fat adapted and at worst I just felt hungrier than usual while this happened. Afterwards it was business as usual and didn't feel any better or worse.

I think the real worry about ketosis is the nitrogen waste when converting protein to glucose. I even emailed mark sissons about it and he was very quiet, hinting that he might do a post on it in the future.

It's also quite hard to keep up, especially with an active social life. I think it's a bit much to say it's dangerous.

Nigel said:

Hi Prometheus

 

It's not about looks or weight. I'm already pretty skinny/light (60kg @ 174cm) and around 6-8% bf. It's about being able to better utilise fat over carbs and avoid the bloated feeling from overeating, and also be able to run further. I think there's an ultra-runner in me trying to get out.

It is impossible to utilize carbohydrates less than fat at high levels of output. Ultra running is actually a bit different because you run pretty slowly. 10 minute miles are pretty fast, and are basically a professional class pace for a 100 mile race. The North American record for 100 miles, held by Kyle Bitter, is just over 7 minute miles, but that's nowhere close to VO2Max for that guy. He ran a 2:31 marathon with 30 mph headwinds, and his debut was a 2:36. As impressive as that is, and knowing that the guy is built for this stuff, this is still nearly 30 minutes behind the record of 2:03. Yea, a 2 hour marathon. He does follow a lower carb approach than most ultra runners, but he still carbs up and uses sugars and carb gels during the ultra races. Examination of his pre-workout meals shows a high carb intake, dosed to offset much of what he burns. PWO he uses some carbs, but does rely more on protein and fat.

Keep in mind that Zach is 27 years old and only beat a 39 year old's record by 12 minutes. I mention the age difference because you start seeing a maximal VO2Max decline past the age of 25, with a decline of ~5% per decade. That's a big difference at this level of competition. I would also like to point out that the WORLD record for this distance is 29 minutes faster than the NA record. It is likely that a different dietary strategy would take Mr. Bitter's performance even closer to this mark, but it is impossible to say for sure. When you talk about the very best in the world, it is incredibly important to realize that you are talking about people who statistically do not exist. That's how much of an outlier they are. What you want to pay attention to is what works the best for the vast, vast majority of people.

The energy turnover rate for carbohydrates is faster than the turnover rate for fat, because there are a lot fewer chemical steps to go through. This is governed by the fundamental nature of our biochemical systems, and at marathon paces (basically around 80% of VO2 Max) you are not going to be able to use more fat than carbs. What will happen, and this has been proven time and time again in research studies across many populations, is that your body will slow down to a pace that can be supported by a higher percentage of fat as you run out of carbs. We call this "hitting the wall" and many of us have felt this happen. This is why higher intensity work requires more available carbohydrate.

Ultras are a little different, because they are run at more of a 50-60% VO2Max, and the carb-fat utilization here is pretty much even right from the get-go. In fact, for the first two hours fat utilization slowly increases, but there is always a significant carbohydrate requirement. Percentages make it look small when you say "Oh it's just 30% carbs after 2 hours..." Let me show you how the math works for an ultra:

66.7 calories per hour base rate for Bitter's size. Running a 7 minute pace is 14 METs. That's 14* 66.7 = 933 calories per hour. 30% of that is still 280 calories, which is about 70g of carbs. Per hour, after the first 2 hours, during this activity. That's basically a tablespoon of honey every 15 minutes, which is a pretty normal intake for an ultra runner. This is assuming that Kyle is running at 50% of his VO2Max. If his %VO2Max is higher, his carb requirements will also be higher due to the relative intensity increasing. The closer you are to your maximal oxygen uptake, the higher the % of carbohydrate you are using. 

By contrast, a marathon:

66.7 calories per hour base rate for Bitter's size. Running a 5.5 minute pace is 18 METs. That's 18* 66.7 = 1200 calories per hour. 80% of that is 960 calories, which is about 240g of carbs required for the first hour. Second hour is around 70% carbs, and requires 210g of carbs. Now, when you realize that it's basically impossible to absorb more than 120g of carbohydrate per hour while running it is clear that you cannot even remotely try to use the same nutritional strategy for these two events.

That is to illustrate how the overall intensity of your work will force you to adjust dietary strategies if you are looking for your best possible performance. If you're just looking to do what you want and are happy with your performance, then you will reduce the conversation down to long-term health risks, which are not in favor of super low carb consumption OR super high protein consumption (over 2.8g/kg per day), and definitely against both happening simultaneously. Risk doesn't mean guarantee, but I think it's a bad idea to treat your health like a casino game (where the odds are never in your favor). 

Nigel said:

First big test of my new diet yesterday. I had a full day bouldering and dyno competition with slacklining and dry tooling at one of the local walls. There were some strong climbers I have been competing against regularly, so I was expecting somewhere between 4th and 6th place. I came 2nd, but I'm not sure what to put it down to. It could have been the diet, or the associated weight loss (I was 60.2kg in the morning, pretty light for me) or maybe I was on form and having a good day regardless. The format was probably to my advantage - 40 boulder problems in 3 hours with as many attempts as you liked at each one.

 

The only difference I noticed was that I was super thirsty, and went through 800ml of water. Usually I wouldn't have had more than a cup of coffee and a sip of water.

 

My packed lunch for the day, which normally would have been a j&pb sandwich and a tuna and spready cheese sandwich washed down with a few chocolate bars, was 5x25g corned beef cubes, 3x25g cheese cubes, 100g mixed nuts, 50g mixed seeds, a few tomatoes, coffee with 50g of cream and 20g of protein powder, which lasted me from 9am to 8pm.

First off, excellent work and congratulations on 2nd place!

I'm assuming that you are able to see that the macros in your lunch examples appear pretty similar in macro distribution, though you're getting more calories and more protein (and maybe more salt) with what you brought. More calories will help with extended efforts, and the thirst indicates the higher salt intake to me (but maybe you were just under-hydrated the day before). The greater protein intake would absolutely end up providing you with more carbs via GNG, and the rate of carb conversion would probably be similar to what you would get from absorbing a lower GI carbohydrate as a part of a mixed meal.

The lighter weight may also be an indication of under-hydration, but it is impossible to say for sure. Be wary of attributing your successes to one variable, particularly when you have been consistently training Foundation and weighing in lighter than normal. Gaining GST is going to positively affect your climbing, as will weight loss.

Hi Josh. Thank you for your thoughts, they are as educating and stimulating as ever.

I got some urinal ketone testing strips today. My first test gave a negative reading, so still normal. I had expected a slight rise by now.

You can speed the process up by eating a lot of fat and depleting the glucose in your muscles; a very long walk us supposed to be a good way to do this.

This advice is anecdotal.

If it's your first time going into ketosis it can take a bit of time.

You can speed the process up by eating a lot of fat and depleting the glucose in your muscles; a very long walk us supposed to be a good way to do this.

This advice is anecdotal.

If it's your first time going into ketosis it can take a bit of time.

Nigel said:

I got some urinal ketone testing strips today. My first test gave a negative reading, so still normal. I had expected a slight rise by now.

It is important to understand that your body will do everything within its power to avoid ketosis, which is why I am so surprised that people still seem to think it is a good idea to work towards staying in ketosis. 

I did start with a few assumptions on how long it would take to deplete my glycogen, and so far it hasn't happened. Or at least it hasn't happened with any ketones appearing in my wee. I've heard there is a lag between them appearing and being excreted, although that isn't reflected in this study (http://jenslabs.com/2013/06/06/ketosense-an-arduino-based-ketosis-detector/).

Assuming I was storing my full amount, lets say 100g liver glycogen and 300g muscle glycogen, total 400g or 1600 calories. I then ingest 50g or 200 calories each day. Today is day 8, so I would have had access to 8x200 + 1600 = 3200 calories from carbs.

To do the calculation, I need to know how many calories I burn each day from carbs while resting and exercising. Let's say it's 30% carbs when resting (=600 calories per day) and 50% carbs when exercising. Also assuming 250 calories per hour for climbing.

Day 1 - walk - 600 carb calories for resting + 100 for walking

Day 2 - climbing 2 hours + 4 hours supervising kids party - 600 + 250 + 250

Day 3 - walk - 600 + 100

Day 4 - climbing + dyno comp 600 + 1000

Day 5 - rest - 600

Day 6 - fingerboarding + F1 + running 600 + 500

Day 7 - climbing 4 hours 600 + 500

Total 6900 calories from carbs. I should have run out somewhere into day 3 based on these assumptions, but as yet have noticed nothing major other than my legs feeling rather heavy after running.

Day 8 result! 0.5 mmol/L. The test strips I have go in steps: negative (normal), .5, 1.5, 3.9, 8, 16. The target for keto-adaption is 3-5, anything more is not good.

Nigel said:

I did start with a few assumptions on how long it would take to deplete my glycogen, and so far it hasn't happened. Or at least it hasn't happened with any ketones appearing in my wee. I've heard there is a lag between them appearing and being excreted, although that isn't reflected in this study (http://jenslabs.com/2013/06/06/ketosense-an-arduino-based-ketosis-detector/).

 

Assuming I was storing my full amount, lets say 100g liver glycogen and 300g muscle glycogen, total 400g or 1600 calories. I then ingest 50g or 200 calories each day. Today is day 8, so I would have had access to 8x200 + 1600 = 3200 calories from carbs.

 

To do the calculation, I need to know how many calories I burn each day from carbs while resting and exercising. Let's say it's 30% carbs when resting (=600 calories per day) and 50% carbs when exercising. Also assuming 250 calories per hour for climbing.

 

Day 1 - walk - 600 carb calories for resting + 100 for walking

Day 2 - climbing 2 hours + 4 hours supervising kids party - 600 + 250 + 250

Day 3 - walk - 600 + 100

Day 4 - climbing + dyno comp 600 + 1000

Day 5 - rest - 600

Day 6 - fingerboarding + F1 + running 600 + 500

Day 7 - climbing 4 hours 600 + 500

 

Total 6900 calories from carbs. I should have run out somewhere into day 3 based on these assumptions, but as yet have noticed nothing major other than my legs feeling rather heavy after running.

Now you can see how much protein your body may be turning over to regenerate carbohydrate. Make no mistake, your carb requirements do go down with extremely low intake, because only anaerobic processes truly require carbohydrate, but it's doing everything it can to regenerate carbs. It takes an amazingly low carb intake to really hit ketosis. Lower than you think, perhaps.

Additionally, all of your lower level activities will start to draw on more fat as an additional carb preservation strategy, but you're going to see a general downward trend in your metabolism as a result. It will be much easier for you to lose muscle during your attempt at ketogenesis. 

Day 9 back to a negative/normal ketone reading.

Josh, can you be more specific about the downward trend in metabolism? What kind of things could be noticeable?

Big competition at the weekend. 25 boulder problems over 4 hours. I was thirsty again, but noticed no degradation of performance. This was the last of 5 rounds, so I'll have a comparison of where I came overall when the results are published. Yesterday I fell off the wagon, so to speak. I was hungry again, probably from restricting calories on the days leading up to the comp and the effort put into the climbing, and consumed around 200g carbs. A banana never tasted so good!

Nigel, first off, hats off to you. I suspect your 2nd place finish is probably due to your nutrition.

I personally follow a high fat, moderate carb (but with almost zero refined wheat, minimal sugar, and mostly safe starches, reminiscent of the "Perfect Health Diet" of the Jaminets) and moderate protein diet. 

I subscribe to the Phinney/Volek approach of nutritional ketosis, and have come to the realization that carbs are needed to fuel the brain primarily, though not as much as most people say.  And I believe that "slow-release" starches taken in not more than 40% of daily caloric intake should not preclude the body from staying in a keto-adapted state.

Have not tested myself to see whether or not I'm keto adapted, but I've been following this diet for about 2 years now, and I feel as good as I've ever felt, and thank the heavens for having discovered Phinney and Volek's work.