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Bro, you have huge guts in posting this and I can only send you the very, very best in healing thoughts. Cancer cells are about 200x more efficient than "regular" cells in burning glucose for energy, so the logical conclusion has been that you could starve the cancer cells by super-restricting your intake of glucose (or carbs in general). I am attaching a document on ketones that may shed some light on this - it may be a little technical but I think you may find some value in this. Your BG sounds about right, but what you may find beneficial is to really keep your carb intake to an absolute minimum - by that I mean not eating ANYTHING that is not absolutely essential to keep your engine turning. Once you start with LCHF and get through the first week or three you may find that your cravings for junk food diminish completely - well worth giving it a go and keep asking if you need any advice. Strongs and much white light to you. VANITALLIE_NUFERT_ketones_ugly_duckling.pdf

Karl, you could happily use Hammer or similar products during a race (ask JCZA about this). Others (like me) try to avoid supplementing with carbs completely, but I have to confess that I have only tested my abilities on an n=1 basis, and not during races. Without any fuel (except for the fatshake prior to riding) I can comfortably ride for about 5 hours, but then I need to top up. I have not had the need to do that though, as we tend to limit our long weekend rides to no more than 5 hours. The key to success with the correct feeding strategy is to experiment as close as you can to race conditions. As with everything else, don't wait for race day to try out new stuff ! I can tell you from my own experience that supplementing with something like UCAN definitely made me feel like I could ride for longer, but I have deliberately steered away from any of the other supplements, just because I am so damn sensitive to carbs. I confess that I carry a little baggy with 32GI gels in my toolbag as emergency replenishment, but I think they will be well expired soon and I have not had a need for them. Keep in mind though that if your AVERAGE HR was above 75% you riding in your anearobic, VO2Max zone, so your body would have been burning any and all available glycogen at a rate of knots. Perhaps try to re-do the ride next weekend but then start supplementing with e.g. Hammer about 30 min into your ride and see what that does to how you feel. If you have ketostix it could be interesting to see if you remain in ketosis after this supplementation. Look forward to hearing how your self-experimentation works !

Any of the mods on this forum (Slowbee ?) know if there is a way to get "permission" to upload files larger than 1 MB ? I have a myriad of Paleo / Mediterranean / LCHF cookbooks that I would love to share on this thread, but I cannot get around the size limitation as the .pdf files do not want to compress any smaller.

Feed according to your need. Most LCHF'ers will tell you that they can do most any single, long ride without the need for any fuel. If you are going at race pace, you can choose to either fuel with something like biltong and nuts, but that is a bit of a "long-term" fuel as it still has to be digested, otherwise a good quality carb supplement, as you would typically burn that off while you ride. Why do you ask though, did you feel energy depleted during your ride yesterday ? Did you eat anything before the ride ? I find that if I drink a fatshake with protein about 2 hours before I ride, I can go for at least 5 hours without feeling peckish (but then I don't ride at race pace). If I drink it too close to the riding I tend to burp up coconut for most of the ride .

tombeej, my gratitude knows no bounds. I started Googling biltong makers yesterday and soon realised that exactly what you have there, albeit a little more fancy and sometimes made out of perspex, sells for anywhere from R750 to well over R1000 ! Ever thought of sticking one of those foil pans in there as a drip tray for the first day or two ? From my interactions with seasoned biltong makers, I have picked up two important tips which you may find useful: 1. There used to be a spice called Morris' spice, apparently available from Freddy Hirsch. This is the cannot fail spice blend for biltong and droëwors (apparently). I haven't looked for it, but I reckon Freddy Hirsch may be a good place to start. 2. When I asked about that white mould that develops on some biltong, the man at Biltong warehouse told me that this is due to incorrect levels of nitrate added to the mix. They leave all their biltong in their mix for 12 hours (in a machine that resembles a cement mixer so it gets turned continuously) and I have first-hand experience of their biltong never going mouldy on me. It sounds as if it really is a minute amount of nitrate that gets added, so I will ask around some more - you may want to do the same. Once again, thank you for this - I know what my DIY project for the next week or two is going to be !

This from Authority Nutrition's FB page - worth a chuckle !

@tombeej - if and when you find some time, please will you post some detail about your biltong-making setup ? Is it a kit that you bought or did you make it yourself (if the latter based on what info/plans) ? What recipe / mix do you use - do you buy a commercially prepared spice blend or do you mix your own. How long does it take you to get your biltong to a dry enough state ? I walked into a biltong shop this morning after a longish ride and impulse-bought some really yummy looking fatty biltong. Only when I checked the label later did I realise that I just paid R210.40 per kg.... (facepalm follows)...

I was introduced to our local Biltong Warehouse by a friend recently and I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality, pricing and fat content of their biltong. They sell silverside biltong for R160 / kg and I must tell you it is prime quality. They make and awesome droëwors as well, so if regular fatty biltong does not cook your goose, then droëwors is a nice other option. But just FYI - remember that even trimmed beef has a fat content of between 10% - 25% by weight, so even if it is lean biltong, you are at least getting 10% of that in as fat - and I would much prefer that fat to whatever gets put into an energy bar... http://biltongwarehouse.co.za/ - I see they can even courier it to you

Nope, it cannot be cured, just managed. But you can manage it to the point where you don't need any medication and where it does not impact on your life at all, that's why LCHF fits me like a glove. Just for interest sake, check the graph below - that was what happened to my BG after starting LCHF in October of 2012 - it resembles that of a healthy person. I haven't done an updated graph to plot my recent experimentation, but once my carb intake is around 50 - 70g my BG settles around 5.0 as well. So yes, I could say that I reversed it, but the truth is that I could trigger high BG in no time with higher carbs. I blew my regulator a long time ago....

@Mike Bike & krouxsa - I am sensitive to milk, but have not had that much of a response from it. Sometimes you have to look past the obvious things, and silly as this may sound, it may even be the tea that lifts your blood sugar (if you are really hypoglaecemic). I only started drinking coffee when I started doing LCHF and was experimenting with bullet-proof coffee and at one stage found that I had inexplicable spikes in BG. Lo and behold, it turned out that I was sensitive to caffeine like that. On a slightly different note (but still on this topic), I pushed my carb consumption up a little over the last week to see what that would do to my BG readings. For the past 6 days I have been averaging about 150g of carbs per day. My waking BG for the last 3 days has been 6.3 - 6.5 and random tests during the day (I don't eat lunch) gave readings as high as 7.8. This morning I had my regular fatshake with no added carbs bar the 6g that comes with the PVM protein powder I use and that which is in the milk in the shake. My BG now is at 5.8. What I have learned from this is that (I am a Type II diabetic so keep that in mind): 1. There is definitely a cumulative effect to carb consumption for me - I don't "reset" overnight and high carbs consumed today will have an effect on my BG reading tomorrow. Exercise at night also did not do a "reset". 2. Since starting LCHF, my "tolerance" for carbs has lowered. I used to be able to get away with about 100g of carbs during the day without adverse BG levels, now I start seeing my BG going up well below 100g per day. 3. I have had slow and steady weight loss over the week prior, but as soon as I upped my carbs to about 100g/day my weight loss stopped and I have in fact added about 1kg back over the last 3 days. 4. Blood ketones are at 0.6 mmol, which is not bad, but I am not seeing any weight loss effect from that and I am guessing that the high carb = high BG is simply blocking any benefit that being in ketosis may have. I have tested with Ketostix throughout and have been reading +++ throughout, so my overall ketosis was not affected, which is interesting - I am guessing if I took even more carbs it would knock me well out of ketosis. I know that it will take me about 2 - 3 days to get my BG levels to the low 5's by simply restricting carbs again. I have trained throughout and have not felt any benefit in terms of energy or endurance over the last week, and over the last three days I had major energy dips in the afternoons, reminiscent of my high carb days. I am, therefore, resigned to the fact that for my own health and sanity I will have to remain low-carb.

Welcome Mike Bike and to everyone else who may be new on this forum. Your questions and observations made me scratch through some of my archives and I found the attached "A Paleo diet for the 21st Century" pdf, and I think (although not exhaustive by any means) this is a really nice little go-to book if you want to read a little about the do's and don'ts on modern Paleo or LCHF. It is only 27 pages, and I like the approach the writer took. I cannot remember where and how I got this, so I may have the Copyright Nazi's on my case, so grab while you can ! a-paleo-diet-for-the-21st-century1.pdf edit : grammar

Brilliant !!! Mine do the same to those grey dog blankets - the love tearing them apart, so now I have resorted to the fleece-type blankies, but I still have to keep an eye out as Romeo is the snatcher and once the blanket is on the lawn, the rest is history ! You gotta love that "It wasn't me" expression !!!

Just on Frontline - although I am a great believer in the product (and a VIP customer due to the volume that I buy) I have since discovered Advocate and trust me, it is just SO MUCH better. My big eye opener with Advocate is that it is actually a dewormer as well (and it treats for a myriad of parasites and nasties) but I applied this to my dogs about 1 month after they were dewormed via the regular praziquantel tabs that you get from the vet and I was ASTOUNDED by the number of worms shed by all of my dogs, not a pretty sight, but now I use Advocate to treat ticks, fleas and worms in one go. PS. My adoption fees included the free sterilization as well, but another animal welfare place buggered up two of my dogs so much during their sterilization some years ago that they ended up in ICU, so I decided to never do that again. Sorry, this is all a little off topic, I know. edit : URL : http://www.animalhealth.bayer.com/4882.0.html

My two pups are back home less certain parts of their anatomy and I am less a sizeable portion of cash. I had the option to take them back to Animal Welfare for a free sterilization but due to a previous bad experience in this regard, I decided to rather take them to my Vet who has look after my animals for the past 15 years. The end result was a Vet bill of R3,415 - that included micro-chipping them, so call it a round R3,000 for the two. I just felt a little ripped off somehow, so I wrote them a letter last night saying that their pricing may be one of the reasons why ordinary people cannot afford to have their animals sterilized at regular Vets. Grateful that they are both back home and both seem none the worse for wear.

That about sums it up ! Nice post, thanks !

Marge, seriously, change doctors. There is NOTHING wrong with those numbers and you should NOT be taking medication for that. To put your mind at ease, here are the "allowed" parameters from Pathcare's reports: LDL : 0.00 - 5.15 HDL: > 0.89 According to Prof Noakes, as a female, your cholesterol should be well above that. With an HDL of 1.0 you are well within the safe parameters. Again, please go and get a second opinion from a doctor who is more up to date with what is happening in the world. Edit : my LDL is at 6.15 and HDL at 1.03 and both my doc and Prof Noakes were completely happy with that.

@wonduhboy - great inspirational story, thanks for sharing that and well done on pushing through with determination and a will to succeed. How long have you been doing this for ? If I just add your weeks and then look at the weight loss, you have dropped 9.5kg in 13 weeks, which is awesome in any book !

My 2 kids are at the Vet as I type this to be sterilized... Funny how they both were instinctively nervous and afraid this morning, in spite of how we tried to appear calm - I am sure they sense way beyond what we can understand that there is something afoot...

What he said. How about packing some biltong instead ? Here's a cool link from Dietdoctor this morning that shows Asians eating MORE red meat get LESS cancer and heart disease, according to eight prospective studies.... http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2013/07/31/ajcn.113.062638.short

Good Man !!! ...and you will have loyalty like nothing else from Zoe for the rest of your life.

Great going Marge ! Just before you start getting despondent, here's that link from Mark Sisson about weight loss stalls again ! http://www.marksdailyapple.com/weight-loss-plateau/

Well done Marge ! So you have probably cut back even more on your carbs than before ? Keep in mind that you may not lose weight, in fact you may gain weight. If the assumption is that you have also started exercising, one could easily add muscle that would make you heavier... So two questions; in your mind, how much weight do you have to lose ? If applicable, have you perhaps lost cm's anywhere ?

@Roux 1 - I have had the same and my theory remains that it is due to the adrenergic nature of ketones circulating in the body. After 4 visits to 3 different cardiologists there is still no clear answer, the only things that they all agree on are that there is nothing wrong medically, mechanically or electrically with my heart, I am fit and healthy and that I should listen to my body rather than my heart rate monitor ! I have added back small amounts of carbs on an experimental basis and it made no difference, so I have resigned myself to the fact that I can train at higher HR than other people my age. I think the biggest artificial hurdle to get over is the old theoretical maxHR issue - and this is a very simple thing to explain or test. You can take most any two people of the same age and same fitness levels and I would bet you that there will be major differences in their HR's whether it is maxHR or restingHR - we are not all wired the same. If you really need peace of mind, go to a reputable cardiologist or one of the Sports Science type institutions and do a VO2Max test. That will provide you with a full picture of what your body (and heart) does under strenuous conditions and you will better understand your own thresholds, which in turn will mean that you can then customise your training program around that. If I did not have any other background on you but what you posted, my first guess (based only on the 3 things you mention) would be that you are tired / overtrained, so perhaps some rest will be in order ?

I am always reminded of that famous quote by Ghandi in this regard: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated” Sadly the majority of the "nation" are failing in every respect if we had to go by this...

IanJ - I am not that familiar with the Husky breed, but having been involved with the Border Collie Rescue in Malmesbury (I have two of their dogs that I adopted) - do you think that people buy Huskies for the wrong reasons and then find that they cannot keep the dogs occupied, resulting in destructive behaviour sometimes ? This is what seems to happen with a lot of the BC's - people think they are "cute" but forget that they are working dogs that need to be exercised to prevent them from developing destructive behaviour.