LCHF - Low Carb High Fat Diet Ver 2

[Marge]

@htone: She is doing well thanks, went home yesterday from hospital for the first time and she is doing her shots and BG by herself, kids learn very fast! Unfortunately they have noticed that her eyesight is not so good so they are going to the optometrist today.

@Topwine: Will send you a PM.

[Topwine]

Ray Peat, PhD ( in biology and physiology with emphasis on aging of cells)

http://raypeat.com/articles/articles/diabetes.shtml

 

I think the basic anti-aging diet is also the best diet for prevention and treatment of diabetes, scleroderma, and the various "connective tissue diseases." This would emphasize high protein, low unsaturated fats, low iron, and high antioxidant consumption, with a moderate or low starch consumption. In practice, this means that a major part of the diet should be milk, cheese, eggs, shellfish, fruits and coconut oil, with vitamin E and salt as the safest supplements. It should be remembered that amino acids, especially in eggs, stimulate insulin secretion, and that this can cause hypoglycemia, which in turn causes cortisol secretion. Eating fruit (or other carbohydrate), coconut oil, and salt at the same meal will decrease this effect of the protein. Magnesium carbonate and epsom salts can also be useful and safe supplements, except when the synthetic material causes an allergic bowel reaction..

[HappyMartin]

In Joe Friel's atestblog he quotes Noakes extensively. Joe is now also a LCHF convert. For those that don't know he is the author of the Training Bible series of books.

[P.A.K.]

Joe Friel is a valuable source of info regarding endurance training. Glad to hear he too had joined the LCHF

[McD23]

I sure hope you are not advising them to go ketogenicly low carb with her as that could lead to the same complications as what happened to my competitively tennis playing son of 13 years old. (not the Type 1 diabetic one).

 

Ketogenic diets are for sick people, NOT healthy, active and especially young people !

Topwine,

I don't know enough about Taubes to take a stance about him, but am interested on your thoughts around Noakes current thoughts on LCHF lifestyle ?

[Topwine]

Topwine,

I don't know enough about Taubes to take a stance about him, but am interested on your thoughts around Noakes current thoughts on LCHF lifestyle ?

 

I have the highest respect for Prof Tim Noakes and admire what he has done and for his stance on LCHF. I have bought his books and been in email contact with him numerous times. I have tweeted him and he has retweeted some of my tweets in the past, before he got so popular on twitter. There is a lot of merit in what he says, but remember this does not come from Tim Noakes. This is a very old diet and the LCHF diet is one that is very popular in some internet circles. It is an industry on its one, as is the vegan, or whatever other diet craze. There is always people making money from their popularity. That Rob Wolf guy crashed on his LC diet (as did many others) and now makes a lot of money spinning Paleo.

 

I say, listen to all, do your own homework, study the literature, the physiology, the science, not what one guy says has worked for him. Incorporate what workes for you. Remember people lie all the time or exaggerrate the benefits or dont mention the negatives or side effects. That is just human. Read impartial opinions and research, people like Ray Peat imo is as impartial as they come. Read his articles, listen to his interviews on radio, it is difficult to find fault with his reasoning. He never looses his temper or raise his voice to make his point like so many others like Gary Teubes and even Tim Noakes. That is normally a sign of insecurity.

 

I have tried a low carb and ketogenic diet for 9 months, even before some "gurus" on here. Initialy it was wonderfull, but after a couple of months, I could not stand having sore legs all the time even after a nights rest or just as I start my ride. So I started having sugar in my diet again, mostly more fruit, but sugar in my coffee with Coconut oil as well. I feel much better now, have more power, more energy and sleep better. My BG is 4 in the morning when I wake up ! It was higher sometimes on LC . My son got very ill on the LC diet after 6 months on it. He was very active, played very good tennis and other sport. He, like me, also decided that "sugar is bad" and did not eat it any more in cooldrinks or sweets or other food in sympathy for his diabetic brother but mainly because his dad said sugar is bad and toxic... How foolish of me. It was 3 months of hell where he could barely move before his lungs contracted so much that he could hardly breath. In those 3 months the best specialists and doctors here in the Cape could not find out what was wrong with him. After numerous tests, scans and handfulls of different pills and medicines, they declared they can find nothing physically wrong with him. All blood tests were "normal" and the said he must be mentally ill or it was in his mind ! This was after he was rushed to ER complaining of the worst chest pain he ever expereinced ! They wanted to put him on mental medication for 4 months before a psychiatrist could even see him. Talk about how much money these guys make!

 

My wife and I refused and I researched day and night for many days and weeks. Because of Ray Peat's work and others mentioning him, I fed him Coconut oil and sugar. He is thankfully now healthy again and competing at the top level in tennis again. I am just glad this whole nightmare is over.

 

So my advice, be very careful of blindly following some Guru's recommendations, especially if they have no background in physiology ! LCHF diets have their place in certain circumstances, but not as a norm or in healthy people.

[Helpmytrap]

@Topwine, at the moment I feel the same as you did. When I leave the house for a ride my legs feel heavy and sore, it takes about 30-45min before they get going and then I still can't really push hard. And as expected, I cant maintain sprint efforts for very long before practically grinding to a halt. Most of today I've been wondering/contemplating if I should maybe not revert to paleo.

[HappyMartin]

Like Topwine said. You must figure your own way. I did not so well on low carb. I looked at my diet again the other day. I always think I am high carb but I m under 200 g a day. About 150 g protein. The rest must be fat I suppose. Quite stable weight. Use sugars when riding but up to an hour sometimes 2 just water.

 

Whole foods and homemade stuff works for me.

[nochain]

@Topwine, at the moment I feel the same as you did. When I leave the house for a ride my legs feel heavy and sore, it takes about 30-45min before they get going and then I still can't really push hard. And as expected, I cant maintain sprint efforts for very long before practically grinding to a halt. Most of today I've been wondering/contemplating if I should maybe not revert to paleo.

I like @Tombeej approach to this whole diet , it is possible to use elements of LCHF,very low carb and Paleo and combine it in your daily diet.It does not have to be a all or nothing thing...

In your case I think from a racing perspective in the long run it might be worth sticking with what you are trying right now for a bit and then start to to "relax" it a bit.

Maybe in the long run building a fat burning machine now will make you stronger??

 

I think it can be a big advantage especially on the mtb ultra racing!You don't have to carry loads of stuff and can stop only once or not at all.....

[htone]

@helpmytrap - here are some numbers from this morning's ride that you may find interesting.

 

We did a "low & slow" fairly flat 76km road in 3 hours, so averaged 25km/h.

My ave HR was 138, max HR 164.

BG on waking was 4.6

I decided to NOT have breakfast this morning (i.e. no fatshake) and it made no difference to my power or endurance. This tells ME that I am fat-adapted enough to ride below VO2Max on my body's own fuel (read fat) stores.

After the ride I did a ketostix check and ketones were at ++.

Blood ketones tested a massive 3.2 mmol, which bears out that what we measure in urine is the wasted ketones (not used for energy).

BG after the ride was 4.8. We had a rather large coffee with milk mid-ride, so the higher BG could be as a result of that, but I am thinking it is just because of the energy demands placed on my body, especially during the last 15 km, when we picked up the pace to about 32 km/h.

 

I was thinking about your comments about the lack of energy during sprints and have the following thoughts on that:

1. You have not allowed enough time to fully adapt to fat burning, so your body is very much in an in-between phase now and what you are feeling is typical of that. I would keep at it for another month at least and then make a call.

2. You ride more than anyone I know and probably feature in the top 5% of people on TheHub in terms of training volume - that in itself says you may have to approach things a little "differently", probably more along the lines of what JCZA does when it comes to supplementing with carbs during your riding.

3. You have said that you do not supplement enough with magnesium or salt, that would be the first and easiest thing to fix that relates directly to what you are feeling.

4. You need to look at what your typical riding consists of in terms of what % of your riding falls in your VO2Max zone - not sure if you ride with a HRM, but if not, you would do well to get one. This will determine your feeding strategy. If you are a rider that spends most of the riding time below or just above VO2Max, then LCHF works like the bomb, and you can run like that for hours. If however you spend a high % of time in or above VO2Max, then you will have to supplement your diet with carbs on the bike.

5. The benefit of feeding with carbs during riding is that you burn that off quite quickly and could still experience the health benefits of an LCHF or Paleo style eating plan.

6. Do not underestimate what a lack of recovery or sleep can do to you, so make sure you are not confusing overtraining symptoms (sore muscles) with the effect of what you are eating.

 

Hope this helps.

[Helpmytrap]

[htone]

A very interesting 14 minute film on why only one third of humans are able to digest lactose !

 

http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/making-fittest-got-lactase-co-evolution-genes-and-culture

 

"Human babies drink milk; it's the food especially provided for them by their mothers. Various cultures have also added the milk of other mammals to their diet and adults think nothing of downing a glass of cows' milk. But worldwide, only a third of adults can actually digest lactose, the sugar in milk. In this short film we follow human geneticist Spencer Wells, Director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society, as he tracks down the genetic changes associated with the ability to digest lactose as adults, tracing the origin of the trait to less than 10,000 years ago, a time when some human populations started domesticating animals, including goats, sheep, and cows. Combining genetics, chemistry, and anthropology, this story provides a compelling example of the co-evolution of human genes and human culture."

[Helpmytrap]

Regarding the sore muscles, I took 2 days off the bike after the big weekend. So as far as I'm concerned, I had allowed for ample recovery.

 

At the start of last year (haven't tested it since then), my LT was at 158bpm. But prior to that my training was daily 40min intervals constantly above threshold, as an outcome I've got a lot of explosive power in the legs because of that. After I went to the HPC for the whole LT fitness test and body analysis I completely changed the way I training because I was told that I'd been overtraining. Since then I started doing longer training rides of 1.5-2hrs 4 times during the week (although I've been slacking lately) at a lower intensity but with structured intervals included.

 

For the six months prior to this years Epic (I didn't ride) I trained 5-6 times a week with guys that were aiming for a top 50, they were on a training plan from Hunter Allen, the godfather of power training. So while doing that my training weeks were between 12 and 15 hours of quality training and it has at this stage where I had dropped to 58kg. It was intervals/hill repeats day in and day out BUT because of how it was structured you had enough recovery time before the next day. Point being, I haven't gone for an LT or VO2Max test since changing the way I trained and I have no idea how the numbers have changed. So where I'm riding relative to VO2Max is unknown. (I don't think I'm doing as much training as you think I am.

 

Oh the fat adaptation, I'm probably not all the way there. On two occasions this week I attempted to skip lunch but by the time it is 2/3 o'clock I'm so damn hungry that I can't eat straight. BUT that could just be because my breakfast isn't large enough to sustain me when factoring in training and recovery. Breakfasts are in the region of 1100kCal.

 

I'm still not sure what to supplement with during a ride, do I take a banana or apple or nuts etc.

This coming week I'll experiment on the bike a bit, not much though because my test week starts next Sat. But will be able to see how it affects the readings on the ketostix. (In the video I posted, at some point he shows how during exercise at 60% VO2Max: his BG went up and ketones went down but after exercising the ketones went up while the BG dropped.) So I'll check the ketones about 1-2hrs post exercise.

 

Hours and mileage for this year.

[Helpmytrap]

A very interesting 14 minute film on why only one third of humans are able to digest lactose !

 

http://www.hhmi.org/...nes-and-culture

 

"Human babies drink milk; it's the food especially provided for them by their mothers. Various cultures have also added the milk of other mammals to their diet and adults think nothing of downing a glass of cows' milk. But worldwide, only a third of adults can actually digest lactose, the sugar in milk. In this short film we follow human geneticist Spencer Wells, Director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society, as he tracks down the genetic changes associated with the ability to digest lactose as adults, tracing the origin of the trait to less than 10,000 years ago, a time when some human populations started domesticating animals, including goats, sheep, and cows. Combining genetics, chemistry, and anthropology, this story provides a compelling example of the co-evolution of human genes and human culture."

I was reading an article the other day of the archaeology of milk. Long story short it said that those with the ability to digest lactose came from an ancestral line originating in certain European parts.

 

http://www.nature.com/news/archaeology-the-milk-revolution-1.13471

"Young children almost universally produce lactase and can digest the lactose in their mother's milk. But as they mature, most switch off the lactase gene. Only 35% of the human population can digest lactose beyond the age of about seven or eight (ref. 2). “If you're lactose intolerant and you drink half a pint of milk, you're going to be really ill. Explosive diarrhoea — dysentery essentially,” says Oliver Craig, an archaeologist at the University of York, UK. “I'm not saying it's lethal, but it's quite unpleasant.”"

Edited August 9, 2013 by Helpmytrap

[htone]

I was reading an article the other day of the archaeology of milk. Long story short it said that those with the ability to digest lactose came from an ancestral line originating in certain European parts.

 

http://www.nature.co...olution-1.13471

"Young children almost universally produce lactase and can digest the lactose in their mother's milk. But as they mature, most switch off the lactase gene. Only 35% of the human population can digest lactose beyond the age of about seven or eight (ref. 2). “If you're lactose intolerant and you drink half a pint of milk, you're going to be really ill. Explosive diarrhoea — dysentery essentially,” says Oliver Craig, an archaeologist at the University of York, UK. “I'm not saying it's lethal, but it's quite unpleasant.”"

 

Which is why it is not included in most versions of Paleo ! Fascinating though !

[Denyed]

My wife and I refused and I researched day and night for many days and weeks. Because of Ray Peat's work and others mentioning him, I fed him Coconut oil and sugar. He is thankfully now healthy again and competing at the top level in tennis again. I am just glad this whole nightmare is over.

 

So my advice, be very careful of blindly following some Guru's recommendations, especially if they have no background in physiology ! LCHF diets have their place in certain circumstances, but not as a norm or in healthy people.

 

At least all of the respective experts agree on one thing. Coconut oil and butter are very good for you and should make sure you eat enough of them!

 

I personally have been experimenting further with my diet over the past few months and found that I do well eating 2-4 fruits a day. If I eat things like flour or other processed food my HR increases for the next few hours to about 100bpm when it normally sits at around 60 during the day. I also feel terrible and it takes about 2 hours for my body to get back to normal.

 

Interestingly I can eat sugary things like a few pieces of chocolate without feeling too bad, although fruit is definitely the best form of sugar and I get no ill effects from eating it. Also nutritious starchy veggies like butternut, gem squash, pumpkin, sweet potato seem to be fine although so far I have only been eating them every few weeks.

 

I do not have any trouble digesting dairy as far as I can tell so I enjoy plenty of cream and greek yogurt but make sure only to buy quality. If anything I can at least taste the difference.

 

Initially my weight dropped 5kg's when starting lchf but I have almost returned to my original weight and continue to gain. It seems to be only muscle that doesn't add any bulk as people are commenting that I need to eat something because I look too thin!

 

I did die burger 60km last week sat after only having 1 ride over the past 2 months. Also had quite a "rough" night on the town but the next day I woke up and was perfectly fine. No sore legs or head so I think this could also assist with both forms of recovery

 

Along those lines, have any of you found that you feel tipsy a lot quicker but the alcohol wears off a lot faster? I don't normally drink more than 1 or 2 beers/glasses of wine occasionally but when I do I can feel it after a few sips. On sat I drank substantially more than that but didn't feel like I got any more drunk as the night went on.