canklecat

I shouldn't be surprised the keto diet has come around again. It was briefly semi-unpopular during the mid-1970s/early '80s, about the time Jim Fixx helped popularize jogging and marathons for regular Joes and Jills, in the same way Tom Cuthbertson's "Everybody's Bike Book" helped make cycling mainstream in the US by making it accessible.

I was in the Navy at the time and a couple of friends were told to lose weight or face disciplinary action, including discharge. They tried the keto diet. They did weekly lab tests to check for ketoacidosis and other complications. I doubt most folks doing keto nowadays have any real idea of whether it's actually good for them. If they lose weight and feel okay, they're probably okay. But who knows.

It was effective for one fellow, who quickly peeled off a lot of body fat. We also bike commuted the 10 miles to work a few times a week. He said the hardest part was giving up beer and deserts. I doubt he stuck with it. That takes a whole cultural change, including a cooperative family.

It didn't seem to work so well for the other guy. I suspect the other fellow wasn't really trying. Can't say I blame him. Despite being a butterball the guy was remarkably quick, agile and athletic. He was a fierce competitor on the racquetball court. Besides being darned good at it he could block half the damned court without drawing a hinder call.

I tried keto back in the 1970s when I was an amateur boxer, trying to keep down to welterweight. My lab results seemed screwy to the doc, but I'm not sure there was anything really wrong or they just looked for anything out of spec for the average guy of my demographic. If I'm recalling correctly they were more concerned about protein in my urine, probably from some marathon workout sessions without hydrating enough. This was back in the bad old days when many coaches -- especially football and boxing -- told us to avoid drinking too much water. Supposedly it would toughen us up. Good way to die too. I resumed drinking as much as I wanted and the problem cleared up.

Then, as now, the easiest way I found to burn off excess body fat was long moderate cardio workouts -- bicycling, running, whatever we can sustain for at least an hour, preferably longer. No need to sacrifice all carbs and sugars. And I was less prone to bonking when I trained my body to burn fat. But we were mostly guessing back then. It's only been fairly recently that our hunches seemed to be confirmed.

Even before "keto" was a thing, boxing and wrestling coaches knew the elite athletes did better when they minimized sugar and junk carbs. It wasn't just sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice. Trainers recognized patterns in more disciplined athletes, and noticed those same athletes suffered performance deterioration when they strayed even slightly from a disciplined diet.

There's a scene in the 1950s movie "The Joe Louis Story" depicting a real event in which Joe's beloved trainer, Chappie Blackburn, scowled at Joe for breaking training by having a single small slice of birthday cake. This was foreshadowing to his loss to Max Schmeling. Actually Joe lost because he was a sucker for an overhand right counter over his low jab, a flaw he never really corrected. He just overwhelmed Schmeling in the rematch before Max could get a chance to soften up Louis with those repeated counters.

But mostly it was an interesting bit of minutiae because it revealed how disciplined athletes are expected to give up most pleasures for the sake of their sport. In the 1980s Sugar Ray Leonard quipped that one of the hardest things about training to box at the elite level was having to abstain from even a single beer during training. No unnecessary carbs whatsoever. And you could see the difference in his later performances. Leonard had the sheer talent and ability to box at peak level for years longer than he did, but he couldn't discipline himself to keep down to his optimal weight of around 150 lbs. At slightly heavier weights he looked softer rather than cut and well defined, and was just a tick slower, enough to make him look ordinary rather than superhuman. Same thing happened to Tito Trinidad. Tito was an all time great welterweight, but was just a little soft and slower at middleweight and couldn't carry off the same elite level performances. All because of a tiny extra bit of junk carbs and body fat.

BTW, if you read Michael Crichton's novel, The Andromeda Strain, you might remember the old alcoholic who survived the mutating virus because he was in acidosis from poor diet, drinking Sterno and popping aspirin. But sci-fi is a poor basis for advocating a diet.