RH Clark

Probably nothing you would consider credible. I'll state again I'm not promoting the carnivore diet. I'll say I'm intrigued by the information I have looked at about it. I think it's beneficial to look into these things objectively. My major concern of strict carnivore is that it would differ from any historically known human diet. Humans have relied heavily on animal protein and fats for food historically, but not exclusively as far as I know except for extreme examples of tribal peoples.

My personal diet consists primarily of animal proteins as free from contamination as I can get and fresh vegetables, fruits, nuts, berries, yogurt, cheese and occasional grains as free from contamination as I can get. Sometimes I wonder if I'm too concerned about contamination when I am on my bike at the light breathing the exhaust of some jerk in a supped up 4WD pouring black smoke out his tail pipe.

PeteHski

What intriguing information did you find?

I had a quick look and quickly dismissed it as a bunch of unqualified pseudoscience and fad diet pushers and cultish influencers. Qualified experts in nutrition seem pretty unanimous in raising a big red flag over the carnivore diet and especially the extreme beef, salt and water version. Short term weight loss appears to be the only potential “benefit”, but mainly because of its highly restrictive nature.

terrymorse 

I don’t think a vegan diet would be considered extreme. Not sure if this was implied or not, above.

Pretty easy to get a balance of macronutrients on a vegan diet.

RH Clark

No offense intended Terry. I went vegan for about 4 months once, but I do consider the vegan diet about as extreme as the carnivore if you use the metric of comparing either to a traditional diet of native people. In other words, I don't think any group pf humans have had a diet of all meat or all plants historically.

terrymorse 

Well, India for one has a long tradition of plant-based diets, which is encouraged by Hinduism and Buddhism. Some estimate that about 400 million in India currently are vegetarian/vegan.

PeteHski

A vegan diet is nowhere near as extreme as the carnivore diet. It doesn't exclude any of the macronutrients for a start.

RH Clark

That's good to know. Do you know if it has been a vegan diet for long periods, like hundreds of years perhaps? Would the Traditional Hindu- Buddhism diet exclude all animal products?

Either diet would still be considered extreme by many definitions. It just depends on how you qualify it.

terrymorse 

Wikipedia says vegetarian tradition in India dates back to the 6th century.

If you define extreme as “not what many people are accustomed to”, many diets would be extreme.

RH Clark

That's vegetarian rather than vegan though, right? Wouldn't vegan by definition be an extreme take on vegetarian? I was labeling both vegan and carnivore as extreme if you consider the diet most humans have consumed throughout history. I don't know of any culture that has ever been either all animal products or no animal products.

Iride01 

Meat doesn't have a wide variety of nutrients. It does have some high quantities of a few nutrients that are very important. But otherwise they are a desert for many of the nutrients you can only get from vegetables. With a very few exceptions, vegetables can provide most all the needed needed nutrients because they come in enough variety to let you change up your meals so that you do get the nutrients you need.

boozergut

My wife is from India. I have made two long trips to the north the south and the west coast. Yes, there are vegetarians everywhere. But they also cook many things in ghee and they eat the heck out of sugary sweets. There are plenty of moti and mota (fat) people there I can assure you.

terrymorse 

As far as I can tell, dietary veganism is essentially vegetarianism, with the additional specification of no eggs or dairy. That doesn't seem extreme to me.

Veganism also existed in ancient times, although the word "vegan" is quite new.

RH Clark

That just comes down to your personal point of view. Obviously since you are Vegan you see benefits in eating that way, so it doesn't seem extreme to you. The same could be said for anyone adhering to Carnivore however in my opinion. They may not label themselves as extreme either. Obviously, they see benefits or wouldn't continue for years. Some of them even reversing serious health conditions along the way. Granted those conditions were the result of an unhealthy SAD diet, with the exception of some who have used carnivore to control autoimmune disorders where literally any other food causes symptoms.

PeteHski

Or maybe they simply don't like eating vegetables. I've known a few people like that, although they usually eat fries for their carbs. Millions of people also eat the crappy Western junk diet for years and the only benefit is that they enjoy eating it.

RH Clark

Yes, I think that's sort of the appeal of Carnivore. I tried carnivore for 3 months when I first started trying to lose weight. The appeal to me was a way to diet by eating food I loved and not having to eat less than I wanted.

I'm still undecided on how healthy it is long term, but it does seem to be helping a lot of people get control of their bad diets in the short term. My thought is that many of them will find a more broadly balanced diet easier in the future by using carnivore in the short term to break food addictions.

lklkl993

Hi Guys,

I noticed a lot of interesting discussion in this thread, and thought I'd just straighten out a few misconceptions. I'm not planning on regularly interacting on the forums, as I just came across this while travelling, so I'd strongly recommend researching the points I make since I'm not on my office computer to cite the research. But I'll try to give direction where I can.

Ketosis: low intensity effort

For low intensity efforts and long duration rides, especially anything over 2 hours, you'll find being in a ketogenic metabolism more efficient for a few reason. Firstly, we carry a limited amount of glycogen at any time in the muscles, whereas even the skinniest person is carrying a significant amount of calories in bodyfat. Secondly, you get roughly double the energy output from a molecule of fat than from glucose for the same oxygen use. Thirdly, once you begin to adapt to utilising fat you'll notice the threshold at which you move from using fat as a main energy source to carbohydrate increases even without an exercise adaptation. Dr Peter Attia talks about this in an interview with Dr Inego San Milan. Dr D'Agostino talks about this often too (fun observation he made during ketogenic studies was by switching to ketosis you can double the time you can hold your breath. Doesn't help cyclists, but its just a fun piece of trivia). Fourth, we only carry enough glycogen for about a 2-3 hour effort, so anything beyond that would benefit from being in ketosis.


Ketosis: high intensity effort

This is where the misconceptions come in. Currently, there is no evidence to suggest that once properly adapted to a ketogenic metabolism that total power output is reduced. This is often touted as truth due to three things:-

1.) Poorly done exercise science. (Exercise science and nutritional science studies are extremely low quality at the best of times.)
2.) Bro-science (carb-loading, carb-depletion)
3.) Personal anecdote.

1.) It can take upwards of a year to properly adapt to a ketogenic metabolism, getting past the keto-flu during the first four weeks doesn't equate to full adaptation, not even close. The older and more sedentary you are, the longer it takes to upregulate the enzymatic pathways. Everyone is using both fat and glucose at all times to a certain degree, whether at rest or in zone 5 at maximum intensity, but due to common diets we spend less and less time in ketosis once we reach beyond adolescence. A baby is nearly always in a ketogenic state, a child returns to a ketogenic state a few hours after eating, teenagers switch to a ketogenic state after a long fast like sleep, but eventually past this age it takes too long to reach a full state of ketosis. Research surrounding ketosis and sports performance normally have one of the following issues:

a) What is considered a "ketogenic diet" is too high in carbohydrates. If its more than 25grams of carbohydrates a day, it's unlikely that the participants are properly reaching ketosis even if urine ketones are visible (if ketones are being excreted, it's a sign that the body isn't properly utilising them).
b) The study duration is too short to allow proper adaptation time. Not many entities that conduct research on this subject can afford a study to go on for a year to ensure proper adaptation, so much of the time participants are either at the initial phase of adaptation or in the early stage, when the body still hasn't properly adjusted.
c) The participants aren't representative to the population the study is aimed at: untrained individuals as participants cannot be used to offer guidance to athletes, and vice-versa. Overweight or sick people cannot be used to offer guidance to healthy individuals, and vice-versa.

Research with these limitations often make conclusions that far exceed what the study actually shows, and have the major issues of validity, generalisability and representativeness. If your ketogenic diet study lasts 24 weeks and your participants have never followed a long-term ketogenic diet, they aren't properly adapted = you aren't measuring what you claim to be measuring = validity problem.


2.) Despite what avid bodybuilders will tell you, there is no solid evidence that carbs are needed for power-output. Menno Hennselman's team has done a far better meta-review on this that I can sum up here, but I strongly suggest reading his article on this. I doubt this forum is interested in whether carbs effect your all time PR 1-rep max on the deadlift, so we'll focus on the two relevant issues: carb intake before a workout to affect performance, and glycogen repletion peri/post-exercise.

a) The few studies that suggest carb-intake before exercise increases performance had a confounding variable that the carb groups were also on a higher caloric intake. When this was adjusted for in later studies it was found that carbs had no impact on exercise performance, but the experience of a sweet taste in the mouth or a stomach-full effect did effect performance. So the carb before exercise to increase performance can pretty solidly be put down to a placebo effect.

b) Glycogen repletion peri/post-exercise. Interestingly, there are fewer steps to refill glycogen stores via the glycerol backbone of a triglyceride than by ingested carbs: and when you account for consumption and digestion time, simply waiting for the body to utilise body-fat for gluconeogenesis is faster for glycogen restoration than eating carbs. For further reading on this, there was a study done on ultra-marathon runners where they took muscle-biopsies before, during, and after the race to measure muscle glycogen levels. I can't remember the research teams names, but if you google "Ultra-marathon runner glycogen study zac ketosis" it should come up.


Healthy / Unhealthy

Let me preface this by saying that nutritional research for the most part is useless. The only diet that has been properly studied to an adequate level is the ketogenic diet that has been used to treat epilepsy, all other 'diet studies' simply don't meet the standards to be considered evidence to support making a conclusion. Having said that:-

- Three eggs, 250g of beef (about three McDonalds double-cheeseburger patty's), 100g of gouda, a tin of sardines, and an ounce of liver will hit basically all of your nutritional requirements. A kilo of beef or lamb will basically do the same, but not quite as well. So if you are going to go carnivore, don't worry, you're not at risk of a nutritional deficiency. It's worth mentioning that your nutritional needs change when in a ketogenic state, and a carnivore diet will put you into a ketogenic state.

- Carbohydrates aren't physiologically necessary, neither is fibre. Your body has mechanisms to maintain stable blood glucose, and increase it as necessary.

- If you're going vegan, you will be nutritionally deficient. You simply can't avoid it. But you can limit the detrimental effects for a time by taking B12 shots, DHA & EPA from microalgae supplements, creatine, and supplementing with protein powders. It's not healthy long-term, but that's not why you go vegan.

- Harvard did a study on the carnivore diet and concluded the vast majority of participants observed improved health on a carnivore diet.

- The British studied two tribes, the Maasai and the Kikuyu, one being mostly carnivore, the other being omnivore plant based, and the Maasai were found to be in better health by every health marker except for one. The is the closest we have to a comparison study: same environment, genetically similar due to inter-marriage, lifestyle variables non-interference, large population samples, diets were long-term dietary patterns, etc.

- Half of all people that die from heart disease have low ldl

- For those with familial hypercholesterolemia, if you survive past the age of 20 you are less likely to die from heart disease or cardiovascular complications than the average population. I can't remember the exact paper that laid it out, but it seems the increased fibrinogen count is responsible for cardiovascular complications at a young age in people with this, not the cholesterol.

- Whatever diet you do, keep your protein as high as you can tolerate. (Significant and growing research on this: for those that don't like trawling through med journals, Dr Ted Naiman on youtube gives a good account of this). Dr Sinclair who advocated for low-protein diets for longevity seems to have been caught falsifying data, and his hypothesis on keeping mTor low by eating a low protein diet is flawed as carbohydrates increase mTor more than protein does via the insulin response.

- If anyone can provide a causal mechanism between saturated fat intake and blood serum cholesterol increase, I would love to receive that paper.

- If anyone can provide a causal mechanism between high cholesterol (ldl or hdl) in healthy populations with undamaged cholesterol particles and death, I would pay good money to see it.

There is a growing body of evidence to suggest that the carnivore diet is healthy(/ier???), but at this point in time there is simply not enough research to say conclusively. Then again, the exact same can be said for the SAD, the Mediterranean diet, the egg diet, etc. As I said, we have no rigorous long-term studies on any diet, except for ketosis used to treat epilepsy. So ignore anyone that says a diet is unhealthy because x-study exists or doesn't exist, make sure you have your nutritional requirements covered, and do as you wish (after consulting your doctor).

Dave Feldman is doing some interesting research on what he calls Lean Mass Hyper Responders; that is, as bodyfat is reduced, cholesterol increases, and in some people it increases significantly to extraordinary levels but seems to have no deleterious effect on health. I mention this because this seems like a place where someone like that may be found. So if you try a ketogenic diet / carnivore diet, are lean, and notice your cholesterol levels sky-rocket: don't be alarmed, but definitely get in contact with him for further information.


Hope some of this helps.






​​​(fourth time trying to post this, apologies if it posts it a thousand times...)

Strawbunyan

My diet is about 90% carbs, the rest is meat and cheese and I am the healthiest person I know in one of the fattest places,sickest places I can imagine so I don't know. Do whatever.

PeteHski

That’s a bold statement right there. So may I ask what qualifies you to make such a judgement? You appear to be highly invested in this subject and have some pretty strong views, so it would be useful to know your qualifications and experience.

Jughed

I will give you my PA.

4+ years - 100% keto adapted. Strict keto diet, every day, for 4+ years. The last 2 years I've been experimenting with supplementing carbs for longer rides and to fuel zone 4/5 training sessions.

Also cycled about 20++k miles in that period.

I've said this here many times:

I can ride all day in ketosis at low intensity with no added fuel. Z2, even some/limited Z3 - all day. No issues.

But - I constantly feel sluggish on the bike. Always sluggish - and my power meter/heart rate data back that up.

And - I have maybe one bout of Z4+ effort in the energy tank. Anything past that point and I blow up.

Now I add carbs. When properly fueled with carbs, not an over abundance, just 100 grams or so over the course of a day and 20-40 per hour on the bike - I feel like I have lightning bolts coming out of my legs. My RPE is lower for set efforts, I put out about 10-15 more watts at the same heart rate, riding into Z3 for extended periods is easy, doing long 2x15-20 min Z4 and VO2 max sessions are possible - no way in hell I can do that while in ketosis.

So, whatever science you may quote - well, that plain ole don't work for me.

Trakhak

That approach obviously works. Just a note about carb intake while riding: one of the latest changes in nutrition practices in the pro peloton is an increased emphasis on carbs during races. A lot of the riders are now trying to take in as close to 100 carbs per hour as they can stomach (literally). Reportedly, they have to work up to that amount. Sounds as if it would be easy - who doesn't enjoy carbs? - but it's apparently difficult to get that much down and keep it down.

RH Clark

There may be a good reason why it's hard to keep it down. The thing that helps you win an elite race may not be the thing that is the best for your long-term health.

Jughed

This.

As a cyclist in the early 90's , carb loading was all the rage. Gels, goo's, gatoraid and all the other sports enhancement products were hitting the market. Doctors were writing books on the benefits of carb loading...

The night before a century was mass amounts of pasta, during the ride it was sugar sugar sugar - even flat soda...

I caught the T2 - the symptoms started in my late 20's. I ignored them until I no longer could...

Then during my deep dive into T2 research, looking for a solution that didn't involve medicine, I came upon a bunch of the old sports docs from back in the day and they were flat saying the high carb diet for endurance athletes lead many of them to having T2.

Elite athletes are machines - but many pay the price later on. Like a tired used up F1 car - every bit of performance has been extracted...

I hear it often in local old fat guy bike world now - well the pro's eat 100gms per hour!!

But, the pro's are training 20-30 hours per week, putting out 2-3-4x the average power of the old fat guy, and fully trained to burn the fuel. We, us slow old guys - are not.


Edit;

And - this super carb loading isnt anything new. Ole Lance (yep I went there) ate 1000+ grams of carbs per day during the tour. 4000 calories per day, just from carbs. IF you figure he spent 8+/- hours consuming food, 5 hours on the bike, 3 hours for before and after meals - that's about 125 grams per hour.

RH Clark

It's a very interesting subject for me. I lost 180 lbs. over 2 years cycling every day while on less than 20 grams of carbs per day. I wasn't cycling over 20-30 miles very often though and not trying to keep any specific pace. I averaged 100 miles a week the second year with 360 days on the bike. I would do a short ride 5-10 miles in the morning, another short one in the evening and a longer ride on weekends.

There is some research to suggest a fully fat adapted endurance athlete operating on high ketosis will continue to metabolize fat and not bonk. Berg speaks about it here. I am not a big fan of him and I couldn't get his research links to work.


I've never heard of this guy, but he suggests the same as far as not bonking but, he suggests the use of carb gels at the end of a race for the extra push. It's interesting and I don't think it is yet a settled science.

PeteHski

The difference now is that they are not into huge carb loading off the bike. In fact they pretty much starve themselves off the bike when training for a Grand Tour. The old-school Italian approach of eating your own weight in pasta in the evening pretty much disappeared when Team Sky arrived, armed with science.

According to Geraint Thomas and Mark Cavendish, the biggest game changer over their careers was the introduction of carb products which you can stomach in relatively large quantities (well beyond 100g/hour) while riding hard.

FWIW I usually average around 50g of carbs per hour on a hard century ride and 80g is about my limit of tolerance using natural carb products (Veloforte).

RH Clark

I think the only way to know for sure if those carbs are having a negative effect on long term health would be to have an insulin resistance test.