Keto and cycling
 

Had anyone cycled lot of miles and practice a keto diet?
how do you feel compared to a traditional diet with carbs ?

if you are on a keto diet, why not go for a ride and see

I'm guessing your body will adjust accordingly, whether that means shutting down (which I doubt) or going on down the road

it required more protein. not just before or after the ride, but there was an overall need of building it up. Also noticed, because of the consumption increase, more BMs took place. So if you are riding a long while, you may need to plan out a "campsite".

It's fine after the transition period of first 1-2 weeks. You may feel sluggish at times, during that period, just keep riding. After the transition period, you will feel normal and perhaps better. Drink lots of water.

For me, I love biking while fasting. Fasting gets you into ketosis faster than eating anything specific.

Keto fad is stupid just like all other diets fads out there are stupid...It doesn't make any sense to follow a diet which excludes and forbids eating so many delicious healthy foods.

Says you. You sound awfully judgmental and in no way did you help contribute to the OPs question.

Keto or other diets are a means to an end, some people need to go there just like some people need medication or consoling for their problems.

Ive done keto a couple times now, just started again here Jan 1st.

in the past I had particular difficulty continuing keto one it got hot out and I was sweating my balls off while cycling. I found I needed the carbs for sustaining and recovery with lots of water.

probably related to that fail was my summer cycling typically includes more social rides (beer) and pit stops at C stores full of pizza, cookies, and snack bars....

EDIT: I should add that cycling isn’t my means to loose weight and I’m happy and successful maintaining my weight when cycling. Cycling is simply its own reward.

You might find this article from Dr. Malcolm Kendrick interesting. It's more about low carb than keto but I think the results speak for themselves.

A relative has had a Keto diet for 2 years now. She has lost a ton of weight, maintained it(so never gaining), is in better overall health than any time as an adult, and is absurdly active- like its exhausting to even hear the number of miles she walks each day. She put in more bike miles this year than in the prior 7, and swims multiple times a week too.
She does not adhere to Keto as a fad, it is her diet- its how she eats, and it has worked.

My wife has Celiac, so our house is gluten free. Her(and ours mostly) diet excludes gluten. A Vegetarian's diet avoids meat(to varying degrees) for a variety of reasons.
Alternative diets can be trendy fads, or they can be how you live due to any number of reasons. If your body cant handle gluten and an autoimmune reaction occurs, or if your body thrives when you avoid processed sugar and high carbs, then simply avoid the things that dont work for you.
How that is controversial is confusing.

There's a lot of interesting material out there about the cycle of burning blood sugar and then converting to burning fat as well as the anaerobic and aerobic forms of energy burning and lactic acid creation. Without understanding the cycle of energy consumption and where the body gets energy from as other stores are used up you won't understand the effect a diet will have on that cycle.

Just some fairly random search results:

https://www.nomeatathlete.com/burning-fat-for-fuel/

https://www.active.com/cycling/artic...ic-acid-880046

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/reso...y-for-exercise

Nothing new here and it proves nothing.....Keto is unsustainable long term and majority of people who start keto will eventually quit and go back to normal eating and gain even more weight than before...There are plenty of other ways of loosing weight and keeping it off without having to follow extreme diets.

True. If Keto is unsustainable long term, you are absolutely right it's useless. The problem is that up to date there has been no effective long term sustainable healthy diet at large for those subject to the Western industrial food complex. People don't choose to be obese. And people generally aren't lazy and gluttonous. But their eating patterns have been hijacked by processed food interests. These interests benefit from the confusion about what is healthy. This confusion is often propagated by food sponsored institutions, religion, and government. This confusion makes what the smoking industry did minor league. Generally, if the word "healthy" is on the package, it's not. And if there are more than 2 food ingredients on the food that you're eating, it's done so to affect increase eating behavior.

https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...ba7ba2a362.png

Keto is more an eating protocol than a diet. Your body switches to running on fat, rather than carbohydrates. I know a guy who did a few brevets powered solely by olive oil. He had an excellent understanding of what he was doing though, and regularly tested for ketone bodies in his urine to verify ketosis; it's not something you should do without understanding what is going on in your body.

I am not in a keto eating protocol, but I am in a a 16:8 to 20:4 intermittent fasting eating protocol (16 to 20 hours of fasting with a 8 to 4 hour eating window). It varies, though.

Still, I ride 30 km commutes (week days) and 100 km metric centuries (weekends) in a fasted state all the time. I am on flat paved bike paths 90% of the time and in a comfortable zone 2. Once you are adjusted you're fine, but if you go straight from regular 3 meals a day eating, with unlimited carbs, to time restricted eating, you can get a little light headed after a decent effort on the bike. That's low blood sugar, and if you can get through it, your body starts to use fat.

Once you are into a good routine, such as eating from 12.00pm until 8.00pm with predictable efforts, like daily commutes, your body adapts to burning fat if it depletes its glycogen stores and you don't bonk as hard or get all lihht headed.

It's not for everyone, but I am coming up on 50lbs lost with the best health check up numbers I have seen in years. Those blood tests don't lie.

The deal is your body needs carbohydrates to ride at any type of intensity.

If your goal is to plod around as slowly as possible for random amounts of time, low carb/keto may suffice.

If your goal is to actually go out and push a little bit on the pedals, you need some carbohydrates. It's about as basic a nutrition/metabolism issue as there is, and yet threads like these still pop up because people buy into these ridiculous premises that are either completely fabricated or heavily misleading.

I've done intermittent fasting for the last 9 months and lost about 15 lbs, but again, pace 100% dictates what you can do while fasted or taking in less carbs. I can go out fasted and ride 2 hours very easy, but I've also bonked numerous times when going just that little bit too hard.

I've bonked in just 30 minutes time multiple times when really depleted (generally after not refueling enough from a big ride the day before).

Even with intermittent fasting, if I'm planning a bigger ride the next day, I either have to consume additional carbs and calories during the "window" or, in the event of a ride with much more intensity, forgo the fasting and eat a substantial amount before and during the ride.

Why? Because your body needs carbs to go fast.

The guy was still adapted to burning carbohydrates, rather than fat. If he was properly in ketosis he could have done a hard effort burning fat. If--and the big thing here is that if--you are properly in ketosis, you can go as hard as you like, provided you take on sufficient fat to power the effort.

Ketosisis in no way a ridiculous premise, it's merely the body adapting itself to utilize fat, rather than carbohydrates, for energy. I know someone who rode a couple of 200K brevets drinking from a bottle of olive oil, just to prove that it could be done, to himself as much as anyone.

You just need pee strips to verify the presence of ketone bodies in your urine and the discipline not to cheat and eat a donut, because you'll be dragged straight out of ketosis if you do.

Carbs are a much easier way to fuel efforts, but they not essential at all, provided you are properly in ketosis and consuming enough fat to provide you with energy or have fat stores you can draw on.

I'm in no way suggesting you can't do a significant amount of low intensity activity using fat as a primary source of fuel.

I'm saying there is no way you can do a significant amount of any moderate to high intensity like that. Because that requires carbs.

Anyone that would like to go halfway fast needs carbs.

Thread moved from General Cycling to Training and Nutrition.

This is true if one has relied on eating carbohydrates as a primary macronutrient, which most humans do. But if you don't eat carbs, your body will upregulate liver gluconeogenesis enzymes that converts glycerol(the 3 carbon backbone molecule of triglycerides(fat molecule)) in to glucose. It will also up regulate lactate shuttle enzymes that can convert lactate back into sugar when your lactate production outpaces glucose burn. Glucose is vital for high intensity physical effort. The thing is the body does an amazing job producing glucose in the liver. You don't have to consume it.

But look no further at the amazing physical feats that a cheetah(or any animal in nature for that matter) can do without carb loading. They aren't sluggish. Would you rather be chased by a lion that were well fed or hadn't eating in 5 days? While their bone and muscle structures aren't the same as a primate, their ATP(energy molecule) generation is the same. It's just that humans mastered fire/farming about 10k years ago and eating carbs pulled us away from our natural physiologic state.

I'm not trying to demonize carbs and convert people into the "keto" cult. Carb load all you want. That's fine with me. But if one is curious about the biochemical physiology between glucose, sugar, and ketones it's quite fascinating. Why not understand it something that is occurring in all of us from the day we are in utero till the day we die.

I've been doing intermittent dry fasting for over 2 years. OMAD 3-4 week. I wouldn't consider myself that great of rider. I've seen packs of women with higher BMI pass me. But I can do 3-4 hour bike rides with 3-4k ft climbs in a dry fasted state. I don't think I'm dehydrated cause at the end of the ride I always have long mean piss. So if I can build up to it, I suspect anyone can. When you fast and eat less carbs, it creates a requisite demand that your body burn fat for ATP, ketones, and glucose generation. Ketones and glucose of course is ultimately burned for ATP. But ATP is generated in the cell and is not delivered via the bloodstream, so energy delivery through blood stream is done via ketones, glucose, and lipoproteins(for fat delivery). Also, albumin(protein we see in eggs) can also deliver a little bit of fat.

Let's get real. My post specifically said:


Now take your cheetah comparison a bit further. How long does a cheetah sprint for?

How long are you planning on riding your bike for?

If you want to ride fast, carbs are required. Unless your rides are 10 seconds or so, then yes, by all means, channel your inner keto cheetah.

Like I keep saying, if you ride slow enough, then have at it.

But you can't ride quickly for very long doing that type of stuff. I can do 1 MJ an hour at a tempo pace for multiple hours at a time. Suffice to say, there's a lot of energy being put out day after day. That takes a lot of carbs.

I can't ride faster compared you. You sound like a cycling beast. Those metrics crush me. But it's good enough for me. And while it's slow for someone like you I keep still PR'ing segments at the age of 50.