UKC

Been reading various threads on here recently and the low carb performance book and I decided last week to give a keto diet a try. I'm six days in now and feeling pretty normal after a few ropey days and generally impressed with the lack of any food cravings, weight loss (5kg or so but a good chunk is water I guess) and constant energy levels. But... I went bouldering yesterday and felt fairly normal strength wise but I had zero power, I tried some of the same problems as a week ago and anything requiring power stopped me dead in my tracks.

My question is, given I'm only six days in should I be having more carbs on climbing days or should I wait til I'm properly in ketosis before going above daily carbs of around 25g net? Is the idea generally that you have some carbs close enough to the exercise that goes in to the muscles and gets used quick so it doesn't affect ketosis much? There's nothing really about this specifically in the above book and there's conflicting stuff elsewhere. Which specific foods people find good for this purpose would be useful to know as well.

Would also be good to know what apps people use for this, I'm using something called fat secret (!) which is good at tracking calories and how they split between fat, carbs and protein. What it doesn't show is what vitamins, minerals, etc the food contains - anyone know of an android app that has an indication of RDAs vs what you've eaten or something?

Ta!

In reply to Matt Vigg:

Really don't understand your question. Your either in ketosis or you are not, you can't just pop in and out for a quick carb-fuelled training session, or at least that's my understanding. Check out Neely quinns podcast, and the one with dave macleod. Think Niall Grimes has also written about it

In reply to Matt Vigg:

Eat some chips and get over yourself

In reply to jsmcfarland:

Well I think you kind of can actually, at least according to various sources online. It's either a cyclic version of keto or targeted and I'm interested in the latter but asking if it makes sense to do this so early in.

In reply to the power:

Tried that for many years with some success but thought I'd give something else a go.

In reply to Matt Vigg:

To answer my own question (and at the risk of getting abused again...) this article basically covers it:

http://www.ruled.me/targeted-ketogenic-diet-indepth-look/

Off bouldering to give it a go....

In reply to jsmcfarland:
I've only just started listening to those Podcasts but Dave McLeod, Tom Randall, Ben Moon and that girl who is her best mate but I can't remember her name all give very different opinions on training and diet but Neely seems to agree with all of them.

I found Daves the most enlightening in that he agrees that different people will get different benefits from different diet & training regimes. And also that trying something for a couple of weeks isn't really long enough, particularly keto where it has a tendency to make you feel rough for a few weeks before the benefits start kicking in.

For me personally I've never been overweight even on an exclusive diet of fast food, sweets and Coke.
So in the last month I've just started eating lots of veg, and very little crap sugars. My weight has dropped a small amount but more importantly I feel healthier, recover quicker, an am less hungry. If I started a keto diet (or another of these strict diets) I would never have made it through those miserable first weeks.

If you're already a healthy eater I think it could be wortg experimenting with but otherwise I reckon there's easier ways to make gains in your diet.

I know very little about diet etc, and have only started looking into it recently so I could well be talking complete bollocks.

In reply to deacondeacon:

I started a ketogenic diet on 27th of November 2015 and i lost 9kg in about 5 weeks. I started a Facebook page called the ketogenic climber where i posted pictures of what i was eating etc. i was also doing intermittent fasting at the same time. All i can say is positive things about it. I am 52 years old and i felt like i had the energy levels i had in my 30s.

I am not a nutritionist and i want to make that clear i am simply experimenting on myself.

I fell off the ketogenic wagon about one month ago and started eating carbs again and now i have piled the weight back on but i am not bothered because this time i am going to take photos of me and demonstrate using picture how easy it is.

One point i would like to make clear is that when you are in a state of ketosis you can actually feel it. I had a sensation of being warmer and satisfied. My longest fast was 18 hours. If i tried that now while i am a carboholic i would turn into a basket case and my brain would refuse to function .

Your either off carbs or not . I chose to only have greens and fats . People forget that its the fats that are important and NOT protein however by default you do get more than is required .

At 52 years old its not normal to get up on an empty stomach then run for an hour , go to the climbing wall for 3 hours and then one and a half hours in the gym but i was doing that 3 times a week. Even 6hr bike rides drinking only water . If your going to do it do it right. I never once weighed any of my greens i just ate enough to feel satisfied and for some reason beyond my knowledge it worked. There are lots of factors to question here, its difficult to quantify if it was down to fasting or the training or the diet. One thing i know for certain is that i wasn't hungry and i had tons more energy than i normally do. Sugar is the enemy….its been proven using lab rats that sugar is more addictive than cocaine and its in practically everything that sits on a supermarket shelf these days. Good luck with your efforts and i wish you positive results.

In reply to Matt Vigg:

Sorry i forgot to mention that in the first week i suffered some cramps at night time but i think it was because i introduced a lot of fibre into my diet that i normally wouldn't have. After making an effort to consume more water and salt in my diet the cramps stopped.

In reply to Matt Vigg:

I've been in Ketosis for just over a month. From my experience, after a week I was close to my normal standard, after 2-3 weeks I would probably say I was better than before (probably helped by being a few kgs later). Researching it, most people take between 3-6 weeks to be properly in Ketosis.

Some people take around 25g extra carbs (quick release carbs) shortly before intense exercise (look up targeted ketogenic diet). I tried it, but didn't notice much difference. Maybe I wasn't climbing hard enough!

I would say give it a few more weeks and see how you feel, then experiment with extra carbs and see if it changes anything.

At the moment, I don't take any extra, and my sessions are normally 2-3 hours, mainly route climbing with some bouldering. I've got a bouldering only session tomorrow so I'll see how that goes and I'm off to North Wales in a few weeks and that will be a good test with long walk ins and multi pitch routes.

I use myfitnesspal to track food, but at the moment I record 1-2 days a week to make sure I'm still on track but it's fairly easy once you know what to eat and what to avoid. If you haven't done already use one of the online calculators (I used ketogains) then setup the app using those macros.

Any questions, just ask.

In reply to Matt Vigg: Have you lost 5kg in 6 days?
You could make a fortune selling this 'diet' to the general public!

In reply to Matt Vigg:
In my personal experience you'll get way more gains from eating a full, varied diet and following a structured training program than you will from limiting nutritional input. I sincerely doubt that anybody here (myself included) is performing at a high enough level to warrant the exclusion of a major macronutrient.

TL/DR: Eat a twix, son.

In reply to Alan Pierce:

Thanks for the replies. As it was I ended up not finding anything to eat/drink that quite fitted the bill so I didn't bother having anything, tried some of the same boulder problems and got as far as I'd gotten pre-keto. Could have been down to various things but I defo had power and it didn't need any carbs.

It does make sense that you *could* have a small amount of carbs before some hard exercise and burn it up then soon be back in ketosis but I won't bother trying that for a bit now. Guess you would need a full body workout to use it all up.

Reason I decided to try this wasn't cause I was unhealthy but I'm 8-10 kg heavier than I was when I was climbing hard and with three kids it's much more difficult to have big days out. I did actually diet in the past to push my grade but it was pretty miserable and took masses of will power, with this it's easy - I'm having to remember to eat and don't have any ups and downs of energy.

Interesting what you say about the way you've felt during ketosis, I've had a couple of experiences like that already. According to the ketostix I'm in ketosis but gonna try this for at least a month and see where it takes me.

In reply to Rob Laird:

Cheers Rob, glad I didn't find anything after all, will indeed try it a bit longer as is before adding anything.

In reply to baron:

Yes (well actually just over 4) but that'll be mostly water cause carbs help you store it.

In reply to MischaHY:

Dear 21 year old, I was shoving more than twixs down my neck at your age I can tell you, and it didn't matter. These days sadly it does!

In reply to deacondeacon:



Ditto. I'm fascinated by all this diet stuff but I have zero impetus to try it because my existing, fairly standard, diet presents me with no problems. I don't have any allergies, don't get cravings and I've been 68kg since I was about 18. At this point there's so much I can get out of a physical training programme, the idea of actually using an app or spreadsheet to monitor my diet horrifies me.

In reply to Matt Vigg:
I come from a running background and can say that most of the top level runners are using low carb training methods. Although most of the time is in shorter periods as its pretty easy to hit zero energy levels when running multiple days. Its done in running to make your body more efficient at metabolizing fat during endurance events and hence avoid the need for taking on supplement whilst running. Typically runners do it by doing a 3 day stint were you run 2 days to drain energy levels then take on no carbs and follow up the next day with a long slow plod forcing your body to fuel from fat reserve for a prolonged period.

The above works well with climbing as on the other days you can climb taking on carbs in a sensible manor.
The above will keep anyone really lean, plus you get the benefit from also having good recovery levels which doesn't do any harm in climbing.

I have found the climbing community to be really split on training, some seem the be super active and others just climb and seem to do fine. It defo worth seeing what works for you.........

In reply to BloodyJam:


Really? Interesting if true - but that's a hell of a statement. Are you referring to sprinters, middle distance or endurance athletes? I would expect diets to be fairly specifically geared to an athletes energy needs at elite level. Is 'carb-loading' not still considered an effective strategy for endurance athletes?

In reply to MischaHY:


For a lot of people the fastest way to improve power to weight ratio is to deal with the weight side, although then again for most people their head is probably the ultimate limiting factor anyway so most things will be of less use than addressing that.

But I'm definitely with you on the last bit - I'm puzzled as to when the moment was that perfectly sensible and functional eating plans and tactics that help you lose weight (I found the racing weight books useful in this regard) went out of fashion in favour of spending your entire life chugging pots of cream and coconut oil and never again being able to eat anything which vaguely resembles a normal meal. So maybe you couldn't dump 6kg of water weight in a week, but on the other hand you got to eat a diet that integrated fairly well in with the kind of diets that friends, family, work colleagues and so on ("normal people") eat. Any diet where you have to worry about eating some types of fruit and vegetables because they contain too much carbs, that puzzles me.

In reply to planetmarshall:

Sorry, should be specific.
Its a training method for endurance events, typically upwards of half marathon distance.
You can only store energy from carbs for a limited time/distance so as you say carb loading is used as it get you a fair way, but there becomes a point when being able to efficiently metabolise fat is required.
You will hear runners go on about hitting the 'wall' on full marathons. This is the transition from burning muscle stored energy to having to matobolise fat, hence being better at the process helps which is why its trained.

But back to the point i was making: its also a good method to efficiently burn fat reserves without dieting everyday of you life....

In reply to AJM:

I'm glad someone else agrees. Personally I've been training a little more seriously for a year, and eating a little more healthily - just normal meals with a little extra focus on protein and trying to cut out the sugary stuff where possible, with wiggle room for treats and a solid reward system of a 14" pizza for every new grade/onsight etc.

It seems to be working just fine.

In reply to MischaHY:

Similar to me. Healthier eating with a bias towards cutting out crap sugars (I still eat fruit and the odd treat though), and I'm defo seeing positive gains.
If I try and think about it too much it just makes my head hurt juggling conflicting opinions.

In reply to Rob Laird:

Out of interest, why do you do this diet?

In reply to AJM:

I definitely understand the sceptism with this kind of a diet, I was very sceptical myself for a long time when I read about them. I was interested in the stone age type of diet because potentially it makes sense that we should eat primarily what we evolved with, etc. But the more I've read about keto, particularly the genuine science, the more intrigued I've become.

I've tried loads of things over the years to improve at climbing and the vast majority of that time it's bean eat healthily, cut out the crap, don't drink too much, go running/do cardio and train. No doubt that this works very well, it has for me. These days however a knee injury stops me doing much running and three kids stop me doing much of anything a lot of the time so it seemed a good time to try this.

One of the first things you think about this diet is, it must be so "unhealthy" (judged from a traditional view of what that means), but I eat loads of fish, nuts and seeds, olives, green veg, avocado, as well as bacon and eggs, some red meat, etc. I'm definitely not a faddy diet person, I want something functional and despite what I've talked about on this thread I've only ever actually dieted for very short spaces of time over the years.

This diet has intrigued me though, and I'm glad I'm giving it a go so far. And yeah it's different but I don't mind that, different can be interesting, life's not about doing the same stuff all the time.

In reply to Matt Vigg:

https://www.trainingbeta.com/media/neely-ketogenic/ was the podcast I listened to a little while back after reading Greshams articles and McLeods podcast on ketosis. As far as I remember she's big into Paleo herself and is a qualified nutritionist?

About 10 minutes in she's warning about the dangers of eating too much protein since it can be metabolised into glucose, and at the end has the usual list of dos and donts food-wise, which had the warning about avocados being surprisingly high carb, about a lot of nuts being the same, about excessive protein taking you out of ketosis, about basically not eating fruit at all, and so on. The whole "butter and ghee and cream are really useful, and coconut oil is brilliant" thing at the end was a definite turnoff.

I think the whole thing that gets me with a Paleo diet, in reference to your top point, is that looking at the different diets people evolved on around the world it seems to be the case that what we have evolved to do is to eat whatever it is we could lay our grubby little paws on. I've no idea when we first domesticated wheat, or when before that we started eating wild spelt when we happened to find it, but from the fact that we started eating and furthermore found it so useful we started growing it it sort of implies it wasn't something we had to try very hard to get used to and get energy from. Sure, when it's wrapped up into a hunk of chocolate brownie with half a ton of sugar and butter it's probably not so good for you (although I find that chocolate brownie makes excellent fuel for climbing sessions) but I don't see that in itself as a problem with wheat, unless for reasons of willpower it's easier for you to declare all wheat off-limits rather than just moderate your impact of highly processed calorie bombs...

In reply to baron:



Almost exclusively in glycogen stores and water

In reply to MischaHY:

You're fighting a losing battle. Two years ago, I lost 10kg in three months, the "old-fashioned way" (eating less and exercising) more. I haven't put it back on. But that's not very glamourous so nobody listens.

I think it's clear that Ketosis does work, but I agree with you that it's probably not necessary. And by arguing against it you're going against a concerted marketing campaign and a group of people who are bored of simple advice. The irony is that, for many, the proper keto diet requires just as much willpower and discipline as a traditional diet.. I guess everybody has to find the thing that works for them.

(Cue the old joke: "How do you know that somebody is following a keto diet?" "Don't worry, they'll tell you!")

In reply to Matt Vigg:

I'd be deeply sceptical about any diet that uses this idea as its scientific basis - mostly because it's codswallop. Human beings are incredibly adaptive when it comes to diet - ask an anthropologist and they'll tell you that there's not really any such thing as *the* paleolithic diet - it depends entirely on the food that was available at the time.

All that being said, I'm aware that there's a lot of research behind the ketogenic diet - but mostly connected with its original purpose - as an alternative treatment for epilepsy when conventional anti-seizure medication hasn't worked. Actual definitive research as a performance diet for athletes appears to be thin on the ground, though I'll certainly be interested to see it if and when it appears.

One thing is for certain, to paraphrase Steve House and Scott Johnson, elite competition sports is incredibly unforgiving of approaches that don't work, and greedy for approaches that do. If in a few years time the successors of Usain Bolt, Jess Ennis and Chrissie Wellington are following Ketogenic diets, we'll know if it works or not.

Till then, if it works for you, great, but in the meantime I'll be sticking to pasta and cake.

In reply to AJM:

Haven't listened to that podcast - is this the same woman that interviewed Dave Mcleod? If it is I think she didn't stick it for longer than a week. I do have to limit avocados but I only eat a bit of cream in coffee, macademias as also mega high in fat for example and there are other ways of increasing fat that are less minging.

That said, this is defo not for everyone, e.g. I do measure everything I eat - that doesn't bother me cause I'm a bit of a nerd but it would be a major pain for a lot of people. I'm not here to evangelise about this diet, I asked a couple of specific questions and people seem to like to bash it (not saying that's you btw). I'm happy to talk about it and in the interest of balance here are the bad sides in my opinion so far:

1. Measuring food (although a lot of people don't)
2. Slightly antisocial at mealtimes (but this is manageable cause a lot of what I eat for dinner can be a family meal)
3. Definitely some concern about long term effects but looking at studies they show various measures improving in participants. You do *probably* have to be more careful to ensure your body is getting what you need
4. Adapting to keto is nasty for a few days and I'm still not back to 100% climbing wise after a week

Probably some others I can't think of now.

What you say about us being designed to eat everything we can get our hands on is exactly right and causes lots of problems in the modern world, hence people thinking about alternate diets that are more "natural".

In reply to planetmarshall:

Yeah fair enough, I stuck to pasta and cake too for nearly four decades, I agree it "works"! And I also agree that there is no such thing as "the" paleo diet, it depends where you were in the world of course. If you are interested there's research cited in the "The Art & Science of Low Carb Performance" about athletes as well as a bunch of interesting case studies (which I accept are effectively anecdotal).

In reply to Matt Vigg:

Deffo cutting out sugar helps.When I used to do new routes I always had a ritual teacake or two with marge on before setting off on the climb.As well as diet you need to pay equal attention to how you mix your power training with your stamina training.Sean Myles used to train to complete burn out and then rest 3 or even 4 days.There is no one set way of doing it.If you feel a bit stale,then climb for fun and don't insist on a certain grade that day.Running up to 5 miles a day will definitely help your fitness and energy levels.

In reply to Matt Vigg:

That's her, yes. It's not a podcast about her experience with it really its an explanation from her work background of the what's and whys, so the fact she didn't make it work for herself doesnt really impact on the content of the podcast I don't think.

It seems to be the new thing right now and seems to attract a whole bunch of sometimes quite evangelical supporters but I just think it's a sledgehammer to crack a nut approach as a general weight loss tool (I've no real comment to make on its use for managing health issues). The same results are achievable through far less drastic changes - essentially just having some willpower either to not eat highly processed calorie bombs or having the willpower to adjust the rest of your diet so that you can still enjoy them whilst maintaining an overall balance. If that's bashing it then so be it.

In reply to AJM:

15 years ago it was the Atkins diet. It worked, and it still does. Everybody bought the books and videos. Then the industry needed some new books and videos to keep making money. So along comes the Keto diet. Now we have the Paleo diet. In ten year time there'll be another diet.

As planetmarshall said above though, the day I start taking a new diet seriously is the day when the Usain Bolt/Chris Froome equivalent of the era starts using it. And I don't see Froome stopping using energy gels any time soon.

(Although I do accept that some climbers like Macleod seem to be using the Keto diet and reporting benefits - but climbing is a very personal thing and much more difficult to measure compared to the raw numbers of running or cycling).

In reply to AJM:

Again I agree there are other ways to do the same thing, some of which I've tried and found much harder (yes I have no willpower). Not sure how new keto is or paleo, I'm sure the latter's been around for a while and tbh I'm not that arsed if it's new or not, other than to understand longer term effects.

Anyway, I'm not trying to convince anyone to try this, people can do what they like and make their own judgements and if something different works better then great.

I think it's fair to say that the subject of diets is a spikey one, it annoys people. Probably rightly so because there have definitely been lots of fad diets and perhaps this is another. But for me the science is interesting and makes sense and not many other faddy diets can make that same claim. It's always possible I'll grow a second head next week or start puking blood, I promise to post that here if it happens as well, just for balance!

In reply to paul mitchell:

Thanks Paul. I like your profile messages - some of that should be in the posting guidelines of many an internet forum!

In reply to ianstevens:


Doesn't matter though for climbing. The less weight you have to pull up the harder you'll be able to climb.

In reply to MischaHY:


When it comes to anything scientific personal experience, aka anecdotal evidence, doesn't really count for much.


Sounds like you really need to educate yourself more on this topic. There is tons of stuff online available. In addition to 'ketogenic diet' try doing a search for 'Stephen Phinney', 'Gary Taubes' or 'the Diet Doctor'.

In reply to Alun:


These three diets are all pretty similar but look at diet from different perspectives. Atkins is just the guy who popularized low carb diets in the recent past. Ketogenic is a bit stricter and comes from a medical science perspective. The Paleo diet is from an evolutionary perspective. But they're all based around low carb intake and high fat. The first two weeks of the Atkins is also ketogenic.

I don't think its a case of new books to make money. More that different people have arrived at similar conclusions from different places. I think it's become a very important topic because the world is currently in grip of an obesity epidemic.

The proponents also happily admit that these aren't new diets at all. In fact it's argued that these are the oldest of human diets, dating back hundreds of thousands of years. The new diet, from these perspectives, is the low fat, high carb diet which is only about 30 years old. The rise of low fat diets also coincide with the steady rise in obesity from the 1980s and it's argued that this is the primary cause.

In reply to stp:


It's pretty dumb to ignore it when the personal experience is your own.

FWIW, my experiment of one experience from doing 16/8 fasting every day and simply cutting out a lot of shit (sugar) from my diet is that I've had the same sort of positives as those posting the benefits of the Keto diet with no hassle or hardship whatsoever.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

I'm not saying he should ignore it. But he is assuming that what works for him it will work for everyone. That's just plain wrong. It's clear that different people can and do have very different dietary needs from each other. Some can't tolerate gluten, some can't digest lactose, for some people nuts are dangerous etc. Also age can make a difference as was pointed out.

There is a lot of scientific evidence behind keto diets so to say that because you're OK eating something else, as if that disproves all the research, is extremely naive.

In reply to stp:

I wasn't saying anything as if it disproves all the research. I was simply saying that there is another way of gaining the benefits of weight loss and well being that is potentially more straightforward.

In reply to Bulls Crack:



I do it to support my wife who is doing it to lose weight. Normally I wouldn't make such a big change in my diet, but after researching it, there are some pretty good points to it.

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

A bit of forum confusion, as often happens. My initial response was to Mischa and that's what you picked up on and that's what I was replying to. You comment doesn't imply the same thing. You didn't say that because this worked for you Matt should be doing the same.