UKC

Hello

I've started a blog about my experiences with the ketogenic diet, covering (so far) background, preparation and being on the diet for a month.

I hope people find it interesting and useful.

https://ketogenicdiary.wordpress.com/2016/04/11/introduction/

Cheers

Tim

In reply to trailertrash:

Thanks for posting this Tim, I've been reading a bit about this recently and have been doing some experiments myself with a similar background and set of aims to you, so will follow your progress. Good luck!

In reply to trailertrash:
Looks good, thanks for sharing. I was struck by this:
"No ......fizzy drinks (except diet, from a can, not draught) etc."

Why not draught?

In reply to trailertrash:

Thanks for posting this.

As I'm sure you know, it's the diet that Dave MacLeod has been using: he discusses it somewhere in this podcast interview: https://www.trainingbeta.com/media/dave-macleod/?portfolioID=3838. He might be interested to know that you are blogging about it.

In reply to Tyler:

Draught soft drinks are mixed on site from concentrate, typically 1:5 with carbonated water. If someone dishes you up the wrong one, or the machine has the wrong cartridge in the slot, or you or they just don't give a damn what they put in front of you at 3am, it will seriously mess up your diet. Why risk it?

In reply to trailertrash:
Thanks for the blog posts. A couple of questions;

Did you (and do you still) get carb cravings?
How long do you intend to stick on the diet, and what is your plan (diet wise) after that?

In reply to MattDTC:
Hi Matt

Yes, these are really good questions.

No, I don't and didn't get carb cravings at all. I used to when I ate a carb-based diet, but it has surprised me how I do not now. There are foodstuffs I can't leave alone, particularly walnuts and pork scratchings, but I used to eat chocolate every day and love cheese and Walkers cheese and onion crisps, stack of pancakes with maple syrup every Saturday morning. That's all gone and I feel fine about it. I guess that sounds quite odd, but I think the metabolic change that takes place in your body on this diet talks directly to some very old mechanisms in the human brain, which has this effect, which is certainly very helpful.

When I started on the diet I planned to just lose the desired weight then carry on as normal, back to the usual Western diet. Now I have reached my (first) goal I confess I want to lose more and I am actually quite nervous about going back onto a conventional diet. So I am currently researching whether or not I need to. My current view is that this diet agrees with me far better on all fronts than my old diet and, cautiously, that providing I am getting enough calories, vitamins and minerals and controlling cholesterol levels fully, it could be a long term option. But this is my health we are talking about, so this is a pretty important choice.

In reply to ericinbristol:
Eric, I wouldn't know how to. There's no email contact address on his website and I'm not on Facebook or Twitter. Perhaps someone else could do it if they think it warrants it? Ah....I'll send him a message through this site...cool.

In reply to trailertrash:

His email address is hidden away in the text in the second paragraph here: http://www.davemacleod.com/contact.html

In reply to upordown:

Ah...cheers.

In reply to trailertrash:

Most interesting - my wife uses this on some of her patients (epilepsy) - it's good to see some experiences with another purpose. Impressive weight loss!

In reply to trailertrash:


Dietary cholesterol has little if any influence on blood cholesterol and lowering cholesterol has no effect on heart disease.

Regarding vitamins and minerals, make sure you eat plenty of eggs and liver, and a broad range of (seasonal) veggies.

If you are worried about not getting enough calories - particularly if training hard, you could adopt a cyclical or targeted ketogenic diet which can be used effectively with fasting techniques to maintain body composition.

In reply to Shani:

I thought a high fat high carb diet raised blood cholesterol, causing deposits on the inside of the arteries, increasing stress on the heart?

In reply to trailertrash:

Specifically this:

"Cholesterol can combine with fat, calcium, and other substances in the blood to form plaque. Plaque then slowly builds up and hardens in the arteries, causing them to narrow. This build up of plaque, a condition called atherosclerosis, can lead to heart disease, heart attack, and stroke"

I read that foods high in saturated fat promote high levels of blood cholesterol. This is why I am monitoring my blood cholesterol as part of this diet.

In reply to trailertrash:

It's a disputed area of research....

In reply to JayPee630:
This article is quite interesting and positive about ketogenic diets and cardio health, but I'm not in favour of diagnosis by Dr Google! However, it is definitely worth reading:

http://www.ruled.me/the-ketogenic-diet-and-cholesterol/

I have no way of checking the veracity of the references etc of course.

There evidence the other way in references from here:

http://www.thepaleomom.com/2015/05/adverse-reactions-to-ketogenic-diets-cau...

In reply to trailertrash:

This article came up the other day http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-... - there is a growing school of thought that says this theory was largely propaganda manufactured by corn syrup producers in the US in order to push the low fat diet in the 80s. Tim Noakes is worth looking up if you don't know of him already, very vocal in the low carb high fat space.

In reply to trailertrash:

Just as we have grown to re-evaluate fat in the diet (it is a lot more complicated than fat=bad), and carbohydrate (again, more complicated than carbohydrate = good), the whole diet/heart hypothesis is coming apart.

There is an association between habitual blood cholesterol level and heart attack risk but there is at best very weak evidence that dietary saturated fat increases serum cholesterol. (wholehealthsource.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/does-dietary-saturated-fat-increase.html).

You'll be aware that in the last decade or so we have also seen cholesterol split down in to HDL, LDLa and LDLb (and even further denominations than that). LDL is meant to be 'good' whilst LDL is 'bad'. Quite recently a couple of studies were published that looked at a drug which raised HDL and lowered LDL (ACCELERATE and HOPE-3), but all cause mortality and cardiovascular mortality was the same as the control group. That is right - manipulating LDL and HDL to 'favoured' ratios had zero effect.

www.dddmag.com/news/2016/04/evacetrapib-impacts-cholesterol-doesnt-reduce-cardiovascular-events

There are good reasons to eat a broad range of simple foods (meat and veg), and to avoid lots of fried foods (oxydisation/free radicals) - but that doesn't mean to avoid fat per se (nor gorge on it continuously). If you want to train hard then carbohydrate is your friend and should certainly be used on at least the odd session if you want to push yourself.

In reply to trailertrash:
I was asking about staying on the diet long term because it is a pretty hardcore diet to maintain! - in practical terms if nothing else, but also the fact that it totally cuts out the pleasure of eating some carbs (eg, a piece of cake, a pancake, etc..). I wonder if long term this will be difficult to maintain.
One option would be to go onto a less rigorous 'paleo' style diet with roughly 20% carbs, which would make it more adaptable. But this would surely limit ketosis? I wonder where the 'best' long term carb/fat ratio lies? My hunch is that the 50% recommended carbs is too high, but I wonder if 5-10% long term (as in 3+ years) is too far the other way.
Interesting subject.

In reply to trailertrash:

Hi Tim, thanks for this. I have just started my keto diet (on day 2 now). Day 1 was uneventful, which was good, i even manage a 2.5 hours session at the indoor wall =) Checked the ketostix today and found only traces of ketone, i hope that this means it is still working...

In reply to trailertrash:

Me too

I'm about 3 months in and overall it's been a positive thing. Long term I will probably be less strict, but still be low carb, with the diet, but go back to it in the run up to the climbing season.

If anyone's interested, I've also start a blog...

www.ketoclimber.wordpress.com

An reply to trailertrash:

An article you might find of interest:


http://drmalcolmkendrick.org/2016/04/13/greater-cholesterol-lowering-increa...

In reply to Shani:

Another good piece challenging the advice of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oil (technically there is no such thing as vegetable oil, it is grain/seed oil)

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/a-decades-old-study-rediscovered-c...

In reply to Shani:


Mostly, 'don't eat crap', and favour stuff that looks more or less as it looked when it came out of the ground/ off a tree/ off an animal (assuming you have no moral compunctions about the latter)., and the odd Mars bar/Irn Bru once in a while is probably not going to kill you. Human beings are pretty adaptable that way - though I totally get that some people really struggle with their diet and want to try stuff like keto. Good luck to the OP.

In reply to trailertrash:
I've gone on a low carb diet after listening to the climbing beta podcast with Neil G.

I'd actually started before but it gave a few pointers that have helped.

Initial aim was under 100g a day. That felt easy and most days now I'm around 20g.

Lost some initial weight but like you need to keep an eye on calories now I think.

Biggest benefit for me is the elimination of sugar/carb cravings and crashes. I just don't get them. Like you the desire to have sugary/carby stuff has just gone, very quickly.

The 'hungry' feeling you do get is probably just your stomach being empty. There are stretch receptors that tell us when it's full and empty and send triggers we may need to eat. I drink some water. My stomach thinks it's got something in it and it goes away.

My girlfriend tried it and felt awful - despite it not being keto.

It's not for everyone but I can see it working long term. The main benefit of low carb as opposed to keto is I'm not stressing about whether I'm in ketosis or not. It may be less effective but it's much more manageable and sociable.

In reply to biscuit:


" The year before I was struggling on 8a+ and then the following year, last year, I climbed 8c. It literally put two, if not three, grades on my climbing. I didn’t want the party to end having done this 8c. I then went on and did another new route, an 8b+ and I just felt like I was getting stronger and lighter and stronger and lighter and more energized. I just thought, “I actually need to stop this because this is almost a bit too good to be true,” and I did. I resumed my normal eating patterns, eating carbs plentifully and went back to the winter season when, of course, you’re not worried about controlling your weight. "

This one? (https://www.trainingbeta.com/media/neil-gresham/)

In reply to trailertrash:

Check out Dave MacLeod's latest blog post:
http://davemacleod.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/practice-of-wild.html

It looks like he sees his ketogenic diet as crucial to him sending Practice of the Wild Font 8c, only one notch down from the hardest bouldering grade ever.

In reply to trailertrash:

Hello to all keto climbers =) i have been on this diet for 4 weeks now and quite happy with it. Lost some fat, increased energy, but kind of stagnate in the weight loss area... i think this is due to eating too much protein...

Anyways, want to ask some advice on the use of myfitnesspal... anyone using this to track calories, carbs and protein intake? If yes, i have a question, do you add your climbing and/or other exercise into the app? For example, my daily calorie intake according to the keto calculator is 1500. But on my climbing days, should i log the exercise (which will increase the allowable calorie intake in the app)? If you think i should log it, how do i do that? I mean, how much calories are burnt in say 1hr of indoor route climbing? Myfitnesspal has "rock climbing" in its cardio exercise database, and it says almost 700 calories are burnt in 1hr of ascending rock, which is quite high i think... so if i do 1hr of route climbing, that means roughly i do 30mins of ascending rock?

Anyways... advice please... i am still trying to understand how this diet works and its effects on my body =)
Thanks heaps!

In reply to tania:
Don't just go by weight - look at FAT loss. How do you look in a mirror? Noticeably leaner?

Also, if as you say, you've stagnated, how long has this stagnation lasted for as you've only been on the diet for four weeks? I'd wait a fortnight or two before adjusting things as fat loss is not linear - people often stagnate for a while and then experience a sudden drop in weight/fat.

Don't be too quick to change things up. Progress is not linear, and progress is progress!

In reply to Shani:

Thanks Shani, maybe i am just impatient =) but will take your advice and soldier on and see what happens.
Have stagnated for a week only (ok ok... i am impatient...).

Fat loss is encouraging, look noticeably leaner and climbing trousers were falling off so all good.

Any idea on the myfitnesspal thing?

In reply to trailertrash:
Lets get one thing straight shall we? This is a climbing forum, im guessing youre a climber?

What produces ATP faster, carbs or dietary fat? So why sabotage yourself.

Get a life

In reply to zimpara:


ahem...

http://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/t.php?t=641290&v=1#x8298684

In reply to zimpara:


that was a little un called for... disagreeing with me is fine, not caring about or disliking this topic is also fine, but putting others down just because you disagree or dislike the topic... NOT fine!

In reply to zimpara:


How are those front levers going?

In reply to planetmarshall:

Very badly, still not sure i understand what a FL is.

In reply to tania:

My 2p - when I calculated my BMR and deficit I classed myself as 'moderately active' due to climbing 3-4 times a week. So it's included in my daily allowance and I don't add it in as an extra when I go to the wall. I do add in bike rides though.

I've been doing the diet as well and found myself pretty low on energy and not losing as much as I'd expected. I actually upped my calories and paid more attention to my fat/protein balance and I'm feeling much better for it, plus the weight is shifting better too. So I'd recommend looking at your ratios and trying to get your fat up to 75-80% of your daily calories if it's not.

Have you measured yourself? I've been amazed at the difference in waist size even when not accompanied by the dramatic weight loss others seem to experience.

P.S. I assume you're a woman from the username. If so it's worth knowing that women often don't lose weight as dramatically as men do. I read that it had something to do with women being more efficient at burning fat already but that may well be bollox. But anecdotally, from reading blogs and posts by keto women, it does seem to be a slower burn for us.

In reply to zimpara:


I suspect you can rest assured that only a tiny % of reasonably gifted climbers (say, sport >F8b+) can do them, so any ignorance of them is not a glass ceiling on your progress.

In reply to tania:

The usual caveats about seeking online health advice apply, but I have been pushing ketogenic diets as a useful tool to get lean, on UKC since 2007 and follow (usually a targeted) keto diet myself still to this day. Sometimes I keep CHO high though, and have the odd blow out if desired (ie I have non-keto times throughout the year).


Clothing is one of the better ways of assessing improvements - trouser beat the mirror in assessing progress as body dysmorphic tendencies can blind us. Also, women can have trouble getting down to and under 15% - and it *can* come at a price!


I never count calories in or out. So many factors come in to play. Not sure how you could compare energy expenditure on slabby routes with a powerful bouldering session on overhanging rock, for example, so not in a position to advise I'm afraid. If training hard and calorie restricting I'd be inclined to keep protein higher than normal.

In reply to tania:

I tend not to log my exercise, as with climbing it's hard to get it accurate.

In reply to trailertrash:

Sounds like a lot of hassle for 7a and E3 - just eat a bit less (5:2?) and train a bit more?