Lipid Panel Results

I've got some blood panel numbers to report on.  These were from 3 different blood panels run this year.

For context I started the ketogenic diet on August 10th.  I would almost bet my triglycerides were even higher prior to August 10th as I was drinking heavily over the summer months (June, July, and early August) and eating whatever I felt like eating.  If I recall my weight on or around May 12th was 235 or so, on August 10th it was 243 and it was not a healthy 8lb difference.  

If you buy in to the theory that cholesterol is the enemy you might find the charts above a little alarming.  I don't buy in to this theory, rather I believe that triglycerides and triglycerides/hdl are better markers to look at.  For more information on this more modern approach to reading Lipid Panels and diagnosing cardiovascular health read Cholesterol Clarity or The Great Cholesterol Myth. 

My triglycerides have come down greatly since May.  I would like to believe they came down greatly since August (the start of the keto diet) but I did not have a lipid panel done in August.  

One of the confusing things is the LDL (traditional referred to as the bad cholesterol particles) are going up and my HDL (referred to as the good cholesterol particles) are going down.  While these trends are confusing, I'm not to worried about them.   For the LDL, there are two different types of particles and the basic Lipid panel does not distinguish between the two.  To distinguish, a more comprehensive panel will have to be conducted.  For the HDL, that's a little more confusing but ultimately the ratio between triglycerides and HDL particles is trending downward so this is very good.  

On a related note, the blood test I did on October 2nd was somewhat comprehensive and the results showed that I currently have iron overload.  Basically my body is absorbing to much iron.  I'm waiting on DNA test results to see if I could possibly have the mutated genes of hemochromatosis, this is a topic of a whole different discussion and one that I'm not yet ready to discuss.  With that said, the iron overload could be throwing my whole system out of whack which may also be affecting the HDL and LDL numbers?  It's unclear at this time but more on this topic as I get my results.

All in all, I'm very pleased with the direction my blood work is moving.  

9 Weeks - Before and After

Being a member of all these keto groups on Facebook I see a TON of before and after photos.  Some are quite impressive while others are so-so.  Some verge on pornography and others could be seen as pure narcissism.  Before anyone (including myself) passes judgement on these pictures, they should take a step back and see it from the poster's perspective.  Those folks are proud of their accomplishments and want to share them.  I personally find them all a little encouraging especially as someone who struggles with weight, specifically where bodyfat is concerned.  It's downright tough for some of us to keep it off and it becomes quite an accomplishment when we work to get rid of it.

Keeping that in mind, I did my own before and after photos.  These are some of the pictures that were taken of me earlier this year, you can really see how much I was weight I was carrying around my waist.  My weight was in the upper 230's to the lower 240's throughout these pictures.  Today I'm back to the low 220's where I have been maintaining for weeks.  

The interesting thing about the weight, it's only a little over 20lbs that I've lost but I am noticeably leaner.  In these 9 weeks I've lost 5" from around my midsection.  As you'll see in the last "after" pictures, it would appear the bodyfat didn't just come from my midsection either.  

BEFORE

April 2015 - Bear Creek Crits

August 2015 - Texas Masters Regionals

August 2015 - The Bahamas

AFTER

Oct 2015 - Mason Park CX Race (it's hot and my jersey is open, big change in my midsection from August to now)

Oct 2015 - Huntsville XC Race

Oct 2015 - post workout 

 Oct 2015 - post workout calve pump.  Never have I had roadmaps like these...

Week 9 Summary

This week I continued to add more carbs for each meal.  In the interest of full disclosure, I did have a lot more calories this week as it was my birthday on Monday.  This week probably better represents a "normal" living week than one of training and trying to lose weight.  Despite the extra calories my weight didn't go up, I'm still at the 222lb mark, my waist is still under 38" and I still feel good.  While I'm not eating a fully keto WOE, according to the Ketonix, I am still mostly in the orange zone with an average reading between 38 and 60 for the week.

Training this week was not so much training.  I rode easy the few times that I rode during the week to give my body a break.  That's starting to become a reoccurring theme and yet racing every weekend is something new to me and this kind of abuse warrants some extra rest.  Since I'm my own coach I can pretty much dictate whatever regimen I so desire.  :)

Saturday I did another cross race.  I almost didn't go but I wanted the points, experience, and one of my good friends had come from out of town to stay with us so he could more easily do the race the next day.  This was my second cross race.  I did quite well though it was not without a crash, broken chain, a run to the pits to get a pit bike, and finishing out on much smaller bike than I started on.  With that said, a podium finish is a podium finish and I'll take it.  

I haven't felt like writing much these last few weeks.  I'll work to turn that around.  I've got a few topics I'd like to discuss.  One thing I put up on facebook last night was my before and after pics in my racing kit.  I'm going to be making a post on that here in a bit.

NBT - Nutrition Consultation

As I pointed out in the Week 8 Summary, I met with the Julia Kelly, a nutritionist at Nourish Balance Thrive, to discuss fine-tuning this ketogenic diet I've been on.  This was more of a check for me to make sure I'm not missing anything, I haven't overlooked something, and to get some advice from a professional who has experience consulting on low-fat diet plans for athletes.  

I've had pretty good results to date with my ketosis journey, but everything I've done (even choosing this diet or Way Of Eating) has been based off books and internet findings.  I have not consulted with anyone who has actually done this before and has real life experience - the ups, downs, and in-between's that I'm sharing with all of you here.  I really feel like I'm missing something.  My weight loss has pretty much stalled and I'm still having issues with waking up daily at 4am and not being able to go back to sleep.  The weight isn't necessarily cause for alarm as I'm still progressively loosing size around my midsection, I'm still getting visually leaner each week, I'm recovering quickly from my workouts, and I still feel really good, I just can't help but think, "maybe I can be doing something better."  

Enter Julia!  As I stated above Julia helps athletes including her UCI pro mountain bike husband Chris, perform and "thrive" (small pun there) on a low-fat diet.  For background credentials, Julia was educated as and formerly worked as a food scientist before founding Nourish Balance Thrive with her husband Chris.  After listening to their podcast entitled Frequently Asked Questions, I felt she was the professional I wanted to work with.  

So Julia calls me to discuss my needs and we have an hour long call which she followed up with an email about topics of discussion, links to further materials, outline of her suggestions for change that we discussed, and a brief summary of how we go forward.  Pretty standard stuff that you would expect when you purchase professional services.  

Okay so the point you've all been reading for, what did Julia suggest we change?  Nothing, all was great and that's the end of this blog post....   Kidding, there are several things she suggested that I do.  I'll line out a few of them here.  

First a little context.  As an athlete, (sounds funny saying that because I don't get paid to play my sport, I'm not famous, nor do I necessarily consider myself an athlete by definition) I need more to make sure I have plenty of nutrients and calories.  Food is fuel for the body and I must make sure I'm supplying enough of it, in high quality sources, to facilitate recovery, growth and general health.  Burning an extra 800+ calories a day from bike workouts puts a lot of extra stress on my body and properly fueling it is even more important than someone who does not.  Further, training at a higher level (intervals, racing, and higher volumes of riding) requires a lot more micro and macro nutrients than I was giving myself.  There's no real source of information (blogs, books, or studies) that say "if you're riding 10 hours a week you need to be taking in X-amount of calories and X-amount of carbs." 

Despite being on a ketogenic diet and wishing to remain on a ketogenic diet, Julia suggested that I take in a lot more carbs though leafy greens and non-starchy vegetables.   This is the biggest change of all and one of the hardest for me to do had I not been told to do so by someone who's "been there done that" and has the pedigree of success to support making the change.  After years of studying food and nutrients and recovery and training and hormones and whatever else I could find to get better, I know I need the micro-nutrients of vegetables and yet with what I know about ketosis, the carbs in vegetables don't necessarily have a lot of room in the traditional 25g or less of daily carbs allotment of the keto WOE.  According to Julia, for athletes, and in the case of what I'm doing, we need more nutrients that can only be obtained through vegetables.  The net carbs in most vegetables are pretty low because of the fiber so they will be okay. 

Now I should note, I'm paraphrasing here so what Julia actually says and what I type may not be exact but hopefully you get the point.  If you want to know what she really says set up your own damn appointment!  :)

In addition to carbs I was told nuts are not a food group and she suggested that I cut back my use of them drastically.  As I look back through my food journals, approx. 22% of my daily calories are coming from various nuts - yep, I probably am using them as a food group.  

One of the big things she suggested that I do is put more sources of fat in to my meals.  We discussed how to do this with various oils, tallows, lard, and other sources.  Truth be told, I thought I had a pretty diverse fat profile for my meals but after talking to her I see I was not that diverse after all.  

Another suggestion was to cut out cheese and dairy from my diet for a month.  Basically she suggested I do the Whole30 program for a few weeks.  I'm still not sure on that one, though I will be cutting back my use of cheese.  My use of cheese is up there with nuts in regards to how much I've been consuming every day.  

The last suggestion and it was one of my biggest questions/concerns, don't worry about calorie counting or restricting calories.  It would seem I'm in the ball park currently on calories per day as I am losing bodyfat and recovering from my workouts and races.  The truth is, there is no magic number as traditional dieting would suggest especially for those that train like I do.  I need to simply eat with a diverse selection of fats, eat lots of vegetables, and I need to eat enough each day that I'm not starving or having hunger cravings.  If I follow this I will eat enough and the weight/bodyfat will come off but above all I will be healthy.  

You can see from last weeks food journal I started implementing additional carbs in to my diet in the form of non-starchy vegetables as directed.  I actually had my blood ketones knocked out of ketosis (0.3) but Julia told me this might happen and not to worry about it.  The main goal for now is to monitor my blood sugar and hour after the meal to see how the extra carbs affected my blood sugar.  I did this for Friday, Saturday,and Sunday and to my surprise, I had no major blood sugar spikes after my meals.  

I'll keep down the path Julia suggested and see how things go.  It's now been over a week since I met with her and I've had a full week of upping my carbs from about 5% to 10% of my daily intake.  I've seen no big changes in adding weight, smoothing out, and/or performance.  I was scared I would slap on 4-5lbs with the extra carbs but this has not happened.  I'm still leaning out too.  I still haven't not crossed my weight threshold in to 219 but I'm still knocking on the door.  I got on the podium last Sunday (Oct 4th) at a mountain bike XC race so I still have all my performance.  With the exception of my blood ketones being out of the ketosis range, all is "normal".  

On a sidenote, I quit testing my BHB (blood ketones) last Sunday. That wrapped up almost 8 weeks of testing each morning.  I still continue to use the Ketonix several times a day including in the morning when I get up.  According to it, ketones are still present and mid-levels in my breath so I'm still in ketosis and that's good enough for me.  

Here's a chart of my Ketonix readings for the last month.  Most days I take several readings throughout the day - it's just the convenient.  The last major drop below 40 was when I initially added the carbs after talking with Julia.  You can see they have been working their way back up.  Had a little lower session earlier this week - it was my birthday and I may have indulged a little in ketogenic pudding with a chocolate bar.  :)  

  I'll have more to report in the coming weeks.  

Week 8 Summary

Week 8 was pretty much more of the same except I changed up the diet later in the week.

I met with Julia from Nourish Balance Thrive to discuss nutrition.  This will be a topic of a post in the coming days.  In summary Julia suggested I add some more carbs to my diet.  You can see in the food log I did just that starting on Friday.  Blood test on Saturday and Sunday showed I had indeed dropped out of ketosis but I'm okay with this as I dial in the carbs.

On Friday morning I went and had blood pulled so that I could have some blood tests done.  The folks at Nourish Balance Thrive will be interpreting these for me in the near future too.  I'm quite excited to see where I am with my cholesterol and similar markers - you know, all those things that are supposed to go up with a high fat diet..  We should have the results for this in the next two weeks.

Weight bounced around (as in previous weeks) between 221-224.  I guess this is just my walk around weight that I'm going to be at for the rest of my life?  Those two-teen's are eluding me.  Hopefully we get these carbs dialed in and the weight will start coming off again.


Week8 Food Log

On the training front, I did some pretty good interval sessions during the week in addition to some good zone 2 work.  Intervals consisted of some hard 2 minute efforts one day and some even more difficult 45sec efforts on the other.  On Sunday I did a cross-country mountain bike race (XC.)  I felt really good for the race and pulled off a 2nd place finish.  Though my handling skills were rusty, my motor was really good and I powered my way up on to the podium, yet again.  Did I mention this was in the Cat1 40-49 class, the 2nd fastest class in Texas?  Yep, I'm a little stokked myself.  Race report is coming.


Week8 Training Log

Week 8 Intensity Log

Week 8 Interval Madness

Was feeling good so I decided to try a little intensity this week.

Picked the TMAX 2 minute intervals for Tuesday.  Did these on an empty stomach.  No pre-ride supplements or snacks.

Did some 45-50 second efforts on Thursday.  Did these on an empty stomach.  No pre-ride supplements or snacks.

Day 50 - Week 7 Summary

Yesterday completed week 7 and I gotta say I'm starting to like what I see!  The bodyfat is slowly coming off.  I was looking in the mirror this morning and for once in long while I was quite pleased with what I saw.  This is coming from someone with BDD, I never like the mentally distorted imagine I see when I look in to the mirror.

This morning the scale said 222, up two pounds from Saturday's 220 but I'm finding that I put on weight 2-3 days after an intense race (probably something to do with the damage repair my body is doing?)  Measuring the equator, I got yet another 7-week surprise, I was at 37.8 around  my waist.  This is down .5" from last Monday's measurement and almost 5" from where I started just 7 weeks ago!

Excited about the mirror and the tape, I decided to try on an old pair of my 36" waited dress pants for work today.  I was rewarded with a little more euphoria when they fit me - no muffin top, no "sucking it in" to clasp them, and they just fit as tailored dress pants should.  This week is starting out well!

Last week I reached out to the folks over at Nourish Balance Thrive for a quick chat about calories, blood-work, and potential diet guidance.  I spoke with Chris and ultimately decided to utilize their services.  (More on their services in coming blog entries.)  After speaking with them I've decided to work with them to get some professional guidance in getting my calories dialed in.  I'm doing this because I'm really not sure how many carbs I should be eating let alone how many calories I should be taking in.  On the bike, when I train, I could use up anywhere from 450 calories to in excess of 3,000 in one session.

I'm hoping to work with the folks at NBT to figure out how many calories I should be eating on a daily basis and then how many I should be adding based off of the workout(s).  Equally I'm hoping they can help me dial in my carb needs.  To be clear, I "think" I've done well with my own experimentation over these last 7 weeks, but I want to make sure I've got things figured out and dialed in for my body and my body's needs.  Again, more on this as we go along.


Food wise, not a lot to report from last week.  Michelle made some chocolate mousse this weekend that was magnificent!  Not only did it taste good, it didn't knock me out of ketosis.  That's about the highlight for eating.  One other thing worth noting.  I've been drinking a lot of Crystal Light mix in my water.  This doesn't seem to have to any effect on my blood sugar or ketosis but it does make me feel like a kid drinking kool-aid.  There's no calories and no sugar though I refuse to completely read the label and contents simply because it's not jacking up my blood sugar or knocking me out of ketosis so no need to potentially ruin a good thing by reading what I'm really ingesting.  :)


Food Log (week 7)

Training wise I took it somewhat easy again last week.  For the week I ended up with a hair under 9 hours of volume, mostly light.  Truth be told, it's Monday and my legs, glutes, and back are still sore from Saturday's cyclocross race.  I did a light ride yesterday (Sunday) with Michelle on the trainer to help spin my legs and ride out some of the stiffness.  Today they feel much better so I'll either ride easy or I'll take the day off.  I expect to get in two interval sessions this week.

There's an XC mountain bike race on Sunday.  I'm expecting to race it, XC is my main focus in cycling though I haven't done much of it this year.  This should be a really good test of everything though I have to admit I'm a little worried.  Despite all my recent racing, training, and nutrition success, I haven't been on a mountain bike on the dirt in months, MONTHS!   Hopefully, racing XC on the dirt is like riding a bike, once you learn you never forget - you just get back on the bike and ride...


Training Log (week 7)

Intensity Log (last 4 weeks)

Day 47 - Cyclocross Race

Cyclocross race in ketosis, no problem!

Today I did my first official cyclocross race.  I went in to this race not knowing what to expect but mentally I was confident I'd get a top10.  Everyone says cyclocross or CX is tough, from what I've seen on youtube and tv I believe "tough" to be a fair assumption.  Since I'm a cat1 mountain biker I got a mandatory license upgrade in cyclocross from cat5 to cat4.   .  Because of this, I opted to skip the 4/5 race and just jump right in on the 3/4 race - go big or go home!!!  :)

From Wikipedia:  Cyclo-cross (sometimes cyclocross, CX, CCX, cyclo-X or ‍ '​cross) is a form of bicycle racing. Races typically take place in the autumn and winter (the international or "World Cup" season is October–February), and consist of many laps of a short (2.5–3.5  km or 1.5–2  mile) course featuring pavement, wooded trails, grass, steep hills and obstacles requiring the rider to quickly dismount, carry the bike while navigating the obstruction and remount.^[1][2] Races for senior categories are generally between 30 minutes and an hour long, with the distance varying depending on the ground conditions. The sport is strongest in the traditional road cycling countries such as Belgium (Flanders in particular), France and the Netherlands.

I "slept in" until 6:30am this morning.  My race started at 12:20 and was only a 45 minute drive from the house so I had lots of time.  I started my morning routine.  Today's weigh in was 223, bhb was .5, and blood sugar was 82.  My blood sugar was a little higher than normal so I assume that's why the bhb was at the bottom limit of ketosis.  Not too sure what caused this, I did have quite a bit of vegetables last night for dinner the previous night so maybe that contributed?

Around 8:30am I had breakfast - bacon, eggs, salami, and some raw broccoli - a nice keto race breakfast!  I added a little extra "meat" since I had a while until my race and I knew I wouldn't be eating again.

Around 10:15am we headed for the race and arrived with plenty of time to get my number, snap some pictures, change, and then warm-up.  Prior to warming up I took my pre-race cocktail, which has changed a little from previous cocktails.  Today I was going to use some KetoCaNa instead of Ketoforce - both are by the same company, both are synthetic ketones, ketocana is their newest product and it's a powder instead of a liquid.  Mixed with the ketocana was .7 serving of UCAN and some BCAA powder.  The mix went down smooth and actually did not taste that bad at all.

I made the decision to use KetoCaNa based off this interview/podcast with the Patrick Arnold of Ketosports, maker of Ketoforce and KetoCaNa.  The taste is day and night better in favor of KetoCaNa.

I finished my warm-up, approx 30 minutes of pretty light riding, and made my way to the start line.  Since this was my first CX race I had no points and I was called up last.  I was in the 4th row of close to 30 riders.  With 30sec to start I remember thinking "Good thing I'm a really good starter, I'm going to have to burn some matches early if I plan to go with the leaders!"

At the start I quickly moved through the pack and was sitting in about 10th when we got the single track portion of the lap.  After that 100yd section was complete I moved up to about 6th and ultimately, found myself sitting 3rd wheel in a pack of three, with a growing gap to 4th.  I was in 3rd and we hadn't even gone 5 minutes yet!  Did I mention I'm a good starter?

We continued widening the gap between us and those chasing.  This went on for the first 10-12minutes when one of the guys in our 3 man group dropped off and then there was only two of us. I was working hard and the heat wasn't helping.  I unzipped my jersey all the way to get as much air flowing over my body as I could.

Our race was scheduled for 40minutes.  At about 32minutes in, our gap to 3rd and 4th had grown to about 20 seconds (I'm guessing 20 seconds, it was  a sizable gap.)  As we rolled through the start/finish the lap cards came out.  "Oh crap" I thought, "we've got 3 more laps and these are 7-8minute laps.  We're going to go way past 40 minutes!"  Midway through the 3rd to the last lap, a gap opened between me and the guy I was working with.  I'm now in 2nd and I'm on the rivet.  If I close the gap I'll like blow-up and give up a lot of spots.  I decide to let him go and just fight to hold my 2nd place.

With two laps to go, the gap had grown and I decided that I'd try and keep riding hard but defensive to protect my 2nd place spot.  I damn sure am not closing the gap to 1st.  My legs were burning, my heartrate was through the roof, and I was burning up.  As I came through the start/finish I threw off my gloves so my hands could breath and hopefully help cool me a little more.

Rolling through the start/finish the lap card red "1 Lap To Go" and the officials were ringing the bell.  I just put my head down and kept pedaling.  I was keeping my gap on 3rd and 4th but the gap to 1st was still slowly growing.  The guys in 3rd and 4th made a charge on the final lap and I knew I had to somehow step it up a little.  Somehow, despite the heat, the high heart rate, and my screaming legs I held off the chasers and finished 2nd.  Not a bad finish for my first cross race.

To say these races are intense is an understatement.  While it was intense, the real killer for me was the heat.  My Garmin showed an average of 93 degrees, not exceptionally hot, but a little hot for a big guy like me - I typically don't do well at high intensity and 90+ temperatures.

Looking at the power file, you can see a LOT of peaks well above VO2max.  The first line going across is my average power (309 watts) for the race, the other line is the upper limit of VO2max (423 watts.)  I need to do some different training if I'm going to do more of these races.  My legs are smoked this evening.

Some who don't know about power asked how does this relate to heart rate.  Seems everyone understands heart rate as it relates to intensity.  I think my heart rate was a little higher today from the aerobic spikes but mainly because of the heat.  These percentages are a little swayed because my cool down was included in on this power file.  

So it was a good race, good story, but what's it got to do with ketosis?  As I understand it, once you hit the tempo zone of power you start switching to glucose instead of fat/ketones.  Lots of keto athletes and keto folklore say "you can't race high intensity in ketosis or with ketones."  I suppose this is partly true - at higher intensities you burn glucose not ketones.  I supplement with UCAN, but I want to make a point that you CAN indeed race these high intensity endurance disciplines while living a keto lifestyle in ketosis.

Here's a distribution of my power zones used today (like the heart rate one above but for watts.)  Where the red line is drawn is the theoretical area where the body starts using in more and more glucose for fuel  Even in a cyclocross race you still spend a significant amount of time in the lower ketone fueled zones.  Technically, I could have done this without UCAN (I figure I have an hour or so worth of glucose available with no supplementation) but why would I do that if I have the UCAN and I know it won't knock me out of ketosis?  If anything it helped rebuild my glucose stores or kept them from being to depleted.

Over my 7 weeks of ketosis I've done several spirited group rides, several intense training sessions, a road race, a track race, a crit race, and now a cyclocross race.  Next weekend is a XC mountain bike race that I'm considering.  To date I have found no issue with racing or training for any bike discipline while being in ketosis.

Keto on! -don

Day 42 - Week 6 Summary

I made it, today marks the end of 6 weeks of being on a keto lifestyle.  Going in to this I just wanted to see if I could do a keto diet for 6 weeks and then re-evaluate.  To be honest, I thought it would be a lot harder than it turned out to be.  I really didn't know what to expect.

6 weeks later and I'm planning to keep this lifestyle for the foreseeable future.  While I miss beer, sweets, and bread, ultimately after being away from them for 6 weeks I'm okay without them.  As I've studied and learned more about nutrition and ketosis along the way, I don't know if I want to put the sugar and alcohol in my system.  When you look at how these substances affect your body it's hard to justify going back.

I'm noticeably slimmer and slimming more each day.  Veins are starting to show throughout my legs and arms and the outline of my core and its various components are starting to show.  Even though the scale isn't showing me the numbers I want to see, the mirror is.  I'm very happy with the progress I've made over these last 6 weeks.

____________________


Week 6 was an interesting week.  I saw my weight come down from 225 to 223 and then hover at 223 most of the week.  This morning I had a huge keto present, my blood ketones were 2.9 and my weight was 220!  I haven't seen 220lbs in well over a year.  That's a total of 23lbs in 6 weeks.  While it hasn't necessarily been steady, when you do the math, that's almost 4lbs a week in weight loss.

Food wise the calories took care of themselves.  I eat when I'm hungry and I eat to satiety (maybe a hair past satiety) and my desire to eat habits are slowly disappearing.  On multiple days this week I skipped a meal because I simply wasn't hungry.

The last three days (Friday through Sunday) I've had more carbs than normal.  I'm wondering if this has something to do with this morning's weight loss?  It's definitely something to consider as I play with the macros again this next week.

Food Log Week 6

Training wise I had planned to do a recovery week and take it easy this week.  I did several easy zone1 rides early in the week.  On Wednesday, I went on our weekly group ride and even though I knew it was a recovery week I went out and got caught up in a hammerfest.  I know better than to go with the group when I'm trying to ride easy and yet I went anyways.  I felt really good though, fresh, and very strong while mixing it up with the guys.  It was pretty incredible how well I felt especially while attacking.

I needed a recovery week because last weekend I did the road race and in the weeks leading up to that race I had upped my training time and intensity each week.  Further, I wanted fresh legs for the crit races I had planned to do this weekend.  For the most part it was a recovery week and on Saturday I was pretty fresh for the crit races.   The crits got their own blog write-up.  You can see in the logs below I spent a lot of time last week in zone1.

Training Log Week 6

 Volume Log Last 5 weeks

Going in to week 7 I think I'll do another light volume, light intensity week where training is concerned.  I have a cyclocross race next weekend so I'd like to be fresh for it.


6 weeks down and 23lbs lost and still able to race.  The keto lifestyle is legit!

Day 41- Keto Crit Race x2

Today I did two crit races.


The day started out at 5am as I got up and went through my morning ritual.  Weight was 223, BHB was 1.0, and blood sugar was 64.  Breakfast was at 6am where I had some eggs with pepperoni and colby cheese.  

I was meeting my buddy Todd at 8:30 to ride up to the race.  This race was literally a "local" race, only 5 miles from the house.  Todd races a different class and his race was at 10am, mine wasn't until 11am.  Michelle was taking the car up to the venue so I packed my race bag and threw it in her car.

In my bag, food wise, was .7 scoop of UCAN with some BCAA powder, and a serving of Ketoforce.  No solid food, I'm eating bodyfat. Since my race was only going to be 45 minutes in duration I was torn on whether I needed the UCAN or not.  I know I didn't need it but at the same time, I have it and I thought "why take a chance?"  I decided to take half a serving, except half seemed to small volume-wise so I put in almost 3/4's of a scoop.  Also, I took approx. 1.5 gallons of water because it was going to be hot (mid 90's) today.

I met my buddy Todd at 8:30 and we rode up to the venue.  Once we got checked in and got our numbers we continued to ride to keep the legs loose and the blood flowing.  Todd eventually rolled up to the starting line for his race and I kept riding.

With 30 minutes until the start of my race I took my serving of Ketoforce and my UCAN mix.  I met up with another one of my buddies that I'd be racing with and we rode a little more to stay loose and warm-up.

Ride up and warm-up

I was feeling really good when we rolled up to the start line.  I recognized a few of the guys.  There were several of my Cat1 mountain bike race buddies there.  There were several other guys I'd raced against earlier in the season at other crits.  I took mental note of the ones I felt I needed to mark and the race got underway.

For the most part the race was somewhat tame.  I stayed toward the front and tried to cover any attacks that tried to go off the front.  With 15 minutes to go one of my buddies attacked through one of the tight corners and I happened to be right with him.  I shot around him and after about a minute of work we split the field nicely.  There were now only 6 of us.  I liked those odds.  We maintained our 6 man group until the last lap.

With one lap to go my buddy attacked I followed, I eventually found myself on the front, again.  I tried to relax and keep the pace in the upper tempo zone - fast enough to keep everyone behind me honest but slow enough that I was recovering and waiting to pounce.  On the 2nd to the last big 90-degree turn I came out of the corner and attacked.  We still had half a mile to go but I figured it was now or never and I liked my chances.  It turned out to be the right move.

The move created some good separation and I was able to keep it through the next tight turn, the lapped traffic, and in to the 200 meter finish for the win.  Going full gas for 1 minute, after covering several attacks I was a little tired after this race.  Again, like last week's road race, I probably worked a lot harder than I had to.  With that said, a win is a win is a win.

Attack to the finish

Race #1 by the numbers

After the race I spun down, took a podium pic, and sat in my chair under the tree.  It was noon-thirty and my next race wasn't until 4pm.  I checked my blood sugar, it showed an astounding 179!  Holly cow, I don't know if I needed that UCAN or not but whatever the case my blood sugar is through the roof.  I thought about something ketosis race expert Chris Kelly from Nourish Balance Thrive said "your blood sugar will be raised after a race anyway so don't worry about it too much" so I tried not to worry about it too much.  I felt a little weird but I don't know if was the placebo effect of seeing 179, the race stress, the heat, or what.

After watching the P12 field go off and make a few laps Michelle and I decided to call it a day.  The heat was rising and ultimately Michelle and I decided to go home.  I really didn't cherish the idea of sitting around 3 more hours until my next race.  Plus we had another event we were going to try and attend.

Once home I took a shower and cooked some ground meat.  I was starting to get hungry.  I ate a little raw spinach while it cooked.  As I was cooking I started to consider going back to the race and doing the other race.  We weren't going to be able to make our nephews soccer game so maybe a 2nd race was in order afterall?


Food Log

I ate and then laid on the couch for a bit to rest my legs.  I then made the decision, I'm going back to race.  I wasn't in the mood to race but I felt like I needed to do it regardless of how I felt.  Worse case I'd sit in the field and try to sprint it out for a higher placing.  I packed a light backpack of water and a change of clothes as I got dressed.  Michelle was going to drop me off about 4 miles from the venue and I'd ride up and get my legs loosed up.

She dropped me off and I was once again riding.  My legs felt okay but a little flat.  It was now almost 3pm, one hour to race time!   I rode around for quite a while trying to get my legs going.  The heat was a little hotter than I'd prefer but manageable.   I did not take any UCAN or anything else for this race.  I'd eaten about 2 hours earlier and that was going to be my fuel.  Besides that, I figured the 179 blood test earlier meant I had enough glucose running around after the last race to top off my stores.

Warm-up 2

Because attendance was down, they combined my class with another.  This combination in turn caused the race director to delay our race by 20 minutes.  I rolled back to the spectator area and just chilled under a tree with my wife and friends.

As we gathered at the starting line, one of the guys asked very publicly and very loud, "Oh, Don Sutton is here, he won the race earlier.  Everyone get his back wheel."  Then he proceeded to ask me about my mountain racing and track racing background.  Almost everyone in the group was looking and listening, I was now a marked man and this race just got that much harder, I didn't even have fresh legs.

The race started much like the previous one, tame.  After two laps the attacks started.  Again, I stayed up in the front and covered the breaks that looked like they had a chance to stick.  Often someone would break away and I'd just leave them out there hoping others would chase them down or they'd peter themselves out. It was clear I was marked as any move I made seemed to bring the group with me.

When the race wasn't chasing I found myself on the front.  When I'd slow down nobody would come around so I'd just keep the pace at low to mid tempo so I could recover and be ready to attack or cover should an opportunity present itself.  Also slowing down the race meant one or two less laps and I was definitely okay with that - jokes on you, field!  :)

When the lap cards came out we had 3 laps to go and things started picking up.  I was able to stay toward the front.  With 1 lap to go one of the guys made an attack I was able to cover him with another guy.  I went in to the last 1km in 3rd and started liking my chances for a win.  The guy in 2nd took the final turn to wide so I shot inside of him and grabbed the wheel of the guy in the lead.

200m to go and my legs were not happy when I said "go".  I slowly got up next to the guy and nipped him at the line by half a wheel.  I remember my legs were literally quivering as I pounded the pedals and poured everything I had left in to the last 100 meters.  Win #2 for the day is now in the books!

Race #2 by the numbers

So that was two crits in one day with a 4 hour separation between the two.  250 total minutes of riding and 2,700 kilojules of energy expended.  Not a bad day by the numbers.

Did I need the UCAN for these races?  I think I did, actually.  Maybe not for the first race, but I think with the intensity of these crit races the UCAN helped replenish and top off my glucose stores.  That allowed me to race the 2nd race.  This is my theory anyway.

So last week I did a road race, this weekend I did two crit races, next weekend I'll do a cyclocross race, and in a few weeks I"ll be doing a XC mountain bike race.  I'm quite convinced that you can indeed race short duration - high intensity, mid duration - mid intensity on a keto diet. Next week's cyclocross (CX) race is going to be very high intensity, likely more so than this weekend's crits.   I'm not looking forward to that suffering but at the same time, this will be a good chance to ultimately confirm keto will work fine for a high-intenisty short duration race.

On a final note, one of my buddies that I raced with in the first race started doing keto a few weeks ago.  He was there with me as one of the 6 riders in the final break during race 1.  He actually set me up on the final lap so I could launch my attack and ultimately win.  Thanks Mike!

Day 39 - More of the Same

Over midway through week 6 and nothing new to report.  Things have stabilized, and I just see much of the same.  I now occasionally fast, skipping a meal, and it's no big deal.  Weight is staying consistent around 224.  I wish it were lower but alas, it's not.  Haven't had a chance to play with the macros (fat, carb, protein) this week because it's been rather hectic at work and home, frankly, I just haven't felt like putting forth the effort.

The weight (or lack of losing any significant weight) is less frustrating to me now than in weeks past.  I can look in the mirror and see that I am noticeably thinning out, especially in my midsection.  A 1lb a week drop is healthy so hopefully that'll be a constant.  If it is not, I could stand to stay at this size.  My love handles are just about gone.  I really believe that training (or should I say a return to training) has a lot to do with the consistent weight and lack of dropping any more weight on the scale.  I have no concrete evidence of this, it's just a haunch.

On the riding front, it's a recovery week.  I've been doing some very light zone 1 work on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Both days I skipped breakfast, had a 1,000 calorie lunch and then went to ride after work without eating.  I wasn't hungry on the bike though I was starting to get hungry immediately after.  It's still funny to me that the hunger pangs aren't drastic, they're just little sensations that say "we could use some food when you get a second" instead of "STOP and FEED ME NOW!"

I have yet another theory to go along with the haunch above about what's going on, I believe my body is saying WTF, as it tries to re-adjust to training, ketosis, and feeding time changes.  Maybe I'm throwing to much at it at once?  Go big or go home, right?    We'll see what the next few days and weeks have in store.

Big crit races this weekend on Saturday and Sunday.  Depending on how I do and how I feel, I may try to race two races a day instead of just one.  Wishful thinking, maybe?  We shall see.

Day 36 - Week 5 Summary

Week 5 was a week of highs and lows.  It started with the frustration of getting knocked out of ketosis and ended with a successful keto-fueled big bicycle road race.  It also saw my weight jump back up 6lbs and ultimately go back to reclaim 5 of those added 6 pounds.

I finish the week 1 lb heavier than where I was at the end of week 4 when I weighed in at 223 lbs. I'm still currently 19 lbs lighter than I was at the start of this endeavor 6 weeks ago.  19 lbs in 5 weeks is not too shabby.  It's not the 1 lb a day that many are experiencing but it's not too shabby.  This week I'm going to focus more on the macros and see if we can get down below 220.  Also it's been 5 weeks of increasing training volume and intensity that was capped off with a race yesterday, I think it's time for a recovery week.  More on this in a bit.

New theory, maybe my weight is in some way tied to the crazy ass stock market?   haha

Week 5 saw the least amount of total calories ingested over these last 5 weeks - for that matter it's probably the least ingested in years.  Some of this was from awareness and mindfulness of what I was eating and trying to determine if I was hungry or if I just felt like eating out of habit.  If you notice my volume log at the bottom, you'll see I put in a lot of time this week on the bike.  Even with that added time I took in less calories than previous weeks.  I think my body is adapting to being in ketosis.  There's still a lot of food under that skin for my body to consume!

Food Log

On several occasions this week I was able to do a mini-fast and go without eating for well over 12 hours.  When I did this I wasn't hungry, my mind was telling me to eat but my body was not hungry.  My ketone blood tests showed I stayed in ketosis throughout.  One two occasions I skipped lunch during the week and even rode the bike after work without consuming anything prior to the days workout.  On one occasion we did some high intensity intervals and I did them in a fasted mode.

This weeks training log shows twelve and  half hours of saddle time.  That's a lot.  Looking at the breakout of time in zones, I spent a lot in the fat burning modes of zone1 and zone2.  It appears being in ketosis and riding at these intensities is no problem.  

Training Log

Volume and intensity log, last five weeks

As I stated above, I think I'll use this week as a regeneration block or recovery week or whatever you want to call it.  I've ramped up the volume quite a bit over the last 3 weeks and I don't want to get sick or go in to overtraining mode.  I'll be doing back to back days of crit races this coming weekend and I'd like to be fresh for these.  I do feel a little bit of a sore throat coming on and have had a little extra green snot and buggers this last week.  Traditionally this is one of those signs my body gives me to let me know it needs a little break and thus I will give it what it's asking for.

I'm not so sure that the weight stall or the weight gain isn't due to overtraining.  The weight itself isn't going to my midsection (it's actually down a little to almost 38.5 down from 38.8 last week).  Maybe I'm holding water in my legs to help rebuild and repair them from all the added riding?  This is a theory I can't prove but I suspect is playing a big part in this.  Maybe I'm simply not taking in enough calories and this is my bodies way of revolting?  I really don't know.  If either of these theories hold any water, this weeks recovery week should give them a little credence, maybe?

A couple of takeaways from the week.

• The day after the race, my legs feel pretty dang good.  My body feels pretty good too, not raged like I'm used to feeling after a race.  I'm not saying I could go race again or do an interval session but I feel pretty dang good.
• The damn scale is a frustrating way to measure your success.  Had it not been for the other measurements (blood ketones, blood sugar, breath ketones, waist, training performance, etc) I might have been really discouraged and discouraged enough to go back to what I was doing.  
• This week a beer sounded really good.  I didn't have one but due to the frustrations with watching my weight rise the week before a road race almost made me ponder an adult beverage or two.
• Equally so, I kinda craved some sweets this week.  More out of frustration with the weight.  I got a feeling of "WTF, why even try?" but ultimately that was just me feeling sorry for myself and basically being frustrated.  It's a journey not an overnight fix.  I'm glad I didn't stray.  
• I'm still so stoked over yesterday's race.  No need to recap it but I'm excited that I can race at intensity for 3 hours and not be hungry or have to worry about having no glucose and all the other issues that surround ketosis and high intensity sports.  
• This morning, a day after the race and two servings of UCAN, my blood ketones are normal at 1 and my blood sugar was back to 78.  All is well.

I'm now in to week 6.  I plan to track my calories again this week.  Next week I'll probably slack up on that some.  After eating the keto lifestyle for 5 weeks and doing all the various measurements, I think I can eye-ball my food an calories pretty well now AND have a pretty good idea of how they are going to effect ketosis and performance.

Enjoy the journey. -don

Day 35 - The Big Road Race

While week 5 hasn't been without it's challenges, I went all-in and opted to do a road race today.  This was my first-ever road race so I didn't really know what to expect, or if my current level of fitness was going to be enough, or if my UCAN nutrition plan was going to be sufficient.  It was going to be a good test or epic failure...  

I got up at 4am and started my normal morning routine as we were leaving at 5:20am.  Blood ketones were 1.0, blood sugar was 80, Ketonix registered 60, and weight was 224lbs.  The weight thing had me shaking my head this week but that was covered in the last few blog reports.  Breakfast was 3 eggs, a little cheese, and about 2 oz of hard salami.  I had a few cups of black coffee but that was it.  

We then loaded up in the car and made the drive, an hour and half, to the race location.  We got there with 40 minutes until the race.  While getting ready I had a 5 MAP Amino tablets, 1oz of Ketoforce, and 1 serving of UCAN.  This is the same setup that I successfully tested last week.  I figured the race would be 3 hours so in my jersey I packed another serving (premixed) of UCAN with half an ounce of MCT oil, a cap of Elete electrolytes, and 2 scoops of BCCA amino powder mixed with 8oz of water.  For emergency reserve I had two packets of almond butter with maple syrup.  I only put water in my bottles.  

We started the race about 30 minutes after taking my initial cocktail of Ketoforce, UCAN, and MAP tablets.  Pace was relatively easy for the first hour.  I felt pretty good.  No hunger, no pangs, no issue food related.  

After about an hour and 20 minutes there was a lull in the action so I drank the pre-mixed UCAN solution that was in my pocket.  This kept me "good-to-go" all the way until the end of the race and even after.  

During the 3 hour race I drank approx. 80oz of water.  Water and the UCAN solution was all I ingested during the race.  

The race was 2 hours and 50 minutes long.  I had a normalized power of around 314 watts for the day.  This is pretty high for my current level of fitness.  I probably did a little more work up front than I should have.  For the first 2 hours I felt great, after that my fitness started taking a hit.  Toward the end of the race (last 3 miles) I was still up front but my legs were starting to feel like they were about done.  

In the end I didn't finish very well, I was there, up front, but got blocked in on the last uphill sprint section  and ultimately just sat up and finished with the pack.  I should have been more aggressive or paid more attention, but this was my first road race and that was a hard lesson learned...  

This race wasn't about winning.  It was about testing keto eating on a road race (YES it can be done.)  It was about seeing where my bike fitness was (good not great.)  Despite the placing, it was a really good race that I'm extremely happy with today's performance.  I can build my fitness back (give me a couple months) but to know I can race on keto and that a keto lifestyle isn't a race inhibitor is very exciting.  

10 minutes after the race I tested my blood ketones and blood sugar.  BHB was 1.1, blood sugar was 110!  I assume this was telling me I still had a lot of UCAN in my system.  Four hours after the race my blood sugar was back to 71.  UCAN will obviously raise blood sugar but it seems once you store it or burn it your blood sugar (assuming your insulin) is back to normal.  110 isn't not too high all things considered.  I'm sure the GU folks are well above that.  

We packed up and went to eat approx. 30-45 minutes after the race.  I wasn't hungry but got .5lb of brisket.  It didn't taste good and I just didn't feel like eating so after eating 2 or 3 pieces I quit eating.  Everyone finished eating and we drove home.  An hour after we got home I started to feel hungry and eventually ate something, this was about 2pm.  Outside of the Ketoforce and UCAN, I had eaten solid foods since 4:30 this morning.  To be clear, that's over 9 hours without solid food on a race day, I've never been able to do that before!

Takeaways from today:

• It's pretty funny to see most of the folks in the field popping various gels, bananas, bars, and other "standard" bike food every 30-45 minutes.  
• I may need to dial the UCAN back.  I'll experiment with this in the coming weeks.  We'll see if 3/4's of a scoop every 1.5 hours will be enough.  Maybe the on bike serving needs to be less?  Maybe I need the same amount but need to stretch out the time from 80-90minutes to 100-120 minutes?   Seems like too much UCAN wasn't an issue today but maybe I can get away with less?
• It was a 3 hour race and with the UCAN and ketosis, I didn't have any highs and lows (I assume these highs and lows of the past were blood sugar drops and spikes?)  
• 3 hours of racing and three hours later my body felt surprisingly fine, recovered.  Typically I'm beat and just lay around.  While I layed around, I had energy to get up and move around and a desire to do something.  My legs on the other hand, they're trashed and they were just fine with laying around.
• Race nutrition/food was incredibly easy to fix, pack, and use.  This was the easiest on the bike feeding I've ever done.  Only had to eat one time over a 3 hour period.  

Day 32 - Week 5 Head Scratching Continues

Scale said 228 this morning.  F'me, I've added back 5lbs in less than a week.  I'm pretty sure it's not a bathroom thing as in week3.  Equator measurement was a hair under 39".  Looking in the mirror I'm not seeing any weight gain, actually I'm still slimming up.  Dress pants for work are still lose.  Tue and Wed of this week I was in a new belt notch on two different belts.  I'm back in ketosis, 1.1 this morning.  And I feel really good overall.  This damn scale is jacking me up.

I'm at a loss right now.  I even got up and redid my weekly spreadsheet to see how many calories I'm actually taking in.  Off to the far right you can see the averages for the week.  I averaged out the daily intake and then I averaged out the daily intake minus the averaged exercise kilojules for the week.  In doing this, I'm well below 2,000 calories a day....

I also went through and highlighted the daily carb overages through this journey and the days the fat fell below 70%.  A lot of the carb blunders were on the days I used UCAN last week.

I've upped my training the last few weeks.  I'm supplementing the up tick in training with a lot of zone 1 and 2 riding so I don't drop in to the over-training zone.  I feel great.  My legs feel great.  I feel strong on the bike.  I'm in ketosis.  I just can't understand the calorie increase.  Maybe I've got to drop my calories a lot more?  Maybe my body is responding to the training and adding mass?  That seems to be an overly optimistic view...

I do know that the training is likely causing issues I'm just can't pin point it.  I have a road race I committed to this weekend and two days of crit races the following weekend.  I'm just going to focus on them for now and worry about the weight afterwards.  With that said, staying focused on the races isn't going to stop me from wondering what's going on or trying to figure it out....

Day 30 - Still Recovering

Blood sugar was more "normal" this morning, in the mid 80's.  Blood ketones were back in the zone at .7.  Weight wise, I'm still at 226 but that could be for a number of reasons.  Waist wise I'm a hair below 39" so I'm in the 38 inch area.  Used a new belt notch today on my belt so that's positive.  All is not derailed and it appears I'm back on the wagon.

With that said, I'm still a little frustrated and disappointed.   One day I'll learn to accept these types of "setbacks" or "failures" as learning opportunities and experience but until that day comes I'll continue dealing with my "perfection" complex.  I will say I've made great strides in the last few years.

We'll see how the week goes.  There's a little road race this weekend I may opt for.

Day 29 - Week 5 Starts w/ Setback

Over the 4 day Labor Day weekend, my wife Michelle and I experimented with some tasty "keto friendly" foods.  Mostly these could be considered treats more than anything.  Long story short, they have set me back a little today.

Got on the scale and I had gained 3lbs since yesterday morning.  On top of that my BHB was down to .4, I was out of ketosis.  Equally shocking was that my blood sugar was at 98.  Apparently heavy whipping cream and cream cheese need to be carefully watched.  My carb calories were way off for yesterday because we mistakenly assumed the calories and neglected to properly add up all the actual carbs.

To say I was pissed would be a giant understatement.  This feeling didn't last long.  After a few minutes of kicking myself for being so careless, I remembered something I read yesterday.  Failures teach you to be successful.  Lesson learned, now it's time to get back on track.  In the grand scheme of things, this was only a temporary setback and considering the success I've had thus far, it's an acceptable failure.  It has to be acceptable, it's done and over with...

I had a easy ride scheduled with my buddy at 8am.  It was 6:00am and I had some time till we met up.  I wasn't hungry and since we were riding easy I wasn't planning on eating but figured I should eat something.  I had small piece of cheese and a piece of pepperoni (about 300 calories total.)

I still had a lot of time before I meet my buddy.   It was still dark outside so I figured I'd jump on the trainer and get some time in.  Off to the lab I went to get in an extra hour of zone2 penitence.

Prior to getting on the bike I took a shot of Ketoforce to try and jump start the ketosis.  I've read several articles/posts from people who have used ketoforce or other types of synthetic ketones to help get in to ketosis quickly.  I don't know how true this is, I simply knew I needed to get back and I had the stuff so why not.

After an hour of zone 2 riding I changed bibs, filled some water bottles, and got ready to meet my buddy.  I also did a quick blood glucose check.  I had dropped to 88 - still a little high but back in my new "normal" range.

Before leaving I took a serving of UCAN just in case our pace went up.  Looking back I don't know why I did this.  It was not necessary and it definitely didn't help my blood sugar issue I had at the moment.

After 2 more hours of easy zone 1 & 2 riding with my buddy I came home and rechecked my blood sugar and blood ketones.  It had been almost 3 hours since I took the UCAN and 4.5 hours since taking the ketoforce.  Blood sugar was 102 and the ketones were back to 1.0.   The blood sugar was a little high but I did take in a full serving of UCAN and didn't ride very hard.

Afterward I was not hungry.  I had a cup of decaf coffee with a tablespoon of butter.  That held me over till about 1pm when we had lunch.  We'll see how the numbers read in the morning, hopefully my setback was brief and temporary.

A couple of takeaways from today:

• Watch those carb grams when you start getting cute with the advance "keto-treats".  They can and will sneak up on you.  
• Listen to your body.  Yesterday afternoon through bedtime I was drinking a LOT of water.  I was thirsty but I hadn't really done anything.  Also I was drinking a lot of water but I wasn't urinating.  I thought that was funny.  I have a feeling that as the glucose started flowing (from the carbs) my body started storing it again which requires extra water.  This is the opposite process of what happens the first week when you start the keto diet.  
• If you screw up and eat crap that you shouldn't or blow out your carb count, don't dwell on it, simply get over it and get back on the wagon. 

Again we'll see what the numbers show in the morning.