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
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