Just started serious “Keto” eating (Living) the second week of the year. I bike commute to work at least twice a week in the winter and more in the spring and summer and have done a few century rides in the past. Just got a brand new bike (first “Fast” bike) and rode an hour after work to the bike store. We don’t have real hills here (except to me) but we do have wind. Of course my heart rate was way up because gotta make the new bike go fast, right. Boy, did I get sick. (I had some coconut oil/ghee coffee in the morning, one fat bomb and some protein in water for lunch). Sugar was about 80 in the car on the way home and kept dropping. My lovely wife stopped at Wendy’s for me and I was able to get down not quite 1/2 of a Baconator with no bread or condiments. After a few hours I was able to tolerate some goat cheese and tea with cream.
Now, the good part: When I got up this morning my FSB was 87. It has been between 96-114 lately which has been causing a worry.
Sorry for the long post, by the way my name is Phil, and I am addicted to Cycling. I live in Northwest Indiana right outside of Chicago.
Bonk
It sounds like a combination of not being fully fat adapted and going anaerobic for to long of a time. New bike you probably went much harder than you usually do. Try riding at a lower heart rate to give your body more time to adapt. Also make sure you are taking in plenty of sodium especially before you ride.
I was thinking that after reading some posts here. I am used to just pushing it hard, or taking it completely easy. Just now learning what heart rate zones mean and will be trying to bike by heart rate and not speed. Also I plan on having some broth before heading out today.
Enjoying browsing the forum as work allows.
Maybe just bike in Gary then you won’t have the option to bonk. If you stop u will be killed lol.
Hi Phil,
Just on heart rate zones have you heard of The 180 formula by Dr Phil Maffetone? this might be a good place for you to start, and depending on your arobic fitness level you may need to sit your pride to one side and be prepaired to go a bit slow for a while.
https://philmaffetone.com/180-formula/
Just some information from a fellow cyclist it has helped me.
sorry, but that 180 formular is absolut wrong! every one does have his own max heartrate.
i am 44 yo and according to this formula, i should stay around 141 bpm…
my maximum heart rate is 208! at 184 bpm i enter the anaerobic state and 141 is something to warm up for me.
take a look at my profile pic, its from a mtb-marathon.
back to topic: when i started keto, i totaly run out of minerals and bonked a few times too. salt and magnesium made it for me.
As others have said, it sounds like you aren’t quite fat adapted yet. Additionally, your food intake was pretty low for the day. So if you aren’t quite fat adapted you are depleting glycogen stores during the adaption process which encourages your body to continue to ramp up fat metabolism. Thus when you push hard you wiped out the available glycogen leading you to bonk w/o the necessary fat metabolism to help you recover. I’m in the process of getting back on my bike after some time off. I’ve found for me on 30-60 min spins pushing hard steady state my fasted power out is down ~15%, endurance suffers and post ride even with less time/energy expended my cardio is more exhausted. That said I even though I am pushing pretty hard I’m good to go the next day!
. My experience with keto adapted recovery is pretty awesome!
Update: Yesterday did a loop covering most of the same trail and WORKED at keeping my heart rate to 126 (did some fast reading up on MAF, then got a couple of the books to study.) TBH, my legs still felt well exercised. It was a bit hard to keep the heart rate down a time or two, either the wind made me work hard, or the wind pushed me and I had to “Speed Up” to get the heart rate up and would I would blow past my 126 mark and have to ease way up. It did keep things interesting and I am looking forward to heading out in about an hour for more.