TLDR at the bottom.
I tried TKD some time ago while still not in good cycling shape and really bombed out, I think my insulin went too high and I bonked before it went down.
My wife and I are both keto, she doesn’t have nearly the reaction to sugar as I do, she can have quite a few carbs in a day with no ill effects, not so much for me. Every once in a while I will have something carby, about 6 weeks ago that was a couple yummy burgers, but also the bun, estimated 60 carbs. She had the same. An hour and a half later I check my BG and it is 202, hers is 104. An hour after that I am at 82, that familiar old sugar chasing issue. Last week my youngest got to pick where we ate for her birthday, pizza of course, but since I just finished a really hard ride I wanted to test something.
A couple of Phinney studies, I think FASTER included, stated that athletes did better when supplementing glucose, 60g per hour as I recall. I have read mention several times that when muscle glycogen is low, muscles can actually pull carbs from the blood to replenish without it having to go through your system and trigger a response.
So I ate a bunch of pizza, easily 100g of carbs, probably closer to 150g. I felt great, none of the typical inflammation I get after eating carbs, ‘heaviness’ in my lower abdomen, hypoglycemia stuff or anything. I got back home and at the hour and a half mark I tested 111, half hour later 91. One thing that ALWAYS happens when I have carby meal like this is I gain 3-4 pounds, water retention, and it stays for 3 days and on the 4th i’m right back where I was.
So I just finished a ~50 mile ride on a crazy windy day, sprinting up the last couple of climbs to make sure as much muscle glycogen was gone as possible. Up until 5 minutes ago all I had was 4 TBSP of heavy cream, 2 at a cafe stop halfway through my ride. Since then I have eaten 52g of carbs in the form of jelly beans. So sweet after keto they were pretty hard to eat. I tested at 3PM CST and was 91, I will test at 60 minute increments to see what happens. Tomorrow I will do the same thing, only with no ride.
What’s the point? I have tried several snacks on rides and nothing seems to do anything, post-ride I feel really low on energy and pretty useless the rest of the day, I would love something that wouldn’t interfere with the ride and/or aid recovery. It doesn’t have to be jelly beans, but being pure carbs it lets me keep the macro intake controlled. Also, I will be keto forever, but in order to do that I will periodically have carby meals, if I can counteract the usual side effects and not be bloated for 3 days that is certainly a bonus. Lastly I know you can create energy from stored fat but there is a limit to how fast it can be accessed, something to have on the bike would be ideal.
Plus science, does my body replenish muscle glycogen right away without spiking?
TL;DR Eating a bunch of Jelly Beans after a long ride to see how it spikes my BG, if at all. More to come shortly.