Endurance sports question

#1

Hi, I’m contemplating starting a keto diet but I’m a little concerned about hitting the wall.
Talking about this wall
I’ve hit the wall before and it’s really not fun.
On a less than 60 minutes activity, it’s usually not a concern, but on a typical weekend, I’ll go for a 100km bike ride or a 4 hours mountain hike.
Can I Keto while practising endurance sports?

#2

Short answer is yes.

Listen to the earlier 2KD podcasts, @richard routinely does 100km bike rides at the end of a 3-5 day fast.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #3

This is excellent. If you don’t want to read the whole article, do a browser page search for “Athletes” or just scroll to Lessons from Low Carbohydrate Athletes.

#4

It can be tough while you’re adapting to keto but once you are fat adapted & as long as you keep up your sodium intake you should be fine. Just keep in mind that it can take a few weeks to hit your groove & possibly a couple months to really hit your groove.

#5

The 100km ride shouldn’t be a problem assuming that’s something you normally do, a 4hr MTB ride will hurt, even after you’re fat adapted that’s an ass kicking that’s a lot more glycolitic than sitting and pedaling. You can do it, but it’s never the same as when you’re on the sauce! We actually do better on the long rides running on fat (once you’re adapted) but depending on your trails the MTB can be tough, I’ve never gone 4hrs, but typically 2 and I’m beat. I’ve recently started adding carbs back in around workouts and hit the trails that way and it was pretty noticeable. I can do it fine on fat, but without question there’s more fuel in the tank the other way. Really comes down to the ride you’re doing. Trial and error will tell you what you need, just don’t judge to harshly at first because that won’t be a fair comparison. It’s VERY different once you’re fat adapted. We have keto tricks too, like Exogenous Ketones which give us a sugar like energy spike and MCT’s which burn as fuel and faster than stored body fat.

(Robert C) #6

You can’t hit the glucose depletion wall because, on Keto, you’ll always be glucose depleted.
People classically “bonk” or “hit the wall” because they are glucose burners and out of glucose.
Glucose burners can’t get at the fat on their body for energy quickly enough to keep going.
They also can’t consume and digest carbs fast enough to undo their “bonk” competitively.

Remember that Keto is a diet where you stay in ketosis - your blood ketone levels are measured for this, not your diet.

On a 100km bike ride you can skip the carb snacks and just burn fat or, if you feel it gives you an advantage, you can down carbs - maybe making some hills go by a little faster than just trying to burn body fat all of the time. Given the long ride and the fact that you are challenging yourself - you’ll stay in ketosis even with some carbs.

#7

True enough. I get by OK - I don’t ‘strategically’ add carbs but I do probably eat more veg than most of the hard core ketoers particularly on weekends which is when I’m most likely to go mountain biking.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #8

He was talking about a four hour hike. :cowboy_hat_face:

(Ian Patey) #9

I went keto in March. Now almost Carnivoire. I’ve lost 80+ pounds and that has enabled me to make a return to brazilian jiu jitsu mats a couple of weeks ago. I was concerned that my low carb/no carb IF WOE would leave me gassed during rounds, but to be honest I’ve never had more energy. I still get winded, but I don’t need to stop. I don’t know what you are looking at in terms of endurance, but back to back five minute rounds for an hour are possible without carbs.

(Bunny) #10

One Triathlete Shares How He Fuels on a Low-Carb Diet

Apple Cider Vinegar? I would add Pink Himalayan Sea Salt to that and you would have a carb free super turbo jet fuel in a water bottle? Especially on the side of endurance!

Resistant starch (carb free) will work also, I like to mix it up and play with different fuels!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #11

This—and the adaptation will likely take at least 6-8 weeks. When you recover your endurance, you will know that you are fat-adapted. It will take some time after that for your glycogen stores to return to pre-keto levels, but the latest study from Prof. Volek’s team shows that it does happen eventually.

During the adaptation phase, we strongly advise not stressing your body beyond what the change of diet is already doing to it. Once you become fat-adapted, you will be effectively bonk-proof. For more on this, read The Art and Science of Low-Carbohydrate Performance, by Volek and Phinney.

(BuckRimfire) #12

I started keto in late June 2018. One year ago tomorrow (so, about 11 weeks into low-carb), I recruited a buddy (former endurance racer) who is a stronger and faster kayaker than me to go out to babysit while I tested my endurance. I had a solid breakfast (eggs, sausage, tea with coconut oil and cream, maybe a few brussel sprouts) then went for a 20 mile slash five hour sea kayak paddle while consuming nothing but a thermos of tea with lots of coconut oil and cream (something like 300 or so calories of fat in that tea). That’s not a racing pace, but it’s faster and farther than most recreational sea kayakers would manage, and while I wasn’t eager to do a couple of extra miles just to kill time, I didn’t bonk (which was the question I wanted to test; I was happy with that result and felt that it showed I was pretty well fat-adapted). We had a pretty stiff headwind the first ~100 minutes, then the wind dropped gradually to nothing so we had no push coming back. I had only done three or four paddles all that year, and nothing like that long, so that was without any real preparation (except that I do short aerobic interval workouts fairly frequently).

This year I went twice on my favorite sea kayaking route: 23 miles, although it has quite a bit of assistance from the tidal currents. The first time, I had a big breakfast and took along a thermos of greasy tea again, but when I picked up my buddy, I realized that I’d forgotten my food. I stopped and bought a bag of walnuts on the way to the put-in. So, over the course of the six or so hours we were paddling or taking breaks on beaches, I had the tea (probably 400 calories this time) and a few handfuls of walnuts (maybe a cup of nuts). The buddy this time isn’t as much of a racer as in the previous story, but still someone who gets out in his boat much more often than I do. I was pushing him on pace the whole day, and a half-mile or so from the take-out I really dug in and pulled out over a minute lead on him at the end (probably putting out about 25% more power than him), so I was far from feeling tired. I could have done the whole last hour at very close to that pace.

Just don’t try anything ambitious during the first few weeks while you get adapted to the diet. Cutting back your workouts a fair bit for the first two to three weeks is prudent. After a couple of months, a 100 km bike ride will be easy, unless it’s over hills comparable to Alpe d’Huez!

(BuckRimfire) #13

Also, a couple of elite endurance athlete stories:

The woman who has won the most Ironman events is Paula Newby-Fraser. She was pretty quiet about it, but it seems that she got wind of Steve Phinney’s very early work on low-carb athletes and went low-carb during her racing career. Not sure if she ate extra carbs or not on race days, though.

After dominating the Molokai Challenge surfski race in his younger days, Oscar Chalupsky hadn’t won for seven years in his 40s. According to Tim Noakes, Chalupsky consulted with him on diet and went low-carb a few months before the 2012 race, and Chalupsky lost a fair amount of weight and came back to win the race again at age 49.

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #14

Tim Noakes talks about her. He actually advised her to be cautious about adopting a ketogenic diet, but she heard unqualified approval and went full-bore keto. She attributed all her success to following Prof. Noakes’ advice, and he calls it the best advice he never gave.

My favorite story is of Timothy Olsen, who won the Western States 100 mile iron man and then, just for fun, ran in a marathon the next day.

#15

Absolutely you can. Ive not long done a 20 mile fasted run. Felt fine. Water only. Also done a speed session after 40 hours fasted. As some have said you do need to be through the fat adaptation period though. Enjoy.