Nathan's Keto Journey To Race Weight

(Running from stupidity) #61

+billions

(Nathan Toben) #62

Broke fast at 22.5hrs. Didn’t have the will power after riding 50 miles today. At least now i get to enjoy some sausage and eggs at the end of this bleak day

(Running from stupidity) #63

Yeah, well. So far my efforts have been walking my 10k steps and playing on the XBONE :slight_smile:

(Tim ) #64

@Nathan_Toben thanks! Will definitely stay in contact, won’t crap up your thread with any more ultra stuff but it’s great that you are ahead of me in this.

Regarding your other stuff all the best with the weight loss. Don’t try too hard though :wink:

(Nathan Toben) #65

Day 11

Feeling a little more centered this morning. Not going to weigh in until tomorrow.

(Nathan Toben) #66

Day 12

Bear with me y’all, i’ll be back.

EDIT: I have “not been myself” since the end of last week. And by “not been myself”, well, how am I not myself? How am I not myself? How am I not myself…the answer is, this kind of crumble is exactly a pattern of mine and this accountability thread itself is another device I have tried to use to externalize work that needs to be done internally. Truth is I do not have a good relationship with myself. I am very stubborn and often abuse solitude until it morphs into lonesomeness. Then I do not reach out for help. I set severe goals for myself that perhaps I could have met when I was younger, or perhaps the person I wish I were could achieve them, but the person I am now is just manufacturing future disappointment. This is disordered. I have used keto and fasting in the last few weeks in a disordered fashion which has taken me away from joyful place in myself. This illness really does a number on me as it is a disease of perception and so even embedded in this paragraph, its cogs are turning and finding little “ins” to seed its spurs.

But I am just telling on myself here, eating crow, as they say. My primary intention now is to return to a good place with myself and that means taking a step back, a deep breath, reassessing what really does feel light and joyful for myself, and then taking what works and ditching the rest. I know that there is a balanced way to reach better trail running fitness through food and exercise and I am still making a great many mistakes on my way. Also, hah, balance is a fickle thing that might elude me for as long as I draw breath. Oh well, being imbalanced is partly the source of my character assets.

Anyways, I’ll report in the coming days with as much or as little information as seems right at the time. For whatever reason, it seems that I have much less wiggle room when it comes to reshaping my equilibrium, body-composition wise. SO be it. My back is strong, my knees still bend. Most days I can run and ride most all of the sunlit hours. These are good things. Self-acceptance. Brutal self-acceptance. Hope all of you are so well and thanks for all of your input along the way. Humble pie.

(Running from stupidity) #67

Remember what I said the other day (paraphrasing professionals who are smart, not me originating it) about being able to optimise but not force? That again.

If I encourage you to hang in there and recognise progress as actual progress rather than a failure to reach goals that are either unattainable now or were an attempt to stretch that didn’t pan out, it’s because I tell myself these things and ignore them as well. Doesn’t mean they’re not right.

("Don't call it calories, call it food") #68

Checking in Nathan :slight_smile: thinking/praying for you today! Hope you are finding that joy…

(Nathan Toben) #69

thank you @elastoplastic for checking in.

I had my first good day in a while today. It is not clear what my body has been rebelling against but it has unfortunately caused me to migrate closer towards strict Carnivore until I feel safe to come out of my cave. I am beginning to think that, while yes, I push the envelope of how much stress a body can take, and yes stress is playing a role in my ailments of late, I really think I have an intolerance or an allergy or jeez I don’t know I’m just so tired of cravings…having meals be the context for all my actions throughout the day only to have them backfire and plague me with inflammation and bloat and all that other stuff - but also depression.

I listened to the joe rogan podcast with Jordan Peterson’s daughter on it and it really sounds similar to my situation. But to only eat meat while training for these big demanding events, can that even work out?

Anyways, today I had surprisingly even energy and everything has settled well so I am marking today up as a win. I hope you all are doing well on your journies. This stuff is just hard and sometimes the path is filled with briars of doubt and anxiety and depression and fury.

(Running from stupidity) #70

Seems to work pretty well for Zach Bitter, et al, but they’ve adapted to it.

(Nathan Toben) #71

Day 25 of 37

Ok, I am back.

I started this thread to create a level of accountability, to bring to the forefront of my own mind and any of us on the forums who are interested, my aspiration to reach a new/different/better level of fitness for an upcoming 100-mile ultramarathon in Alabama, The Pinhoti 100.

However, the definition of “fitness” that I implemented was mainly based on scale weight and fat adaption. I intended to sustain a caloric deficit that would maintain muscle but reduce fat % so that I could run up and down mountains with more ease. At around the 10 day mark I felt exhausted, despite having lost a handful of pounds.

But the thing is this. The constant thought of food, I just can’t do it anymore. Also, the constant not knowing in regards to which vegetables are causing depression and bloating, which are not, I just can’t do it anymore.

I am not convinced mine is a case of autoimmunity, but I am convinced that there are some very real, complicated things that are going on between what I put in my gut and how my mind feels on the daily, even on keto. I reached a jumping off point about two weeks ago…and have gone carnivore.

(queue darth vader theme)

Just to get this out of the way:

  1. I weighed in today for the first time in a couple weeks and I am at 166.5lbs. This was after eating 1lb of bacon and 2lbs of ground beef followed by a couple glasses of water.

  2. I started this thread at 171lbs.

  3. A couple days before my calorie deficit approach (implementing IF and strict keto) blew up and I binged on cheeses and meats, I weighed in at 164. I was thinking about food all the time.

  4. My goal was to reach 150lbs by October 21st.

  5. I have let go of weight loss as a goal.

OK.

So, what has 14 days ZC/Carnivore felt like? Each day a progressive feeling of satisfaction with mild bouts of apprehension. Bloating has subsided. Sleep has been poor. Exercise has been mixed. But bottom line, I feel like I am starting to truly feel satiated and the thought of food no longer has a steely grip over my depression.

I have a 50k mountain trail ultra this weekend. My dad and I are driving up to Virginia to run it, the Cloudsplitter 50k. I am so fearful of carbs right now that I am actually going to forgo all sports nutrition and run with pan-cooked bacon in my hydration belt. I might blow up and perform poorly, but if I were to take another chance with simple/complex carbohydrate, all my psychological and physical symptoms might return and I just cant live with that.

So I am rolling with these punches and what that looks like is becoming an outlier within a community of outliers and that is just gonna need to be totally ok. I know you guys support whatever seems to be working for me.

I greatly appreciate your support and interest in this little thread of mine and I look forward to reporting back to you all about how running 32 miles, in the mountains, as fast as my fitness will let me, ON ZERO CARBS, will go ;).

I shall sacrifice my body for science (said in the darth vader voice).

(Running from stupidity) #72

I know this wasn’t one of the running goals, but it sure feels like #winning to me.

Hey, N=1, right? You’re doing what’s sensible for you in the medium/long term. Heretical as this is going to sound, given this thread direction, some goals that weren’t initially obvious can turn out to be the more important ones as we head along the trail (ah, I’m funny :slight_smile:

The other thing to consider - and I may have said this before so please forgive me if I have - is that your timeline may have been unrealistically short to begin with, or has become so given the obstacles and changes that have occurred along the way. Initial goals are not immutable, even thought changing them can feel like failure as opposed to be smart about things.

Anwyay, enough crap from me. Great thread, and I admire your honesty.

(Edith) #73

Well, I am relieved for you. I think you were putting a heck of a lot of stress on your mind and body trying to reach your ideal race weight during the peak of your training. All the fasting and training I’m sure was very stressful.

I bet now that you are more relaxed things will go well during your races. :bacon::cut_of_meat:

(Nathan Toben) #74

Day 26

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weight: 164.5lbs

(CharleyD) #75

I’d say welcome to Alabama and bring some salt since you’d normally need it to stay hydrated, but as we have Hurricane Michael plowing through at the moment, you’d be better off with some wet weather gear!

(Nathan Toben) #76

Day 30

4 hours 45 minutes and 37 seconds. 1st place in the 50 kilometer race and set a new course record by 7 minutes. Used vespa wasp extract for half the race and 3 maurten hydro gels in the second half (carbohydrate). My stomach remained settled, my body felt incredible despite the total pain cave and i’m back to ZC/Carnivore.

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(Nathan Toben) #77

FYI, that is a total of 332 calories to fuel 33 miles (I went off course a bit :flushed:). 75 grams of carbs.

(Doug) #78

Pretty decent results there, Nathan. :slightly_smiling_face:

(Nathan Toben) #79

thanks doug! couldn’t be happier. a breakthrough performance for sure.

(Running from stupidity) #80

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

KILLED IT!

I’d suggest the N=1 is going OK.