Plateau Buster - Has anybody attempted LCHF to Vegan cycling?

cycling
vegan
ketotarian
plateau
not-for-newbies

(Todd Allen) #41

I’ve had ok results doing a week of nearly vegan at roughly 500 calories per day eating a lot of greens and other low carb veggies with plenty of salt. Works out about the same as 4 days of fasting for me. Both approaches are similarly challenging for me so I do the veg thing when the garden is pumping out produce.

I expect Frankobear intends something higher calorie for longer duration, perhaps months. In my case I wouldn’t be too concerned about lowered metabolism but rather about diminished results of weight training for an extended time without animal proteins. I expect those and perhaps other issues will vary a lot person to person.


(Brian) #42

I don’t think I’d want to do it for months. But maybe a week or so I could see, almost like a fast of sorts. Maybe mixing it up with a PSMF week following??


#43

Yes, Tom. Exploring that point. I was thinking about the length of time required to create an effective plateau break that shows up in biomarker measurement results.

There has been some interesting discussion about trying the diet change as a form of fast Vegafast. In that thinking it would be a short term test of 3 to 7 days, or so.

I monitor my main blood test biomarkers about every six months. That is why my thinking went to the idea of pursuing Vegafast for a simililar time period.

But the logical thoughts and discussion about a short term version of a vegan diet change, treating it as a form of fasting, seems a good step toward considering a longer term trial.

Thanks for sharing good ideas from the online keto-brain.


#44

Reporting back. It wasn’t too bad to try for a few weeks (21 days)

I gave it a go with a plant based diet. My blood ketones rested at about 0.1 mmol/L. Fasting insulin increased. Daily fasting blood glucose increased from about 5.0mmol/L to 5.8mmol/L.

I was mainly eating green leafy vegetables, various seaweeds, lots of fungi, macadamia oil, avocado oil, avocados, coconut oil, some seasonal fruit or blueberries, roasted pumpkin, macadamia nut intake doubled…

The plateau was broken = I gained about 1 kg. I was hungrier than when I eat eggs for breakfast.

If I had to survive out in the looming vegetarian nutrition apocalypse, I reckon I could stick it out for longer and fool them that I was one of them.


(Jane) #45

You originally talked about staying on it for 1-3 months. Is there a particular reason you stopped at 3 weeks?


#47

Life events outside of nutrition. I changed jobs. That impacted on meal scheduling and added some stress. So I defaulted, “relapsed” perhaps, back to wholefood animal product based ketogenic eating


#48

I did the reverse. I switched from vegetarian/pescatarian (I was truly vegetarian for 4-5 years, and pescatarian or vegetarian for a total of 13 years). Maybe it works for some, but it was literally killing me, and my doctor said she has never come across a healthy vegetarian or vegan. I was low in folate, B12, ferritin, iron and vitamin D. I had no energy, my blood sugars were crashing after I ate, I had high insulin, my female hormones were incredibly off balance, my fasting sugars were creeping above 100… In short, a whole foods plant based diet was extremely detrimental to my health and I will never advocate for it again. Since going keto, my labs are returning to normal, I have far more energy, I am not fatigued 24/7, no more high sugars, no crazy spikes and dips, and I lost the 35 pounds I gained due to the female hormone disruption.


#49

The next phase was trying a carnivore diet since November 19. I’ve been better at attempting that. @Ifod14 was correct about the importance of needing others along for the wagon ride. Interestingly my blood markers responded almost exactly the same as the 21 day vegan trial with trace ketones and increased blood glucose. But, like the vegan test, it is difficult for me not to naturally revert to being a Keto-omnivore. It’s been fun to explore the n=1 edges.