[Closed] Low carbers/i-Davers

[url= http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb-diet-affected-my-athletic-performance ]Have a read of this :)[/url]

i-dave is not low carb

Firstly, iDave isn't low carb.

Re fat burning, you want to be as good at fat burning as possible in endurance sports I reckon, and I think training whilst eating low carb would be a good way of going about it. However it seems to depend on your genetic predisposition how successful you are. Some people seem to find it hard to go flat out without plenty of carbs to support that, some do not.

Have you looked at medium chain triglycerides or MCT as a fuel source when riding? The magic fat that's absorbed like carbs but is still fat?

EDIT: Whoah.. MCTs are a minefield, seems there's even less agreement on their use than usual...

Robb thinks you might be along the right lines with sweet potatoes.

Scaled that is an interesting article, but I'd like to see a variety of 'body types' do the same thing.

Argh. I did not say i-dave is low carb. I forget how sensitive this is!

I-dave is, as far as I understand it, a diet with a [i]modified[/i] (if not as low as my diet, Paleo or Atkins, for example) carb intake, ie no grains and no potatoes I don't think, but it has been a while since I read the literature on it. Hence why I thought that people who follow that kind of diet may have more experience of training on fewer/different carbs than people who follow a standard diet.

Mol - MCT - that's in coconut milk I think....which I rather like.

Thanks for the link scaled - very interesting.

[i]EDIT: Whoah.. MCTs are a minefield, seems there's even less agreement on their use than usual... [/i]

I blame the use of the word [i]Magic[/i].

[s]And FFS, STW, sort the video posting thing out !.[/s]

OK, I take that back.
😳

Having said that LMP it is harder to eat so many carbs on iDave so it usually ends up being significantly lower carb than traditional eating.

And I did struggle to ride hard or fast on it. If I were you I'd do shorter high intensity workouts, 30 mins ish, cos you don't need to replace a lot of carbs after those even if they are flat out. You shoudl still be able to train well for endurance events that way - read up on HIIT if you haven't already.

There was an article in cycling weekly comparing a stafffer's numbers to a pro's. The pro burnt something silly like 1g/kg*h fat (staffers was about half that). I've no idea what training they must do to reach that but it does show that it's possible to get a lot of energy without using carb's.

I've been trying the idea of avoiding carbs in the lead upto a ride and for the first hour or so. It seems to stop me bonking completely, but does seem to bring on a mini-bonk much sooner, i.e. I'll struggle to do anything other than maintain a steady pace, no sprints or steep climbs if SS'ing, but can keep going for hours. It does sometimes result in massive headaches when I get home though.

I've had this book recommended to me several times. I've not actually read it, but seeing the price (sure it was a lot more than that last time I looked!) it's got to be worth a punt. In fact I think I might grab the Kindle edition and read it tonight!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Science-Low-Carbohydrate-Performance/dp/0983490716

I've never gone low-carb myself but I'm very tempted to try it after Chrimbo to see how I cope. Most people seem to be either low or high carb (no real middle ground). Carb requirements seem to be quite different from person to person though so you might just have to experiment.

the website Marks Daily Apple is very popular and full of useful info, might be something about Crohns on there as a lot of people turn to that sort of diet to try and help health issues. Beware though, there are very few actual athletes posting on the forums so take any advice with a big pinch of salt.

When I said I found it difficult to go fast or hard, I'm talking about perceived exertion. As in, I could not ride as fast as my experience told me I should have been able to. I tried to push hard like I was used to doing and my legs couldn't cope.

I dunno if my actual speeds were higher though - I think that my fat burning power went up a fair bit, but I could still not do a decent (for me) 10 mile TT.

I've been trying the idea of avoiding carbs in the lead upto a ride and for the first hour or so.

OTOH this works really well for me. The first 45 mins is not brilliant, feels like it takes me that long to warm up, but when I do have a gel or whatever, it's fantastic. And I need to eat far less carbs to keep up that feeling too unlike TINAS reports.

Beware though, there are very few actual athletes posting on the forums so take any advice with a big pinch of salt

Yeah this is an issue.. there'll be people arguing saying it doesn't affect their riding, when they are just pootling around local trails rather than trying to get a sub-hour 25.

Mol, I did try i-dave a few months back. The thing that slowed me down was beans/peas/lentils. If I ate those during the day, no kidding, my ride home from work was heinous, without exception.

(yeah I know they should speed you up in the form of gas power, I'll get the fart jokes in before the boys!!)

I can't do dairy before riding/running either. Makes me feel sick. After though I'm fine with it.

Current workout fuel is a shake using Kara coconut milk, berries, ground almonds, flax or hemp oil, and a teaspoon of honey. Maybe adding a banana would help if I'm doing longer ones.

If I ate those during the day, no kidding, my ride home from work was heinous, without exception

Heinous what way?

OTOH this works really well for me. The first 45 mins is not brilliant, feels like it takes me that long to warm up, but when I do have a gel or whatever, it's fantastic. And I need to eat far less carbs to keep up that feeling too unlike TINAS reports.

I agree, but I'm trying to lose weight so avoiding gells etc too. Then again that might be counter productive, gels would presumably get burnt off in accelerations, which build fitness/muscle, which would lead to increaced fitness and more weight loss.

Yeah that's my theory. If I'm adequately fueled then I can properly go for it when riding which makes me fitter and burns more fat in the process. Seems to work too. Otherwise I'm just trundling for hours which is ineffective and boring too.

The advantage of the 45 minute thing is that I get the same effect from about 1/5 of the carb intake.

i.m.e the off the shelf version of idave is pretty poor if you're training hard.

For me also - I used the principles to decide when to eat carbs, so when commuting ended up eating a fairly normal amount of white carbs but at the right time. No breakfast, ride in hard, have sandwich, snack in the morning, carby lunch (optional) then nothing all afternoon, ride home fast at 6, then normal dinner.

Resulted in weight loss.

If you go down the fat-powered route with MCTs, coconut oil is a good healthy source. Google "bulletproof coffee" to see this idea taken to extremes.

[i]I did try i-dave a few months back. The thing that slowed me down was beans/peas/lentils[/i]

Slight whinge from me here. Theres more to that two page doc from Dave than just beans.

I do not eat that kind of thing now, but still follow a diet which respects insulin response / sensitivity.
Which was really the aim of that advise, ie, to get people off higher GI diets.

[i]i.m.e the off the shelf version of idave is pretty poor if you're training hard. [/i]

Again, that document wasn't written for people who were [i]trianing hard[/i]. But rather for sedentary biffers who unfortunately had swallowed the low fat diet myth, pedalled by companies selling you stuff that makes you fat.

Yeah this is an issue.. there'll be people arguing saying it doesn't affect their riding, when they are just pootling around local trails rather than trying to get a sub-hour 25.

Im not an athlete but can comfortably manage that, or sub 4hr 100. For me riding for 3ish hours a few times a week with pretty much no food (fasted for 16 hrs)or a bit of meat and salad meant I was getting stronger on my (carb fuelled) 100-120 mile rides on the weekend. I could keep on pushing forever. Tempo stuff seemed pretty doable too. I have not tried threshold work yet, but this season I am going to see what is possible.

Solo - I'm 100% in agreement about the low fat diet myth. Low fat diet - a few lbs off and always hungry. Low carb diet - 11lbs dropped fairly quickly, weight stable, health stable.

At the time I tried i-dave, I was still using legumes in my diet as they are a decent mix of carbs and protein - same thing with quinoa, which I can still eat. I just noticed that if I had, for example, chili with kidney beans for lunch, my ride home was kak, whereas if I had something like meat/fish and salad, the ride home was much better. As I mentioned though, I have Crohns, so in terms of what my body likes and can digest, it's pretty fussy.

The whole grains and legumes and lectins/blocking of nutrient absorption/leaky gut thing - I don't think it's true for everyone, but for those of us with sensitive guts, I reckon there's something in it.

It's good to know it can be done - seems a few of you on here are going there.

zilog - bulletproof coffee is fairly ace, if you hate eating in the mornings. The oiliness is a bit weird at first - it has the texture of Tibetan yak butter tea, but thankfully without the yakky taste!

Ah so you've tried it then! Did you use coconut oil, or pure MCT oil (as recommended) or just skip that? I've not tried it myself but I would if I were experimenting with lo-carb!

LMP.

It seems that you are still going through a phase of experimentation so your experiences of different foods and how they effect your cycling performance is all in a good cause.

A work colleague was recently diagnosed as now being wheat and Gluten intolerant. He has Crohns and it seems to have progressed a bit, sadly.

At the centre of all this, is people finding out, on an individual basis. What really seems to work for them, wrt, their goals. Some folk want to compete, others just want to lose body fat and maintain a lower body fat %, and everything inbetween.

I think that if one makes the effort, they can find what works for them and then just get on with it.
🙂

EDIT:
If you're looking for a good source of carbs to sustain higher intensity exercise, then give stuff like sweet spuds and yams a try. Its all part of learning what will work for you.

sweet potato is my go-to carb these days, cos they're good for you and only take a few minutes in the microwave (and taste pretty good just on their own or with butter/tuna mayo/etc)

h so you've tried it then! Did you use coconut oil, or pure MCT oil (as recommended) or just skip that? I've not tried it myself but I would if I were experimenting with lo-carb!

I have tried with both coconut oil and Jersey butter. Butter is much nicer - a bit like coffee with cream 🙂 Love baked sweet potatoes too, mmmm.

Solo, sorry to hear about your friend with Crohns. I'm coeliac as well, but I find that even the gluten substitute products aggravate the Crohns - they are full of nasties as well as being basically a whole load of white flour, doesn't matter if it's not wheat, they are refined and nutritionally poor in general.

I'm interested to hear how others on "different" diets handle their training goals really, helps with ideas, things to try....I'm much less experimental now than I was a few months ago, kind of know which foods I can and can't have, but the impact of the macronutrient ratios/quantities on training is the unknown factor here, having not long come out of a bout of illness and started to train again on the new Crohns friendly regime. A few ideas here to get me started 🙂

For the last month i have ditched wholewheat pasta/noodles, cous cous, chocolate, and biscuits. For the record, I've only ditched the pasta because it makes me crave sugar, sugar keeps my weight stable but i'd like to lose weight so cutting out chocolate/biscuits = stopping eating pasta to remove the cravings.

My training just now is in base much like you (Z2) but a lot ie 12-18 hours a week. I'm almost in build period with my 8 month race season starting in March. So far I've lost almost 2kgs, my mood and energy levels are very stable, and recovery is perfect. Interestingly, i'm not hungry in between meals any more nor starving when i wake up first thing in the morning. I'm unsure what my recovery will be like and performance when i up the intensity but i'm hoping by then that i will have forced my body to adapt. If not, i'll eat pasta again as racing is too important to me to have rubbish performace for the sake of being a little lighter.

A typical day for me is oats with skimmed milk, lunch veg/bean soup (todays was red and green lentils with black beans) with some rye bread, tea quinoa or roasted squash / sweet pots / veg with fish / eggs...a current fav is spicy quinoa with poached eggs, smoked salmon, kale and courgette with sunflower seeds. I drink cherry juice as soon as i finish exercise and if its a ride of over 2 hours, i'll have either honey stinger energy chews or lunar bars (depends if i'm getting dragged along at 25mph or just hungry) If I need to snack, its on peppers/cucumber/nuts/cheese. It seems to be working for me.

I love all veg, and we keep it interesting by adding spices/herbs to roast veg so its rare we have a meal that tastes the same. I recently read Eat and Run, about an ultra mara runner on a vegan / raw diet, was very interesting. I'm also reading Racing Weight - not yet at the chapter which talks about timings for consuming the right kinds of food at the right times, but might be worth you reading?

DG.

How you doing ?, how you feeling these days ?.