Health & Family My low carb weight loss journal (LCHF)

I think you'll find an alarmingly high incidence of type 2 diabetes in elite athletes once they are in their 40s. Many years of carb loading and generally consuming excessive carbs (even though they are burned off rather than stored as fat) eventually overwhelms the pancreas which then stops performing as it should - people become insulin sensitive.

See Low-carbohydrate diets for athletes: what evidence? by Timothy Noakes, Jeff S Volek, Stephen D Phinney

What of the long-term health consequences of habitually eating a high carbohydrate diet especially for that increasing number of recreational athletes who may be unaware that they are insulin resistant (IR) and for whom carbohydrates pose a major health hazard including the risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus? The recent finding that habitual marathon runners can have marked coronary artery disease, worse than that present in sedentary individuals, despite
similar or lower coronary risk factors, invites sober reflection. Is it possible that there is a dietary component to this?
Could a high-carbohydrate diet in marathon runners with IR induce an inflammatory state promoting coronary atherosclerosis? And is the poor dental and overall health of many Olympic
athletes the result of eating a high carbohydrate diet and frequently ingesting sugary sports drinks? Perhaps the time has come to question the popular advice that all athletes must only ingest high carbohydrate diets.​

The problem is that it can take decades for this to occur - so it's not something directly associated with their past activity.

The experiments that Dave Feldman is performing on himself around Cholesterol are fascinating and really start to show interesting data about just how the body moves fuel around the body. Indeed - given how important Cholesterol is to both delivering triglycerides to your cells for fuel, as well as repairing cells, but also for delivering hormones (insulin!!) and so on - it is something we should be investigating closely.

So when Dave seemed to indicate that there (anecdotally) seems to be a greater incidence of high cholesterol amongst very athletic people on a low carb diet - I think that has very interesting potential for understanding the impact of exercise on insulin levels. Carbohydrates of course mess with this model completely because they provide most of the fuel instead of the fat carried by the cholesterol - so the whole things gets very difficult to model and understand.

 

Both the first (Froome) and second (Bardet) place-getters at the 2016 Tour de France credit a low carb diet with helping them to reach the top of their game.

However, I think it is rather simplistic to think that they are eating the same thing that I am. I am pretty sure they are eating a lot more protein than I do, and I also have no doubt that they are using carbohydrates for fuel during racing - maybe not as much as the other athletes - but they will still need to replenish their glycogen stores throughout the race - I don't think the liver can provide enough glucose (from fat) quickly enough to keep them from hitting the wall at the intensity they are riding.

I haven't found any real details about exactly what they are eating yet (during training, before an event and during an event) - which I suspect is mostly because that is considered a competitive advantage and so fairly closely guarded information. I'm hoping this information does become public eventually because I think it is fascinating to understand the nutrition changes being made by elite athletes. I do know that many of the professional cycling teams are looking very closely at nutrition of their athletes beyond the traditional "coffee and carbs" and are getting much more scientific about it.

While I've never been an athlete (although there is still time for me I guess - I'm not quite in my mid-40s yet) ... my son is (he's a sprinter, soccer player and is starting to show an interest in competitive cycling) and so I'm very keen to understand as much as I can about nutrition for when he's older and starting to get serious about his training. For now though - he's just a kid so I just try to make sure he eats well and start looking for opportunities to help him understand how his body works.

But you are absolutely right - I have found that everyone is different in their insulin response and their cholesterol profiles, which is part of the reason I think it's so difficult to have one-size-fits all advice handed out by the medical profession. That's also the reason why I'm finding Dave Feldman's research into cholesterol so fascinating because he it was those very differences in himself (cholesterol levels skyrocketed on a low carb diet) which caused him to start asking questions in the first place.

 

Eating log - day 19 - June 23

Breakfast: nothing

Lunch: the last few bits of roast pork from last weekend - cold straight out of the fridge. Still very yum. 0 carbs.

Dinner: Bacon and sauteed cabbage. Wife made pasta for the family, so I cooked up some cabbage in butter (125g cooked), fried a couple of rashers of bacon and chopped it up with the cabbage. Was yummy. 5g of carbs.



Dessert: icecream. Connoisseur Cookies and Cream. All the carbs. So good. Going to snore terribly tonight.

Total for the day: lots. Probably more than 100g. Going to have to be very active on the weekend.

Excercise: none. Worked standing up for about 2 hours.

 

It is specifically a low carb high fat diet - I should have been more specific because it's not the carbs causing the high cholesterol - it's the increase in saturated fat (he has a lot of it - a lot more than me - but then he's also a lot more active than I am).

There seems to be some people who are what Freeman calls "hyper-responders" which means that if they increase their saturated fat intake, their cholesterol numbers skyrocket - far more than in other people.

Hyper-Responder FAQ » Cholesterol Code

What is a Hyper-Responder?

The term, “hyper-responder” has been used within the ketogenic / low carb, high fat (keto/LCHF) community to describe those who have a very dramatic increase in their cholesterol after adopting a low carb diet.

This increase can be anywhere from 50% to 100% or more of their original, pre-diet cholesterol numbers. There is quite a bit of debate as to how much or how little this affects risk for atherosclerosis and general heart disease given keto/LCHF is very anti-inflammatory.
​

Interestingly, he recently (as in last month) had a bit of a breakthrough in his research which showed that there is a "tipping point" where his cholesterol levels increase normally up to that point, but then change dramatically.

See here: Cholesterol Research Breakthrough » Cholesterol Code



Now that is completely unexpected and is going to require a lot more study to see if the same pattern exists in other people (he's testing on himself for now).

 

No - low carb high fat.

 

I was talking about a completely different person - Dave Feldman.

 

Dessert is okay sometimes. If you'd been paying attention, you'll notice that I rarely have dessert.

 

Eating log - day 20 - June 24

Breakfast: nothing

Lunch: burger - same as what I had on Thursday (it was a 10 pack), but with 2 eggs this time and extra bacon. 14g carbs. Way too much in hindsight. Thought I wasn't going to be having dinner, so did an extra egg and more bacon to make sure I wouldn't get hungry - but felt over-full all afternoon. Too much protein.

Dinner: Italian restaurant for birthday celebrations for my wife and her sister. I had the Gamberi all'aglio (Tiger prawns, cooked in olive oil, garlic, chilli and cherry tomato) plus Zucchini Flowers (filled with fresh ricotta, basil and lightly crumbed).





I shared these two dishes with my wife. Garlic prawns were very very nice - and I really liked the zucchini flowers as well. Not a lot of carbs overall either.

I did have two slices of my son's small pizza and I also shared a small lemon panna cotta for dessert with my wife - which was very nice too.

Difficult to tell how many carbs - more than 20g, but wouldn't be huge because the servings were small - and also shared (I ate half the zucchini, a bit more than half the prawns and half the panna cotta). Most of the carbs would have come from the pizza and the dessert.

Total for the day: unknown, but more than 20g. Wouldn't think it would be more than around 50g or so though.

Excercise: none. Kids had soccer matches at different locations - so there was a fair bit of walking today related to those, but not at pace.

 

Eating log - day 21 - June 25

Breakfast: nothing

Lunch: chicken and garlic filo. Some leftovers from dinner the other night while I was out. About 20g of carbs.

Snack: cheese and salami. 0 carbs.

Dinner: Beef and Cauli-mash Cottage Pie. Mince, onion, carrot, cabbage, tomato, beef stock, worcestershire sauce, garlic, italian herbs. Cauli mash - cauliflower, egg yolks, butter. Lots of cheese melted on top. About 8g of carbs per serve.



Total for the day: about 28g carbs - mostly from that chicken thing at lunch.

Excercise: none.

 

I think the urge to eat at certain times of the day will start to ease with time. The most important thing is to listen to your body - if you're not actually hungry (you just feel like eating), then just work on convincing yourself that you don't actually need to eat - focus on the feeling in your stomach of satisfaction rather than the impulse in your head of needing food.

One thing that took a while for me to get past was the "eating something in front of the TV after dinner" habit. That's a double whammy - because you get triggered from simply sitting down in front of the TV (it makes you want to eat!), and then because you're distracted while watching TV, you don't tend to eat "mindfully" and so typically eat more than you need to / should.

I do occasionally have something like a hot chocolate or some mousse - but I try not to make that a regular thing.

Well done with the fasting - advice I have read is to not try and do too much at once - work up to it (I've not done any more than dinner-to-dinner myself yet).