The Nutrition Science thread

[mud]

Very cool. Keto/low carb diets are certainly the rage for a lot of endurance athletes right now. Even Tim Noakes, who pretty much invented carb loading, has flipped a full 180 and is a staunch advocate for LCHF diets.

Why not both?

Back in the early '90's when I was bike racing eating carbs was probably 70% of my diet and I was able to lose weight and gain strength while maintaining a caloric deficit.

This winter I lost 20#s over 2 months in keto with no more than 20g a carbs a day. Same thing, maintain caloric deficit and still gained streghth measured in my weightlifing log.

I think keto and fasting are cool tools to have in the chest for keeping lean and strong. But as a lifestyle I think it's a bit extreme. Having a beer and pizza every once in awhile will not kill you.

[glademaster]

Doing the ~100g-protein/day diet is extremely effective at building mass. If I was less of a bum when it comes to cardio, I'd just stay on a protein rich diet. 10-20g before/after workouts and more spaced throughout the day is an easy way to get yuge without too much dietary stress.

Is 100g/protein a day considered to be a lot? I'm pretty sure I'm well over that mark at least 5 days a week and would by no means consider my diet "high protein."

[Dantheman]

Why not both?

Back in the early '90's when I was bike racing eating carbs was probably 70% of my diet and I was able to lose weight and gain strength while maintaining a caloric deficit.

This winter I lost 20#s over 2 months in keto with no more than 20g a carbs a day. Same thing, maintain caloric deficit and still gained streghth measured in my weightlifing log.

I think keto and fasting are cool tools to have in the chest for keeping lean and strong. But as a lifestyle I think it's a bit extreme. Having a beer and pizza every once in awhile will not kill you.

You seem to have me confused with someone who actually follows a keto diet. I go through a 15-lb Costco bag of yukon gold potatoes every couple weeks.

[capulin overdrive]

Is 100g/protein a day considered to be a lot? I'm pretty sure I'm well over that mark at least 5 days a week and would by no means consider my diet "high protein."

Don't know about a lot, but 100g is about spot on for Keto numbers at 2000cal a day.

But yeah, i've been over a 100g a day for most of my life. Freezer full of beef = easy to do.

[Danno]

1g/lb is what I've read in some places as being 'high protein' intake. While that probably optimizes even more than 100g/day, I've found that 1g/lb is really just an exercise in heating the earth and ncessitating a bidet for the 5x/day bowel movements.

I'd bet $0.37 your intake is between 40g & 80g/day, unless you're training for Alaska.

That 1g/lb is supposed to be for your lean body mass, not your actual weight.

And 40g/day is really low on any diet.

Don't know about a lot, but 100g is about spot on for Keto numbers at 2000cal a day.

But yeah, i've been over a 100g a day for most of my life. Freezer full of beef = easy to do.

Yeah, 100g a day is in the moderate range, I'm shooting for 80 and not going over 100.

[capulin overdrive]

That 1g/lb is supposed to be for your lean body mass, not your actual weight.

And 40g/day is really low on any diet.

Yeah, 100g a day is in the moderate range, I'm shooting for 80 and not going over 100.

I may be partly full of crap, as 2000cal for me is a deficit. So number may be a little skewed? I'm shooting for 98g protein and 163g fat.

FWI got the Kanjac noodles, but haven't tried yet. Crazy things came packed in water.

[SkiBall]

I don't think there's much outside of epileptics and diabetic ketoacidosis, which isn't really the same thing as diet-induced ketosis. It is a well known phenomenon that endurance athletes metabolize fat more efficiently and can derive a higher percentage of their caloric demand at higher intensities. Here's how metabolism works as a function of exercise intensity:



The further to the right on the graph that the lines cross, the better. In untrained individuals the blue line usually drops steeply and the red line rises steeply. In highly trained individuals the opposite occurs. One of the crazier things in Scott Carney's book was that his metabolism changed from the couch potato-type to the endurance athlete-type solely from switching to cold showers and doing the Wim Hof breathing stuff. He was only doing about 3 hours of exercise a week, but the doctor who ran his RER/VO2max test said the results were equivalent to adding an additional 7-10 hours of exercise.

This was a pretty significant thing for me going in. I did the ramp test where they measured my carb & fat burning at different heart rates. Trying to exercise with the ideal range or as close as I could along with just eating less carbs and better ones when I did along with more good fats, modifying portions and more fish did really well. I like a lot of those foods already but didn't always focus on it.
I lost 10#'s without really trying (was 190# at 6'3" to start) as weight loss wasn't the goal. I just was really carb dependent and would fluctuate on energy levels and sometime crash and need to gorge calories until I balanced out. Haven't had that issue since so guessing related. Follow-up test and he had to work to max me out to get to complete carb dependent rate.

tldr: Don't have to get crazy, get fat/carb burn test, eat better, exercise within your ideal range. Profit.

[glademaster]

1g/lb is what I've read in some places as being 'high protein' intake. While that probably optimizes even more than 100g/day, I've found that 1g/lb is really just an exercise in heating the earth and ncessitating a bidet for the 5x/day bowel movements.

I'd bet $0.37 your intake is between 40g & 80g/day, unless you're training for Alaska.

Not training for Alaska, but I did just have a lunch that contained ~55g of protein. For the record, I'm not doing keto or following any specific diet plan. I generally eat whatever, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, and I am quite active, but I don't consider myself an athlete.

[Dantheman]

Definitely easy to hit >100 g protein/day. A few eggs, a couple modest servings of meat, a cup of yogurt or a little cheese, plus the ancillary protein in everything else you eat (even vegetables are ~10% protein) and you are over 100 g. If you're active I'd consider 0.5g/lb LBM as an absolute minimum.

Moving on, earlier we touched on the pitfalls of insulin resistance and hyperglycemia. One dead simple thing you can do to blunt blood sugar spikes after meals is drink a little vinegar every day. A tablespoon of vinegar consumed with a high-carb meal reduces your postprandial blood sugar spike by around 50%, and the effect persists for 8-10 hours afterward. So, one glug of vinegar in the morning and you're pretty much set for the rest of the day. You get a similar effect from leftovers. Cooling and reheating starches creates resistant starch, which has a similar immediate and persistent effect on blood sugar response. Next, move around after meals. You clear glucose from your bloodstream much faster if you are doing anything but being completely sedentary. Finally, keep your fructose intake (sucrose, HFCS, etc., whole fruit excepted) as low as practical. Fructose metabolism directly causes acute insulin resistance, which in turn directly and indirectly contributes to chronic insulin resistance.

[Norseman]

Dan, thanks for your educated responses.

[neufox47]

I have a friend who was debilitated by migraines. She would spend an average of 8 hrs a day with moderate to severe migraine pain. She went to a strict ketogenic diet and her headaches virtually disappeared. She has been on it for over 3 years now. She went off for a week once and they came roaring back. #studyofone

[glademaster]

I have a friend who was debilitated by migraines. She would spend an average of 8 hrs a day with moderate to severe migraine pain. She went to a strict ketogenic diet and her headaches virtually disappeared. She has been on it for over 3 years now. She went off for a week once and they came roaring back. #studyofone

If you go all-in on damn near anything for three years and then stop it suddenly, you'll net yourself a week of headaches.

[Name Redacted]

If you go all-in on damn near anything for three years and then stop it suddenly, you'll net yourself a week of headaches.

Yeah, when I went off the Hunter S Thompson diet my migraines came back immediately.

[neufox47]

If you go all-in on damn near anything for three years and then stop it suddenly, you'll net yourself a week of headaches.

She didn’t stop it suddenly. She ate more vegetables, stopping ketogenesis at times. She didn’t go binge eat cake.

[glademaster]

She didn’t stop it suddenly. She ate more vegetables, stopping ketogenesis at times. She didn’t go binge eat cake.

I should have included a little at the end of that post. I thought the snark would be self-evident.

[neufox47]

Very cool. Keto/low carb diets are certainly the rage for a lot of endurance athletes right now. Even Tim Noakes, who pretty much invented carb loading, has flipped a full 180 and is a staunch advocate for LCHF diets.

Most (basically all) of the athletes and coaches I’ve seen using / promoting a ketogenic diet say to do it during training, but carb load prior to and during competition. Are some now saying don’t eat carbs for competition too?

[mud]

Moving on, earlier we touched on the pitfalls of insulin resistance and hyperglycemia. One dead simple thing you can do to blunt blood sugar spikes after meals is drink a little vinegar every day. A tablespoon of vinegar consumed with a high-carb meal reduces your postprandial blood sugar spike by around 50%, and the effect persists for 8-10 hours afterward. So, one glug of vinegar in the morning and you're pretty much set for the rest of the day. You get a similar effect from leftovers. Cooling and reheating starches creates resistant starch, which has a similar immediate and persistent effect on blood sugar response. Next, move around after meals. You clear glucose from your bloodstream much faster if you are doing anything but being completely sedentary. Finally, keep your fructose intake (sucrose, HFCS, etc., whole fruit excepted) as low as practical. Fructose metabolism directly causes acute insulin resistance, which in turn directly and indirectly contributes to chronic insulin resistance.

Would a vinegar based salad dressing have the same benefits?

[char_]

If you are a run of the mill, non over weight, reasonably healthy eater, who eats carbs, what is the advantage of this vinegar thing? Also, same person, who isn't a performance athlete, what would be the point of a keto diet?

[SkiBall]

Not training for Alaska, but I did just have a lunch that contained ~55g of protein. For the record, I'm not doing keto or following any specific diet plan. I generally eat whatever, sometimes a lot, sometimes a little, and I am quite active, but I don't consider myself an athlete.

My understanding is that you should not exceed 20g of protein at any one time. Your body can only process so much at one time and the rest taxes the liver. Just have to space out smaller more frequent eating which I have always been a fan of. And no, I don't know what the recommended time in between is, but I would spit wad 2-3 hrs.
I am not a doctor, but I play one on ski forums.

[iceman]

So you can't have more than about 2 ounces of meat at a time? Have fun with that one.

[capulin overdrive]

Would a vinegar based salad dressing have the same benefits?

Yup, are we talking any vinegar, or apple cider vinegar?

[SkiBall]

So you can't have more than about 2 ounces of meat at a time? Have fun with that one.

It's 4oz iirc. but maybe. But yeah, basically the same thing. I mean we are still alive and all and we are damaging ourselves in ways we don't even realize anyway. Or do. Hey, I didn't make the rules.

[Dantheman]

Most (basically all) of the athletes and coaches I’ve seen using / promoting a ketogenic diet say to do it during training, but carb load prior to and during competition. Are some now saying don’t eat carbs for competition too?

I think most of those guys are doing some variation of the optimized fat metabolism protocol where carb intake is carefully timed around training when it won't elicit a big insulin response. Depends on the distance, too.

Would a vinegar based salad dressing have the same benefits?

Yeah, any way you get it works. Acetic acid evaporates readily so anything cooked is going to have less than you started with.

If you are a run of the mill, non over weight, reasonably healthy eater, who eats carbs, what is the advantage of this vinegar thing?

You still benefit from improved blood glucose control. The problems that chronic high blood sugar cause exist on a spectrum and the flatter your blood sugar stays the better.

Yup, are we talking any vinegar, or apple cider vinegar?

Any vinegar, even white distilled. It's the acetic acid itself that causes the effect. Apple cider vinegar is tastier, though. The Bragg organic stuff makes killer whiskey cocktails.

[neufox47]

I should have included a little at the end of that post. I thought the snark would be self-evident.

Apparently my sarcasm meter needs adjusting

[jono]

Good info in here. Along the lines of blood sugar, what's the story with cinnamon? Seems to be a lot of small studies in diabetics out there, but I don't see anything beyond theories as to why it's helpful.

I know a diabetic who eats a mini cinnamon roll most evenings because she says her blood sugar consistently tests better the next morning. Been at this for quite a few years now.