Thoughts on "Is the High-Fat, Low-Carb Ketogenic Diet Right for You?"

In Outside Online.

Interesting article, and a decent overview of the topic:

"In May, I sat down with a former Special Forces medic (who asked not to be named) who served multiple combat tours. He said that at the most elite levels of the U.S. military, people aren’t waiting for research to confirm the benefits of a keto diet. “I’d say more than a third of the guys are doing it, for the endurance and also for the cognition,” he said. As research by D’Agostino and others indicates, the anti-­inflammatory benefits of ketone bodies on the brain may add a measure of injury protection. In fact, the medic told me that he used the keto diet to supplement his own TBI treatment at Walter Reed hospital."

However, it does contain the usual journalistic silliness:

"Even if it’s the right path to follow, low-carb eating in a high-carb world is tricky. Outside Online’s editor, Scott Rosenfield—a long-distance mountain biker—tried the diet earlier this year, leaning heavily on canned sardines and staying under 50 grams of carbs per day. He liked the results. “One day I did a 100-mile solo ride on my fat-tire bike,” he said. “I felt like Superman.” 

"The sustained power was one thing; sustaining the diet was another. “It got monotonous,” Rosenfield said. Another problem was ordering “weird” food at restaurants and having to explain the diet to bewildered friends and service staff. Predictably, eating sardines became a chore. He fell off."

I'm a big fan of sardines, but I surely don't eat them every day.  The missing part of this article is the dangers of too much polyunsaturated fats, either omega-3, like in sardines, or omega-6, like in seed oils.

My mainstay while travelling is a cheeseburger and bacon with no bun or fries.  Generally restaurants are happy to offer extra pickles or a side salad in exchange.  Just skip the salad dressing, which is usually high in omega-6 fats.  There's not much of a trick to it.

I also question the "too much protein is bad" commentary.  We're uniquely adapted to both ketosis (we have higher body fat than any other primate) and a high-protein diet. So I doubt that they're in conflict.  A significant component of protein is leucine, a branched-chain amino acid, which is metabolized to ketones, not glucose.  So it's possible that the reduction in serum ketone levels after protein consumption is due to leucine metabolism, which takes place inside the cells, and is not visible via serum tests.

But overall an interesting article, especially to those not overly-familiar with the topic.

Via Mark's Daily Apple.

"Paleo Diet Popular With Endurance Athletes"

Ah, journalists. The fact that three athletes are doing something does not make it "popular". In fact, paleo and low-carb dieting are far from popular in the athletic world, although they are on the increase. Zero is an easy place from which to increase.

Other than that, a neat article from MensJournal.com:

"What do professional cyclist Dave Zabriskie, ultramarathon runner Timothy Olson, and gold-medal triathlete Simon Whitfield have in common? All of these elite endurance athletes have pushed away the time-honored plate of pasta in favor of a "paleo" approach to nutrition. They've dialed down the carbohydrates and replaced them with copious amounts of healthy fat. And as multitudes of paleo converts claim (and anecdotal evidence suggests), this may be the key to optimizing performance and extending careers into the late thirties and beyond...."

Mark Sisson (interviewed in this article) mentioned Simon in a post a few years ago, and I completely forgot about him. Gold medal on a primal diet. Not bad. I've done a couple of posts about Tim Olson.

Zabriskie's an interesting story:

"...The results for Zabriskie were impressive, DeVore says. Over the course of their time together the 6-foot cyclist dropped his body weight from 168 pounds to 154 while improving his dead lift from 150 pounds to 245. This while increasing his power on the bike by about 15 percent."

I really do think that the only way this paleo/low-carb diet is going to make it big is if it turns out to be good for athletes. That does seem to be the case.

Master Sgt. Mike Morton: Ketogenic Ultrarunner

There’s been lots of speculation about how suitable a ketogenic diet really is for athletes.  Some folks (Robb Wolf) have gone back and forth, but my understanding of physiology leads me to think that it should be superior most of the time. 

Well, now we’ve got an interesting guinea pig:

• “1994: Old Dominion 100 — 17 hours, 40 minutes — first place
• “1995: Old Dominion 100 — 16 hours, 55 minutes — first place
• “1995: Vermont 100 — 14 hours, 8 minutes — first place
• “1996: Massanutten Mountain 100 — 20 hours, 21minutes — first place
• “1997: Western States 100 — 15 hours, 40 minutes — first place [course record]”

That’s nice, of course, but what’s he done lately?

He won the famed Badwater 135 race, setting the course record last year.

Then he broke Scott Jurek’s record at the International Association of Ultrarunners Ninth Annual 24-Hour World and 18th European Championships, setting a new record for an American.

And now he’s done this:

“I have made some big changes in my fueling plan over the last five months. Prior to the changes, I was a high carb and low fat eater. I was consuming a large volume of food each day. Large volume in, means large volume out! At Badwater and the World 24 hour Championship, I spent too much time with natures [sic] business. Looking for efficiency, and a more stable energy curve, I researched several different options for fueling. Ultimately, I chose a high fat, moderate protein, low carb diet. This was a tough transition, since I rarely ate meat or fatty foods. I had been avoiding cheese and dairy for years... except for cottage cheese.
“I committed to myself and made the switch. After about four weeks of eating a high fat diet I was "keto adapted" meaning that my liver was making Ketones and the body was using them for fuel rather than glucose. Making that change was tough because I was addicted to sugar and grains! By being in Ketosis, I have made myself "bonk" proof  because I'm not using glucose for my primary fuel. Also, on race day, I can use carbs as a high octane fuel. I will list some reference material that explains the science behind a ketogenic diet. Since switching, I have ran two 100's and they went great; recovery is much easier on a high fat diet!”

He won the Rocky Racoon 100 race on a ketogenic diet, and soon he’ll be running Western States again:

“iRunFar: According to your blog, you’ve been honing your diet in the recent year or so, and you now do a very low-carb regimen. What does this actually mean for WS100 fueling? What will you be eating and drinking during the race? 

“Morton: The low-carb diet is working great for me. Really, the diet is more about eating high fat and being in ketosis. That does away with spikes in energy and reduces the volume of food that has to be physically eaten. Less in means less out and that equals efficiency during races. I will eat whatever looks appetizing during the race, including carbs. That is another benefit; I use carbs like a high-octane fuel during races. I’ll drink what is provided as well but avoid consuming huge amounts of sugar drinks to keep the stomach happy. My crew (wife Julie, daughter Bailey, and Eric and Noni) will have some of my favorite stuff so, when I’m feeling sorry for myself, I can cheer up looking forward to something.”

He’s racing against the current course record-holder Tim Olson, who also eats a low-carb paleo diet.
Obviously Morton has had most of his success on a high-carb, low-fat diet.  What’s interesting is if he’s able to continue his success with a high-fat, low carb diet.  He’s already noted that he recovers more quickly, we’ll see if he can set a few more records.

Interesting times.

Thanks to Sean.

P.S.  On the second-hottest Western States on record, Morton finished third, setting the Master's course record, Olson finished first, just failing to break his previous course record.

What To Eat If You Want To Win An Ultra-Marathon

This is what worked for Tim Olson at Western States in 2012. He's currently the course record-holder.

"...I don’t like labels and would not call myself low-carb, paleo, etc. I would say that I follow a diet with more protein & fat and less carbs than most people and that it has helped me recover faster, reduce inflammation and overall just feel healthier. My diet consist of mainly organic and local if possible grass-fed meats, vegetables, eggs, nuts, seeds, fruits, sweet potatoes and coconut oil...."

Call it what you want to... But if you were to stick a label on what he eats, it would be low-carb paleo.

I eat a lot more dairy than he does (mostly pastured), which are basically pre-processed vegetables. And I eat fewer vegetables. And I haven't won any races yet. LOL.

But note that he eats a lot less meat and a lot more vegetables than most people think of when they describe the "caveman diet".

But the real trick is that what you eat should leave you feeling great all the time. It's pretty addicting. Thanks to Sean, whose blog is here.

"Ultramarathon Runner Timothy Olson Thrives On A Low-Carb Diet"

The LLVLC Show (Episode 642): Ultramarathon Runner Timothy Olson Thrives On A Low-Carb Diet « Jimmy Moore's Livin' La Vida Low Carb Blog

This is an interview that I've been waiting for!  Maybe Jimmy will get to interview Lindsey Vonn one of these days...

Here's iRunFar's account of how he won Western States, setting the course record, and here's his description of what he was doing during another race:

"I was not putting down tons of calories (about 200 ph the first half of the race and 100 ph to the finish), but i could tell that my body was burning fat and the fuel i was using really efficiently. You can put in a ton of calories, but will your stomach accept them and use them properly? The low carb (mostly paleo) diet i prefer and Vespa (amino acid supplement) really helps my body use the calories (First Endurance EFS Liquid Shot) and not have excess sloshing around causing chaos."

Low-Carb vs. Low-Fat At The Western States 100

Fascinating:

What did other racers eat?

STEVE PHINNEY: We really can’t say. We only got data from 25 athletes out of more than 200 athletes in the race. That’s less than one in 10. We were sort of rushed to get this protocol in place and so we did not recruit people months ahead of time. We were recruiting people the day before the race. They were walking in saying, “I want to be in your study,” and so I do know, that it’s fair to say that among the top 20 males, in addition to the winner, Tim Olson, there were at least a couple other well adapted low-carb runners among the men, and among the top 20 women there were at least two of them who were low-carb runners.

Were some top runners high carb?

STEVE PHINNEY: Absolutely So this speaks quite possibly to the issue of individualization. It may well be that all of us don’t come out of the exact same cookie-cutter in terms of what we look like and what our metabolism looks like. It seems that some people’s metabolism tolerates lots of carbs without much in the way of side effects. That is, the people who tolerate carbs remain highly insulin sensitive even when they eat a high carbohydrate diet, so that fuel they eat is rapidly processed and goes to the tissue and gets burned for fuel and doesn’t get stuck in fat storage. But it also seems that if there is even a hint of insulin resistance in a person’s metabolic makeup, you can make it worse with a high carb feeding. Meanwhile, in that same person, you can make that insulin resistance essentially go away with low-carb eating. So some people are probably are well adapted to be high carb runners and some people are much better adapted to be low-carb runners.

Thanks to Mark Sisson, who may be coming around on this whole Chronic Cardio thing...