Low-Carb Diets and Cycling

[GLC1968]

Triskeliongirl -

I have no experience with thyriod issues, but I do have some experience with moderate to lo carb diets and endurance sports.

My first thought upon reading your questions is that you should read The Paleo Diet for Athletes. The paleo expert for the book is Loren Cordain (who also wrote The Paleo Diet...also interesting but for different reasons) and the endurance expert is Joe Friel. They outline how to eat Paleo (which essentially boils down to low carb), and then how to fuel for endurance sports. It's really, really interesting and I've followed much of the advice with success in the past. I don't want to mis-quote the book, so I'll refrain from paraphrasing at all, but it is quite clearly outlined how you can eat low carb AND get in all the fuel you'll need for long rides.

Good luck with it!

[Triskeliongirl]

Triskeliongirl -

I have no experience with thyriod issues, but I do have some experience with moderate to lo carb diets and endurance sports.

My first thought upon reading your questions is that you should read The Paleo Diet for Athletes. The paleo expert for the book is Loren Cordain (who also wrote The Paleo Diet...also interesting but for different reasons)............
Good luck with it!

Wow, thanks! That is exactly the kind of advice I am looking for. I think its going to take an endocrinologist to maybe find out why my body doesn't tolerate carbs, but I feel so much better on this low carb diet that I know its the answer. While I have lost weight on low carb before, and felt generally good, I always got into trouble with endurance sports, so it will be great to get some guidance.

I had an amazing day. I have had barely any carbs since that nasty pasta attack yesterday, and already my body temp shot up to 98.5 which is quite high for me, and the brain fog has lifted and I feel just great, lots of energy, got lots of mental work done today, etc.

I am curious. Do you count both calories and carbs? The book I am reading says to not count calories, but gives a very restricted list of foods, especially for the first 3 days, but says to eat to satisfy hunger. Maybe its its cuz once you go into ketosis the ketones suppress apeptite and you'll naturally eat less, because of course calories have to count. How restrictive is the plan you follow (i.e. how many grams of carbs do you eat, do you eat fruit, beans, etc.?).

[GLC1968]

Personally, I count calories and not carbs. But if I want to eat more, I naturally tend away from carbs because they are pretty calorie dense and the volume of food goes way down. I FEEL better when I am eating little or no grains and with the exception of my low fat cheese and skim milk, I don't eat much dairy either.

The book doesn't have you count either carbs or calories for the main Paleo diet, but you do have to count one or the other for your training fuel (I think they use calories). Once you get the hang of it, I'm sure you could work with just servings of particular foods.

Be forewarned, the Paleo diet flies in the face of everything we've been taught about nutrition. The book give very, very sound reasoning and research to back up their claims, but it's not for everyone. BUT, that said, the book for athletes does nicely outline how to fuel for workouts (depending on the length of the workout) both before and after and WHY things happen the way they do when you follow the plan. It's really an amazing read. You've actually inspired me to pick it up and read it through again. I too have put on some pounds in the past 3 weeks (working too much, no biking, illness...etc) and I think I'm going to use this book as inspiration to get back to the way of eating that is best for me.

Defintely let me know what you think of it!

[GLC1968]

Personally, I count calories and not carbs. But if I want to eat more, I naturally tend away from carbs because they are pretty calorie dense and the volume of food goes way down. I FEEL better when I am eating little or no grains and with the exception of my low fat cheese and skim milk, I don't eat much dairy either.

The book doesn't have you count either carbs or calories for the main Paleo diet, but you do have to count one or the other for your training fuel (I think they use calories). Once you get the hang of it, I'm sure you could work with just servings of particular foods.

Be forewarned, the Paleo diet flies in the face of everything we've been taught about nutrition. The book give very, very sound reasoning and research to back up their claims, but it's not for everyone. BUT, that said, the book for athletes does nicely outline how to fuel for workouts (depending on the length of the workout) both before and after and WHY things happen the way they do when you follow the plan. It's really an amazing read. You've actually inspired me to pick it up and read it through again. I too have put on some pounds in the past 3 weeks (working too much, no biking, illness...etc) and I think I'm going to use this book as inspiration to get back to the way of eating that is best for me.

Defintely let me know what you think of it!

[Steph]

It might be worth the test to check for celiac if eating pasta makes you feel badly. I have hypothyroid and have finally had success with Armour. I also was low on ferritin levels (low iron stores). Both of those things are common in celiacs, but my biopsy was negative. However, I feel better when I limit my wheat intake. If your ferritin is low you will feel cold and crummy no matter what your TSH is. You can check out stopthethyroidmadness.com for some more infor for your symptoms. Hope you get to feeling better soon!

[Triskeliongirl]

I tried the paleo diet for athletes, but found my body couldn't even tolerate fruit. I don't think its wheat, cuz I get the reaction even with fruit. I've been eating a very low carb (i.e. ketogenic diet) during the week, and then allowing more carbs on the weekend when I ride longer. While I feel great during the week, am losing weight (finally) and can handle my commutes, its not working for long rides. I did try to increase my carbs the night before a longer club ride this weekend (had some rice and fruit with dinner), and then some yogurt with granola and banana for breakfast, and ate gatorade and gels throughout the ride, but I had two scary things happen after about 90 minutes (and after I sent my riding buds away cuz I couldn't keep up). At one point I was riding in the road and not shoulder, and asked myself, why aren't you in that wide shoulder, and told myself I thought it was too rough but when I looked at it, while I could see the road I couldn't discern its texture. I stopped to touch it, and then realized I better eat a gel and rest a bit before getting back on the bike. The problem is when you are confused its hard for your brain to decide if its safe to continue or not. Then further on I nearly rode in front of a car, but another car honked at me and made me realize what was happening so I could avoid a collision. At that point I took a very long rest, drank a lot of gatorade, ate a gel, but after about 30 miles I had to have my husband pick me up, I just didn't feel safe out there. It was like no matter how much sugar I would eat, it just wouldn't get into my cells.

I finally had my appointment with the endocrinologist today. I really liked him. The first thing he did was give me a modern glucose meter (for free!). It uses a lot less blood than mine, and you can even adjust the depth of the prick so I can test my blood easily and pretty painlessly. I picked this endocrinologist because he specializes in both thyroid and endocrine problems, and he clearly appreciated it when I told him that in the past when my thyroid was under good control so was my 'diabetes'. I have always been a borderline diabetic, borderline because as long as I was eating well and exercising, the tests would be negative or just slightly off, and then when I was diagnosed as hypothyroid I kind of blew it off and thought that was the problem all along. He told me that its important to find out why my glucose metabolism is disregulated. He had no problem with my controlling it for now with the low carb diet while we sort it out, but then that creates problems for cycling. Rather than just ordering a glucose tolerance test, he is going to order a whole battery of fairly complex metabolic tests (for example, there is another co-hormone that works with insulin inculin I think he said, that he thought might be off that is treatable) and then I'll go to a special clinic and spend the day there for all the testing (he said he is writing an experimental protocol, I thinks he wants to write a paper on me, he said that will also help with testing costs, since insurance won't pay for all the unusual tests). He said instead of just eating 100g of glucose, they will feed me a precise mix of glucose, protein and fat (like in real food), and then measure insulin, glucose, glucagon, inculin, and other hormones over 6 hours. Hopefully this way I won't get as sick as in a traditional glucose tolerance test and he'll still get the data he needs. In the meantime, I am supposed to monitor my blood glucose 1.5 hours after each meal and during exercise (no one will ride with me if I have to stop every hour to measure my glucose levels, but that's OK, I don't feel great having people with me that just worry about me). He also wants me to carb load more heavily prior to a long ride, by eating ~200 g of carb the night before, so I will eat high carb on the weekends when I do my long rides and low carb during the week, and again monitor my glucose levels. I am also going to go back to riding with one of those tanks on bike with gatorade in a sippy straw so I can drink small amounts more frequently (I had to do this before going on thyroid meds). The other thing he did was to change my thyroid medication. Even though my thyroid tests look good, he said I could still have a problem converting T4 to T3 (tests aren't sensitive enough) so he reduced my dose of T4 and supplemented it with bioactive T3, and we'll see if that improves my glucose control (T4 gets converted to T3 as needed by the body). He said he has a lot of patients that are really doing well on this (I used to take 175 ug of synthroid, now I will take 150 ug of synthroid and 5 ug of cytomel daily).

[Triskeliongirl]

If anyone is interested I am doing really well on a cyclical ketogenic diet. I do have poor glucose tolerance so I eat low carb during the week, and then eat high carb friday night to sunday am to refill glycogen stores to support long weekend rides. Its working really well. It keeps my blood sugars in a healthy range, and I have finally been able to lose weight that wouldn't budge otherwise (10 lb in the last month!).

[Dianyla]

Bumping this up to ask a few questions. I want to start following something akin to the Paleo Diet for Athletes where I am eating mostly primitive/whole foods except for occasional carb intake to support exercise.

My biggest dilemma is how to fit this new eating strategy into and around bike commuting. My commute is about 9 hilly miles each way, and I get most of my bike time in by commuting. It takes me anywhere from 35-50 minutes of ride time depending on direction as the main ridge I have to get over is sharply steep on one side and long gradual incline on the other side.

My observations thus far:
1. My commute is long enough to cause me to bonk if I have not eaten enough. A few isolated times that I've tried to go low-carb on commute days I have felt pretty craptastic.
2. When I allow myself to eat high-carb food (in moderation) at any time during the day on every day that I bike commute, I am not able to reduce body fat.

My questions are:
1. I really don't think my commute qualifies as "endurance" exercise that gives one permission to carb-load. Yet it's too long to just grin and bear it. Or, does it qualify?
2. Do I just need to "woman up" and get through the first few weeks of doing low-carb while commuting?
3. Is anyone out there doing something similar? I'm interested in what Triskeliongirl is doing successfully with the cyclic ketogenic diet, but again I'm trying to see how that will fit with daily commuting.

I'm impatiently waiting for my book to arrive from amazon, but I thought I'd post these questions here in the meantime.