(door squeaks)
(door thuds) - Morning trainiacs.
The first week of the low carb,
high fat adaptation process
to build up to Challenge Roth, over.
Somebody on Instagram asked for an update
on mood, appetite,
body weight, sweaty hats,
so as I warm up for this bike,
I'm gonna give you just the very short Coles Notes
of everything that I have experienced in the first week
of going low carb, high fat, the right way.
(upbeat music)
First thing to know about going low carb, high fat
for endurance athletes is that it's not as simple
as just doing a whole bunch of fasted workouts,
lowering your carbs, you have to go about it the right way.
I was trying to do that over the course
of end of November, December, January.
As I was doing this I was monitoring
my fasting blood glucose levels
and they really didn't change.
They were high, they were actually
to a point of prediabetic levels.
That's why I brought in Dr. Dan Plews
who is the person that's going to be consulting with me
on this entire process.
Now if you haven't done it already,
and this is an interest to you,
go to triathlontaren.com/theplews
and get the free starter kit
that Dan and I have put together.
Also, two caveats to all this,
number one, this is not keto.
There are aspects and times of this process
that will be keto but it's not keto all the time.
That is massively risky.
Second thing, this does not apply to everyone.
Dan Plews, himself, says that in my case
this will either be the solution to
or the cause of a lot of problems.
So you have to go about it in a very systematic way
to make sure your hormones stay in check,
your performance stays in check, exercise caution.
So start of this process really not a lot changes.
What we do is we go to kind
of like a Whole30-ish sorta diet,
where we're not really monitoring carbs,
we're not really monitoring anything
besides hunger and what we eat.
So in that download, at the triathlontaren.com/theplews
there's a list of foods that I can eat.
And what I'm doing is uploading that
to the Senza app basically just
to track how many carbs I'm eating.
Get a sense of what has carbs.
And because all of those foods are very natural,
what I found that's happened is my blood glucose level
has started to decline and it's actually decline
when I give it more carbs.
So that's kind of a indication
of being little bit prediabetic,
having a glucocorticoid response.
And this is starting to get my body used
to having less refined carbs, less starchy carbs,
kind of unlock that ability to tap into fat,
and we know that that's happening
because my fasting blood glucose levels
are actually going down, that's successful.
And as I'm doing that, what I found,
is that day two I was extremely hungry.
Looking back, on day one, the amount of calories
that I ate was actually quite low
and that's what happens when all
of a sudden you strip out a lot
of the refined carbohydrates,
anything that is very calorie dense,
things that are processed.
So instead of actually having to feel like I'm on a diet,
I actually feel like I'm forcing myself to eat,
which is nice.
So I don't feel hungry just yet except
for the case when I don't monitor what I eat
because everything's so clean
I'm actually taking in less calories.
So the next question that I'm sure you're asking
is all right, well have you lost any weight?
For starters, weight is not the goal here.
Losing weight is not actually one
of the key drivers of making this change.
It might be an ancillary benefit,
but in studies that show fat oxidation
and going to a more low carb, high fat diet
there's not a clear correlation in weight loss, actually.
It's kinda like a secondary benefit.
What I found is starting this,
my weight was around 154.8, today 154.
So just a slight decrease in weight
but I would actually probably say
that that is a cause of having more roughage
in my digestive system.
Going through my digestive system.
Performance numbers, we really didn't
have any workouts just yet
that tested my performance at all,
but one of the workouts that we did
was a longer, lower intensity bike
where I wasn't allowed to take any calories during.
No carbs, just a little bit of electrolyte,
and some exogenous ketones towards the end
if I felt like I needed it.
Overall, performance numbers, more or less the same,
but that could be because we are
not really reducing any carbs whatsoever.
We're just making sure that I'm not hungry.
That, combined with following the more Whole30 diet
are really the only things that were monitored.
Not being hungry, clean foods.
One of the things that I did notice,
more so, actually NTK noticed,
is I've been a little cranky, been a little irritable.
Hard to live with some might say.
And I actually felt that,
I felt that more things were bothering me.
And I don't know, that could be the factor
of not having as much glucose in the brain,
as much sugary stuff in the brain.
Because sugary stuff in the brain,
they get along really well.
Especially when you've got a lifetime of eating crappy
and you're entire gut microbiome is wired
to feed off of sugars and communicate with the brain saying,
I want sugar, we like sugar, we live off of sugar.
I don't have it, let's make this man crabby
until he gives it to us.
Even though I didn't feel bad,
I didn't really have any performance downsize.
I didn't have this keto flu, apparently that's coming.
I didn't notice a lot of changes.
Just because of the change in diet,
I was a little bit crabbier.
I might, might, might, might be
in relation to my sleep numbers.
Basically since day two of the protocol,
I think when my body started realizing
that it's gotta change,
my sleep was starting to suffer a little bit.
Instead of being able to easily get
7 1/2, eight hours sleep,
struggling to stay asleep for seven hours.
Six week has largely been much ado about nothing.
There hasn't been a whole lotta changes.
Nothing drastic has really cropped up that I know about.
Starting tomorrow, we'll be doing
actually some fat oxidation testing in the lab.
We'll do that both on the bike and the run.
And then starting next week,
we'll get into more specific training and a keto diet.
You should all have a lot
of fun watching me suffer through that.
So the check-in is that all systems are good
but there are a lot of things
that I need to learn about and the more I learn about it,
the more I see that caution needs to be exercised.
So if you wanted to know what you're getting yourself into
and how to start, triathlontaren.com/theplews.
Check it out, and now I gotta get into this ride here.
'Bout to get into the serious stuff. (panting heavily)
All right trainiacs, let's do this.
Lookin' foward to all the learning, later.