Hi,
Recently tried Keto diet for about a month. Decided to reintroduce carbs. 1 week in and I have noticed a significant drop in power output. Cant seem to find any info online in regards to effects on performance after quitting. Has anyone had any experiance with this?
Cheers
Are you still limiting carbs or just back to eating what you want. It might be your body adjusting? One month keto might not have been enough for your liver to get fat adapted. I’ve been LCHF for 4 years now and this winter with TR, I have reintroduced some carbs to help with the high intensity portion of the training. I use UCAN super starch and consume low carb berries and veggies.
I’ve seen somewhere on here a “DIY” version of UCAN using cornstarch. Any chance you’ve had experience with this?
Never tried using cornstarch but I think UCANN is some derivative of it. I now in the UK there is some company selling similar product. I found this article… Why you should be drinking cornstarch during your rides - Canadian Cycling Magazine
Very similar experience for me. I wasn’t full KETO but LCHF. My FTP has dropped(albeit slightly) and I’ve experienced no appreciable decrease in perceived exertion. I went full gas into carbs with tracking macros and weighing everything I consume. My weight is constant, I’m leaner than ever but that’s about it. I think I prefer this diet however carbs in the neighborhood of 400g a day give me pretty horrendous gas at times which might result in me sleeping in a different room faster than I’ll see an FTP increase.
Despite that my timing of switching diets was poor with the birth of a new child, however my training structure was more consistent than ever at that time. The baby sleeps well now so I’ll be curious to see what improvements I see after a 12week SS base build with liftin mixed in.
How have things gone? Interested to hear if anything has changed for you.
Thanks for asking.
I’m not due for another FTP test for a few weeks so will see. Training has been super consistent, my diet is dialed and sleep has improved but still not getting much more than 7hrs nightly. I’m not sure I’ve had a break thru moment with the exception of a few hard sweet spot days that I really felt on top of. All my outside workouts feel great and trainer workouts are rough most of the time.
I have a very erratic work schedule which allows for very little consistency in terms of what workouts happen which days. I’ve been trying to plan training a week or so in advance to try to space out hard bike workouts from lifting days that have legs in. But considering im riding 4 days a week and 2 days a week have some heavy leg lifts this gets tricky.
I’m now coming to terms with perhaps I was just plateauing with the training volume I was able to squeeze in.
Makes sense. I ask because I have an autoimmune condition and I think LCHF might help (my last flare coincided with upping the carbs to 70g/hr). I guess all the other life stuff matters just as much…
For anyone that cares it seems as if we’ve finally discovered what was going on. It’s a condition called SIBO. Small intestine bacterial overgrowth…essentially certain foods would cause a bacterial overgrowth and thus my digestive enzymes would be overwhelmed with breaking down the extra bacteria that a portion of carbs and fats weren’t being digested properly. Had plateau’d with performance despite increased volume, better sleep, etc. I always thought something was amiss. Long story short had taken a a script of ABX for a sinus infection and within a few days my bowel habits changed dramatically. Little to no gas, BM twice a day(once every 2 days before) and felt like I had the best block of training I’ve ever had.
6 weeks later symptoms started to creep back in at which point my wife an NP and buddy who is a GI doc suggested SIBO. Did a round of xifaxin and currently on a low FODMAP diet to prevent a return. FTP already up 12 watts.
Cheers!
Makes a lot of sense. I think that’s my worry with Keto/non-Keto conversations. There’s more than just fat or carbs that affect nutrition and performance. Glad you’re getting healthier again.
This rings very true with me. Coaches always asks me to up carbs and when i do i experience significant discomfort and performance drops.
@freshturk did you find things like rice and meat always seemed fine and generally less bloated on higher fat / protein? I really struggle to push carbs past 200-250g per day.
I never actually had any discomfort. My symptoms were bad gas and constiption. Even now I still don’t have a great idea as to what the likely culprit is as I went full gas into high carbs from barely touching them.
Thanks
Ryan Turk
I’m finding the gas problem, less so the constipation, but then I’m probably averaging ~100-300g per day with more focus on protein and probably still quite a high fibre intake.
As for me 1500 calories is not enough