Ketogenic Diet?

8 watchers
Oct 2016
2:22pm, 12 Oct 2016
17,810 posts
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Diogenes
Mrs D shared an article on this with me. It suggests, amongst other things, that it might be help fight cancer and depression, and also be good for endurance athletes.

Any informed opinions on this, or personal experiences?

This article seems quite comprehensive and balanced. Personally, I can't see me managing without bread, potatoes, rice and pasta.

dietdoctor.com
Oct 2016
2:28pm, 12 Oct 2016
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Wriggling Snake
This is the atkins diet, right, more or less in any case. Anyway, couldn't tell you about cancer and depression, but as for endurance here's a summing up from a paper:-

he ability to maintain high-intensity exercise (above the lactate threshold) seems to be compromised or at least indifferent when compared with consumption of more carbohydrate. That said, clinical studies clearly demonstrate that ad libitum low-carbohydrate diets elicit greater decreases in body weight and fat than energy-equivalent low-fat diets, especially over a short duration. Thus, although low-carbohydrate and high-fat diets appear detrimental or indifferent relative to performance, they may be a faster means to achieve a more competitive body composition.

i.e you could lose weight (in the short term), but it won't help as regards endurance per se.
Oct 2016
2:45pm, 12 Oct 2016
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Velociraptor
Ketogenic diets are long established in the treatment of certain types of epilepsy.

Otherwise, the kindest adjective that could be applied to the concept is "fashionable".
Oct 2016
2:51pm, 12 Oct 2016
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westmoors
There is a lot out there about different diets and lots of conflicting opinions on which is best for different lifestyles. However, in my opinion, there are 2 points that are often neglected.

1) Peoples genetics. Just as we all have different ratios of fast and slow twitch muscle fibres meaning we all run at different paces, our bodies also have different preferences for energy sources.
2) Micronutrients i.e. vitamins and minerals. Micronutrient deficiencies can hamper performance as much, if not more, than insufficient / inappropriate energy sources.

I believe, finding the correct diet for oneself is a matter of trial and error! Keep a diary of what you are eating, what exercise you are doing, and how you feel throughout the day. As you make changes you can see if you are "improving" or not.
Oct 2016
3:14pm, 12 Oct 2016
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tonyp2604
WS - yes; I think you have summarised correctly. Through direct experience, I know that when I have done long, sweaty runs and I know I probably haven't taken on board enough carbs, I get that ammonia smell which is associated with the break down of amino-acids and fatty acids.
Oct 2016
3:36pm, 12 Oct 2016
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Chrisull
My wife (who is a special needs teacher) has experience of some of her autistic children being on ketogenic diets, and while she is neutral on their efficacy (slightly sceptical if anything), she has observed they have made a positive difference in some cases.

I note that some studies of the effects of the diet on both humans and animals have been summarised here robbwolf.com which one study concludes that the results are "insufficient to attest to the practicability of the KD as a treatment for ASD, but it is still a good indicator that this diet is a promising therapeutic option for this disorder".

So my reading is, nothing earth shattering here, but not hocus pocus enough to consign it to the ranks of homeopathy either (but then I thought that about acupuncture, and that's been shown to be pretty much quackery by some recent studies).
Oct 2016
3:47pm, 12 Oct 2016
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UsedToRunaBit
I did low carb > keto for a 3-4 months a number of years ago and did my marathon training off it, I responded very well I have to say (from a weight loss point of view, I was a proper fat get), but I did lose a top gear 100%, you just can't stoke the fire quick enough I found. I quite liked it though.
Zeb
Oct 2016
10:36pm, 12 Oct 2016
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Zeb
This is my personal experience. I'm not advocating it for anyone else.

I started a keto / low carb diet in May. My weight had been increasing despite running regularly and eating relatively healthily, and I'd got to a stage where I knew I had to do something different. I'd tried cutting out snacks / calorie counting / increasing exercise and nothing seemed to work. I decided to give low carbing a go for a month (but didn't expect to last longer than a week because I thought I'd miss bread, pasta and potatoes too much).

I lost 10lb in the first month (so carried on), 7lb the month after, and have now lost approx. 28lb. My weight is still dropping (albeit at a slower pace). Technically I don't think I qualify as following a proper keto diet, but certainly would class it as low carb.

The key for me is the low carb diet has allowed me to break my carb/sugar addiction. Although I thought I was eating healthily before, cereal for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch and pasta for tea probably isn't ideal (even ignoring the cake at work, and the bar of chocolate in the evening). My diet now consists of eggs and vegetables for breakfast, salad or soup for lunch, and meat and veg for tea. I've reintroduced potatoes and rice, but only once or twice a week. I don't tend to eat much sweet stuff at all now, maybe fruit a couple of times a week. I ate some of my kids' dessert when we went out for a meal a couple of weeks ago, but it was a couple of mouthfuls, and that was enough. The physical quantity of food I eat has decreased now - because I eat more fat now I get full sooner, and it takes longer to feel hungry - I rarely snack between meals.

This way of eating does seem to suit me. I feel like I have more energy and I'm sleeping better. I have suffered with gallstones in the past and was concerned the higher levels of fat would cause problems, but so far it hasn't. I don't want to lose too much more weight, so I'm gradually introducing a few more carbs.

Running wise - I found the first month hard, although not helped by having a virus that took a while to get over. Since then I've comfortably run 25-30 miles a week. I do eat some carbs before a long run (porridge, and I weigh the oats to keep to a sensible portion size), and I'm not averse to a chip butty / pint of lager afterwards. I've run long off-road runs and fuelled with nuts, boiled eggs, cooked sausage. I've raced a 10k and PB'd. And walked up and down Snowdon.

I will admit I struggled with fuelling for a half marathon I tried to race last week - I started well, but bonked completely after about 7 miles, and at 9 miles thought I was going to pass out or be sick (or both). With hindsight I didn't eat close enough to the start of the run, and I should have taken some carbs in earlier during the race. There might come a time where I could race at this level on low carb, but I'm not there yet.

I think you can run well on a low carb diet, but it can take a long time to adapt, particularly for longer races. As a method of losing weight it works (well, in my experience it does), and losing weight is (for most of us) an easy way to run faster.
Oct 2016
10:50pm, 12 Oct 2016
5,902 posts
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The_Saint
Health-wise they don't come out too clever theguardian.com

Which is interesting because it was explained to me once that you can put someone who is overweight or obese on what she called "Any ABC diet" and for as long as they stick to it all their numbers will improve. When I asked what she meant by "Any ABC diet" she said - "On Day 1 you can only eat things that begin with the letter A, on day 2 only things that begin with the letter B and so on"
The problem with the Atkins findings is that being high fat which the preponderance of evidence over nearly 70 years says is not good regardless of short-term fads that claim otherwise, there seems to be health downsides.
Oct 2016
10:51pm, 12 Oct 2016
4,806 posts
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Winded
At the risk of being an old fashioned simplistic stick in the mud I think our bodies are quite good at doing stuff with calories. Moving them about, storing them, retrieving them from storage and of course getting a lot of the calories from the food we eat into our bodies.

Use more calories than you eat = lose weight, do the other thing= put on weight.

I understand that Atkins or other similar diets work because lots of protein suppresses appetite - so people on those diets don't eat as many calories as they otherwise would. Just putting fewer coco pops in the bowl would have a similar outcome without labelling it a special diet.

This might just be a rationalisation of my disinclination to go on a diet.

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Maintained by Diogenes
Mrs D shared an article on this with me. It suggests, amongst other things, that it might be help fi...

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