“Keto” =>Race without Taper => Frosting on My Cupcake
4.26.2017
Hump Day
Wow. Just wow. Life is Good.
My fitness is finally where I want it to be. Where I have wanted it for as long as I can remember, and especially since breaking my toe, at the base of my foot so many ions ago. The base of the pyramid is strong, solid, and now I am able to move forward with the other aspects of my training. What does this level of fitness look like?
9-13 Mile Run
6 -12 Hour Mountain Bike
3000 to 3500 Yard Swim
You are certainly safe to make some assumptions about these. I would love to hear your feedback on what I am going to do with all this fun.
This past weekend I went down to 12 Hours of the Wild West and raced the 6 Hour. I raced Single Speed. 32 x 20. Thank God we didn’t have a 19. And for sure, if I was doing the 12 hour, I would take a 21 on the back. Or a 30 up front. Wow, a 30, that would be nice.
I had a good day. It was hard. Especially the last two laps.
I managed 7 laps in 5:42:42. That’s chip time. 6 Hour started 15 minutes after 12 Hour and the times have not been adjusted in results yet.
It was just shy of 50 miles. And some 5k in climbing. Here’s the Strava Link.
I never know when I’m going to have a good day. They are all Good Days, in this case, I mean a good result. I always hope I will have a good day. In the beginning of my race career, there were only good days. Now, when they come, when everything comes together, it is so magical.
That’s why I always say, Rule #1 is have fun. Because then, when fast comes, it’s a bonus.
I managed a 2nd Place Finish OA Female
A 7th Place OA
And the only one who raced SS in the 6 hour Category.
What was different about this race? I didn’t taper. I had a really big week.
Saturday: Rode 5 Hours
Sunday: OFF: Worked
M: Ran 9.5 Miles
T: Bike 2 Hours SS in South Foothills
W: Swam a 3k
Th: I was so tired I could barely walk the dogs. That’s one workout I never count. Walking the dogs 45 minutes every morning. Upper Body Strength: Core
F: Ran 2.5 miles with Dogs, and did a 1 Hour Pre-Ride
Saturday: 6 Hour Race
Not super big. Where I am on my continuum, it is big. The last 3 weeks, have been like this. I did miss a swim on Thursday. And yes, I did that because I was racing. 9.5 miles by foot is big. And I got a lot of elevation.
I’ve been racing Mountain Bike for 18 years. Something which is pretty hard for me to wrap my brain around sometimes. My 1st race was a NORBA race, Expert. Sure why not; I had been riding already for about 7 years?! They’ve since changed the rules. My 1st race was a mud race, with V-Brakes. Welcome to hell, and worms.
Frosting on My Cupcake
I should have trademarked that.
I have been known for years to talk about my frosting on my cupcake. How I like to keep a little extra around my waist. It’s not a muffin top, it’s just a little frosting…on My Cupcake.
Last Friday 4.21 on my way to see one of my client’s I was listening to the radio. 106.3, the JohnJay and Rich Show. One of them was talking about how his trainer was calling his extra padding his frosting. That’s what his trainer calls it. Hmm. Wonder where his trainer got that?!? Sometimes you come up with something that is magical. Like in the 90’s I used ‘don’t just do it, do it right’…Let’s Trainright… Shall we… Please always remember a little frosting on your cupcake is not only fun, but insulating, especially in cold water, and it had to start somewhere.
More on Frosting on My Cupcake later.
Keto: Ketogenic Diet:
Let’s take a trip down memory lane here for a second.
The 1st thing I am going to say, is the only D.I.E.T that works is the one that lasts. The one you can do for a Lifetime. It’s a lifestyle choice. It’s a choice each time we bring our hands to our mouth with food in it.
Keto scares the hell out of me. And it should scare the hell out of you too. It’s very dangerous. And if you have any health problems you should only follow a “Keto-Diet” under direct supervision of an MD or an RD. Everyone seems to be throwing the term Keto around like it’s the next best thing. Labels. That’s all it is. Keto is not maintainable. And we can’t really refer to something unless it’s quantifiable. If you are actually measuring your biomarkers for ketones. Then, your body may actually be in a ketogenic state, and you may actually be in ketosis.
I feel, unless you are actually measuring your ketones, with a professional analyzing your data; it’s best to just steer clear of using the term Keto in your vocabulary.
So let’s delve into this, and put it into practical applications. Because “Keto” just like all the other “D.I.E.Ts” has some validity:
Low Carbohydrate and Teaching your Body to Use more Fat as an Energy Source.
YES!!
Let’s absolutely do that. Let’s do that because it’s the smart thing to do.
Eat More Fat!!
YES!!
This however, is not a license to eat crap.
We need fat in our diets. If we are not eating enough fat, we are likely to binge on sugary types of food. Excess of calories. This does not give us a license to think that french fries, fried foods, et al, are good. We are talking about fat that occurs naturally in food: avocado, nuts, marbling of meat. Butter is better than margarine. Oops. If you do actually do diary(another research paper) Whole Fat is better. Oops. Dark meat is actually better than white meat. Oops. (that one hasn’t quite made mainstream yet, give it another couple of years)
The last 3 to 5 years there have been a lot of big oops in the world of nutrition and dietetics. Oops, low fat, high carbohydrate diets are leading this country into obesity, and diabetes.
Bowl of Diabetes, Anyone?
You know what?
I hope you do eat carbohydrates. I do hope you eat a big bowl of diabetes when we line up to race. Especially the long stuff.
There’s only one thing I’m going to refer to a bowl of pasta as from here on out. I’m going to call it what it is here in America; A Big Bowl of Diabetes.
Why this is a Big Bowl of American Diabetes is a whole other research paper.. If you have any question as to why I may call it such, please do your research, be thorough, and educate yourself on what the best food choices are.
Just about a decade ago I began eating lower carbohydrate foods, and eating real food for my races.
That’s about the same time I began excelling at Endurance Sports, winning 3 Texas Marathon State Championships. I also began winning 6 and 12 hour events.
If you’ve been keeping up with me over the long haul, you’ve probably noticed, that even if my training is less than par. Which I have had plenty of examples in the last few years, relying on muscle memory. The reason I am able to perform as well as I do is what I eat. What I eat pre-race, and what I eat during my races.
In the end, no amount of training can make you successful, if you are eating to fail. (is that one of those things I need to Trademark 🙂 )
It’s been an interesting time of trial and error. Noticing little things, running tiny experiments on myself, fine tuning it, perfecting it, and making it as simple as possible. Simple from home, or simple from places as far off as, Maui.
It’s gotta work.
The simplest explanation of physiology. The brain needs sugar to function. The body will do anything to maintain sugar to the brain. If there isn’t sugar the body will break down fat and protein(muscle) to become sugar to feed the brain. The body will choose to break down muscle because it’s a two step process (de-amination) versus fat (beta-oxidation) a three step process, in the absence of sugar in the blood. In order for the body to choose to break down fat, there must be enough calories present. Unfortunately, I see this in a lot of women, they don’t eat enough calories, and the calories are primarily carbohydrate, and they are fat. Their body breaks down the muscle to feed the brain.
That’s exactly why the medical community Rx high protein diets for people who are on extreme caloric restriction. To try “and save” the muscle.
Sugar is limited in the body, we have practically an unlimited supply of fat.
If we eat more sugar/carbs our body’s are fine tuned to use sugar as an energy source. We need more sugar and carbohydrates, but we also have a limited supply, and need to re-supply frequently or risk muscle catabolizing. Ever notice your urine smelling like ammonia, or the smell of a porto john at a 24 hour race, ammonia..?? That is one of the results of catabolizing muscle. Your pee smells like ammonia. #notgood.
Sugar is limited.
Which is better to breakdown muscle or fat to feed your brain?
Remember, it is not a choice.
Why do you think we have to be so extreme to go “Keto”??
I think, it can be a lot more simple.
Simple as “Shifting your Metabolic Curve to the Right”.
I do believe, we can make our bodies more efficient at burning fat.
Bob Seebahor, Zoefitness Partner, eNRG Performance, developed this idea in the 2000’s. He probably doesn’t want to be called the Grandfather. He’s a little young for that. He was testing oxygen consumption, and what intensity the body switched over from fat metabolism to carbohydrate metabolism. At that time, he also began to understand that through manipulating diet and exercise intensity he could push the time, and the intensity, of the point of sugar being metabolized over fat out. So you could continue to burn fat for longer periods of time, at higher intensities. That’s the Unicorn. Here’s one of his articles from USA Triathlon I published on my website back in 2012: Make Your Body More Metabolically Efficient:
My 1st race after making the switch was 2009. This was an epic fail, because I had switched to a “Low Carb: diet, but was scared, to use that concept in racing. I podium’ed at the 12 hour TT in Glen Rose that year, 2nd Place. I did eat a bowl of diabetes the night before. And the side effects were awful. I have not carb loaded since that day. Epic Failure. Don’t tell 1st place, but I would have kicked her ass that day, if I didn’t have to stop and pee every 30 to 45 minutes. Yes, a side effect from eating complex carbs is excess water excretion because it takes 3 H20 molecules to digest one CHO molecule. I hadn’t quite mastered the peeing on myself operation. Or maybe I didn’t want to pee myself, because the race was so long. Regardless. I’ve got the whole water excretion thing down too.
8 years of nutritional success. Thank you Bob!
So 8 years of nutritional success. 8 years of primarily the same pre-race eating plan.
Brief synapses: eating less carbohydrate, but making sure there are enough calories, I will burn more fat. When I exercise at lower intensities I train my body to burn more fat. When I work really hard at prolonging my ingestion of food, CHO, while exercising, (this can be dangerous, you must be careful)I will train my body to burn more fat.
But something did change.
360 back to my Frosting on my Cupcake.
Somewhere between all of my life changes the last couple of years something happened. I don’t know when, or how.
I stepped on a scale one day. My size hadn’t changed, but after being in NM for over a year, I had found that MN 5 pounds on me. Keep in mind, I didn’t own a scale, until my next trip to Target.
I had the courage to look back. I was eating more carbs. I had been eating a vegetarian lunch of quinoa and brown rice, I noticed I had been eating more starches at night with the monkeys. More potato chips after long rides (yes, this is still the best post race food), more dessert.
I was eating more crack.
So that long, hard look, I had to allow for history to repeat itself. To go back to where I was, where I had been for years. I had to give up the crack, and go back to ingesting fewer carbohydrates. Did I give up my fruit? No. I gave up the rest. When I stopped eating crack with dinner, it forced me to double up on vegetables. Oh darn. What a horrible side effect.
Oh yes, did I feel like shit for 2 weeks. Oh yes, did I tank my rides for a few weeks.
And then everything started balancing out.
I began timing my carbohydrates. Eating a banana before riding with people, so I didn’t make an ass out of myself, a Lara Bar, etc.
Oh it was awful. The memory still so fresh in my mind. A nightmare. One I hope, never to relive.
Something happened that 1st week.
7 pounds melted off me.
Now I am at this pivotal point in my Frosting on my Cupcake.
It was a good friend of mine. It was a conscious decision I made to keep an extra 5 pounds on.
I had to come to terms with my Frosting.
I had to look at it head on.
I am a mother. I have two beautiful, smart monkeys.
I also have “elephant skin”, I refer to it as. No, this is not my belly. Mine looks way better than that. At least, I hope.
If I keep the frosting on my cupcake, then, I keep a little filling in there, so I don’t truly have elephant skin. I just have what I love; Frosting on my Cupcake.
Or….
I can love my elephant skin, embrace it, and recognize that two perfect little monkeys came from that.
That it is beautiful. It is a part of who I am.
It is like a scar, a beauty mark of coolness.
I have chosen to embrace it. Love my elephant skin. And to say good-bye to the Frosting on my Cupcake.
I can’t say it’s been hard. I have just kept on the same eating plan I have been on for almost a decade. Minus, a little derailment.
When we get derailed, we have the power to choose to get back on.
(That’s not my belly either.)
The choice has been a good one.
I have decided to allow my body to utilize my Frosting on my Cupcake as food for my workouts, and my brain.
I have decided that like my scars, my body tells a story. One of many successes.
As M1 turned 17 last week,
I have made the decision to go back 18 years.
I have made the decision to go somewhere I haven’t been since before I got pregnant in 1999.
I have decided to say good bye to my Frosting on my Cupcake, and embrace the beauty of what God gave me.
And to simply Love myself for who I am.
It was an interesting process.
Please always remember the 90/10 Rule Bob recommends it, Dr Loren Cordain recommends it, too.
It’s the most important rule of success.
And dammit, you know, when I’m going to have cupcakes, there better damn well be frosting on them!
And you’re gosh darn right, I’m even going to enjoy myself a Big Bowl of Diabetes every once and awhile, and all the inflammation, and excess water excretion that comes along with it.
Thanks for checking in.
Time to Ride Bikes!
With GearZ!
Coach Zoe