Low Carbs High Fat, Ketogenic Diet and Training

*Posted in FB Group: 14th March 2018

This is a long post and it is technical.

It was very interesting when I watched the interview with Dr. Peter in the dietdoctor.com. What he did is exactly what I had done on myself. Both of us were on the self-discovery path on how keto way of eating improve our sports performance, especially in the area of both aerobic and anaerobic fitness.

While I was doing my easy 10km run this morning, I was thinking how should I write this post for you guys. Before I continue to write, I would like to have the basic information right for everyone first.

IF: It means intermittent fasting. It means you don't eat for a certain period of time and eat within a window. I personally practise 18/6 on a daily basis. 18 hours of fasting, 6 hours window of eating. Can eat as much as you want. Must be Keto-complied. Some days higher in protein like yesterday and some days not.

Aerobic training: It means you train at a level not at your maximum heart rate. Or 70% to 80% of your VO2 Max. If you do low aerobic running, you should be able to have a decent chat with your running buddy along the way. Usually Aerobic training must be at least 60 mins and longer to start gaining positive effect on the body. It burns fat as fuel during exercise time but there is no post fat burning after effect. All endurance athletes train in this area. Aerobic training should be at 80% to 90% of the training regime to make the body fat adapted.

Anaerobic training: It means you train at a level you want to die. You cannot breath properly. You train at short burst at maximum HR or max VO2 Max. This is usually your HIIT or Interval training. Such training maximum is 30 mins not more than that. It is usually about 20 mins. They called it fat burner exercise. It does not burn fat during the exercise time but it burns during post exercise. If you are a sprinter, this training will give you what you need. But such training is glycogen highly dependent and athletes training in this area are tend to be glucose dependent. Not recommend for fat adapted body and it should be about 10% to 20% of the training regime.

When a fat adapted body train in this area, the pancreas will response by producing high insulin to counter the glucose/cortisol produced by both liver and adrenaline. HIIT/Interval training can cause addiction, especially to those who are addicted to the Adrenaline rush. Commercial gym use high adrenaline group exercise to attract people to join the gym. Workout like body combat, zumba and etc... they burn calories and can have high adrenaline.

VO2 Max: It is the measurement of the maximum amount of oxygen that an individual can utilize during intense, or maximal exercise. It is measured as milliliters of oxygen used in one minute per kilogram of body weight (ml/kg/min). It is one factor that may help determine an athlete's capacity to perform sustained exercise.

Disclaimer: I'm not a Doc. Just sharing my passion.

Everyone is chasing Low Carb High Fat diet

Nowadays, if you have friends who are health fanatic, you will hear something like "Low Carb High Fat" diet or "Keto Diet" or whatever it can be.

To me, dieting is temporary. Changing the way you eat and forming good habits are permanent. We need to understand what we want to achieve from the new habit. Everyone talks about I want to lose weight. I always question them. What actually are you trying to lose? The usual answer is I want to lose weight. But do you know weight is just a number. The question I will ask again is this. What are you trying to lose? This is a very fundamental question. If we don't get this right, we will be doing it wrong. Let's take a look at this.

There are three things that we can lose when we want to lose weight.

1) Fats
2) Fluid or water
3) Body mass such as muscles or bones.

Losing Fat

This is what everyone wants to do. I want to lose fat. So my next question will be. Which part? Overall body fat or tummy? Because the strategy to lose overall body fat and tummy fat is very different.

Losing overall body fat

Let's talk about overall body fat. Losing overall body fat is easy. If we use the 80/20 rules, you just need 20% effort to achieve this 80% result. How? Cut your calories intake. Exercise. Increase your saturated fat intake such as Omega 3 and reduce Omega 6/9 intake. Cut your carb (which gives you blood sugar) to control the release of insulin and increase your protein intake. Wow... magic will happen. You will start shrinking. You will see you will start wearing your old shirts again. Old pants again and etc... The strategy to reduce shirt size is to lose overall body fat. I have a friend who had a medical condition. He was overweight. What he did was straight forward. He started running 5km to 10km a day or every other day. He started to reduce his fat intake (although I don't recommend). He started to eat brown rice (since everyone said it is good) and etc... Within 6 months, he had shrunk tremendously. His cholesterol level was normalised and everyone who knows him was like wow!!!

I had a meal with him the other day. Although he runs everyday or every other day (I could see it from his Strava ), his fitness level had plateau. He said he want to lose more... So I asked him what do you actually want to use? End up we had a 3 hour lunch...  Of course business conversation is one of the topics.

Losing visceral fat

You  may have lost overall body fat, you may not have lost your visceral fat. This is what we call skinny fat. You look skinny but actually, you are fat internally. This is called the deep fat wrapping your major organs. To lose this fat is a different ball game.

To lose this fat, you need to have new habits. Stick to it and take it slowly. The first sign of visceral fat is tummy fat. If you can reduce your tummy fat, you will be reducing visceral fat in the body. Tummy fat is affected by both insulin and adrenaline from our body. I do not want to go into the details. In a nutshell, insulin tells the muscle, liver and fat cells to take up blood sugar so that our blood sugar level in the body is normalised. Because of this function, it tells the body to stop burning its fat stores and instead, absorb some of the fatty acids and glucose in the blood and turn them into more body fat. So remember this. The more insulin you have flowing in your blood, then more fat will be manufactured in your body. So this is something you don't want.

Let's talk about this hormone called Adrenaline. Adrenaline is a hormone secreted by the Adrenal glands. It is called the flight and fight hormone because it is produced when we are excited or when we are under stress or we are in an extreme dangerous situation. This hormone is secreted to get us ready to save ourselves from a dangerous situation. Our blood circulation increases, our breathing becomes more rapid  and our heart beats faster.  Our muscles contracted faster too. We are getting ready to sprint out of a dangerous situation.

If we always in a stress environment, we will start experiencing adrenal fatigue. That means we will feel tired when we wake up. We need coffee or some strong caffeinated stuff to kick start our day. We are addicted to sweet stuff. If you always like to eat sweet stuff, this is also a symptom of someone having adrenal related issue. This in turn spike the insulin level in the body. That means cannot lose fat.

Let's talk about another hormone called Cortisol. Adrenaline is related to heart and Cortisol is related to fat cells, liver and pancreas. When Cortisol is released, it increases the glucose levels in the body and get it ready for the body to use. It stop other systems such as digestion and immune system from functioning properly. And increase in glucose levels also mean there will be an increase blood sugar levels. An increase in blood sugar levels means there will be an increase insulin too. This also means the body cannot burn fat. The accumulation of extra calories due to eating more than you need coupled with stress hormones flowing around, this is where you start accumulating visceral fat or tummy fat.

Actually to lose tummy fat is straight forward, but to form the habit to lose it is tough to many folks.

1) Lead a simpler life. Leading a simpler life means it reduces stress. The less stress you have, the less stress-related hormones you have flowing in your body. I know this is tough. It is up to you. Ask yourself. Do you need to keep up with your neighbours? Or ??? The less stress you have, the better you will be.
2) Control your free flow of insulin the body. Anything that is free flow is bad. Just like buffet, free flow of soft drinks. Now that is a killer. Production of insulin is all about the level of blood sugar in the body. If we reduce the blood sugar levels, we reduce the insulin needed in the body. Cut the carb to almost as little as possible. Increase both protein and fat intake. Protein will still spike insulin but not a lot. Fat does really not spike insulin (I'm simplifying it) because it does not increase blood sugar level. So it makes sense we should eat more fat, medium protein and low to zero carb. But you still must eat your vegetables like those with leaves and flowers. Nothing under the soil.
3) Exercise is key to lose tummy fat but only relaxing exercise helps. If you do interval or VO2 Max kind of exercise, you will lose overall body fat but no that tummy fat. The best way to lose tummy fat is to take a walk. Walk faster than your normal walking pace but slower than your running pace. Walk at least an hour not counting the number of steps and you will see tremendous results. If you do it daily, you will see your tummy becoming smaller and smaller.

In my next post, I will talk about point 2 and 3. That is losing water and muscle mass and vice versa.