Fat Adapted Journey — Week 1, Day 1
Physician, heal thyself. The journey towards health begins.
I’m a doctor, and an endurance athlete. I’ve raced in the Race Across America (RAAM), as part of the 4-woman Team PHenomenal Hope, and many ultra races with teams and solo. The last ultra race I did on the road bike was the Silver State 508 in 2016, and since then I’ve been working on ultra mountain biking. It’s been pretty awesome, this life outside of my day job, which I also love, and has helped me strike a crazy balance, I guess, of striving for personal health as well as the health of my patients.
One of the things I’ve learned over the years is that my body works best when I’m low carb. When we trained for the Race Across America in 2014, our team followed the teachings of trainer Vinnie Tortorich’s No Sugar, No Grain (NSNG) lifestyle, and let me say it worked. We followed his podcast, read his book, and I had a few coaching sessions with him (thank you, Vinnie). For more on his NSNG approach, check out his website. Our studies went even more in depth as I read The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance, which really sealed the deal that I would go low carb as an endurance athlete to become fat adapted and tap the biggest energy stores available for long rides and races. The goal was to become fat adapted and not need sugary gels every 20 min on the bike especially when riding for 6+ hours at a time. A person’s fat stores are more energy dense than glycogen stores, and if you can tap into them as an ultra athlete, you can fuel without the hazards of insulin and energy swings and getting sick to one’s stomach at the end of a race. It worked. I was the leanest and fittest I have been in my life, all while eating high fat, low carb (photo above from 2014).
After RAAM, sick of eggs and protein, I decided to go vegan. It was mainly for ethical reasons, and over the year I gained 10 lbs, and lost a bit of my fitness edge. There is a lot more to that story, and perhaps I’ll get into it later, but needless to say, it really didn’t work for me.
Over the past year I’ve been on and off keto, mainly on when in the thick of training, and off when I find myself emotionally eating, and with that I’ve felt better and worse, in terms of my daily health and wellness. I know what I need to do to be healthy, but it isn’t always easy. I know that when I am in dietary ketosis, I become leaner, but truthfully I feel better, with more mental alertness, energy, and less cravings. Not to mention how it feels to ride my bike for hours burning my own energy stores. I know what I need to do, and it isn’t always easy, but it is necessary. So I’ve decided to start blogging about my health and fitness journey, and my journey toward becoming fat-adapted once again. This blog will not sugar coat (haha see what I did), and it’ll be 100% real.
This blog is raw and unedited, but it’ll be my straight up experience. And I’ll be accountable through it for the progress I make. I’ll talk about different aspects of seeking a fat adapted lifestyle and the impact on metabolic health as an athlete and in daily life. I’ll let you know the struggles as I go along — with motivation, wanting to give up, and I’ll write about my daily and weekly progress. We’ll get “sciencey” at times and also talk about ultra cycling at times. I hope it is helpful for anyone contemplating a low carbohydrate approach to performance or life.
After a decent start to base building in January, and then a rocky month of GI health in February after returning from Peru, during which I honestly loss focus and desire to even be on the bike, I’m ready to bring in March like a frigging lion. Let’s do this.
Baseline stats (3/2/2020):
AM HR 48, HRV 48, BP 120/82, Height 5’5”, Weight 152.5 lbs, BMI 25.29
Fasting glucose 80 mg/dL
Ketones 0.1 mmol/L
FTP (measured 1/6/2020): 204 W
Goals this week:
1. Return to dietary ketosis. Engage in mindful eating. No recreational eating.
2. Work out daily and work on baseline testing to ascertain new baseline stats as I move into dietary ketosis.
3. Focus on eating for health rather than goals on the scale and see where it goes.
4. Sleep 7 hours per night.
Note: This blog is my n=1 journey, and should not be construed for medical advice. If you are contemplating making a dietary change, especially if you are on diabetic medications, make sure you discuss with your doctor.