Fat Adapted Ultra Runner

I have chosen a new label.  It's for when people ask a certain set of questions about sport, what I do in my spare time etc.  I've been rubbish about giving a straight answer in the past, but now I have found a label that I like at the moment, and can explain in 3-4 words or 3-4 hours I'm happy about that.

I've been a high fat/low carb athlete for 18 months.

This is my nutrition profile from yesterday, when I did a 6.5 mile easy run:-

Breakfast: - 2x eggs scrambled with double cream, dollop of cream cheese, 1/2 an avocado
Lunch:- lettuce, baby plum tomatoes, walnuts, leftover roast chicken (with skin), chopped chorizo, olive oil
Dinner:- pan-fried aubergine slices in coconut oil, interleaved with slices of goats cheese, with steamed asparagus and butter; followed by frozen strawberries blended with double cream and vanilla essence

This is a normal day for me.  Though the absolute kcals intake is of little interest, the absolute weight of carb is.  It's artifically low as I don't record the cups of tea with milk I have, but that adds maybe another 5-8g carb in the day - totalling 19-22g carb on a typical day.  The difficult days are when I drink wine as that really ramps up the carbs but I'm OK with that in moderation.  The 7.5 Fruit & Veg is the number of "portions" of fruit and veg for the day.(*)

Though I find it hard to think of myself as an athlete (it's for fun, not my job, and I'm not exceptionally good at it) I have gotten over the fact that actually I am one.  The high fat/low carb bit is something I've followed for 18 months and there were a good few reasons for it (gaining a little weight, stomach issues during an Ironman, technical capabilities of bike handling, not having any appreciable sweet-tooth) and I'm very much comfortable with that having spent a reasonable amount of effort reading and researching around the subject.

Being a fat burner to the extent that I am, mainly through genetics and day-to-day diet, I am in a great position to do endurance sports of a length that even people who do what is socially accepted to be a blimmin' long way (e.g. marathons & Ironmans) think is a long way.  And it appears that my fuel-burning engine is very well suited to going as long as I can practically manage.  The work I have to put in is obviously being strong, controlled and trained enough to be able to run that long without breaking myself fundamentally at the musculoskeletal level.  So that's what I'm focussing on now.

I've already enjoyed a few experiments in Ultra running without using carbohydrates as fuel.  And I have a good set of loose rules that I understand pretty well at the distances I've covered so far to be able to know what effort levels I can cover those distances at and relate in the amount of carbohydrate I'd need to put back in (if any) in order to be able to maintain that effort level from a metabolic energy point of view.

What's really really positive for me right now is that my running coach is bought-in and totally OK with this stuff.  I've handed him the data I got from the two metabolic assessments I had, plus the calculations I did with the data.  He's got first-hand experience of highly-performant ultra runners who don't take in much fuel during a race.  And he's an advocate of real food over "sports nutrition".

Very happy with this indeed.

Now I just need to find a few races to target later this year so I can carry on proving the low-carb point more quickly than I have in the past.

Watch this space!


* - Many anti high-fat diet skeptics believe that a high fat diet means what was popularised with the initial phase of Atkins; bacon, eggs, chops, cheese and low to zero veg.  The point with Atkins was that that was an initial phase only and the end game involved a *lot* of vegetables, just not starchy ones.  I eat a lot of vegetables!

Low carb recipe: quiche

Ingredients

Ground Almonds	-	50g
Table Salt	-	½ Tsp
Coconut Flour	-	50g
Almond or Hazelnut Butter	-	25g
Coconut Oil	-	25g
Medium Eggs	-	5 Eggs
Double Cream	-	300ml
Whole Milk	-	50ml
Cheddar or Gruyere Cheese	-	140g
Streaky Bacon	-	100g/4 rashers
Asparagus	-	100g
Closed Cup Mushrooms	-	125g
Butter	-	15g

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Method

1. Preheat oven to 135C (fan oven - 125C non-fan).
2. Combine ground almonds, coconut flour and salt in a dry mixing bowl.
3. Melt the coconut oil gently (don't get it hot otherwise you'll prematurely cook the egg white in a minute) stir with the almond butter and add to the dry ingredients in the bowl. Mix thoroughly.
4. Separate 1 egg. Add the egg white to the dry ingredients bowl and make sure it's mixed in well.
5. Spread this mix over the base of a lightly greased/oiled flan or shallow cake tin and press down with the back of a metal spoon until firm.  If you have baking beans to bake blind, use them. If not, your crust will be crumbly, which is fine.
6. Bake in the pre-heated oven for roughly 45 minutes, but start checking at 30 minutes. When the mix is the same even slightly darker colour, across the entire base remove from the oven and set aside to cool completely somewhere dry.

7. While the base is cooling... turn up the oven to 160C (fan oven - 180C non-fan), cook up the chopped bacon with the thickly sliced mushrooms and asparagus in a frying pan in the butter.  Do not let the asparagus get soft at all.

8. Beat the other eggs, the remaining yolk, cream and milk together then add the cheese (grated) and plenty of seasoning.
9. Stir in half the bacon and asparagus, and carefully pour the mixture onto the baked base then scatter over the remaining bacon and asparagus.
10. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the filling is set, starting to turn golden and slightly puffed up above the case.
11. Allow to cool a little before removing from the tin.
12. Serve warm or at room temperature, with a green or tomato salad.

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Nutrition Information

Nutrition Data Per Serving Calories (kcal) 615.5 Protein (g) 21.6 Carbohydrate (g) 4.6 Fat (g) 55.9 Fibre (g) 4.8 Fruit & Veg 0.5 Alcohol 0.0

Weight Loss: There Is A Better Way

If you've been following my "weight loss" series (Why bother? and Why is it so hard?), I've now got to the point where I'm going to be even more blunt and opinionated.
  
When it comes to the matter of body weight/fat there are two types of people; people who have a metabolic/endocrine problem and people who don't.  I previously thought the former group was vanishingly small, but I've been reading and learning a lot and I've changed my mind.  People with genetic, pre-existing endocrine problems -are- rare; people with acquired metabolic problems are pretty common and it's usually varying degrees of insulin sensitivity from the sensitive to bordering on type II diabetes and mainly due to battering the body with high levels of (refined) carbohydrates until it starts to give up.  Some bodies are more susceptible than others to running into problems with this.  Some take a long time to show any effects.  Some never have a problem at all.

Gary Taubes, Tim Noakes, Steven Phinney, Jeff Volek, Peter Attia, Aseem Malhotra, Yoni Freedhoff and many others have researched, thought, read, and digested (pun intended) on the topic and have come to the conclusion that the modern obesity pandemic is caused by cheap, freely available, highly processed, large amounts of carbohydrates in the human diet.  Not just Western society; but increasingly across the whole of the world and as the availability of cheap, highly processed carbs increases, any given country will see an increase in obesity, diabetes and a number of other chronic diseases.

If you put on weight quite easily, are slowly gaining weight as you get older, have a high waist-to-hip ratio, struggle to lose weight or maintain healthy weight, crave foods, get hungry a lot of the time, think about food a lot (in terms of when/where is your next meal coming, or how you can justify eating X or Y, not in terms of a recipe you'd like to try 'cause it looks interesting or it's your job etc.) you are probably along the path to insulin insensitivity/resistance.  If that is the case, you would probably benefit from a low carbohydrate diet for general health reasons and a side-effect of a low carbohydrate diet could well be weight loss.  When I say "diet" here, I do not mean it in the sense of "going on a...", I mean it in the sense of what you eat for now and forever.

If you don't put on weight easily, have a relatively healthy waist-to-hip ratio, don't vary much in body weight with time, have no problem losing a few pounds (maybe for the racing season?), don't get food cravings, don't have "intrusive thoughts of food", then you're probably towards the "no problem" end of the insulin sensitivity scale.  You're quite lucky.  Also, a low carbohydrate diet will probably have little effect on your weight.  That said, there are a good few reasons why you might want to move to a higher fat (and, logically, lower carb) diet (have a read of Why We Get Fat and what to do about it and/or The Great Cholesterol Con).  I don't mean to the extent of this...

...but golly-gosh there are a lot of good things in some of them thar fats like olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil, beef fat (grass fed), salmon (wild), mackerel, herring, butter and milk (grass fed), eggs (free range, organic), macadamia nuts, brazil nuts etc.

So if you are away from the lucky end of the insulin sensitivity scale and want to change, take a look at your diet.  See how much white flour, potatoes, sugar, white rice etc. you eat, or even how much brown rice, brown flour, brown pasta, bananas, fruit juices etc. if it's more than 200g or so per day.  If you are struggling to lose weight, suffer unpleasant hunger/cravings, can't make it work on a calorie counting diet (usually low fat), CHANGE THE STRATEGY.  Swap low fat for low carb.  Eat real butter, milk, cheese, eggs, meat, fish and feel less hunger.  If you go low enough carb for a few days you'll stop getting cravings, stop the constant thinking about food, stop the horrible hunger sensations.  You'll enjoy what you're eating!  You'll start to find that things like strawberries are insanely sweet-tasting without adding sugar because you can actually taste them properly.  You'll start to find that you don't need a huge plate piled high with pasta, rice, potatoes, bread etc. to feel satisfied after a meal.

And if you think it's all too much like hard work, there are so many quick and easy things you can make/cook/grab on the go.  And if you think low carb is too restrictive and all you'll be eating is bacon and eggs... well, there's a lot of help and ideas and once you get going it's really really easy.

And it's a change for life.

Low Carb Recipe: Moussaka

It's been a while since I've posted any recipes, so this is long overdue.  This moussaka recipe is a firm favourite in our house now and you get a good few portions out of it which survive nicely in the fridge or freezer until you want them (defrost before re-heating otherwise it's a real pain to heat through properly).

Serves 4:-

580kcal per portion - 17g carbs, 33g protein, 43g fat, 3.3 portions fruit & veg

• 1 medium/large aubergine (375g)
• 500g good quality lamb mince (500g)
• 1 can tinned tomatoes, ideally cherry tomatoes (395-400g)
• I big pile of (dark) green leaves - spinach/kale/cavolo nero (200g)
• 1tbps cornflour (15g)
• 4tbsp extra virgin olive oil (60ml)
• 1 small onion (50g)
• 4 fat cloves of garlic (20-25g)
• chunk of mature cheddar (60g)
• whole milk (300ml)
• 5tsp harissa paste (50g) - I use the delicious Belazu Rose harissa
• Pinch of cumin seeds.

0. Turn the oven on to 175C to warm up.

1. Slice your aubergine into slices around 3-5mm thick.

2. Heat a tablespoon of oil and fry the aubergine slices in batches, adding more oil as needed until there's about 1tbsp oil left from your 60ml.  (You'll need that for the meat later.)

3. Slice the onion finely.

4. Brown the lamb mince in batches with a little oil to start off with.  Oil will come out of the meat so don't worry it's not enough at the start.

5. Add the sliced onions once the meat is browned.

6. Blend the cornflour with a little of the milk until smooth, in a milk pan, then add the rest of the milk and some cumin seeds.

7. Heat gently and stir until thickened, then take off the heat and stir a couple more times.

8. Season the meat pan with a little salt and black pepper and some herbs if you like.

9. Add the tinned tomatoes and harissa paste and simmer for 20 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.

10. Spread half of the meat on the base of a baking dish.

11. Top with half of your green leaves.

12. Layer half of your fried aubergine on top of that.

13. Repeat with the other half of the meat, leaves and aubergine, then pour the white sauce on top of the aubergine layer.  Spread out evenly to cover all of the top so there's nothing sticking out to dry out later.

14. Grate your cheddar and sprinkle on top.

15. Place into the oven for 30-40 minutes until golden brown and bubbling.

16. Cut into 4 portions and serve/divide up into portions to chill for later.

Fat Burner - Part II (I'm a freak)

In November last year, I had a test done.  It was a test to see where I was in terms of how I use fuel during exercise.  The thinking was that I'd like to try to optimise to burn as much fat as possible and as little carbohydrate in order to make race fuelling easier, both in practical terms and in terms of being easy on my poor stomach after the experience I had in Bolton in 2012.

I turned out to be a reasonably good fat burner and I used the numbers to test the theory at the London Ultra in February this year.  Wind forward a good few months and I wanted to see what, if anything, had changed on a diet that had evolved a little to between 50 and 100g carb a day rather than the draconian <50g a day I started with last year.  I was slightly apprehensive that the slipping into very weird habits (eating cake a couple of times a week when I've never been that much of a fan!) and going a bit off the leash on a semi-regular basis since starting a new job in March might have ruined things a bit.

So... this stuff is both simple and complicated at the same time.  You may already know a lot of what I've written below, but here it is just in case.  (Also lots of it is very personal to individual circumstances, genetics etc. and lots of it/almost all of it has not a lot of hard research behind it, but we do the best we can.)

The simple bit is that the "best" way to improve your fat burning capability is in a gentle and controlled way. Just go out and run/cycle.  Even with all the technical information in the world at your disposal, there is nowhere near even 1% of the information we'd need to get this sort of thing absolutely right without some empirical, individual experimentation.  i.e. go out and do longer and longer runs at the target pace, carry emergency nutrition with you, but aim to complete the run without consuming it.  If you hit the wall, obviously eat/drink.  Take note of the results.

The complicated bit...

In general:-

• When exercising, your body will use a mixture of fat and carbohydrate to fuel the effort.  The ratio varies with effort level.

• Untrained endurance athletes will rely quite a lot on carbohydrates for fuel and the mass-market advice to consume 20g carb every 30 mins (or whatever it is) is a good safety net to avoid bonking/hitting the wall.

• Untrained, not highly-dedicated fat burners will have a secondary problem to the physical wall in the mental wall too which is also physiological in root as it relates to what fuel your brain is using.

• The human body contains approximately 2000kcals (varies mainly by body weight) of accessible glycogen (metabolic by-product of carbohydrate which the body uses for fuel, and more slowly generated from protein if there's insufficient carb available).

• There is a hardwired limit for people that does not allow glycogen depletion beyond a certain level - i.e. some people can deplete to 20% remaining, rarely down to 5-6%, some are less lucky.

• There are two or three points in the heart rate range where the ratio of fat to carb dramatically changes.

• There is a point at which the effort level is so high that a body is using 100% carbohydrate to fuel the effort.

• Taking in carbohydrate replenishes glycogen stores, but it takes a little while to process (20+ minutes depending roughly on GI)

• Taking in protein replenishes glycogen stores but much much much more slowly than carbs.

Most of these factors may be altered through nutrition and training.  The "may" is more than likely genetic and there's not a lot of info about on the likelihood of whether a person may be able to alter the factors, but it appears that the majority of people who end up in elite/professional sport are able to and do do so to some extent or more.

The effort level for a given ratio of fat to carb can be altered/improved by any or a combination of these things over a period of months:-

• Fasted exercise sessions - e.g. do a morning run before you have breakfast.

• Add a little caffeine into your daily routine; can be very effective in combination with the above point.

• Change your general nutrition plan to keep the amount of carbohydrates low or very low (the absolute threshold will vary from person to person.  For example, I seem to be able to "get away with" around 100g carbs a day, whereas some seem to need to keep below 20-30g a day.

• Change your general nutrition plan to keep the amount of fat in your diet high or very high. Again the percentage will vary from person to person, but I hover around the 70-80% range.

From personal experience, I have found the first and last points to be the most effective in moving the thresholds in the right direction for me.

If you are particularly keen to switch your brain fuel from glycogen to ketones (i.e. from carbs to fat) you would have to be very very harsh with carb restriction; usually under 30g a day for around a week or so; during this time you're likely to feel fuzzy in the head, irritable and need more salt than usual.  The general effect of switching brain fuel is twofold: you reduce the impact on your emotional wellbeing when you do push hard and run out of glycogen, and secondarily it appears that you may be able to then access more of your body's glycogen stores and deplete them even more than usual when your brain runs on ketones.  Again, from personal experience I have bonked on a very low carb diet (after 6 days training camp, doing approx 8 hours training per day) and instead of wanting to sit in a corner and cry, I just couldn't get my legs to go at the speed I wanted them to, no pain or distress, they just refused to go quickly.  A much less stressful result.

If you have the time, spare cash (around £165) and/or inclination, you can get a test done, like I did, that gives you an idea of the ratios of fuel you personally burn and at what effort level the ratios change appreciably.  It's called a "gas analysis test" or "metabolic efficiency test" and the test is done on a bike or treadmill while strapped into a mask over your mouth and nose.  You start off at an easy pace for a warm up, then the recording starts of your heart rate, pace/wattage and the amount of air going in and the volumes of CO2 coming out.  The effort level gets increased every few minutes in steps to a reasonably hard level but not absolute maximum (this is not a "max test") and then the data collated and analysed.  You can then do some calculations on how long and at what effort you could safely run without needing to top up the stores and if you do need/want to top up you can work out how much and how often.  This is what I did for my 50km Ultra race in February and I calculated that at a heart rate of around 160BPM I could conservatively go for 6 hours before I might need to top up.  I ran the race at a HR of around 170BPM in 05:50 and kept pace the whole way around, no sign of legs ignoring me.  Oh, and I didn't eat anything at all, despite well-stocked aid stations full of goodies!

Now in the test last month, the numbers went in a good direction even further.

I'm burning 100% fat right up to a heart rate of 165BPM (on the bike) now.  That's 87% of my max heart rate (on the bike).  That's pretty phenomenal.  In theory, as long as I keep my heart rate under 165BPM, I could ride pretty much forever on my stores of body fat and not need to eat anything at all.  Apparently, this is fairly uncommon.  What's also uncommon is not switching fully to carb burning at high effort output - known as "going anaerobic".

The additionally interesting bit comes from the carb burn and how that varies, as that will tell me ballpark rates at which I get through my body's stores of glycogen and then at what rate I would need to replace them at in order to maintain that level of output.

OK, so the graphs aren't useful for working that out, but the numbers are and the headlines are:-

How long I have on stored glycogen (conservatively)

How much carb/hour I need to refuel, after running out of glycogen

So... in practical terms, what I'm normally doing now is eating my usual low carb/high fat diet right up until the morning of a race.  On that morning, I'll have a breakfast (3-4 hours before the race, so if an afternoon one, then adjust the time to match) of scrambled eggs, with avocado and cream cheese, or cured meats with boiled eggs and cheese, with a mug of tea - very my normal breakfast! During the race, I'll have water with electrolytes and that's pretty much it.  On a very much longer session/race I'll take something if I think I might just get hungry (cheese/nuts/cured sausage) and a fuel bar or two for emergencies (something like a Clif bar).  I raced a half ironman a couple of weeks ago and ate nothing apart from one speculative gel at the start of the run course, because I hadn't gone through the new data properly yet - turns out I didn't need it (lots of analysis around pace and heart rate during the race confirms that well enough for me to be happy with that).  And I raced pretty hard, so I'll take that as an encouraging data point for me.

What I'd say, to others who want to take steps into this stuff, is that if you have a few months to try things, do that and see how things feel - don't be afraid to add in a bit more carb on the day of the race, your body will use it unless you're pretty much walking the whole thing or are very very highly trained and run very slowly for your ability.  If you don't have a lot of time, I'd say have a normal breakfast on the day of a (longer) race and if you feel you want the safety net during a (longer) race, try something more natural with minimal sugars, or even home-made fuel bars where you can control the ingredients to things you know are fine for you.

For me... this all means I can experiment a bit and play it pretty fast and loose with taking on carbs during higher effort training and racing.  I've heard a number of accounts that state that once you're actually exercising, you don't suffer the usual difficulties related to insulin responses to carbohydrate , though there are some that say you need to be careful as if you do stimulate high insulin response it will interfere with your fat burning capability during the exercise.

At the end of the test, looking at the initial numbers, the tester summarised with "Endurance. The longer the better. You will have a phenomenal advantage."  Along with "Those results border on the freakish, I've rarely seen anything more extreme."  *beam*

Low carb recipe:- porridge

Ohyes.  You didn't think porridge was low carb, did you?  Neither did I until I was inspired by some thoughts around the effects of some seeds (linseed, chia seed, mixed seeds, they all seem to do it) on water/milk/cream.  They act as a thickener and especially if they are broken up...

So, here's the recipe.  Serves 1 and scales up fine.  The portion will look small, but trust me it is unbelievably filling!  350kcals, almost 90% from fat, and 3.2g available carbs.

• 20g pecan nuts (not roasted, not salted, just plain)
• 1 tbsp (7.5g) desiccated coconut
• 1 tbsp (15g) golden linseed (brown linseed seems to have a lot more available carb)
• 1/4tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of sea salt flakes
• 1tsp Splenda (or stevia, or xylitol, it's up to you)
• 1tbsp double cream
• 1/2tsp (2g) coconut oil (you could use cocoa butter instead if you like)
• 75-80ml boiling water

1. Put linseeds, pecans and sea salt into a pestle and mortar and grind to the consistency of meal.  The coarser you leave it, the crunchier and nuttier the porridge will be.  You do want the seeds quite fine though, so grind them up first, then add the nuts and grind to desired texture.
2. Mix desiccated coconut in with the ground seeds and nuts and add the boiling water.  Leave to stand for a couple of minutes to thicken, then stir thoroughly and add the vanilla, coconut oil, Splenda and cream.

If the porridge is a little runny for your preference, put it in the microwave on high for 30s-1min and leave to stand for another couple of minutes before serving.   It will look like a very very small portion if you are used to porridge made with oats, but believe me this is as satisfying as a portion of oaty porridge made from 50g dry oats.

You can vary the proportions... to increase fibre but keep kcals constant, up the linseeds and water but drop the pecans; to increase fat, up the coconut oil (this will increase the kcals, not much point trying to reduce them).  I had 2tbsp cream rather than 1 and it was lovely!

Back

I'm back in the UK after a training camp in Spain.  The short version:- it was great.  All of my objectives were achieved and I learned more about training for endurance sports on a low carb high fat diet.  More on that when I've collected my thoughts on it properly. (suffice to say there's an analogy that involves bathtubs coming up :o))

For now, I'll leave you with the best ride of the week:-

20km of continuous climbing up to Bedar

Max speed 59.4km/h - mojo coming back!
(ignore overall time, I forgot to turn it off and we stopped for a coffee)

Pretty terrain

It got *warm*

I've been doing it wrong!

Before Christmas, things were going well on the Low Carb High Fat train.  Then Christmas came and went and something changed.  I went a bit too far with the experimentation, away from the basics, and I got a bit lost.  The physical sensations were different, I started eating more often and larger plates of food (averaging 500kcals a day more than I'm supposed to need even accounting for training).  I didn't put on any weight (go figure), but nor was it dropping off like it should do (I'm still nowhere near a lean, fat-fuelled body composition and I reckon there's about 5kg to go from the weight I was 2 days ago), I felt squashy, cranky, sleepy and just not the same as before Christmas.

I stumbled across a post by Sweet Geek about ketogenic diets and her experience and it made me realise that urine ketone measurements doesn't tell you enough of the story for my purposes.  I need to be at the place where my brain isn't powered by glucose created in my liver from dietary protein; "By testing your blood ketones, you can really tell not only if you are in ketotis but if you are well adapted, i.e. making enough ketones to fuel your brain and the rest of your body runs on fat. If you are on the borderline, then your liver will create glucose from protein which if you are trying to lower glucose metabolism, isn’t terribly helpful. In addition it seems that in that borderline state you aren’t getting enough glucose to use it as your primary fuel and yet you aren’t able to run off of fat well either and consequently you probably feel awful with low-energy, fatigue, cravings and mood swings."  Bingo!  There were the differences between before and after Christmas.

So, when I'm back from training camp in Lanzarote, I'll be using the ridiculously expensive ketone testing strips that MrTOTKat got for me (along with a ketone testing machine, which is far less stupidly expensive in the grand scheme of things) once a day, in the morning probably.  And I'll lay off the fancy experimentation stuff, stick to the delicious things we were eating in November/December last year and try a new thing once a week or so, but not obsessively.  In the mean time, I'll just aim to keep carbs to 30g a day or less, easy on the protein and eat when I'm hungry rather than when it's time.

Eating 150g fat a day

150g fat.  That's the average amount I've eaten, per day, for the last 11 days.  33g carbs (though it's getting to stabilise around the 25g or less mark now) and 130g protein.  So, less than 7% of my daily kcals from carbohydrate and over 2/3 from fat.

As I mentioned 9 days ago; after an interesting tweet from @SportieDoc and reading the book she recommended (Taubes - Why We Get Fat and what to do about it), and another (The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living), I've been trying very low carb nutrition.  It's been interesting and weird and it feels like hacking my metabolism, which it pretty much is; I'm trying to flip a switch to get my body to use primarily fat as a fuel for most of what I do.

Sunday morning breakfast

I've been eating bacon and eggs, smoked salmon and eggs, coffee with butter blended into it for breakfast and sometimes nothing at all because I'm not hungry at all! I've been making spinach/kale/courgette soup with and without cream, chorizo or stilton added in, or a caesar salad (no crutons), or chicken bacon and avocado salad for lunch, or sometimes nothing at all because I'm not hungry.  And for dinner... steak, salmon, pork belly and all with creamed spinach, cabbage, kale, broccoli, cauliflower etc. on the side.  And it's been -delicious-.  And I've not been hungry between meals. And I've not had "intrusive thoughts of food".

The first day of this experiment felt like a normal day but with mind-bendingly tasty foods.  Day two, was pretty similar and I felt no different.  Days three and four I started to notice a change... I was feeling more alert and then increasingly full of pep to the point of almost irrepressible.  Most interestingly I was eating three times a day and not feeling hungry at all in between, not feeling hungry when I woke up, not thinking about food aside from working out what to make at mealtimes as I'm not routinised into a set of recipes yet.   I wasn't missing or craving breads, potato, rice, couscous, pasta etc. and didn't feel like I wanted anything sweet; moreover I was drinking much less tea and a cup or two of filter coffee a day.

Day 8, we went out for dinner at our local favourite restaurant and had a starter of scallops, wrapped in pancetta and creamed spinach, followed by slow roasted pork belly with crackling, wild mushrooms and greens and half a bottle of dry white wine.  The wine hit me like a truck.  I was giggly half way through the first glass and wrecked by the third.  I ate too much and though I didn't finish my pork, I ate all of the crackling (*heavenly*) and really should have stopped earlier than I did.  When we got home, I crashed out to sleep, leaving my tea to go cold.  The next morning, I felt terrible until I got up and was fine in minutes; then didn't eat until 2pm when I was out for lunch with a friend.  I didn't really feel hungry at lunch time either, but had lunch to be sociable and to see what's possible in a pub (Caesar salad with the crutons left out).  Still feeling perky and sharp on that day (day 9) and not having any trouble with energy or stamina during my training sessions, no afternoon slump in attention or perkiness at all.

Day 11, Saturday this week, I started feeling a bit sluggish and very very cranky in the morning and the same this morning (day 12), though a little less so.  Friday's and Saturday's first run felt awful; I felt like I was dragging my legs through treacle, but the second run on Saturday (hill sprints) felt lots better.  I get the impression I'm going through yet another stage in the adaptation process.  I'm starting to get some good ideas for meals beyond the obvious ones, thanks to Abel & Cole for some of the green leafy veg ideas.

I'm still reading lots of articles (like Joe Friel's one on becoming a better fat burner, and Dr Runyan - a diabetic Ironman finisher) and books and looking forward to cracking through The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance to get a bit more understanding about what I need to be doing and how I get to being a proper fat-fuelled athlete.  What is still very clear is that the details an fine tuning are not well-known or understood, and in fact not known much at all, and that there is an appreciable amount of thinking that low-carbohydrate fuelling probably has a detrimental effect at the top-end exertion level; but then I'm not a 100m runner, or even a professional athlete at any sport and I'd rather be able to get through the bike leg of a 70.3 without needing to stuff my face with bars and gels than gain an extra 3-4 minutes off my time through top-end power (as I'll gain those 3-4 minutes back through not faffing about eating on the bike).

Oh, and I've incidentally lost 1.9kg since I started (OK, yes most of that will be glycogen and water, but still...)

The experiment continues!