<p>I adore the apricot Kind bars! The chewy crunchy texture is very satisfying- I an sometimes just do with a half of one.</p>
<p>Gym day - track and treadmill. Tonight and tomorrow - another winter storm and inches of snow removal. :(</p>
<p>PT exercises and 30 minutes on a recumbent bike (the NuStep was taken today and there’s only one). I know I’m not supposed to do a regular upright stationary bike, but I think the recumbent one is OK. We’ll see how I feel tomorrow. </p>
<p>7.35 miles yesterday, some outdoors and some on the treadmill. 4.5 miles on the treadmill today. It would have been longer, but my daughter called from Spain. I wanted to see how her first day of classes at her high school went! She is doing great. She’s a little spitfire.</p>
<p>Sabaray, Kind Bars are great. I normally eat Cliff Protein Builder Bars for energy replacement when doing bike rides over 2 hours in length, but Kind a Bars are so, so yummy! And not all sugar is bad. Apples and grapes are high in sugar content but it’s a natural simple sugar that enters the blood stream quickly and is utilized (like all simple glucose sugars) to replenish glycogen stores in the muscles. In fact, for those doing high intensity exercising, eating something with a natural glucose simple sugar within 30 minutes of the end of the workout is highly recommended to restore muscle glycogen. It’s the high fructose corn syrup and other processed sugars that are yuch. And added sugar to processed foods or sugar in proceeded foods that have no nutritional value.</p>
<p>Almost home! 
4 miles tonight or bust, which, most likely - no, absolutely - means running on the treadmill at 11 pm. Mr B will be thrilled (not). :)</p>
<p>I haven’t posted in awhile. Busy with life, work and running. Warmup mile. 3 @ 7:30, 1 @ 7:00, 1@ 6:30. Last 400 at 5:15 pace and almost fell off treadmill. Daughter and friends laughing at me. </p>
<p>Thanks, MNK - good to know. I don’t think I’m at the high intensity exercise level where I’d need to restore glycogen, but I’ll keep that in mind for the future! When did you get started biking? What are typical rides for you? I don’t know that we have many bicyclists here. </p>
<p>Awesome workout. I’ve been doing this one for a while, so that probably means it’s time to move on, but it was one of those workouts where every exercise is good.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The stability ball planks were terrific. I first did these about one month into my fat loss (with the iPod nazi workouts) and four years later, I feel like I finally have the core strength to do them well. complete with some stir the pot. </p>
<p>I’ve been doing a new kind of 3-pt row, putting the weight back on the ground between every rep. Fantastic.</p>
<hr>
<p>I listen to a lot of fitness/nutrition podcasts while working out. Sometimes with experts, but mostly just for entertainment.-- but entertainment with side-benefit of reinforcing my motivation to be a “fit guy”. Really good one for today’s workout – the Angriest Trainer podcast interviewing my college classmate Mark Sisson. It’s the 1/31/2014 episode:</p>
<p><a href=“Fitness Confidential with Vinnie Tortorich on Apple Podcasts”>Fitness Confidential with Vinnie Tortorich on Apple Podcasts;
<hr>
<p>Mediterranean Fish Stew for dinner. </p>
<p>Ohio, the things we do to entertain our children. ;)</p>
<p>Sabaray, actually, you don’t need to be doing super high intensity exercising to be using up the glycogen in your muscles or for that matter the amount of glycogen your liver can produce. Glycogen is the “go to” fuel source for the process of your muscles producing ATP which powers their ability to contract. Of course the longer you exercise the more glycogen you will use and the more intense the exercise the quicker you use it. Any nutrition plan for those who exercise regularly should include foods that help restore glycogen. </p>
<p>I rode bikes quite a bit as a kid and used bikes as a means of transportation. I was always a weight lifter but during college and graduate school was a competitive athlete (full contact and points based martial arts into my 30’s and collegiate level diving). I was also an avid runner until I was 25. I experienced some overuse injuries running marathons in my early twenties which ultimately put an end to running. I started riding bikes as a sport the summer before my 40th birthday, being challenged to ride an MS 150 ride the weekend of my 40th birthday some 20+ years ago. I got hooked on cycling. During the riding season in the Philadelphia area, I ride outdoors 4 days a week with 2-3 days for weight lifting and other resistance based training. My in-season rides are 2x25-35 mile rides during the work week and typically 2x 40-65 mile rides on the weekends. Occasionally I’ll throw in some longer rides and occasionally do a couple of hundred mile rides during the season. Off season, I do structured wattage based indoor training 2x per week during the work week and on weekends I will ride outside weather and road conditions permitting. </p>
<p>Speaking of which, time to go down to the basement for an hour of indoor cycling torture :).</p>
<p>There is some interesting stuff being done on endurance sports performance while in a state of sustained. ketosis (under 50 grams of carbs per day). It seems that much of the conventional wisdom on fueling endurance sports comes from studying athletes who eat a very high carb diet and are fueled nearly exclusively by carbs/glycogen. The shift from burning fat to burning sugar occurs at very low levels of exertion for these athletes (hence the “fat burning” zone on heart rate monitors. However, it turns out that athletes in ketosis (eating a very low carb diet) burn fat much higher on the intensity scale, shifting over to burning glycogen only at more extreme output levels (sprinting).</p>
<p>Peter Attila has written a couple of articles about his workouts while in nutritional ketosis – a long distance swim, a 100+ mile bike ride, and high intensity strength training.</p>
<p><a href=“The interplay of exercise and ketosis – Part I - Peter Attia”>http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the-interplay-of-exercise-and-ketosis-part-i</a>
<a href=“The interplay of exercise and ketosis – Part II - Peter Attia”>http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/the-interplay-of-exercise-and-ketosis-part-ii</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Very interesting stuff. Attilia’s hypothesis is that he can actually perform BETTER in most endurance workouts in ketosis and fueling primarily from fat because he can go all day without bonking by staying below a much higher threshold to glycogen burning. However, if he were an elite level competitor, he would sacrifice maximum sprint performance by not continually eating carbs to max out his glycogen stores. It’s an interesting tradeoff because being “bonk-proof” is probably more important to non-professional endurance athletes.</p>
<p>This stuff shows how little is really understood about sports performance. </p>
<p>Being one who avoids consuming dairy before running, I’m having trouble getting past the packets of cream cheese…</p>
<p>Interesting articles but I’m unclear whether there are any epiphanies. If I understood them correctly, on his bike ride he was at 60% VO2 max on average. At that level of intensity, I would expect that performance could be maintained primarily based on fat utilization. Once you up the intensity, I don’t think so. In this regard, it was noteworthy that he reported that in his ketonic state, his performance levels were about 5-10% reduced compared to the levels when he relied more on carbs.</p>
<p>What I think also gets frequently overlooked is that there is a difference between eating a balanced and sufficient amount of carbohydrates and carbohydrate gluttony based on a misapplied notion of carbo loading. When I go out to do a tempo or better paced 60-65 mile ride, my breakfast of choice is 2 Cohens Potato Knishes and a cup of skim milk. 6 gms of fat, 70 gms of carbs, 17 gms of protein. I will also eat during the ride Cliff Builder Protein Bar, 8 gms of fat, 30 of carbs and 20 of protein. Not nearly the same as eating a huge bowl of pasta the night before plus a high carb breakfast.</p>
<p>I have tried refueling just on nuts during long rides but if the pace is being pushed, nuts don’t work as well as the Cliff Bar. And if it’s a particularly intense ride that is wiping me out, I’ll even eat some Cliff Blocks; I can feel the jolt of energy from them.</p>
<p>Well, it’s a bit of an epiphany that people don’t curl up and die if they try to ride a bicycle for 100 miles without carb loading… That’s not something that would be deemed possible from a casual glance at the running literature (and the popularity of pre-race spaghetti dinners…)</p>
<p>He has also found that the intensity level at which he shifts from fat burning to glycogen burning has significantly increased in a state of ketosis. In other words, he can go higher up the ladder before switching to his glycogen stores. That indicates that this transition point is not some fixed number (as shown in the treadmill and heart rate monitor charts), but is instead something that is variable with diet. At least in theory, you would like to push the point as high as possible because you have essentially unlimited stores of fat fuel and because you can then tap the glycogen only for the most intense sprints…</p>
<p>Here’s the Phinney and Volek book:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Science-Carbohydrate-Performance/dp/0983490716”>http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Science-Carbohydrate-Performance/dp/0983490716</a></p>
<p>Your post and my edit crossed. I think we need to define what carb loading really is. I think a lot of people engage in carb gluttony and think its carb loading.</p>
<p>I understand the comments about raising the point at which there is a shift to carbs but I’m still hung up on the intensity level, even over a hundred mile ride, being limited to 60% VO2 max. That’s really pretty low intensity. For me that would be a 135 heart rate. That’s an intensity level that even under the “old” paradigm would be considered fat based energy production.</p>
<p>Here’s his summary of measured performance before ketosis and 12 weeks later in ketosis:</p>
<p><a href=“http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb-diet-affected-my-athletic-performance”>http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb-diet-affected-my-athletic-performance</a></p>
<p>The point at which he was burning more than 50% glycogen and less than 50% fat increased dramatically:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>His ratio at 60% VO2Max (all-day pace) changed dramatically. At least for him, he was burning close to no fat at his 60% VO2 max pace prior to ketosis, which explains why he had to consume mass quantities of gels and stuff on his marathon swims. He figures that he could store maybe 1600 calories of glycogen, so the tank was empty in couple of hours.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>His aneroblic threshold increased and shifted from buring 100% glycogen to still burning 30% fat:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The one downside is that his V02 max went down because he could not go as long or as hard at the point where he was burning 100% glycogen. He would have to carb up to prevent this if he were doing sports that required all-out VO2max type sprints:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s probably a reasonable trade-off for having a higher aerobic threshold and being generally more bonk-resistant at any level up to and including anaerobic threshold (because he’s burning a higher ratio of fat, his glycogen stores last several more hours, even though he starts with less while in ketosis.</p>
<p>Speaking of nutrtion, I had a a snack today: 6 ounces of black berries for dessert. Sheesh. Big protein day from a ton (literally) of fresh fish and scallops and clams.</p>
<p>Calories 1653</p>
<p>Protein 134g
Fat 67g
Carbohydrate 109g</p>
<p>Dietary Fiber 25g
Net carbs 84 g
Sugars 30g</p>
<p>38% fat
34% protein
28% carbs</p>
<p>What I wanna know, idad, is what the neighbors think when they see Atilla measuring his performance in various stages of exertion 
I have this comic-style vision of his traipsing around with lab gear attached But that’s likely because I can barely manage a heart rate monitor and my most scientific observation about a trek are whether or not I sweat through one layer or two layers of clothes ; )</p>
<p>Yesterday sucked health wise due to another early morning meeting followed by working til 9 at night and the proximity of jimmy johns, and only jimmy johns, to my studio. I seriously need to stock the work fridge with acceptable alternatives for unplanned overwork sessions. Except I distrust the freezer in the little thing. </p>
<p>Technically, I wasn’t actually over budget on calories, but that bread will cost me one way or another. I just never got the hang of the unwich. The good news/bad news is that the new studio downtown we’re moving to at the end of the month is located next to a place that has a tasty broccoli slaw salad with chicken that would be more in my line for a night meal. The bad news said dish is served in a Microbrewery pub So that will make for a new set of overwork night temptations Hi ho.</p>
<p>Good grief…it snowed more than I thought last night, the trail was almost filled in and I had to squeeze through the gate just to trek it, which means ill have to shovel out just to get to the hill next time. This snow-wading is getting OLD. I’d like to beat some sense into wee Phil :)</p>
<p>Took a little tumble on the way up when my snowshoe slid off the filled but fresh trail and into a good two foot side bank, effectively trapping me. The rest of my body thought it was still trudging, so I did what the birds must have thought was a hilarious face plant No harm no foul but my dignity among the wildlife is in tatters :)</p>
<p>An inch of ice on top of snow here. My early morning workout was helping son shovel out & de-ice his car so he could go to work. Yay me! I don’t intend to go anywhere today, unless someone else shovels out my side of the driveway. DH is stuck in NYC. Time to go do leg lifts & dumbbells…</p>
<p>Edit: kmcmom13–thanks for the funny description of your fall! :)</p>