Thanks for the reply Scott! I think I’m beginning to understand the method you’re laying out.
I’ll read through the literature you supplied. Sounds like the literature is working slowly from the ends of the spectrum in towards where you’re advocating. I’ll read through the rest! Thanks for the supply!
Just to make sure I’m understanding this correctly: The fat adaptation process sounds like it’s operating on a spectrum, with exercise on one end and fat intake/carb restriction on the other. Depending on how much training you do (and your BMR, genes, etc.), the amount you need to shift your macros towards a ketogenic diet may be more or less, with more training necessitating less of a macro shift than a sedentary subject.
I have a few follow-up questions as well:
1. Should I be altering my carb/fat intake to correspond to the type of training I’m doing from day to day? i.e., if I’m doing strength or any high-intensity training on one day, increase the carbs and decrease the fat; while on the next, maintaining a high-fat ratio for Z1/2 activities? How consistent should this be?
2. I’ve been tinkering with the macro shift to a more fatty diet for about a week and a half now (~50f:25c:25p) on a ~3000 calorie diet, working around 15-20 hours of week of training. This works out to still taking in around 250carbs a day. I’ve been trying to isolate 200 of those carbs to after my workout, and relying on a much more fatty diet before workouts (it actually probably works out to a 70f:20p:10c diet before my workouts, so a more classically ketogenic diet, followed by a workout and a carb bomb). Is this the right method? Will this be more conducive to fat adaptation if I spread the carbs out more? I’m trying to use the glycogen repair window to spur fat adaptation a bit quicker to make the carbs “count” less. Does this make any sense? Or am I just over-hypothesizing?
3. I was reading elsewhere on this forum about losing your fat adaptation; I believe the answer on there was that you could lose your fat adaptation via diet, but that (I want to say Steve answered this) you could gain it back with a few fasted runs. Does this fat adaptation work like ketosis in that you can lose it quickly by acting contrary to how you got the fat adaptation? Does this operate on the same exercise and nutrition spectrum as gaining the fat adaptation? (i.e., can you drop out of the fat adaptation either if you lower the amount of fasted workouts while also not increasing your fat intake; or by adding a lot of carbs for a few days without compensating with more training hours?) How sensitive is the state of fat adaptation?
4. Is there a good way to monitor this process? Is lab testing the only way to go?
5. I’ve also noticed a peripheral effect that I wanted to ask you whether this was due to fat adaptation, or a lower carb intake, or just me connecting two dots not meant to be connected: When I was on an HC diet I noticed my weight fluctuate a huge amount, sometimes as much as 5-7 pounds a day (with a downward trend of about a pound a week). I expected that and wrote it off to water loss/gain. Now that I’ve moved my macros more towards a fat dominated diet (50:25:25), my weight isn’t fluctuating almost at all. It’s almost shocking, but I’ve had a very steady .2lbs a day drop; with a corresponding drop in fat mass and a gain in muscle/water mass. Is this something I should attribute to the high-fat diet? or is this just me stabilizing my weight loss and it’s a coincidence that it occured at the same time as my diet switch. I hypothesized that fat, being more water-phobic of a material than carbohydrates, may be stabilizing my water content? Am I overthinking this?
Sorry for the pester! I just really want to understand what the theory is! Very interesting stuff!
Thanks again,
Jake
