Cycling UK Forum

Hi

Has anyone tried cycling on a low carb / atkins type diet? Did it slow you down?

I've successfully lost weight by reducing carbs but re-introduced them when on a tour last week, as I wasn't sure if I would hold out without them. Shorter rides are OK but these hills in Croatia where big and steep (and beautifull)!

I'd be interested in your experience.

A cyclists diet should include 65% carbs. The complex ones are much better then the simple and Atkins is a fraud.

Mental disorders have been linked to his programme.

Do you speak from personal experience?

i'm no dietician, but surely, we all (especially the athlete) need a balanced diet, rather than a one sided protein diet.

It might do what it says on the box (ie lose you weight), but at what expense. I say live life and eat without regular excesses, and you'll do ok. anything illness is then pure bad luck!

The way to lose weight is easy by a simple rule,"if one doesn't stick it in one's cake 'ole it doesn't go one's hips".

That said:-
Complex carbs are needed for exercise,too much refined sugers are bad for just about everything,and the same goes for saturated fats.

Atkins as has been said is a fraud,it goes against all scientific dietary knowledge.
One cannot expend huge amounts of energy without carbs,they are good "fuel" more so complex carbs.

Atkins sold a lot of books to people who look for silver bullets/magic "diets".Every other week there is some "diet" or other on the"market".
They are all a con trick, eat a well balanced diet low in saturated fat and refined sugers for health.
If you don't want arthritic pains and unuseable protein stop eating red meat.

thanks guys, lots of opinions but very little experience by the sounds of it.

Rose wrote:thanks guys, lots of opinions but very little experience by the sounds of it.

Lots of experience,of life, and after a few years one spots a fraud instantly Rose.

I have extensively studied sports nutrition and give advice on the subject all the time. My experience lies in watching athletes succeed under my guidance and reading medical journals with studies on many nutrition based subjects. Perhaps this isn't the type of experience you are after. I am also a student of bike fit, ergonomics and aerodynamics but I'll save that for another thread.

But trust me on the Atkins diet, it's a deadly fad that has been perpetuated by a greedy man. Your body needs carbs.

Here is an analogy that might help put the problems of weight loss and energy management in context.

Imagine that energy equals money:

Glycogen: Immediately available (but limited) energy = money in your wallet
Muscle: Short term energy (when food is scarce) = current account
Fat: Long term storage = savings account

Myth – You can convert fat to muscle or vice versa (the body can only use them as energy sources) in other words you cannot transfer funds from savings to current.

Now, the body is an amazing thing, and if we take in the same number of calories as we expend, all is well; energy is balanced and we maintain body mass.

It is important to note that it costs the body energy just to maintain muscle – fat exists in the body without any need for energy. This relates to your metabolic rate, the more muscle mass you have the greater your base metabolic rate (the number of calories you burn just to exist).

If we have additional calories, they go into our savings account as fat, the body will not add muscle unless you are exercising and ‘damaging’ the muscle enough to cause the body to need to repair the micro-tears and hence add muscle mass. That is when your muscles feel 'sore'.

Myth – you can diet and add muscle; whenever you reduce your calorie intake your body will use muscle for energy and worse still, use it before fat – why? It’s simple really; by removing muscle the body is removing a drain on scare resources (calories) since muscle requires calories just to exist, the body gets rid of it first. 10,000 years of evolution can't be beat!

It can take up to 2-3 weeks of dieting before your body will start metabolising fat into usable energy. In that time your muscles are metabolised take up the slack, the best you can do is to maintain a good exercise regime to minimise the muscle loss. Any weight loss is primarily fluids, glycogen and muscle.

Note: 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories, so if you can reduce your energy balance by 500 calories a day, you will (after a couple of weeks) be burning 1 pound of fat per week, providing you maintain some level of exercise to prevent excess muscle loss. If you diet, you will lose muscle, but the loss can be minimised.

Now here is the double whammy… Imagine a 250 person with 45% body fat diets and loses 50 pounds in weight as 40 pounds fat and 10 pounds muscle. If they then return back to their original weight of 250 then so what? Well the body has replaced that 50 pounds lost with fat so they are now fatter (49% bodyfat) than when they started! Each time they go through this cycle they are losing muscle and adding fat, the only way out is to add exercise into the equation.

As for Atkins, the man was (he died a while back) in my opinion a charlatan and a fraud – there is no quick and easy fix; and to force your body into ketosis, with diarrhea, loss of vitamins and all the other assorted problems should not, in my opinion, even be considered.

Diet ( 500 – 1000 Kcals per day deficit) and exercise (biking 40-60 mins a day and 4-5 times a week) will do the job for most people.

I started out on Jan 1st this year at 5’8”, 240 pounds, a 48” waist and 45% bodyfat; I struggled to ride the 14.3 miles to work in 90 minutes once or twice a week.

This week I am 200 pounds, 28% bodyfat with a 40” waist and I set a PB of 47 minutes (Average 18.2 mph) of hilly + urban terrain, and I ride 4-5 times a week. Oh, and I’m 52 years young.

Sorry this is so long, but I was part of a University study into diet and fitness and I get very cross with proponents of so-called wonder diets, of which Atkins is one of the worst.

Dave.

Thank you, Dave.

Very informative and enlightening. Now I understand!

dbrunner wrote:Sorry this is so long, but I was part of a University study into diet and fitness and I get very cross with proponents of so-called wonder diets, of which Atkins is one of the worst.

Dave.

Very nicely put. Suggest make something like this 'sticky' someplace.

What I found was: Leave diet alone, add the hour or so of cycling whenever weather conditions are ok ( 5 days a week approx. ), and the fitness increases & the weight comes off. It takes longer, but works perfectly with no stress, no hunger, and no longing for anything ( except a developing love affair with the local lanes & the bicycle ).

It's all about developing a lifstyle that is enjoyable, and can be sustained.

It's also about positive & negative cycles:

Diet: lose muscle, lose fitness, stop dieting, body has less muscle so needs less energy, less fit so less inclined to exercise, so add more fat, end up worse than before, so diet again .....

Exercise: add muscle, add fitness, body needs more calories just to stay still, exercise generates endorphins in brain, makes you enjoy exercise, so do more exercise ......

Most commercial diets, and 'Atkins' is a prime example exist to create wealth for the promoters, with the side effect of creating more fatness amongst the adherents, which creates more wealth for the promoters of diets ....


Nick

IIRC Atkins died very much overweight. What else need be said?
I was nevertempted to try his regime, personally, but I have come across one or two extensive interviews with people who had done so and had benefited to some extent. They were convinced that there was something special about their diets. I formed the impression that what was really happening was that they had been inspired to exert a little control over what they shoved down, and, critically, had been able to sustain that control because the Atkins rules allowed them enough "feelgood" foodstuffs (such as steak!), to avoid the experience of misery and deprivation that cause so many dieters to give up.
This ties in neatly, to my mind, with the current idea that dieting isnt a solution, but lifestyle change is. I couldnt face the thought of spending the rest of my days dieting. The idea of eating a rounded diet including many favourites, just less often and somewhat downsized isnt nearly so scary - so I have a much better chance of sticking with it. Particularly since I discovered that a good exercise session reduces my proclivity to nibble for the rest of the day! Any explanations for this eagerly received!

Dave: A very clear explanation that has cleared up one or two points for me.

Rose: I would say that your judgement was correct! Exercise like cycling uses energy at a fairly high rate and the body cannot dig into its fat reserves fast enough to support intense effort. What that needs is complex carbs by mouth, a little and often! Reduced carb intake in conjunction with exercise at 80% MHR would be a way to lose weight but not a way to climb hills.
I remember the fuss over the launch of the Atkins diet - it was billed as a way to slim without making any effort, just eat your favourite foods - Alarm bells for me!

DaveP wrote:IIRC Atkins died very much overweight. What else need be said?

is this really correct? If so, then he was a top bullsh#tter. Ten out of ten for conning a fad conscious society.

If you are interested in what you eat, and what it does to you, 'The China Study' by Dr. T. Colin Campbell and Thomas M. Campbell II is an interesting place to start.

Atkins was Obese when he died, having suffered heart attacks some 10 years earlier...

Makes you wonder doesn't it?

Here is a link to a reliable source:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_a ... 016437.ece

Nick - agree with the feel good factor, when I get into the office I may be knackered but I 'feel' really good!

BTW, other benifits include seeing my resting pulse rate drop from 65 to 45 since beginning the long road to fitness.

Dave - (IT Lecturer)

Even a journey of 1000Km begins with but a single pedal rotation.