I took yesterday off and didn't jog, however, I did walk about 10 miles.  My jog this morning was much better after the day off and I actually completed the first mile without walking and was able to jog about 70% of the second mile.  Since I only started the added activity less than a week ago the improved performance would not be the result of any improved conditioning.  I had hopped that it might be due to some adaptation of the muscles to using ketones for fuel but alas it was not to be.  Urinary ketones were still off the charts at level 4+ all day today.

My thinking is that the day off from jogging allowed my body to replenish glycogen reserves to some extent with the glucose made from the protein in my normal food ration.  This allowed a bit better performance today (much the same as my first day out).  Since I do my jogging in the morning and I eat late in the after noon, there would have been two meals from the last time I jogged Saturday morning until my jog this morning.  With my normal protein intake at about 100 grams per meal, this would have created 116 grams of glucose, much of which could have been stored as glycogen.

I expect that tomorrow will be miserable again as I should have depleted glycogen stores again with today's jog.

Lex

I do believe that 1 gm of glycogen is stored with 3 grams of water.  Where did you get the 6 g info?


It is true that 100 kilocalories are burned per mile on foot, whether walking, jogging or doing HIIT (high intensity interval training).  You might even crawl the distance to burn the 100 kcal.  I have read in runnersworld.com that HIIT actually does burn more calories than the other modalities (like 10 more methinks).  Also, interval training pushes your body to better fitness in some very profound ways.  The heart, legs and lungs get worked much harder when you sprint 100 meters, walk 100 m, repeat, than the same distance covered in a steady state.


Well, at the short distance you are covering, muscle catabolism probably isn't much of an issue, especially if you start incorporating intervals and/or strength training.  You can do some yard work for the latter, as I don't think you are into weight lifting, correct me if I am wrong.  But just look at the difference in physique of a marathon runner or a sprinter.  The sprinter has more muscle mass, whereas the marathoner will have catabolized precious muscle to endure the long distance.  This is a generalization, of course.  And I would be very curious to see the physique of a low carb marathoner.  I know they exist.  Do they burn their vastly greater amounts of fat nearly exclusively (everyone has at least tens of thousands of calories of fat on their bod) and spare the muscle, or do they burn both the fat and the muscle (to get the glucose from it)?  I would bet the latter, though it is just a guess. 

The body can only store about 2500 kcal of glycogen, and even if fat metabolizers spare it, long distances will deplete the stores, won't they?  But then, the high intensity work like sprinting and strength training burn it faster.  I would love to see you embark on a strength training protocol at zero carb.  I could do it myself but I am a wimp when it comes to an all carvivorous diet.  Besides, you have been doing this sort of diet for years, and have all the science to back you up.  Just a thought.  You see, I think low carb can go well with intense workouts and would actually spare muscle, but until and unless someone gets out there and does it, we will never debunk the myth that you need carbs for that kind of workout.  Maybe I am low carb enough to try?  I dunno, but I do some high intensity training.

Keep us posted, Trailblazer Lex!

BG was running in the high 80s low 90s on Sunday.  After my jog Monday morning it was 66 and hovered in the 70s and low 80s for most of the day.


Actually I didn't report on the first day of jogging. The 50/50 was the second day which was miserable.  On the first day I was able to jog the first full mile and about 70% of the second mile so my performance on Monday was about the same as my first day.  This is part of what leads me to believe that the increased performance on Monday was due to stored glycogen rather than any significant training effect as my performance was actally the same as the first day.


I think I got this from Runners World back in the 1970s when I was a dedicated runner. Short, Rogers, and Anderson were my idols.  I used to run ten 6:30 miles every other day. 

Satya, you are certainly generous with MY exercise routine.  Here I am struggling to jog 2 miles and you're trying to up the ante with 100 yard wind sprints.  Please keep in mind that I'm pushing 60 and my max heart rate isn't what it was when I was in my 20s and 30s.  My bones creak, and everything sags.  To be honest, I'm very please that I'm able to exercise at all.  Many my age are riding around in power chairs.


I read the article and tend to agree with Eadie's.  This is why I was so astounded when I lost 3 lbs of fat in 4 days.  There had to be something going on that would account for this amazing fat loss as it clearly wasn't water if you believe the skin caliper readings.  That's why I'm convinced that the fat was pulled out of storage to give the body access to the glycerol molecule to turn into glucose and it discarded the fat.  There are 3 fat and 1 glycerol molecules in a tryglyceride. Since my body seems to be using glucose to fuel muscle activity, and only the glycerol molecule could be turned into glucose, this indicates to me that the body discarded the 3 fat molecules which is 75% of the energy contained in the triglyceride. This is also supported by the fact that ketones are above the highest level measurable on the color chart.  It would also go along way in explaining where all the energy in the lost fat went.

Lex

Lex,

Wow, what a great pace for such a distance!


Sir, I do apologize if I came across as pushy.  That was not my intent.  You're doing fine, and I wish you all the best!  I am really happy for you, and I am sure you will get many benefits from your fitness endeavors.  Since you have such a track record with fitness, I am sure you will progress quite nicely over time (and thus wind sprints might be in your future  ).  And really, what's a bit of creaking and sag?  Better than a catheter and hospital bed, eh?  I know some really fit people past age 60, and I am so inspired by them. 

Jack La Lanne is pushing 94, and I do believe it is his exercise routine that keeps him going.  He used to push the protein, but now he is almost vegan, but with egg whites and fish, iirc. 


Sounds good to me.  So your fat is at 12% now?  Are you shooting for any particular goal in this regard?

Something must be changing.  Today I completed my 2 mile jog without stopping.  They were 10 minute miles and most people probably could have walked just as fast, but they were nonstop none the less. Today completes one calendar week of the increased activity and I just don't believe that there is any significant training effect at this point, to me this points to better fuel availability for the muscles.  I felt more energized most of the day today, where for the past 6 days I've felt very tired. Ketones are still level 4+ so not convinced that my muscles are using these for fuel.  It could be that they are now using fatty acids directly.

Another thing I noticed is that the weight loss has either stopped or at least slowed significantly.  For the first 4 days of this phase of my experiment I lost over one pound per day at the rate of about 1/3 water and 2/3s body fat.  For the past 3 days my weight hasn't varied more than one pound up or down from 160.

BG has been in the high 80s low 90s all day and about the same over the last 3 days.  If my muscles have adapted to using FFAs rather than ketones in place of the glucose this could explain both the higher BG and the reduction in weight loss.

Here's my current theory:  I eat enough protein to create about 58 grams of glucose per day.  Without the added muscle activity of jogging this amount seemed adequate for glucose dependent systems.  I increased my activity and this started sacrificing some lean muscle mass as well as a significant amount of body fat to release glycerol to create enough glucose to support the added activity, but discarded the resulting FFAs as they couldn't be used at the time - hence the rapid reduction in weight.

If my muscles have now started to use FFAs, the body fat will still be transported out of storage as triglycerides when energy expenditure increases when I exercise, however, now the 3 fat molecules of the triglyceride will be used as fuel for the muscles which is far more efficient and requires far less fat for a given amount of energy.  The glycerol molecule will still be converted to glucose by the liver, however the muscles don't need this anymore as they are now using the FFAs as their primary fuel source.  This means that the newly created glucose will be released into the blood stream and raise BG.  If no systems need this glucose, and if it rises high enough, then insulin will be released from the pancreas to convert the excess BG to glycerol which will combine again with 3 fat molecules from the high fat diet I'm eating and then stored again as body fat - hence no weight loss at all as the glycerol molecules are just going through a cycle from stored body fat, to triglyceride, to free glycerol (releasing 3 fat molecules in the process), converted back to glucose in the liver, then converted again to glycerol in the presence of insulin when BG rises, and finally combining again with 3 fatty acids to make a triglyceride to be transported to fat cells for storage.

Fatty acids from the foods we eat will only be stored as body fat if there is a free glycerol molecule to bind with them to create a triglyceride. Glycerol is a by product of glucose metabolism in the presence of insulin.  As long as we limit BG (by eating zero carbs and reducing protein to a minimum), to a level just sufficient to support glucose dependent systems, then no insulin is released, no glycerol is created, and no triglycerides can be formed so no additional body fat is stored.  The excess fat from the diet will be turned into ketones by the liver and eliminated from the body through lungs and urine.

What I think is beginning to happen to me now is that the protein I consume creates enough BG for BG dependent systems.  The muscles are converting to using FFAs directly as their primary fuel source so these are being consumed by the muscles when they are realeased from the triglycerides molecule and before they can be converted to ketones.  The glycerol molecule is no longer needed for muscle fuel so it is converted back to glucose by the liver but the protein I eat already meets my body's needs so this new glucose causes BG to rise.  The rise in BG causes insulin to be released which converts the glucose back to glycerol.  The glycerol hangs around until I eat my meal and flood my system with FFAs at a time of low activity so there is no competition for them from the muscles.  Some of the FFAs bind with the glycerol and create new triglycerides that are again transported to the fat cells for storage until they are again released during periods of high activity.  Fat that is not used either to create a triglyceride or as a direct energy source for some body function is converted to ketones by the liver and used to fuel some systems but most is discarded. 

As you can see, if my theory explained by the above process is accurate, we should expect weight loss to totally halt and the body will just recycle the extra BG from the triglycerides over and over again.  If I were to increase protein or add significant carbs then weight would increase again due to more available glucose, until again a balance is reached.  If I were to reduce my protein, then I will lose weight due to less available glucose until this balance is reached again.  The problem is, if I reduce protein to low, then there won't be enough protein to maintain and repair muscle tissue so when I lose weight, much of it will be lean muscle mass rather than fat.  This is what happens when people go on a water fast.  I did this for 31 days straight and lost about 90 lbs - much of it muscle.  It took me over 2 years to recover.  Doing this experiment has helped me understand what actually happened on this water fast and I would caution even my worst enemy against it.  However, I was young and even more gullable than I am now, and was convinced that Sheldon, Bragg, Carrington, and a host of other gurus championing the long water fast had found the holy grail.  I no longer think so.....

Well, that's what I'm thinking.  It could all be nonsense and pure hokum, but it seems to fit within my understanding of how our basic metabolism works. It also provides a reasonable explaination to account for BG, ketones, weight, and other parameters I'm monitoring.

It will be interesting to watch this unfold and see what unexpected surprises are around the next corner.

Lex