Staying fat adapted

[Craig Cooper]

So, after two or so weeks of strict low-carbing, and you've become keto-adapted, how many carbs can you consume without slipping out of adaptation? The reason I ask is if you were eating low carb, but wanted to do a bunch of MetCon, is glycogen replenishment PWO going to interfere with being fat adapted? Also, is glycogen replenishment alone going to be sufficient to fuel numerous MetCon workouts/week? An article that Robb posted a while back would leave me to believe that it's not possible:

Ketogenic Diets and Physical Performance

Therapeutic use of ketogenic diets should not require constraint of most forms of physical labor or recreational activity, with the one caveat that anaerobic (ie, weight lifting or sprint) performance is limited by the low muscle glycogen levels induced by a ketogenic diet, and this would strongly discourage its use under most conditions of competitive athletics.

Does anyone know of any other studies on ketogenic diets and physical performance?

[Robert McBee]

I was wondering similar. I went >20g carbs two weeks ago.(Day 5-6 were rough, thought maybe the system was shifting at this point. Energy, mood have been stable/high, no cravings) I was considering keeping carbs at this low level for a third week to help further slam dunk any insulin resistance and then doing the NHE approach of a post w.o. carb up every third or fourth day.

I'm not doing metcons but switched to Coach Burgener's O-lift Wods. I didn't think glycogen stores really impacted O-lifting performance but the quote you found seems to indicate otherwise. My diet logs would seem to reflect that I'm replacing carb blocks with caffeine blocks. Maybe Sears and I could collaborate on 'The Caffeine Zone'.

[kevin mckay]

As an aside I would guess that incorporating IF into you program would give you more headroom.

[Robb Wolf]

The main point is to maintain insulin sensitivity. This can be accomplished best I think with an intermittent fasting approach and post WO carb meals that are starch based (yams sweet potatoes) instead of fruit based as fructose will preferentially refill liver glycogen.

Check out this flow chart form the metabolic diet and adapt it with a bit of intermittent fasting.