Jonathan and I received notice today that we have been accepted to ride in Lotoja, a 213 mile ride covering 4 states and lots of climbing – in one day!

We’re both a little nervous about doing this long of a ride (12+ hours on the bike) with nothing more to eat than some eggs and bacon, coffee with butter, beef sticks with a handful of nuts here and there.  But I’m committed to staying in a state of nutritional ketosis and for me it’s just a matter of building confidence that I can do a ride that long without running out of fuel.  We’ve done 6 hour rides several times already while in ketosis, so I should be fine.

I am, however, frustrated over my own ketone levels lately.  Unless I’m doing a “fat fast” where I only drink fluids with butter or coconut oil, my levels are staying very low, around .4.  I’m now keeping a food log to try and figure out what I’m eating that is negatively affecting my levels so much.  When I fast overnight and wait until early afternoon to take on any food, my levels rise to 1.4.  But when I eat something for breakfast, and a beef stick for lunch, I am reading low levels.

There are so many things that can affect ketone levels outside of just food – hormones, supplements, and your body’s natural tolerance of carbs.  Apparently I have a very low tolerance and may have to stay under 20 grams/day to see if that will keep me in ketosis.   I can’t prove this  yet, but “commercial” bars like the Atkins bars and Quest bars may be negatively affecting my levels.  This could mean an intolerance to sugar alcohols (a substitute for real sugar that has minimal effect on insulin levels).

I think the food log will help me figure out what the problem foods are, although I may just need to limit myself to 2 meals  per day, and drink liquids mixed with butter or coconut oil the rest of the time.  The good news is I now know when my ketone levels are low.  I really don’t like the feeling as I’m usually very sluggish.   The feeling of being in ketosis is FAR better and worth the extra effort!

I was in Florida from Tuesday through Friday for work.   Thanks to a good friend, I was able to have coffee with butter and MCT oil each day, and decided to just eat 2 meals and do some intermittent fasting during the week.

While I was able to manage my food, I couldn’t manage getting dehydrated, unfortunately.  I arrived home late Friday night after a 4:45 hour flight from Tampa to LAX.  I drank as much water as I could stand all day Friday, and drank some chicken broth Saturday morning before going out for a ride.  This worked well for me for the Breathless Agony ride and hoped it would work this time, too

We decided to do hill repeats on Saturday.  That way, if I really felt bad we could quit and go home and not be committed to 80+ miles.  I felt great on the hill repeats, but on the way home, after about 2 hours and 30 minutes on the bike, my quads started cramping and it was a miserable  45 minutes home after that.  Once off the bike, I was ok although my legs are still pretty sore today.

I am guessing it was from lack of fluids, or potassium, or magnesium…or all three.  I have read that nutritional ketosis can leave you somewhat dehydrated, but I’m not sure what I could have done differently (other than not fly across the country) to avoid the cramping.   I’ll keep researching to see what has worked for others. I’ve had more leg cramps since sticking to a ketogenic diet which leads me to believe I’m not getting something I need in the foods I’m eating.