Whenever I have a long day in the saddle, there are a few cardinal rules I know to follow: Always bring more hydration than I think I need, slather on sunscreen and chamois cream, and bring lots of snacks—the carbier, the better.
That last one is a no-brainer for endurance athletes. “Athletes have been taught from a young age that carbohydrates are essential to fueling exercise,” says Mitchell Zandes, a registered dietitian and certified strength and conditioning coach in New York City.
But lately, I’ve had to break that rule as I experimented with the ketogenic diet. Arguably the most critical component of the keto diet is limiting your carb intake to about 25 to 50 grams a day, or 5 to 10 percent of your total caloric intake, says Rob Raponi, a naturopathic doctor and certified sports nutritionist in Ontario. Doing so helps your body shift into ketosis, a state in which it starts turning to ketones—or stored fat—as its primary energy source instead of the glucose that comes from carbs. (Another major component of the keto diet is upping your fat intake to about 75 to 80 percent of your total caloric intake.)
While I was game to experiment with a new diet, I wasn’t willing to change up my training. I had a 62-mile charity ride through the hills of Rye, New Hampshire coming up that I couldn’t miss. Would I survive training—not to mention the actual ride itself—while eating so few carbs?
It was a legitimate concern. “With products like Gatorade and rituals like ‘pasta parties’ prior to big events, restricting carbohydrates altogether is a counterintuitive and foreign practice,” explains Zandes.
But it can be done. In fact, Raponi says it’s easier than you might think. “The ketogenic diet is a very relative diet [to your lifestyle],” he says. “Low carbohydrates for a sedentary person will look very different for what low carbohydrates is for someone training for a long distance event.”
What Endurance Athletes Need to Know About Keto
Many think the keto diet is brand new, but it’s actually been around for a long time. Doctors used it in the 1920s as part of a therapy plan for people with epilepsy. They noticed that patients who followed it essentially tricked their bodies into believing they were starving, ultimately resulting in fewer seizures. But due to the development of anti-epileptic drugs, after awhile the diet was more or less rendered useless, and it faded into the background.
But thanks to recent buzz about this diet, the allure of rapid weight loss claims, and murmurs in the peloton, the general population and some athletes have begun experimenting with it again. It’s led to a lot of misconception around the ketogenic diet and sports, which Raponi thinks is largely due to misinformation and a lack of thorough interpretation of the research that’s currently out there.
“Early ketogenic research concerning sports found negative results concerning the diet and endurance, but the problem with these studies was their duration,” Raponi says. “After one to two weeks of being on the keto diet, performance will decrease. There is an adaptation phase where the body needs to get used to running off fats before performance can increase—the studies that took this into account and tested their athletes after one month found results were back up to pre-keto levels.”
During my month of training on the keto diet, I also found this to be true. Throughout the first two weeks, I felt way more brain fog than usual, and just the thought of cardio intervals made me want to cry. My performance dropped across the board—though strength training was definitely easier to get done—and I constantly questioned whether I’d actually be able to survive my upcoming ride on so few carbs.
But I bounced back right around the two-week mark. The brain fog dissipated, and while I had to experiment with what low-carb, high-fat foods worked best for me (and when), my pacing went back to its regularly scheduled programming.
How to Ride on the Keto Diet
The main secret to my success didn’t rely on pushing through those first two weeks of workouts, though. I still had to implement smart strategies that were catered to help my body perform its best. Which is why, when it came to my long rides, I focused less on intervals and more on riding steady-state.
“When it comes to ultra-endurance, or when it comes to doing a long ride and not a race, [the keto diet] can work,” says Menacham Brodie, head coach of Human Vortex Training and a USA Cycling expert coach. “Carbohydrates are important to the body because we need them for bursts of energy. [They’re] essentially broken down into blood glucose, which is rapidly available for our energy systems.”
As long as I wasn’t needing an immediate burst of energy—and instead maintaining a consistent pace—then I could make these 62 miles happen with little-to-no carbs. Here’s what else the experts suggested I try.
Focus on Your Macros
Ketone Strips
Smackfat
amazon.com
$5.95
One of the first questions I had when I began training on the keto diet was whether I was allowed to eat more carbs on hard exercise days, or if doing so would kick me out of ketosis. While there isn’t a black-and-white answer yet, the good news is that each athlete is a study of one, says Brodie. Which means that, so long as you’re regularly testing to see if you’re in ketosis (either through
urine strips
or a
blood glucose meter
), then you can closely monitor what your body can handle. This is important because if your buddy is telling you he’s doing the Keto diet and you just
have
to try it, but he’s not testing himself, he’s not doing it right.
Rather than focus on hitting a specific number of grams each day, Raponi thinks it’s smarter to track your keto diet by macro percentages. Your caloric needs change based on your energy output anyway, and “the amount of energy expended [during exercise] means carbohydrates will constantly be depleted, leaving the body in a state of ketosis so long as the appropriate amount of fats and proteins are consumed,” he explains. While the ideal macro percentages vary per person and situation, a ballpark range for the keto diet is 70-80 percent of your calories from fat, 15-20 percent from protein, and 5-10 percent from carbs. It also helps avoid the common mistake of underconsumption of calories, which can lead to problems like constipation, energy decreases, and missed periods in women.
See How Long You Can Go Without Snacks
On a typical Western—a.k.a. high-carb diet—you’d probably feel crazy if you didn’t bring snacks along on your ride. But Zandes says that those who are fat-adapted generally don’t need additional fuel while in the saddle. “This is what happens when they switch from relying on a limited supply of stored carbohydrate to a high level of stored energy in fat,” he says. “Even very lean individuals are thought to have plenty of energy to fuel long distances.” (Of course, this is after a filling breakfast of something like eggs, bacon, and sautéed non-starchy vegetables two hours pre-ride, Zandes says.)
For longer training rides, I’d bring a bag of high-fat walnuts as a backup, but when I focused on pacing rather than trying to churn through the miles as quickly as I could, I never even needed to reach for the bag.
Experiment With Your Fuel
Of course, that was not par for the course the entire training cycle. There were times when I did need to take in fuel, and since cyclists have the advantage of being able to pack in more whole foods than, say, runners during endurance events, I left my usual gels and high-carb bananas at home and tested keto-friendly options that I thought would behave well with my stomach: Walnuts, cashews, Nui cookies, and pickles. (Pro tip: Put dill pickles—and their juices—in a Yeti tumbler you can store in your bottle cages to sip on for a still-cold hit of supplement-free electrolytes.)
4 Keto Diet Ride Snacks
Walnuts
Happy Belly
amazon.com
$20.80
Salted Cashews
Planters
amazon.com
$18.68
Kosher Dill Pickles
Claussen
amazon.com
$14.89
But just because something works for me doesn’t mean it’s the gold standard. “The most important thing is for an athlete to learn by doing,” says Zandes. “All ketogenic diets have the same underlying principles, but the details of meal timing and snack choices can vary tremendously.” (Other snack options: sliced avocado, cheese, and nut spreads.)
As for timing, Raponi suggests taking in fuel on more of a delayed schedule than you would on a high-carb diet—about every 40 minutes instead of every 30—to allow for the fats to be absorbed without overwhelming your digestive system. “Because fats are more calorie-dense than carbohydrates—each gram of fat carries nine calories of energy as opposed to four calories of energy for every gram of carb–I would recommend eating slightly smaller amounts, less often,” he adds.
Hydrate, Hydrate, Hydrate
“Fat-adapted athletes still need to make hydration a priority, [as] excessive sweat losses will result in losses of sodium and potassium, which need to be replaced in order to maintain exercise intensity,” says Zandes. The only problem? Gatorade and similar sports drinks aren’t on the keto-approved list due to high sugar count. That’s why, for those who need something more than water, the pickle juice can help—it’s chock-full of sodium and electrolytes to help recoup your losses. Or try low-carb, low-sugar
Nuun Electrolyte
tablets.
Raponi also suggests supplementing with exogenous ketones, which are sold as a powder that can be mixed into water. “In theory, someone on a ketogenic diet is running off of these ketones for energy, so supplementing with them offers a quick and readily available source of energy similar to that of sugar,” he explains.
Popping a caffeine pill 20-30 minutes before your ride can also help shift metabolism to a more fat-burning state after 90 minutes of exercise, says Raponi. Dosage recommendations vary based on your individual caffeine tolerance and how much of it you consume in your day-to-day, but Raponi suggests starting at a low dose of about 3 mg for every kilogram of body weight. So if you weigh 180 pounds, that’s about 246 mg of caffeine.
Have a Reserve of Carbs
You never know what’s going to happen on the road. As prepared as you think you are, it can affect everyone differently. According to Brodie, there are some indicators that mean the diet probably isn’t working. “Usually the first thing is you have a big sap of energy—like someone flipped a switch and you just can’t go anymore,” he says. “It’s not bonking; it’s like the pedals are turning but nobody’s home.”
Then comes the lightheadedness. If the dizziness refuses to dissipate despite more keto-friendly fuel and hydration, it’s time to turn to carbs, and having an emergency stash is helpful. Rather than shock the system with gels and chews, Brodie suggests cutting half a bottle of sports drink like Gatorade with water and chewing on dry dates. They have a similar glycemic index to a gel, so the body will respond similarly, but they also contain fiber and will have more of a gradual, long-term effect on your energy (whereas a gel would spike your levels quickly), he explains.
Within 10 minutes or so, you should be able to recover and finish the ride strong, but take your time and don’t rush it. And at the end of the day, that’s what matters—because when you’re forced to choose between ketosis and finishing something that matters, it’s clear that a diet is always meant to be broken.
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