Blood pressure has also suffered, probably due to my weight gain 180/110 is the first time I’ve measured it in a very long time, usually 140 with a peak of 160. So not good news there.
I started this weekend with taking on water in the late evening instead of food - I suspect that I’m not actually hungry in the evening, it;s thirst. We’ll see how that goes next week or I’ll book in with the GP.
180? You should see the GP asap. That’s worse than mine and mine is not good at all.
I need to lose weight and bring mine down.
It’s down to 150 now.
The reason I’m not feeling urgency is that it seems to fluctuate a lot for me. I was supposed to get a 24hr BP monitoring device from the NHS but I’m on a perpetually pushed back 6 month waiting list. Then covid and BP was down to acceptable upper limits. Then forgot about it.
GP thinks I might have the white coat syndrome or whatever that sends your BP up when I’m being tested.
80.2kg
Nasty cold a couple of weeks ago that i was still struggling with last week meant no training.
Just getting back into and got the booster/flu jab combo yesterday which has totally floored me.
Weight will be a major goal next year!
How do you guys feel about the low carb thing?
Funnily enough - over summer bumping into loads of my GF’s musical pals who were trying it - none of them I don’t think stuck it out - prob not knowing even the basics. If you don’t exercise it’s as easy as pie.
I’ve been injured now for a month and I started lo carb 2 weeks ago - less for weight, more for sanity. If I was eating the carbs I would be from running I’d be climbing the walls by now, but in actual fact now I have no issues with Whatsoever and I can work all day without any issues. It’s a life saver partic as Dec I can’t be bothered on the bike outside etc
I go for big paleo salads and get a lot of EFAs with also chicken fish and lamb. I drink gin
Easy to maintain
It’s very easy to monitor and after a week it’s dead easy cos your energy gets really good so you don’t want to fuck it up
I’ve done well in the past on low carb. I tried full on keto and that was a disaster. Just blow up in training. But I’ve found I can get by without massive of carbs. Plus protein and fat makes me feel full.
I like a nice salad with avocado, sun dried tomatoes, peppers olives, beetroot, with rocket and watercress and spinach leaves. Olive oil dressing and some chicken. Plus some parmesan shavings.
Yeah you need to periodise your diet. And think about training load
Quite simply - if you’re running partic you will need carbs to run and recover, although I’ve done a lot of fasted running in the past but I don’t think it has benefited me long term.
Cycling - you can lo carb easily and ride fasted also. But you will have to have one blow out carb day
It definitely works though. Pro cyclists do it with fasting - I’d stick with it.
Don’t forget it’s not zero carb - under 100gs of garb is lo carb. Under 50 gs a day will make a Dent and I doubt you need to go below that tbh. I’m prob about 30gs a day at the moment and it’s really easy
Yeah yeah - good salad. nuts and some cheese for snacking. I have egg and cheese with pesto on the salad 
Alcohols the killer - cut that out you’re half way home
My take is it’s not worth it and you won’t see any benefits. If you go low carb you will need to be taking regular blood tests & supplementing your deficiencies. To me that’s no way to live when the results, and I mean (like Coogan says, best measure of performance is performance its self) quicker race times as results.
Reward you efforts with cake, it’s totally worth it & every incentive helps 
I live a lower carb lifestyle as we probably eat too much carb in western diet & try to get carbs from veg & slow release & periodise fast carb intake with training.
I do think some fasting is beneficial if only for what it teaches you about your reaction to food & deficit.
Was that during his Partridge or Meerkat phase?
Ha yes, Coggan
It’s an obvious statement but so many times we are told something is better as some marker X is increasing or decreasing but you need to be completely sure that that marker is actually driving the results you strive for.
Completely agree, although he could be a bit of a d1ck on ST, I did like reading his thoughts, even if a lot of it was over my head.
His 7 deadly sins of FTP estimation always came up regularly when people were desperately trying to find a way of increasing theirs with increasingly hooky methods.
Neither here nor there really.
Increase carb in take in season, reduce it out of season. Simple to say, evidently less easy to implement for me this year…!
I think the problem with LCHF is there’s a lot of bollocks around it, and I’d be surprised if many people are eating only “healthy fats” rather than stuffing in rib eye and cheese whenever they can 
I’ve tried LCHF in season, didn’t work out for me. Before I was active I did Atkins, so I know what extreme LCHF dieting is like - I nearly passed out when I skipped breakfast and lunch to avoid carbs. There isn’t any performance benefit in the scientific research, but plenty of people still rationalise that it must be and do it for that reason.
I think the “ideal” is a normal balanced healthy diet, with fuel during exercise. So when you’re off season you don’t have to change anything in your diet, just stop with the gels and bars and drinks you would normally have in sessions.
Again, that hasn’t worked out for me this year.
I think the underlying point to a lot of these diets is that in the UK many rely on simple carbs to bulk out a meal. If you have more protein and fewer carbs on your plate you are likely to feel more full and therefore will eat fewer calories overall.
If you want to bulk out a meal with carbs from vegetables, good luck trying to eat the same amount of calories as with rice/pasta.
86.8 this morning
87.8kg I’ll call that in a holding pattern affected by my current illness.
BP systolic is down to the mid 140s from last week, but systolic is too high. Again illness may be affecting this, but less concerning than last week.
86.5 today.
82.4kg this morning. Started on the Christmas bingeing already!
Steady at 74.2kg
As long as I make it to New Year’s Day at under 75kg I can live with that 
82.4kg again.
Stood on the scales for the first time in so long I don’t remember.
73.1kg
So tbh no real change, still a couple of kilos over what I’d need to be fully racing fit, but perfectly reasonable, which is nice.