Got a text last week from my bubbly friend, Giles, aka The PCN King for a 125km ride on New Year's Day. Quickly answered to a yes, forgetting I haven't been riding in over a YEAR!.. Yea, there were a few scraggly short rides in 2022, nothing worth mentioning. The lapse on pedal time like running was due to the strength training taking up most days since Apr...
Saddled up on 30 Dec for a 55km ride to Changi and back... Surprisingly, was able to keep up to my old average pace under the same usual condition at this "test" stretch on my dodgy gravel bike ...still on chunky 40c tires.
Was thinking during the ride how much of the daily squatting regime since October has contributed to keeping up now as while pushing against the dreaded 5pm headwind at Coastal Road. Cardio was certainly taxing at my 85-88 rpm cadence. Yet my quads had really been taking it in stride. Finish off and got home without feeling bushed as I was expecting it to be!
Mull over the next two days right up to the time of yesterday's 125km ride....
"Am I fat-adapted by now?"
No, fat adapted is not about getting FAT!-- it's whether a diet of low carbo has worked where main source of energy utilization has been switched out from carbohydrates to that of using fats and proteins directly instead.
Not having gone full keto (based on the amount of calories from fat as recommended with most keto-diet plan) but reckon so long as carb is low-- therefore protein and fats would be high. Logically speaking.
Last month episode with Covid was a little of a setback with overall training. At least nutrition wise it's been mostly on track... Lucky to have gotten off only with less than a kilo lighter.
The day's meal before the ride was morning oatmeal porridge with a ton of eggs as usual and black coffee. Yes yes, oatmeal is carbo but since its mostly fiber-- net carb is low as usual. Followed by lunch of Japanese food-- wagyu teppanyaki and some starters... Left the bowl of rice that came with the set largely untouched.
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| Not the healthiest of food-- just too lazy to cook on New Year's Day... |
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| Parking @ Dinner Place. Sembawang |
20+km into the ride-- we stopped for dinner. I ordered a large egg dish for all + 2 extra sunny side for myself. Together with vegs and a Thai style chicken-- again skipped any rice or noodle.
This lasted all the way till after LCK towards Jalan Bahar.... for a pitstop at the Shell Station. Top up water and had a bottle of 100PlusActive.
Spin all the way to Shenton Way-- I had a remaining bottle of 100Plus... Still no food-- and not exactly hungry.
From there was just long one spin to and through ECP to Coastal and finally Changi Village. Guess I could still just go without food and take a 5 minute breather. But settled for the roti plaster @ 11:30pm .
Ok -- Experiment 001 of 2023 wasn't exactly a controlled study but I certainly ate a lot less carb for a ride with such distance and I guess the amount of salt and mineral was pretty sufficient for the day. Even going into a midnite headwind onslaught at Coastal on the final part of the ride-- I haven't had the slightest inkling of any cramp in the legs.
Post ride, very unscientific conclusions: ~20-25% caloric intake from carbohydrates with the rest from fats and protein is probably whats sufficient even on high calorie output days like this. This would run counter to our typical modern diet that is bias towards carbohydrate, recommended anywhere from 40-65%.
Seriously that kind of energy from carbs is just BS. But it does takes a while with gradual change to a higher fat and protein diet for the energy utilization transition to take place properly. In any case, my decision to change to an even lower carbohydrate intake diet was not even about losing weight.
Rather, it was quite the opposite, albeit for an increase in muscle mass while losing fat at the same time. The change for such form of "conversion and weight management is slow. But yes, its been working as seen in the previous article about 2022 transformation.
All in all? Not too bad, woke up this morning back to a sub 72kg weight. Dread to think of the calisthenics session later. It was hard getting to bed last nite with a higher than usual heart rate, probably from the 6 hrs of exertion and that last midnite meal at CV.
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| 126.4-128km -- depending on which device it was based on (ride tracked on my bike speedometer, watch and Strava all at once). Just glad no LP1 @ Tuas was included. Stupid place to ride to imo. |