I am what I eat

I mentioned in my slightly cathartic last post that I'd lost control a bit (a lot) on the weight front. Let's look at that a bit more closely.

Last year when I moved to LCHF (Low Carb High Fat) eating I lost a lot of weight (around 6kg) rather dramatically - this is expected and is very well recorded.

Absolute carb intake against weight for Nov & Dec 2012 - Christmas is where it started to break!

I was logging everything I ate and drank. I was keeping relatively close to my self-assigned target macro nutrient profile of 75% calories from fat, 20% from protein, and 5% from carbohydrate (note that there isn't an absolute calorie target - this isn't a "calorie counting" plan).

Macro nutrient split by % - no crazy carb binges at all, but a lift at Christmas has an impact

The decline continued until just after Christmas. I decided I needed a break from hyper-focus on logging every mouthful (I was taking a general break from being quite so analytical about food, training, exercise), and reckoned I was settled in enough to LCHF to "freewheel" (after all, they say you can eat as much as you like, right?).

There's also a well recorded phenomenon of weight gain on an LCHF diet plan if you over-ride (accidentally, or on purpose) you satiety signals. That is, you (continue to) over-eat. The reason you can "eat as much as you like" and not need to calorie count on LCHF is because the high caloric density foods give you a good clear "I've eaten enough" signal at the right time, and you listen to it.

It is possible to ignore that signal. I think I do, mainly unconsciously but occasionally as a result of a bad decision - particularly on the few days I've committed wilful "carbicide" courtesy of Dominos (and the fastest way to gain weight is the worst of all worlds, high fat, high carb, high protein, high calories - way too much of everything!).

My weight whilst "Freewheeling" from Jan to mid April 2013 - Argh! Stop climbing!

It's nothing to do with exercise - I was actually getting marginally more exercise into Q1 2013 than I was at the end of 2012, but was gaining weight. Why? 

I decided to start logging my food again on Saturday, and it was instantly apparent what the problem was. The caloric density of my meals was far far higher than I though. Here are some examples:

LCHF "cooked breakfast" - 571 calories

LCHF "lunch salad" - 712 calories

LCHF "yoghurt snack" - 592 calories

The macro split isn't too bad - there are just way more calories than I was accounting for. Compare that with what my previous low fat, high protein diet used to give me.

A typical lunch from last year - it's no wonder I was on 4-6 additional snacks per day!

The problem was that I was augmenting these meals with occasional other (high fat) snacks, and - importantly - a full cooked dinner (all be it still on the LCHF theme). Over the last few weeks I lost a lot of control and was enjoying a nice big slice of cake from the coffee shop with my coffee at work, and even caught myself making a couple of slices of toast with peanut butter at work (it was lovely, but I felt terrible afterwards). High everything.

During this fortnight I was feeling more and more ill in my stomach, like there was a toxic buildup. I didn't feel actively sick apart from once or twice, and there weren't any problems with, er, "waste", I just felt terrible. Bloated, laden, heavy (feeling heavy as well as being heavier). I felt like the handbag on the constipation commercial where the troubled lady just keeps on ramming food in (I had a brief look for it on the YouTubes but I don't want to end up being followed around by constipation ads so I stopped).

I also don't think it's any coincidence that I have had a sore throat and heavy cold over the last week, the first trace of illness I've had since going LCHF in November (and I always have a cold at Christmas/New Year). I certainly made the right call last Saturday to restore some greater awareness.

My first day of logging again.

On my first day of logging I hardly ate anything compared to recent weeks. Ignore the "-61" in red - that's a hangover from last year where I had WLR set on a daily calorie target deficit of 500 calories under that which I should need to maintain my weight. Looking at calories only is a flawed approach, but you can't ignore them all together. That's what I've learned this year.

A real eye opener as to how little I needed to eat to reach these numbers. And Saturday I felt much better, and the day after that, better still (apart from the cold, which I'm only really just shaking off now).

I'll stay on alert for a couple of weeks and see what happens to the weight graph. Since Saturday (5 days) it's already dropped by 1.3kg. I'm astounded I shot up to 86.7kg, almost around 9kg heavier than my minimum before Christmas - that was only three and a half months ago!

So, since I hit the reset button on Saturday I've felt much better. And you know what? I've been more productive at work, my brain is quicker and more useful, and I'm feeling positive - hmm, just the feelings I discussed the first time I went LCHF. No coincidence.

Look after yourself, eat well - you are what you eat.

Why the insane Heart Rate suddenly?

In the last couple of weeks I've found that my heart rate has gone absolutely sky high in the first 10 minutes of a 5km run. I mean, really sky high. I'll start jogging and will feel absolutely fine and  breathing no harder than if I were sat on the sofa, but my HR has hit 170+ BPM, the kind of rate that should mean I'm sprinting, squat-jumping, or absolutely hammering it up a hill on my bike.

This is not normal. At Frimley Lodge parkrun last weekend I hit 190 BPM which is utterly insane given my peak HR is considered to be 192 BPM - I should be at near-maximum output to warrant that, not jogging along looking in alarm at my watch!

Saturday 1st December, Frimley Lodge parkrun

After 10 minutes it drifts down a bit, but is still very high. For jogging round a parkrun in 28 minutes I'd expect to be 125-135 BPM for most of the time.

Initially I suspected this was as a result of the Bulletproof Coffee I'd been having for breakfast - however there is another occurrence, this time in the evening. On Thursday I went for a run when I got home from work, unusually I hadn't cycle commuted so started the run from cold.

A 5km run after work on my local route

Similarly, I set off very slowly and suffered a huge spike in heart rate before it settled somewhat. Still higher than I would normally expect but closer.

This morning Mrs and I took a drive to Brighton & Hove parkrun. I had decided to warmup slowly, and then run at whatever pace was required to keep my heart rate in HR Zone 1, under 152 BPM. During the warmup I walked briskly with a heart rate of around 100 BPM as expected, but as soon as I took the first few slow jogging steps it rocket straight up to over 170 BPM, literally (and I mean literally) within 5-10 seconds. I've never seen anything like it. I stopped jogging after a few steps, and it came down just as quickly. I carried on in this fashion for 15 minutes, gradually able to jog very slowly for slightly longer each time.

Warmup, featuring ridiculous heart rate responses

For the run I decided there was no way I could stay in Zone 1, I'd have to walk round the course! Instead I set off very very slowly, and held a pace keeping my heart rate under observation.

Brighton & Hove parkrun

So it did come down, eventually! A big step down after 10 minutes, before finally getting more normal after 20 minutes or so. Note that my speed was relatively constant throughout this variation. Is it all due to not warming up slowly enough?

After a very slow first km my pace was relatively constant

There's an interesting data point from earlier this week. I went for a 5km on my local route earlier in the week, but this time I had cycled home first. My commute home starts in the West End of London, and is therefore very slow for the first 15 minutes, and not much better after that being punctuated as it is by hundreds of sets of traffic lights.

This heart rate plot looks totally normal for a cycle commute, well within HR Zone 1 (under 152 BPM)

I took this as a brick session, meaning I got in, got changed as fast as I could, and ran out immediately. I was still thoroughly warmed up form the bike ride. I wanted to blow out some cobwebs, so this run was harder than many recent runs, and I completed the 5km in a little over 24 minutes. Still a couple of minutes outside my personal best, but fast enough to have to work hard - the upward drifting heart rate during the run validates that I was certainly working hard to maintain pace.

A faster 5km brick run on my local route

This shows that following a 45 minute low to medium intensity bike ride I don't experience the same spike. This graph is exactly how a hard 5km run always used to look, and just what I'd expect to see. No starting spike whatsoever.

So it looks like there are a few options:

1. Warm up really very very slowly (so slow I can barely even jog!)
2. Warm up with a bike ride every time I run (potentially impractical), or find some other way to warm up (drills? some squat jumps?)
3. Warm up with a 15 minute jog ahead of the start of a run and just let any spike happen and pass - or if there's no time to warm up just accept that I have a huge heart rate spike at the outset of a run and jog through it, saving any harder effort for after 8-10 minutes

Maybe this is a side effect of a low carbohydrate and high fat diet? Why is it happening? My suspicion is that as my metabolism and fuelling has changed, there's some trigger which is not yet attuned to this physiological state.

My body goes "Right, get ready to exercise!" and everything plays according to the rules apart from my cardio-vascular system which for some reason thinks it needs to get a record amount of oxygen to my muscles, or the signal to say that it was already delivering enough is suppressed (fat metabolism takes more oxygen, but I wouldn't have thought that alone explains this).

So, why the insane heart rate suddenly?