Day 31, What's going on? Greater fat adaption....

Slept on my back again and had another good night's sleep, however my neck is still not sorted. I shot over the chiro first thing but when I got home I was so cold, I really couldn't face going out in the -1degC for a ride. Why was I so cold, yes it was a cold day but I felt unusually cold, my fingers were like ice, SALT!!!

Glucose:    5.4
Ketones:    1.4
Breakfast:  Broth, yogurt MCT, almond butter
Lunch:       Roast lamb, cauliflower and broccoli cheese
Tea:           Roast lamb, cauliflower and broccoli cheese
Dinner:      Prawn cocktail, M&S Edamame & Sugar snap salad, M&S Mango & Mangetout salad
Ride:         81.5k, 174aW, 150TL, 2110 Cal

I had been dialing back my salt intake, like Reinette, I have been suffering from being dry mouth/thirsty at night. When I was last in ketosis it was the middle of summer and I was regularly doing long rides in the heat, I probably needed much more salt than I do now. Judging from my cold feelings I think I had pulled back to far, a lack of salt can reduce blood plasma volume and therefore blood pressure. Some salt, water, my breakfast and a little TV I was good to go.

My ride was pretty good, I took it easy wanting to get the longer time on the bike to aid my adaptation. I need to find the balance of what and when to eat pre-ride,  I find the fatty breakfast can not sit that well at the beginning of the ride. It was pretty cold and I was glad to finish, although riding past my house this week was a little easier.

It felt like I ate quite a lot today, probably not considering my ride, but I have lost nearly 7kg of the 14kg I wanted to lose and I am aware I can't continually just run off my excesses.

So what's going on?

Below is a chart of my glucose and ketone levels for the last 31 days. To me it is clear that the glucose has started to trend higher and in addition my ketones have started to fall.

Certainly in the last few days my exercise had reduced and that may have contributed to my lower ketones, however I do not believe my carb intake has increased to increase my glucose levels. Am I having an insulin response to the higher glucose, therefore reducing the ketones? Well interestingly yesterday where I did exercise a little harder, my ketones increased again but so did my glucose.

In the past I have not tested my glucose regularly and when I have experienced lower ketone levels I would test my glucose, see it higher and try harder to cut my carbs assuming my food intake was the problem.

  *** Please remember I have read and listened to try and learn about this subject I am not a DR or medically trained, please correct me if I am wrong***

However, I do not believe this is the case, I think my increased adaption had lead to more efficient gluconeogenesis. In addition from what I understand when you first force your body into ketosis, the liver is doing all the ketone production. The level of hepatic ketones rise in your blood and your brain and muscles start to use them.

What I have maybe misunderstood, is that the muscles have to become more efficient in using these ketones. If I have now understood correctly, I believe the muscles can actually process fatty acids/triglycerides in their own cells to produce energy (ATP) independently.

The requirement on hepatic ketones for muscle use will reduce, the longer in ketosis the more efficient the muscles will become converting fatty acids, hence the required adaption time to get back to and beyond full speed/power athletically. I would also presume, that when exercising, if the muscles still required further fuel the liver would still respond and increase blood ketone levels.

This increased fat adaption also ties in with the increased gluconeogenesis, a byproduct of processing triglycerides is glycerol which along with other byproducts such as lactate are precursors for glycogen. It is important that the body can produce glycogen, although most of the brain's energy requirement and that of the whole body can be provided by ketones, the brain still requires a certain amount of glycogen to function properly. However as we can see this does not have to be ingested, the body has adapted to be very sparing of glycogen and through gluconeogenesis should be able to fulfill the brains requirement.

https://theketogenicathlete.com/episode-25-ketosis-v-keto-adapted/
From about 30 or 45 mins in is interesting but needs a little deciphering.

As I said please feel free to correct me if my understanding is incorrect.