As I mentioned I an an avid cyclist. I ride between 125 and 200 miles per week. I have been lo-carbing for almost 3 months (Atkins) and have lost nearly 40 lbs, and intend to lose about 15 more. The problem is I think constant lo-carbing is affecting my performance. On my intense rides I usually bonk half way through and never really feel like I recover even when the level of intensity is decreased. Now, I realize due to lo-carbing my glycogen stores are slim to none, and this is probably my problem. I have read some of the sticky's on here and this seems like a potential solution to my problem. That having been said, I don't do much weight training, mostly cycling, and I live in "Hill Country" so the rides tend to be tough on most days. Does anyone think this program will work for me? Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Hi Rich. I think TKD may work better for you than CKD, if you want your rides to be productive throughout the week. On CKD, almost half the week you'd probably resemble a sloth, because your glycogen will be pretty depleted.

If TKD is done right (and I don't do it, so I can't really tell you how, but check around the forum--I know it's here), your muscles will have the glycogen they need for every workout, and you can replenish them more often. So you don't bonk anymore.

For what it's worth, if I were in serious endurance training, I'd be doing TKD rather than CKD. In fact, I will be once I finish my 8 weeks (or maybe more) of CKD...8 weeks from now. LOL

I don't know if that helps at all, but that's my advice.

P.S. 40 lbs in 3 months?! Way to go!

i know the feeling of bonking and not recovering
why not do both
tkd/ckd?
controlled carb eating, you can balance your daily carb grams to stay in keto depending on your physical activity if ketosis is important to you

Alopex is correct Rich, the CKD is more geared towards bodybuilders or at least people who train with weights pretty seriously.

I think the TKD would be better for you, just schedule your carb intake around your cycling and stay low carb the rest of the time.

There is a lot of information here about the TKD so browse around......

If you find a TKD doesnt work very well for you a more Zone type approach might be needed given your need for carbs doing that kind of endurance training. It might be beneficial to do some research on what kind of diet plans professional cyclists use?

Hello Rich,

I'm interested in what is posted here. I'm doing "Atkins" but wondering if anyone can give a short synopsis of TKD vs. CKD.

I'm averageing around 300 km a week and seem to be doing fine. To be honest, on the "big" rides where I think I'm going for pace over time I do add carbs just before and during the ride. However, my average carbs are around 60 a day including the big days where I may bump them up to as many as 200 for 60-100 mile rides.

However, I am willing to expand my diet program for one that might give me a bit more predictable performance.

A VERY high level summary:

TKD: Only take in carbs around exercise and use that exericse to get yourself back into ketosis soon after working out. This allows you to work out how/when you want.

CKD: Carb load 2 days out of 7 and arrange your weight training to be right after your carb load to sustain/build muscle and to empty glycogen stores.

Your best best is to read the information here on this site.

Thanks for all the help and advice. TKD sounds to be just what I am looking for, and am going to start it today before my ride. I'll post later as to how things went. Thanks again for the help.

Have been trying sort of a TKD thing around bicycling activity. Still too soon to say how well it has worked out though.