Ketogenic diet as a way to lighten pack?

Have any of you read "Primal Body, Primal Mind, Beyond the Paleo Diet for Total Health and a Longer Life" by Nora T. Gedgaudas

Carl, yes, I have read her book. As you say, it is chock full of data and studies and, because she's a nutritionist, lots of sober information about how food works.

I found it very dry reading, though, and difficult to get through. I think it works better for people who already have basic knowledge of what the paleo diet is, rather than as an introduction to the diet and lifestyle. It does well to help a reader refine the questions they might have about the different aspects of nutrition. Her recommendations for supplements are invaluable, for instance.

"I do believe, as Nick and Piper have suggested, that living this way makes your body far more efficient. For backpacking that means less weight on your back, less consumption of fuel, and longer periods of walking without constantly having to replenish caloric stores with quick spiking sugars."

Miguel,
I was tracking with your post until this paragraph and completely get the logic behind what you are doing I can definitely see how you could train your body to be able to operate without external fuel sources during physical activities. I do this on a regular basis by doing runs in the 10-20 mile range without any fuel before or during the run. But unless I'm missing something, I can't possible see how your body will become more efficient and require you to consume less calories thus making your pack lighter. I suppose on a short term basis that could work if you have sufficient body fat to be handle the caloric needs of a trip but that sounds impracticle for anything except maybe a weekend trip.

If you are saying that you can hike without eating massive carbs then great, I suspect you could within some limits. But I'm missing how that translates into:

"For backpacking that means less weight on your back, less consumption of fuel"

Help!

But unless I'm missing something, I can't possible see how your body will become more efficient and require you to consume less calories thus making your pack lighter. I suppose on a short term basis that could work if you have sufficient body fat to be handle the caloric needs of a trip but that sounds impracticle for anything except maybe a weekend trip.

Please note, I did not say "less calories". You still need the same amount of calories to do the same amount of work. It is the calories that are the fuel, after all, not the macronutrients. I said, "more efficient". Fat burns very slowly in the body and packs far more calories per gram than either carbs or proteins (9 kcal/g for fat vs. 4 kcal/g for both proteins and carbs). You therefore need less weight in food for the same number of calories. The only caution you need to think about is when you are doing high amounts of anaerobic exercise, such as fast climbing with big loads or running high above your maximum heart rate. At those times carbs work better than fat… and stave off bonking. But it is not as efficient as fats and the effects drop off very quickly.

By "consumption of fuel" I meant the fuel for your stove, not the fuel you are eating! :-)

Now it makes sense. You are taking more fats vs. Carbs and that should get you higher calorie per oz. I will have to give this some thought. I have a number of long hikes/runs planned in the upcoming weeks. Normally I am carb heavy and it has worked beautifully. I may have to do a hike where I try higher fat vs. carbs and see what happens. I have no doubt that it would work in low intensity, but how intense could I go with high fat vs carbs.

" I have no doubt that it would work in low intensity, but how intense could I go with high fat vs carbs."

That depends to a large degree on your VO2 max, Greg. The higher your VO2 max the more efficiently you will be able to oxidize fat, which requiires more O2 to oxidize.
You can train to increase your VO2 max, which will in turn increase your ability to use fat at higher levels of intensity when exercising. Even so, from what exercise physiology I have read, a certain amount of carbs are required to support the oxidization of fat withing cells in a process called "The Krebs Cycle" or "Citric Acid Cycle", so you can't completely eliminate them from your diet.

I’m not trying to be down on anyone, in part because I think we are different, and all have to find our groove. I hike with some fast happy vegans and some fast happy carnivores.

FWIW:

“A new diet study just out from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition went to a lot of trouble to prove the obvious. When it comes to weight loss, how much you eat matters more than the proportion of fat, carbohydrate, and protein in your foods.”

That comes from a very good blog, Food Politics. I have it in my daily RSS feed.

My personal attitude is that my body runs well on food ;-), and I try to give it a good mix of real food. I try to eat more veg than my natural tendency. I try to stay away from processed things. I prefer strip-mall Cambodian joints to fast food. It’s the happy omnivore approach.

"A new diet study just out from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition went to a lot of trouble to prove the obvious. When it comes to weight loss, how much you eat matters more than the proportion of fat, carbohydrate, and protein in your foods."

Thanks for posting the link. I have been told that it is not as simple as this on this thread. Of course it is.

Piper – excellent article

If you eat lots of simple carbs, then you'll be hungrier so you'll eat more calories

If you can have a simple carb diet and eat less and have a healthy weight for a lifetime, more power to you, but this doesn't work for most people

"He said if you create a new market with a brand-new manufactured food, give it a brand-new fancy name, put a big advertising budget behind it, you can have a market all to yourself and force your competitors to catch up. You can't do that with fruits and vegetables. It's harder to differentiate an apple from an apple"

Everything today is dominated by how big companies can make more money

They're like a cancer that needs to be brought back under control

Here's a link to a collection of real, relevant research *on humans* that pertains to intermittent fasting:

http://alanaragon.com/an-objective-look-at-intermittent-fasting.html

It's not a rosy picture. The evidence is basically against it in most respects.

As usually turns out to be the case, results in other animals does not translate to results in humans.

Just because our ancestors lived a certain way, does not mean we should ascribe any higher or lower value to that way of living. There is basically no evolutionary pressure to live healthily to 100, so it is laughable to think that our bodies would be well-attuned to keeping themselves healthy for a very long time if only we could do what our ancestors did. There *was* a lot of evolutionary pressure to survive flashpoint situations (outrun a predator, succeed in an intense hunt, etc) which is not the way we live now at all.

"Even so, from what exercise physiology I have read, a certain amount of carbs are required to support the oxidization of fat withing cells in a process called "The Krebs Cycle" or "Citric Acid Cycle", so you can't completely eliminate them from your diet."

Your body can create glucose from a variety of non-carbohydrate sources via a process called gluconeogenesis.

Some biochemical food for thought:

Glucose is metabolized via glycolysis, while fatty acids are metabolized via beta oxidation. Both yield Acetyl-CoA and electrons that are used by mitochondria via the Krebs cycle to produce ATP, which is a kind of universal energy currency within the body.

The electrons from glucose enter the mitochondria's electron transport chain at complex I, while the electrons from fatty acids enter at complex II.

Complex I leaks a substantial number of electrons before they can be utilized in the electron transport chain. Complex II doesn't. Leaked electrons form free radicals that oxidize the inner membrane of the mitochondrion, eventually triggering apoptosis and killing that mitochondrion.

Additionally, fatty acids and ketone bodies upregulate mitochondrial uncoupling proteins, which allow the electron transport chain to flow freely at "tickover" (i.e., in the presence of unused ATP) without leaking electrons. Glucose does not do this.

Lastly, fatty acids and ketone bodies increase mitochondrial biogenesis in skeletal muscle. More mitochondria means greater endurance.

This is all rather myopic, but the implications are interesting nonetheless.

"Your body can create glucose from a variety of non-carbohydrate sources via a process called gluconeogenesis."

Yes, but that process uses amino acid skeletons, and if the amino acids aren't derived from dietary protein it will come from muscle breakdown, an undesirable situation. It is also a secondary process, and not as efficient as deriving it directly from dietary or stored sources.

So, Piper, having done a couple thru-hikes, and now experiencing improved performance on the Paleo/Primal diet, can you describe how you might prepare food for a thru hike? I'm trying to wrap my head around how one would try to provide a higher fat diet for that long a time. My perception (possibly erroneous) is that higher fat content would be more likely to go rancid on the trail, since refrigeration isn't an option. I guess this is because of jerky making, trying to get as much fat out as possible, to increase shelf life. Also, the lifestyle does not lend itself to processed foods, so you'd have a lot to prepare yourself. I imagine you'd need more carbs eventually to help make up the daily calorie load too?

I get that you are currently not having to eat high volumes of food, but I should think that would change under the impact of increased calorie demand of through hiking.

Diane, that is a problem I am having, too. Still haven't figured it out yet. Hence the attempt at putting together a paleo recipe thread a while back. Hasn't been successful at all, even for me.

Yeah, I'm not into hunting or fishing, and on a through hike who's got the time? I suspect there'd be a lot of jerky/pemmican, nuts and dried fruits, foraging for veggies if encountered opportunistically, and home-dried pumpkin, sweet potato, squash, other veggies, with coconut oil/ghee. One thing I like about Mike C's approach to hiking food is the pre-made sauces. A peanut/coconut milk sauce comes to mind, a tomato sauce–then I'm stuck. Variety after a while might be the biggest problem.

My perception (possibly erroneous) is that higher fat content would be more likely to go rancid on the trail, since refrigeration isn't an option. I guess this is because of jerky making, trying to get as much fat out as possible, to increase shelf life.

This is dependent on the type of fat; saturated fats are less prone to oxidation (i.e. going rancid). When making pemmican (or jerky) the threat to shelf-life is water content rather than fat content; the meat is dried, but the fat is also "cooked" to boil out its water content. Only when as much water is possible is removed are the meat and fat recombined to form a shelf-stable product.

You could use carbs to make up for the caloric load, but the energy density will be less; the most energy per ounce will be in the fats. However, you may want this if you're expecting heavy exertion.

Jeremy put that very well re why pemmican works. And rendered fat, 50% by weight, is the fat in question. And that fat works fine on its own too, it's delicious when sourced from grass fed beef selling butchers. It's also basically free, which means you can get a high quality fairly stable fat that tastes really good for just your time and energy of rendering it. Remember, render it at under 240 degrees, not hard, but requires attention.

I am trying to think up some way to get olive oil less liquid, by mixing it with something, to make it easier to ship and store and hike with, sort of the pemmican idea except using some other dried substance.

Just a warning re rendered beef fat, this stuff is VERY hard to clean up after, so I would not use it in a cooking pot or anything else I wanted to reuse backpacking during a trip, better to use it as butter or mixing with some trail mix in a spoon or something. You can lick off the spoon or knife, pots are another matter. It would not be fun trying to clean a pot that had congealed rendered beef fat in it out in nature without super hot water. Olive oil is a lot easier to clean up after.

Pemmican works, I have made a batch some months ago now, and it sits in a plastic bag out of the fridge, I take a bite now and then to see how it is, and because it's so good, and it's fine. Because it's stored in plastic, I think I'd try to keep it to less than 6 or 8 months in storage, but that's plenty for any trip planned.

You eat pemmican alone, by itself, or as trail mix with other stuff, it's sort of soft and crumbly, sort of like a brownie or cookie dough. Except made out of meat of course.

To me it's the ideal way to actually crack the barrier and make real food for being in nature, it's so easy to see why it was considered the best food possible for long treks and cross country voyages. Keep in mind that it was developed for endurance thru-hikes long before that idea existed, back then it was known as getting from point a to point b. Of course they used bison mainly, which is much better for this style of preparation, the buffalo conveniently stores its fat on the outside, and the meat is already lean, not marbled, making the preparation a breeze. But beef works well too, just requires a little more preparation.

I'm going to use pemmican on my next trip for maybe 25% of my daily calories, give or take. With olive oil providing another maybe 500 calories a day, that's less weight too to carry, fat is the best source for energy. My feeling is that if I overdo miles, which I won't do, the solution isn't to switch to high calorie sugar powders or energy drinks, it's to cut down the miles until my body can actually do them eating natural food sources. I'd love to see a long term study of people who use the high sugar energy sources primarily and their rates of adult onset diabetes, that's such a deeply unnatural diet I find it hard to believe there are no long term serious health risks.

" I'd love to see a long term study of people who use the high sugar energy sources primarily and their rates of adult onset diabetes, that's such a deeply unnatural diet I find it hard to believe there are no long term serious health risks."

It would be interesting to also see a long term study of people who use animal fat as a primary source of energy, and compare it with the high sugar energy sources study for incidence of mortality and morbidity later in life.

Harald, what specifically are you using to grind the dried meat?

I do have a local bison producer, need to make contact with them and start using their products. They have jerky available, but I'm pretty sure they don't make pemmican.

Tom those studies were completed decades ago, they are called the Inuit, who were unfortunately subjected as involuntary guinea pigs in such a change of diet, all under well meaning policies of feeding them under various programs after we took their actual food sources away in various land grabs etc, but with grain based food stuffs that we use. The answer was, they were far healthier using a protein/fat diet, in almost every way. That diet was also much better suited to to their environment. It's an interesting topic, more interesting than I'd realized before reading this book: 'People of the Deer', by Farley Mowat, is a good first hand account of a lot of the direct diet issues, especially interesting are his observations and discussions of just what happened when starch and sugar based energy sources were introduced into their diet, not a pretty sight, he basically watched as this inland eskimo caribou hunting tribe vanished, around the 1940s. If I remember right, turns out that there is basically no better food source for such cold climates, something that was recently tested in Alaska by a group of Norwegians, eating real meats, also verified this finding, don't have link on that one, sorry.

However, I don't want suggest I'm interested in that extreme of meat/fat only, I'm not, I am just very skeptical of diets that are based on heavy consumption of sugars, something that was basically unheard of up to 100 years ago, or less. This to me is pure common sense, our bodies were not designed to be fueled on sugar, the easy availability of sugars is so recent biologically speaking that I seriously doubt our body's have had any chance to adapt to that. The slow release burn of fats strikes me as conveniently similar to the type of slow burn you do in prolonged but not extreme exercise, for example, walking a long time, but not an absurd amount, and at a reasonable speed, to be determined by the burn rate of your body re fats. Certainly would not be a surprise to me that that is how the human body works at its most efficient. I suspect strongly that eating basically pure sugar for energy is not unlike taking crystal methamphetamine for energy, yes it works, but at what long term cost? And more important? Why? I know why tour de france racers do it, there's millions at stake if they win or lose. Worth the risk I guess to them. But if you are going out to nature? Who are you competing against that you need this type of artificial boost?

There's something odd to me about the extreme of all meat/fat vs basically primarily sugar, simple sugars, as the options some people chose. Both seem a bit over the top to me.

Diane, grinding it is very easy. I have an old metal blender, decent motor, but nothing unusual, what I do is when the meat is snap dry, which means you can snap or crack the thin slices you have dried, instead of them bending (this is very obvious, it's not subtle, the first time you see it, you will understand), I take a handful and put it in the blender, and start blending it. It helps to sort of pulse it so the heavier stuff falls down. After a while, the meat turns into a primaloft like puffy filament. I take that out, and pick out the unground little pieces, then do the next batch. It doesn't take that long, and of course, the stronger the motor, the easier it is to do. But no special tools are required except a thermometer to check temp of dehydrator (best under 120 F), and rendered fat as it renders (best under 240 F at all times, if it gets close to that, it's time to lower temp, and if it won't go down, it's as done as your stove will get it).

Wellness meat can sell the easy part that costs you nothing, the rendered fat, but they can't do low temp air dried meat, can't be sold in the US, I wish they would stop advertising their products as pemmican and call them something else.

By the way, an incredibly delicious and quite durable cured meat is Spanish Jamon, has various types, Serrano is I think the most common in the US. It is only relatively recently that this was allowed to be imported, for the same reason, it's not cooked. But Spanish pork is clean, inspected, and has no parasites. That would be in my opinion be the very best trail mix supplement I could imagine, costs about 20 a pound if you find a decent source. Maybe somewhere online is less. What we get in the US is low grade stuff they dump because we don't know any better, but it's all better than any Prosciutto I've ever tried here. Good salamis are pretty durable too, as long as they don't use those vile preservatives in them, some do, some don't.

What I'd like to do is just get a lot of the junk stuff I carry out, and replace it with high quality fats, I know exactly what I was craving after my last trip, and it was fat, pure and simple. My body was pretty unambiguous in this message, so I know what I was missing in that diet of dried foods. And, in keeping with bpl focus on weight, conveniently nothing touches fat for calories per ounce. Or density, it's worth noting. Pack small, pack light, those Indians were onto something I'd say.

"I do believe, as Nick and Piper have suggested, that living this way makes your body far more efficient. For backpacking that means less weight on your back, less consumption of fuel, and longer periods of walking without constantly having to replenish caloric stores with quick spiking sugars."

Yes, FINALLY. Somebody is getting it!

And yes, it depends upon a certain measure of body fat. But even someone with a nice lean body will have at least 20,000 calories of spare body fat to use. I think you can get pretty far on that plus a pack full of pemmican.

And for those who want to experiment with this, you really have to go low carb for a while to get your body to adjust to using ketones for energy. If you don't go through the adjustment period, your body won't be able to do it and you will bonk really bad. It took me 5 weeks to ketoadapt and now, even though I eat about 50-60g of carbs a day, I still have a day or two of adjustment to get back to it. I try to have some days higher carb and some days low and I eat my carbs mostly during dinner.

By the way, before anybody gets alarmed at so low carbs, I am 5'3" tall, female and 47 years old. I do not need to eat a lot of food, period, carbs or otherwise. 50g of carbs is a larger proportion for me than it might be for a big muscly man. 50g of carbs gives me a revved up energy that any big man would get on 150g or more. I can exercise HARD, run up a mountain, go to my fitness class and do planks and feel strong and powerful on so little carbs. It's enough for me. It all comes from squash, sweet potatoes, vegetables or dark chocolate (hey, nobody's perfect.)

But if I make the adjustment to ketones, then go for a backpack trip running on ketones, I can just hike slow and steady all day without hunger, without flagging energy and without having to eat all the time. After my experience on the PCT where I had to eat any time the trail wasn't going downhill, this has been SO AMAZING and wonderful.

As for what to eat on a really long hike, pemmican! It's what the native Americans ate. Apparently you could eat this stuff for half a year and not get any vitamin deficiency diseases. Apparently you can eat this stuff and not get bored with it, too. Coconut products are another option. And since rice isn't going to kill you with antinutrients making a coconut curry with rice noodles would work. I am pretty good at identifying plants so I know what plants I can eat locally to supplement.

If anyone is interested in a paleo diet you don't have to do it low carb. It's not required. I benefit from it because my long distance hiking hosed my metabolism and left me insulin resistant and leptin resistant. You will naturally be lower in carbs than people who eat a lot of pastries and sandwiches and there might be some adjustments, but you can eat 200, 300g of carbs on a paleo diet if you want and still reap the benefits of improved health and vitality.

Here's a progress picture of me. Please keep in mind that my appearance is really secondary. I'm not dieting. I'm healing from insulin and leptin resistance and whatever else. I feel absolutely fabulous. I have never felt like this in my life. My mental health is off the charts. My energy level is high and even. I am getting stronger. I eat whatever I want. The beauty is that this way of eating has made it so that what I want is the same as what I eat. Here is a typical day of food. I don't see how you can fault this:

Breakfast
2 eggs and a small steak or liver and onions, 1-3 cups coffee with half-and-half
Lunch
Bone broth with seaweed or can of fish (salmon or sardines) or nothing
Dinner
Meat (sea, air or land), vegetables (any kind), a root or tuber (celery root, rutabaga, sweet potatoes), butter, red wine
Dessert
Dark chocolate

Okay, here's the picture:

Yes, FINALLY. Somebody is getting it!

Erm, I sort of “got” it from the start, since I’ve been one of the ones arguing in favor of the diet from the start. Or have I been too tight-lipped? :^)

If you want a picture of what eating paleo looks like, please visit Nom Nom Paleo. The author takes photos of her daily meals and you really get a sense of how healthy it is. I think a lot of people have a weird image of it being a fat encrusted, oil fest, but it’s really not.

But even someone with a nice lean body will have at least 20,000 calories of spare body fat to use

I have to disagree with this. I'm currently 130 lbs and 6-7% fat. That means I have 10 lbs of bodyfat total. If I were to lose ~6 lbs of additional fat I'd likely need to be hospitalized.

Edit: I guess it depends on what you define as "lean".

"Tom those studies were completed decades ago, they are called the Inuit, who were unfortunately subjected as involuntary guinea pigs in such a change of diet,"

They had thousands of years to adapt to a ketogenic diet and not much choice if they were going to live in the Arctic. I was referring to studies of our own population.

"However, I don't want suggest I'm interested in that extreme of meat/fat only, I'm not, I am just very skeptical of diets that are based on heavy consumption of sugars, something that was basically unheard of up to 100 years ago, or less. This to me is pure common sense, our bodies were not designed to be fueled on sugar, the easy availability of sugars is so recent biologically speaking that I seriously doubt our body's have had any chance to adapt to that. The slow release burn of fats strikes me as conveniently similar to the type of slow burn you do in prolonged but not extreme exercise, for example, walking a long time, but not an absurd amount, and at a reasonable speed, to be determined by the burn rate of your body re fats. Certainly would not be a surprise to me that that is how the human body works at its most efficient. I suspect strongly that eating basically pure sugar for energy is not unlike taking crystal methamphetamine for energy, yes it works, but at what long term cost? And more important? Why?"

The interesting thing to me in this regard is that the human body has evolved to store ~1600 calories of energy as glycogen, mostly in the muscles, but also in the liver. It did so for a reason: That capability contributed to survival, otherwise it would have been selected out of the gene pool long ago. Glycogen, stripped of it's water molecules, i.e. glucose, provides energy more rapidly than fat and is thus useful for situations where a more intense level of activity than can be supported by slower burning fat is required. Glucose also supports the metabolism of
fat in the Krebs Cycle, although there is a backup, less efficient, mechanism called gluconeogenisis for emergencies where glucose from stored glycogen or dietary glucose is not available. How did this contribute to survival? Quite probably in situations where man had to move faster than he could by burning fat, i.e. hunting or being hunted, or in combat situations. I could speculate that the maximum distance he would have had to run in such situations is somewhere between 18 and 20 miles, precisely the distance where modern marathoners "hit the wall". Elite runners can go farther due to their highly developed VO2 max, but for most muscle glycogen is exhausted at that distance. As for backpacking, a high fat diet makes a lot of sense as the intensity of the activity is well suited to the use of slow burnig fat as fuel, and fat is a denser source of energy. This does not mean eliminating carbohydrates from a backpacking diet, IMO. Rather, the goal should be to provide the proper amount of carbs to support the efficient metabolism of fat at the level of intensity you hike at without going into gluconeogenisis. For me, the amount of carbs turns out to be ~30%.

Having said all of this, I am not dissing the Paleo diet or addressing the situation of those who are either unable to process carbs, trying to lose weight, or just plain want to do things that way. I am only saying that for many of us, a balanced diet that allows us to use the natural glycogen system we were born with, in concert with our fat burning capability is a viable option, one that has apparently served the majority of humans in good stead down thru the millenia.

All this is not to say I am in favor of a high sugar diet, any more than I am in favor of a high fat or high protein diet.
Moderation in all things is my dietary maxim.

Edited several times to avoid timing out.

I have to disagree with this. I'm currently 130 lbs and 6-7% fat. That means I have 10 lbs of bodyfat total. If I were to lose ~6 lbs of additional fat I'd likely need to be hospitalized.

There is something called "underweight", too. Being too lean. My thinking is that, like bears inadequately prepared body fat-wise for over-wintering, having too little body fat for long periods of exertion is probably not a healthy or safe state to be in. I also think that the body is not meant to be a static number, but is supposed to adapt to conditions. There's a very good reason why the body has the ability to gain and lose weight; it's part of the body's interaction with the environment. And that includes being able to carry the energy needed to do the movement we need to do.

Well, I'm not underweight per se. Just lean. 3-4% would be dangerously lean which I'd have to try really hard to hit in normal daily life and it wouldn't be maintainable. If I went out on a long trip with too little food though….

I think it just depends on what you define as being lean to some extent. 15% is healthy for a man but isn't what most would consider lean. You typically need to be 8% or less to see good abdominal definition and that's probably what most people would classify as being "lean". Great for walking around the gym or beach and perfectly healthy in our normal society. On a Skurka-like trip though, if someone in similar condition carried what they eat in town, they'd fail fast and hard.

I can easily go out and run 10-20 miles or hike 30+ in a day as-is but day after day would be pushing it without carrying a load of food. It's a bit of a dilemma, and definitely something people should consider when throwing around the "just lose the gut" statements as opposed to packing less. I have to pack what is likely an exponentially larger amount of insulation now than I did when I was fatter. Food for thought.

Edit: Basically I agree with Miguel. I'd have to fatten up a good bit to take on a 4000+ mile hike without a lot of resupply opportunity. I still think saying most "lean" people having 20k+ cals of fat to spare is not true though.