2013 Review and Looking to 2014 (G. Anthony Kunkel)

For my dietary year-end report skip down to the "----" on the left side..
As I settle into 100 mile weeks for my winter base, the time has come to look back at the year. I've raced 22 times this year, counting track meets with multiple events as one race, from 400 meters to 100 miles. I've won 6 races, from 1500 meters on the track to 50 miles on insane, washed-out/flooded, trails. I finished the year with the RRCA Western Regional XC Championships earlier this month where I pulled off a second place finish (like 30 seconds behind) to a guy way out of my league in terms of road speed.
My biggest problem this year has been race selection. I need to start picking races based solely on the level of competition. Winning a race nobody has heard of isn't going to get me closer to running professionally at this point. Denver Rock N Roll 26.2 was solid for that reason, maybe another big city marathon should be in the cards for next fall.

To stay strong and sharp, and keep training enjoyable, I'll be racing my first season in snowshoes this winter. The Beaver Creek Series is the first weekend each month from January to March and had offered prize money in years past. Winning the series would be a big deal for me. And racing 10k's at 9000 feet, in snow, with my feet weighted, is gona be a great way to prep for April's big goal race.
The first ultra on my calendar is the USATF 100k Road Championships on April 12th, a race that seems almost perfectly designed for me (gently rolling, road, and just over 50 miles) and one with fast enough dudes (and ladies for that matter!) that my chances of a top-3 are small to say it gently. -However, a win there would mean a chance to go to Europe and represent team USA, something that needs to happen before I retire from this craziness. This will be the biggest race of my running career to date. I'm also planning on the Platte River Half Marathon the weekend before to build some confidence with a PR, hopefully a 1:18:xx.

May will be spent almost purely training on trails and climbing. I'll get out to Golden Gate Canyon State Park at least once to camp on the race course for Dirty Thirty and get used to the idea of running fast there. Also, BoulderBoulder is a must and I have to run it well, so that'll cost me a a few days of training, a 35:15'ish would be the "A" goal as of now.

Next will be the Golden Gate Dirty Thirty 50k in June, right here near Golden, Colorado. This one has quietly become extremely competitive and is too close to home to ever justify missing. If I can get halfway decent at climbing I'll be ready to kick some elite ass here.
My end of summer "A" race is the Silver Rush (Leadville) 50 miler in July, one more that brings out serious runners every year. And it fits me well: non-technical, 50 miles, and close to home so I can train on the course.

This is the year; my stock is gona quadruple in the next 10 months! Any companies wana buy in now?

----Now to the dietary analysis:
This year had more incredible races than ever before and I credit it to my diet almost entirely. I train hard so I can run faster, but I eat a low-carb diet so I can enjoy running more. -those two are largely independent. Devil Mountain was 100% conclusive for me that I'm doing the right thing for my running. Feeling amazing from miles 18 to mile 45'ish is worth any price. I get goosebumps just thinking back to those miles. Carbs won't get you there.
Even my shorter races are more enjoyable if feel. When I did my first winter (2011/12) with a huge base building phase I noticed a huge increase in how shorter races felt, part of that was due to the liberating effect of knowing that 5ks and such were no longer "my race." They felt more playful; all the sudden I could hop in a 5k and run it like a dog: hard but smiling and with my tongue out! This past summer (after about a year in ketosis) I felt that same joy, and lack of brain-darkening feelings, at both a 1500 meter race on a track in Boulder and at the Pearl Street Mile. Both of those were done with hardly any speedwork and not far off PR times from sea level. But the way I felt was beyond explanation: as my body flooded with acid and my legs began to rebel, my brain remained as clear and focused as it was at the starting line. I used to think this phenomenon was just a good race. I'm not convinced there's some ketone-related science related to it. Perhaps ketones help maintain brain function even in an all-out race such as the mile/1500.
I came across at least one study that seems to support this theory:
"Hypoxia induced preferential ketone utilization by rat brain slices"
"These results are consistent with the hypothesis that ketones can be used in addition to glucose as a substrate for brain energy production even during reduced oxygen availability."

And I'm still getting faster, enjoying running more than ever, staying injury-free, and feeling healthy.
My ketogenic eating staples this year, things I ate almost daily:
-eggs
-cream
-cheese
-almonds and almond -butter and -flour 
-grassfed butter
-peppers of all kinds
-meat of all kinds
-leaves of all kinds

See you in 2014,
G. Anthony Kunkel

Weight Lifting Month 2

If you missed the first months results and my background in weight lifting the post can be found here.
I continue to increase both my reps and weights. Some highlights from the last few weeks are:

600 reps in 25 min for my back, bi, and shoulder day.
Pyramids on leg day finishing with 600 lb leg press for 10 reps.

My trainer is trying to create muscle confusion by frequently varying the weights, reps, and order. This makes it difficult to directly compare certain exercises from week to week. He severely limits the frequency of dead lifts and squats citing that it takes at least 2 weeks to recover from them. They are my favorite so I wish I could do them more often.

Rigorous scientific method has been defeated by the capricious nature of life. I wanted to use the same camera, lighting, poses, and photographer, but the camera breaking was the first thing to go wrong.
None the less I've done the best I can.

To be honest I'm very embarrassed by these pictures. My mental image of a beautiful body is firmly rooted in a distance running perspective.

Images: http://imgur.com/a/rdzoy

I have been able to keep my measurements scientifically rigorous.

	10/11/2013	11/11/2013	12/11/2013
weight	155.5	170	167
hips	98	102.5	103
waist	85.5	90.5	88.5
neck	36.5	37.5	39
biceps	31	35.5	33
chest	102.5	108	106

I'm not exactly sure what to make of the numbers and pictures. Waist to hip ratio, and weight indicated a lower BF% from last month but still worse than at the start. Biceps when down in size despite increasing my 20 rep weight by 10 lbs. Clearly the pictures show muscle and positional a symmetries. I've had these for a long long time and I hope that weight lifting will help to balance everything out. Here is a picture from this time last year 12/5/13:

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Making Your Own Chocolate

After all the discussion on the facebook page about Lily's and Lindt's chocolate bars I decided to revisit my old recipe for making them myself. I did a reformulation using Dr. Lagakos' anti-brainfog, pro-gut health, chocolate blog post as a guide.

Ingredients for 100g of 95% Dark Chocolate:

60g Unsweetened Bakers Chocolate
25g Cocoa Fat or any fat that is solid at room temperature.
10g MCT

3g   Ground up Dandelion Root or Chicory Root (or other GOS source - Galactooligosaccharides)

2g   Sugar Replacement

Procedure:
Melt bakers chocolate. Best to use a double boiler but not necessary.
Add in fat source and melt it into the chocolate.
Add MCT.
Grind up GOS and sugar replacement in coffee grinder into a powder and add to melt.
Pour into muffin tin or similar and put in refrigerator or freezer.

Extra Notes: You don't have to use bakers chocolate. You can use undutched (not alkali processed) cocoa powder. 32g of cocoa powder and up the solid fat source to 53g total.
I used a blend of erythritol, stevia, and  lo han guo powder. The 2g amount is for 1:1 replacement with sugar. Don't put in 2g of stevia or it will be way too sweet. To make the chocolate less dark just add a little bit more sweetener. Don't put any liquids other than pure fat into the mix or it will not come out right. Other powdered flavorings can be used like instant coffee to make mocha or BCAAs for protein. If you want to put in nuts or fruits place them in your muffin tin and pour the chocolate over it. To completely enclose the nuts in chocolate fill tin 1/2 way, freeze and then add nuts and pour 2nd batch over the top of frozen first batch.

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Interview with Dr. Lagakos

Dr. Lagako's blog covers many of these topics in depth with citations to sientific research. I suggest reading some of his latest articles on the relationship between urine and blood ketone values in regards to circadian rythms and also his article on gelatin . http://caloriesproper.com/

Interview: Listen to this episode
Download this episode (right click and save)

Here is a summary transcript of the interview:

0:00 In your book you describe several situations in which a calorie is not a calorie. I found the discussion of HGH particularly fascinating, yet you do not recommend it as a fat loss supplement. Why not?

A group of patients take HGH and regardless of the amount of calories it favorably affected nutrient partitioning. More calories went into building muscle and less into storing fat. The example was used to demonstrate that nutrient partitioning is very important and mediated by hormones. HGH has a lot of use in treating conditions but may not be good for those that are already healthy and already engaging in regular exercise. High intensity exercise is a known stimulus for natural HGH. Adding HGH might not add extra benefit. There are not many studies on athletes. Just stick with high intensity exercise until more research is done on athletes.

2:02  It appears that Nicotine has similar body re composition properties as HGH although perhaps it works on different pathways. Any thoughts on using nicotine patches as a fat loss aid?

Nicotine would be a vitamin if it were not addictive. It does have a lot of beneficial effects on cognition. It is a potent anti inflammatory agent. It improves insulin sensitivity. The strongest aspect is its ability to help attenuate appetite especially in those that are overweight. It might not work as well in an athlete except in improving cognition. It may help prevent post exercise soreness. Tobacco products decrease insulin sensitivity but nicotine by itself does not.

4:20 If you are already eating a ketogenic diet is there any reason to further control blood glucose.

No insulin sensitizing agents are useless to ketogenic dieters. If you are not being exposed to dietary carbohydrates then you have little need for a high level of insulin sensitivity. If you are adapted to a ketogenic diet you insulin sensitivity may decline a bit but that doesn't matter because you don't have insulin spikes without carbohydrates. Berberine, cinnamon, and bitter melon might have benefits reducing oxidative stress but they when it comes to the ability of managing blood glucose levels it doesn't matter to low carb keto dieters.

5:51 What is the mechanism of the insulin sensitivity agents?

There are a couple different. Some work on the amylase enzymes to prevent the digestion others act at the insulin receptor to dispose of the carbohydrates faster. There is a wide spectrum of mechanisms.

6:20 You push a lot of protein in your book. There is a big concern about too much protein kicking you out of ketosis. Is there a use for the blood sugar controls to prevent this?

These are two different issues. Consuming too much protein will not raise blood blood glucose levels. When you eat protein above your minimum requirements amino oxidation will occur in the liver in preference to fatty acid oxidation, which is the main method of ketone production. Also liver glycogen stores will increase decreasing the bodies need to oxidize fatty acids.

8:00 There is discussion by doctors that if you don't have more than 15 or 20 grams of protein in a single serving the amino acids will get used by the gut lining instead of going into the blood stream.

I don't believe that is true. If you have a lower protein intake the body will try to capitalize on it more efficiently by increasing protein synthesis. The gut does use certain amino acids. Most ingested glutamine will be metabolized in the intestine. Very little of the branch chain will bypass the liver and the intestine and go strait to the skeletal muscle. Other amino acids will be metabolized by the liver.

9:55 If you have all of your protein in one sitting you might stimulate excess amino acid oxidation so it might be better to have two meals of protein instead of one meal. Do you want 10 meals of protein, probably not.

10:20 What about large amounts of protein causing aging.

Protein may stimulate cell turnover and cell growth. When it comes to protein quality in the diet not sure how much high protein effects longevity. Virtually no human studies on the issue.

12:10 You pose a hypothesis our lifespan might be determined by the total calories consumed. Does eating amino acids instead of protein avoid the calorie countdown.

Even the BCAA that are shuttled directly to the skeletal muscle have calories and energy.

13:50 What about cold thermometers revving up your metabolic engine and aging you faster?

I'm not an expert in this at all. You can increase your brown adipose tissue by doing it. Some athletes do it but the data is very mixed. Most studies use very different CT protocols and give very different results. It could be helpful but should not be giving a blanket endorsement.

15:10 Are you increasing the mitochondrial density by doing CT?

You could be. The response of the mitochondria to the cold is increase uncoupling which could cause some oxidative stress down the line. The ketogenic diet will increase the number, function, and quality of mitochondria. Especially after 3 months. You will no longer be tired, you can do high intensity workouts and have increased endurance. The primary mediator of that is the affect of the diet on the mitochondria. From an athletic perspective the keto adapted state is critically dependent on the mitochondrial response.

16:50 After keto adaptation it seems that the actual BHOB values don't matter as much to how you feel and perform. Is that because you are running directly off of free fatty acids.

You should still be using ketones for some things. Your brain will still be oxidizing ketones. The urine ketone strips are a little iffy. You should register above 1 mM if you've adapted. The best measure of adaptation is how you feel and perform.

18:40 Do you know of any other quantitative measurements?

The blood meters are pretty good. Urinary a distant second.

19:00 Deep ketosis?

The number one factor in the level of ketosis and how easy getting in is patient history. The duration you've been on the diet. It is a direct reflection of their mitochondrial performance.

20:20 Calorie math?

Probably more than 4 lbs of muscle has been formed in 1 month where 15 lbs were gained on a ketogenic diet. Water weight gained would be low because you are ketogenic. Being an ketogenic athlete does amazing things for nutrient partitioning.

21:40 What about salts after the transition period?

When you switch to low carb it involves abandoning industrial processed foods which have a lot of salts. Without the carbohydrates you don't have much insulin which means you waste body salts a bit. This is magnified in a ketogenic state.

23:02 Insulin is more fat promoting than muscle building.

If you infuse just a small amount of insulin cells will completely stop fatty acid utilization. This small amount of insulin is much smaller than the amount required to build muscle or store salts.

23:50 What about gut function and thyroid function.

Gut stuff isn't in the book. Gut biome thrives on carbohydrates which are absent on a ketogenic diet. This doesn't bode well for gut health. The patch for this is fermented foods like sauerkraut, pickles, kefier. If you experience gut problems, bloating or constipation you really should consider fermented foods.

26:44 I started on a resistant starch protocol from feedtheanimal blog. Take potato starch with the fermented foods as prebiotic. Mix the PS with MCT oil. If I don't have gut health issues no reason to do it?

If you don't have gut health issues don't supplement. Only needed if there is a concern.

28:07 Talking about thyroid. Carbohydrates are not necessary. If you have symptoms of hypothyroid it is because of energy deficit. Keto diets are notorious for spontaneous energy reduction. Adequate calories and fat with weight maintenance should not be experiencing thyroid issues.

30:20 The healing properties of ketones seems to be incredible. Ketone salts are very interesting.

I just did a blog post about that in a recent blog post. When you infuse ketones into cells there is a huge increase in power output. Ketones are a super fuel.

32:15 If you want to experiment with the ketogenic diet you have to go longer than a month. The first week is difficult and athletic performance will take a hit.

33:20 What about re-feeds?

Carb re-feeds are unnecessary aside from emotional or psychological support. If you are in an energy deficit for too long you might want to ensure you get adequate calories.

34:47 I've avoided libido issues by eating a lot every 14 days or so.

Females might experience amenorrhea and may not cycle which is a normal response to energy deprivation. There are a few intervention studies I've posted on my blog. Testosterone levels increase with saturated fat.

37:20 Do you follow the lipid issues with low carb diets?

Trigs go down with decreased carb intake.

39:10 I prefer zetia to statins for cholesterol lowering drugs. I think high HDL is most improtant.

My personal quest is to remove omega 6 from my diet.

40:00 The benefits of that alone are tremendous. These oils are usually oxidized before consumption. Raw nuts probably are not so bad. Its better to get rid of vegitable oils.

41:02 Have you heard the theory that omega 6 are pro inflation resolution?

The major mediators are going to be the omega 3 from fish. There have been cell and animal studies about omega 6 but I think it will be omega 3s. I don't see a need for omega 6 in the diet.

43:22 Saturated fat is quite resistant to oxidative stress, so it is a good way to reduce oxidative stress in the body.

43:40 May readers send you questions.

I'm on twitter at caloriesproper you can email me at drlagakos at gmail or you could go directly to the website and leave a comment.

Keto Thanksgiving

In the spirit of the Holidays share what you ate for Thanksgiving, even if it was a cheat.
We did a small keto dinner here is what we had on our table.
Herb Buttered Turkey
Cauliflower Mash Potatoes
Mushroom Gravy
Salad
Keto Stuffing wet and dry
Asparagus
Keto Cranberry Sauce
Keto Pumpkin Pie
Baby Bell Cheese
Aged Decanted Red Burgundy from my collection
Younger Rhone White from my collection

Ah, what I miss most from pre Keto days is all the wine I used to drink. My bottles are going to peak before I can drink them all :(

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Getting Faster on a Day Off

Today I'm letting my body soak in the last two weeks of pounding, 200 miles worth. To keep myself entertained and not thinking about another 100 miles due later this week I finally made a serious attempt to contact Bill Fanselow, a team USA mountain runner and a total animal based on his results. But as importantly, he also happens to live just across town from me. But his page wouldn't let my send him a friend request -I didn't realize you could do that! So I sent him a message and hopefully will hear back. I also gave the only phone number I found via internet stalking a cold-call and left a message..
Not sure what kind of person he is. Judging by his Facebook page of 16 friends and single digits for things he "likes" I might be wasting my time trying to contact him. But sure enough one of his few sacred likes was Peter Attia's Eating Academy page, maybe he's a low carber?! And maybe that's my conversation starter with this hermit of a distance phenom.
Both of us being low carb should be enough to base a friendship on in my book!

-G. Anthony Kunkel

The Cracklin Quest

US Wellness meats just announced they are selling pork skins from pastured pigs.
Salt and Pepper
BBQ
While it is a gigantic health step above all the store bought brands I'm holding out for a non pork option. I put it on their suggested products list along with making them as meaty cracklings instead of just the rinds.
Fingers Crossed.
It probably won't be commercially available for decades to come but GMO has the potential to make pigs healthy:

"We have introduced the humanized version
of the fat-1 gene into pigs by somatic cells nuclear transfer (Lai et al., 2006; Li et
al., 2006). The fat-1 pigs not only have a 3 fold increase n-3 PUFAs, but also reduce
their n-6 PUFAs by 25% since the FAT-1 protein effectively converts n-6 PUFAs into
n-3 PUFAs in those pigs. As a result, the n-6/n-3 ratio has been reduced 5-fold (from
8.52 to 1.69) compared to the control pigs. We have also found that all the tissues
tested from the fat-1 transgenic pigs (heart, muscle, liver, kidney, spleen, brain, skin
and tongue) showed much lower n-6/n-3 ratios than control pigs, indicating that the
fat-1 gene is expressed well in most tissues (Lai et al., 2006; Li et al., 2006)."
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/ncmh/BGER/pdf/volume_25/11-Prather.pdf

Moving on to lambs. I just received a big order of grass fed organ meats from Dakota Harvest Farm
Yummy!
US Wellness has become so popular that they are often sold out of my favorite products.

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A Call for Questions

RunKeto is getting an opportunity to question prominent low carb researcher Dr. William Lagakos. Author of The Poor Misunderstood Calorie a book hailed by Dr Noakes as "The third book in Diet Trinity: 1. Atkins - The Diet Revolution. 2. Good Calories Bad Calories. 3. The Poor Misunderstood Calorie"

If you have any questions about obesity, inflammation, insulin, or energy balance comment below and we will get Dr. Lagakos to answer them.

His website is http://caloriesproper.com/

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Weight Results First Month

First a little background. I'm not a neophyte to lifting weights. I've lifted regularly year round since 2004 and lifted periodically back to 1998. That being said, I haven't lifted specifically for hypertrophy since 2009. Here are some of my lifts at the start and finish of my first month of keto lifting.

		20 Reps
	10/11/13	11/11/13
Shrugs	170	270
Barbell Curl	40	50
Leg Press	330	420

Deadlift increased from 1 @ 230 to 3 @ 245

What has this done to my body composition?

Well my waist to hip ratio has gone from .87 to .88 which indicates my %BF has increased :(

Clearly I've put on a ton of mass. 14.5 lbs = 3.63 lbs / week. I know that most of it is water weight but I can't imagine gaining more than 1 lb of muscle per week, and the waist hip ratio increasing probably indicates I gained about the same amount of fat per week.

In regards to calories in calories out, all of this doesn't make any sense. I've been eating slightly more than usual but not an extra 1000 calories a day.

It will be interesting to see what happens in the next month.

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Internet Foods and Weightlifting

Did you know you can order food off of Amazon? I've been doing it for a while now but I was shocked when I first learned from my housemate that she orders Macadamia nuts online. It seems totally obvious now. LOL. So if you are looking to add some variety to your keto diet here are a few switch ups you can make to liven things up. Skip to the bottom to read about weight lifting.

Keto Standard -> Keto Mixup

Erythritol  / Stevia -> Monk Fruit Sweetener (Lo Han Guo)
This is Wheat Belly Dr. William Davis favorite new sweetener. Coincidentally UCAN just came out with a new flavor using this sweetener. I think it has a sort of caramel like after taste. Use the powdered from for baking approximately 1/2 cup for every 1 cup of sugar. Use the liquid drops for coffee and beverages. Using it does not cause my blood ketones to drop. Be wary of brands that add in other nonketo sweeteners!

Nut / Peanut / Coconut Butters -> Peanut Powder (flour, defatted)
The biggest problem with nut butters is that they have tons of inflammatory omega 6 fats. You can mix peanut flour with the oil of your choice and have peanut butter with the fat profile of your chosen oil. I really like using avocado oil and mct oil. Avocado oil doesn't have any aftertaste. 1/4 cup oil to 1 cup flour makes identical peanut butter. Can be used to flavor fat coffee or baked goods too. Try light tasting olive oil, macadamia oil. Unfortunately the peanut powder still has saponins which can punch holes in your gut just like gluten. Unless you are going crazy overload you should be fine.

Cocoa Powder -> Carob Flour
It tastes better now then it did in the 70 and 80s :) . Cocoa powder is high in phytic acid which blocks micro-nutrient absorption so you probably don't want to be pounding it all the time. If you buy it dutched the phytic acid is removed but so are all the nice polyphenols with their associated health benefits. Carob powder adds the same chocolaty taste to your fat coffee (or use it like the peanut powder above) without the acidity of bakers chocolate. Unfortunately just as with the dutched chocolate it is devoid of polyphenols and has no phytic acid. A little more carby than cocoa (still keto friendly!), very little fat or protein, so it makes for a good flavor agent without screwing up your protein fast. If your into that.

Pork Skins -> Fish Maw
I've talked about this one a lot. Same texture but no omega 6. Fish Maw is 100% collagen. You can also put it in soup and it will take on the same texture (and taste) as shark fin (has no taste o.O ) .

Gelatin / Arrowroot ->  Konjac / Glucomannan Flour
This is the same stuff that is in Shiritake Noodles (Nooodle / Miracle Noodle). It is 100% resistant starch. In case you missed all the hoopla about RS it is one of the best foods for controlling blood sugar. You can replace arrowroot flour in any recipe with 1/10 the amount of konjac. It can be used to make the filling of your pies and custards gel up. I haven't tried yet but I bet you could make your own race day shot blocks with this stuff.

Weightlifting:
So after getting both my parents on the Paleo bandwagon I convinced them to start some weight training. For the last 12 weeks I've been joining them with their POWER LIFTING ex Mr. Universe, ex Worlds Strongest Man, trainer. I've been cajoled into using the winter off season to train for a novice natural physique competition. (This is what it looks like - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR45Rma2TNM) The trainer is totally on board with me doing this all keto. I've been keeping detailed notes, measurements, and pictures and will be blogging about my progress. Build muscle and cut fat at the same time? Hell ya it can be done, keto style!

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An Extra Benefit of Ketogenic Eating

When looking forward and looking at stage races, another obvious advantage of being keto pops up. Fat is (approximately) 9 calories per gram, and carbs are only 4. Assuming 100% dehydration (impossible) of pastas, fruits, and other carby stage racing staples, the best you could hope for on a 75+% carb diet is about 4.2 grams per calorie, assuming your also consuming some protein (also 4 calories per gram).
A ketogenic athlete can average well over 5 calories per gram (again assuming an impossible 100% dehydration, made less impossible by the fact that oils contain pure energy and no water). If you pack something like grassland beef's (grass fed) pemmican then that'll net you over 4.7 calories per gram by itself and taste good still. Add some grass fed butter/tallow and mct oil gruel to that and you'll be comfortably above 5.5 cal/gram.

So lets say you're carrying 7 days of food, a minimum of 14,000 calories:
-best case scenario for a high-carber (freeze dried meals) is just over 4 cal/gram, maybe 4.2 cal/gram ->so 7.35 pounds of food for 7 days
-reasonable case for a keto athlete (pemmican with added oils and baked kale chips for micro nutrients) could be right around 6 cal/gram ->so 5.14 pounds of food for 7 days

->>So if my math is correct 2.21 pounds saved on total pack weight! And you would have a palatable meal plan in my book, albeit a bit spartan.

I'm looking hopefully at numbers like these as I start looking at stage racing as my next logical option. I naturally have excellent recovery and my body feels better running the day after a heavy training day than it does the day before, and since removing carbs I've enjoyed even faster recovery from hard races. I seems like I'm destined to get into this type of running since I:
-want to be competitive
-am not fast enough on the accents or shorter stuff to make that my focus
-don't want to get into 100's and beyond until I'm older and slower
-recover very quickly and have never been injury-prone
-enjoy planning out the logistics

The only part that doesn't fit me perfectly with stage racing is the cost. So if you thought this post was an interesting take on low-carb athletics, please help me race the Atacama Crossing by donating a few dollars and then stay tuned for my podium-finish post about the race!

Roulade Flank Steak

Could I take it to work and call it a wrap?

Keto Key Lime Pie

This one is personal size. On a larger one there is a cookie crumble crust to go with it.

One Pot Meal: Pressure Cooked Short Ribs

Pressure cooking saves you tons of time.