To summarize this post: I ate some ice cream two weeks prior, it caused some fat gain, I'm doing keto for 2-3 weeks and then adding carbs back in once I start lifting again (80-140g carbs a day).
I've recently been reading some articles from Danny Roddy and Anthony Colpo who are both firmly in the camp of higher carb diets. Anthony frequently makes fun of the LCing people, especially LCing athletes.
Reading their differing views also makes me question my views on carbohydrates, which changed a couple of months ago. Previously when I was in keto, I thought that eventually my body would become "keto-adapted", and that I would regain my athletic ability that I initially lost when switching to keto. I never regained my performance, and after getting a little freaked out about hypothroidism by reading some stuff by Matt Stone, I decided to add some carbs back in.
From that point on I've decided that for those engaging in athletic activities, be it strength or endurance, that carbs are a good thing. But I also think that for many people, who don't engage in athletics, that carbs aren't necessarily warranted in their diet. Like many LC people recommend, 60-100g would be fine for them to consume. I also think that there is some truth to the whole "metabolically damaged" thought out there, that some people's insulin receptors are not quite working optimally, or would handle a high carb diet well. I feel that going LC, then VLC/keto possibly reduced the number of insulin receptors throughout my body, and therefore made my body more insulin sensitive. This is all speculation of course. Warm fuzzy thoughts to help me sleep at night.
Anyway, before leaving for Germany I decided to add a greater amount of carbs to my diet, that instead of just eating fruit, I'd add in probably a little under a half-pound of potatoes a day, which I later switched to ice cream. The ice cream idea was still in my head from earlier, when I experimented with ice cream PWO, and also from hearing Danny Roddy talk about how Ray Peat eats ice cream (it seems to me that Ray is the only person Danny reads due to how often he cites him, but I guess it's no different than other paleo bloggers who can't actually do their own first hand research - but I digress).
I did this for around two weeks I'd say, with some intermittent lifting (throwing rocks, one back day complete with romanian deadlifts, sumo deadlifts, and 600lb tractor tire flipping), although my activity level was definitely lower than normal. At first I noticed that my muscles seemed to be denser, that they took up more volume, but that could of been myself seeing what I wanted. After the first week, I noticed that my abdominal fat was getting a little more soft, and by the end of the second week there was definitely more of it there.
I didn't really change the fats in my diet, if anything I reduced them trying to keep my calories the same, but since I didn't record anything, this was just qualitative, instead of quantitative.
After that, I decided that I was going to go keto until I find a gym in Germany, which will probably be two or three weeks, as I want to find a gym close to where I'll be living (although finding a serious gym is proving difficult - I definitely got lucky last time when I was living in Freiburg). Probably my main goal is to lean out a bit, kind of undo what the ice cream did, but a second is just to be in keto. If nothing else I like the idea of running off fats, maybe for the shock factor I get when I tell people what I eat, or when they see what I cook. Then there is also the high energy in keto that I've grown to like. For me, it's fun to be in keto.
One thing is that I kind of see the dangers in being in keto all the time, being that it can lead to hypothyroidism and other such disturbances in hormone levels. That's also the one reason I've decided to do it for a short time, that I think that the problems of keto can't really manifest themselves over the course of two or three weeks.
Once I find a gym and start lifting, I'll be adding carbs back in, around 50g every morning for breakfast, and another 50g post workout, with maybe around 30-40g coming from other vegetable sources. I will very rarely be eating fruit, and won't include it in my diet until it comes back into season.
