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Comment by wslh | Hacker News Reader

Just yesterday I mentioned here that I train for (olympic) triathlons [1], and in the context of that and this thread I need to eat much more because I lose significant weight AND, I feel much more nervous if I fast, and I am not a nervous person.

If I am not training I have the capacity to easily fast, not issue at all with fasting, not because I follow any intermittent fasting diet, just it is the way it is. Only sample=1 but I never observed any special enhanced cognition doing that while I observe an enhanced cognition function with very basic things like sleeping well.

One more thing, I also find an improvement in cognition more with running than with swimming or biking. There are many studies about that but I give my personal experience not trying to give any conclusion for everyone. YMMV.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40533944

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great going and good on you for your health BUT endurance athletics represents only an important but tiny fraction of the lives of adults. General conversation around health, fitness and tuning is easily derailed by outliers and insufficient context!! office workers with weak backs and wrists end up arguing with 20+ hour a week gym people over some aspect of diet, and then they talk past each other.. no problems with the comment but perspective and context are everything when talking health.

Most people in good health can practice some version of fasting with some common sense. Zero people with good health can train for "olympic triathalons" starting next week.. so a peek (peak?) at the life of a triathlete is interesting and perhaps commendable, but really needs calling out as an outlier in a general discussion.

I was clear in my comment and in a reference to a previous comment that people are different. I never recommended that you should follow my way of life but I shared some aspects of my healthy life because I considered that I am not doing any exceptional thing, healthy human-wisely.

> Zero people with good health can train for "olympic triathalons" starting next week..

Completely wrong. There are many paths to train for an olympic triathlon that doesn't start running, biking, and swimming and having the correct mindset, endurance, and physical state. It is like saying that a normal kid cannot learn certain things at elementary school. I am not a professional but an amateur.

In another comment I mentioned UK doctors (so folks closer to couch potato than ultra long distance runners) basically saying let's do this.

Photo resembles guy I saw talking in a video about it (video was newer though) - otherwise it's first Google hit for "UK doctors diabetes keto running" and I'm yet to read through the article https://www.diabetes.co.uk/blog/2018/08/gp-type-1-diabetes-r...

As mentioned video I saw was newer than the news article. In the video I think doctor was talking about events like https://www.lowcarbusa.org/pioneering-ketogenic-management-f...

There is a ton of research on this… high intensity exercise requires glycogen and cannot be done at the same level without a high carbohydrate intake. It is possible to walk almost indefinitely in ketosis, but it won’t really work for any kind of athletic competition.

Years ago I saw some YouTube videos featuring sports folks - from marathon runners, to someone row/paddling across the ocean - all of them being long term (basically permanent) on keto.

And also recently some UK doctors (some of them with diabetes - I mix the types so not sure which one) decided to prove a point by going low carb/keto, while doing long runs daily (about half marathon a day), to be sure they've definitely used up all the potentially stored glycogen.

It's pretty fascinating stuff, and totally doable. I stand corrected on the "any athletic event"- what I said doesn't apply to ultra long duration lower intensity events. Endurance will be higher but peak power outputs lower. For endurance focused events like the ones you described, I could see it being an advantage- everyone will run out of glycogen, but those already keto-adapted won't need to suddenly start trying to adapt during the event.

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