thoughts on low carb diets?
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In reply to no-one in particular, this article following one athlete before and after a change to a very low carb (keto) diet is interesting.
http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb-diet-affected-my-athletic-performance0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »MoiAussi93 wrote: »
I agree completely. This isn't a competitive thing. Most people, other than professional athletes and Olympians, run for health, fitness, or because they enjoy it.I am definitely in the pro "lower carb" camp. I'm aiming for 30 - 35% total but try not to eat any highly refined carbs... as much as possible at least. That means no plain ol' bread and very little bread at all over the course of a week. I think I had three slices this week after many weeks of zero. No bagels (and I used to live on bagels). No tortillas as a rule. I will have some whole grain multi-grain porridge once in a while. Carbs from vegetables are ok and fruits too but more veges than fruits.
Fats I let float wherever they will go; they are usually my biggest macro. This doesn't worry me as they are generally healthy fats.
I'm losing 2kg a week, and have been for quite some time. I'm not finding the reduced carbs gets in the way of my running (I'll run more than 200km this month). I feel satiated... full even and I don't crave carbs at all.
So far the mix is working very well for me.
200km a month is nothing to write home about as a runner. It is not even at a competitive (for a rec runner) level. A lot of the studies on LCHF diets and endurance seem to use a very low V02 max.
Why so negative ?
It adds up to a little more than 6.6 km a day and is a heck of a lot more than most of the world's population runs every day. That it does not fit into the class of a High Performance Athlete does not matter, it is an excellent achievement on it's own. I would be very proud for every km/mile I ran and bet I am not the only one.
FYI, there are some professional athletes on low carb diets. If Lebron James and Ray Allen can compete at the level they do while doing low carb, I think that proves you can do low carb and not have athletic performance suffer.
I don't think it proves that at all, if people are different. It proves that THEY can, and more generally that some can.
That elite athletes so overwhelmingly still fuel with carbs, though, suggests to me that there's probably on average an advantage to doing so. One part of this may just be the total amount of calories needed, but given the likelihood that elite athletes would try any way of eating if it gave them an advantage, I still think the likely conclusion is that carbs usually are superior for this purpose.
It hardly matters, of course, as few of us are elite athletes.
I have found that my own experience running and biking longer distances and training for a half ironman is that my body tends to feel better and crave more carbs when I'm extra active. I've never done full keto, though--I just don't see the point for me--so I can't compare to that. But I do think the numbers are pretty suggestive that it would not be advantageous, although probably not harmful at my recreational (just finish) to 45 year old age group competitor mostly competing with myself kind of aspirations.
The issue comes with people being impatient. A keto-ADAPTED athlete will perform as well or better as a carb-fueled athlete, but most people who try it don't stick with it long enough to find out. They try for a week or two, notice their stamina or strength seem to have dropped, and assume that's how it works without carbs. Reality is, your body needs time to adjust. It takes at least a month, and that's assuming the person never makes a mistake that first month and eats something without realizing it has more carbs than they accounted for (or intentionally tries a cheat day), which starts the timer over again.
In terms of individual preference, whatever anyone chooses. What's irritating is when people who give up after a week or two then take it upon themselves to evangelize that it can't work for anyone, just because they did it wrong.
I don't think the current body of literature supports your claim that a keto adapted athlete performs as well or better than one who isn't. Off the top of my head only Lambert et al showed performance increases, but would love to see what other studies support your claim0 -
The issue comes with people being impatient. A keto-ADAPTED athlete will perform as well or better as a carb-fueled athlete, but most people who try it don't stick with it long enough to find out.
I don't think we know this at all, but it's also why I'm distinguishing between elite performers and the rest of us.
I think elite performers are going to take any advantage that is available (legally, at least), so that they overwhelmingly choose carb-heavy approaches suggests to me that whatever else the carbs probably do offer an advantage to most.
I agree that people obviously perform worse before they are adapted, but if keto was as good or better for actual performance I'd expect to see more using it. It's not like it's a new thing.
It clearly can work for some, though.In terms of individual preference, whatever anyone chooses. What's irritating is when people who give up after a week or two then take it upon themselves to evangelize that it can't work for anyone, just because they did it wrong.
I'm sure that's also irritating. I find the low carb evangelism irritating too, however. I do not find reasonable low carbers (like you) irritating at all, and encourage people interested in trying low carb to do so (and to do so correctly, with advice from people who have been doing it for a while).0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »It hardly matters, of course, as few of us are elite athletes.
That's a very narrow view of things.
You can hardly argue that carbs are the way to go for performance because the elites do it (not all do) and then dismiss what elites do in the very next breath.
Why? On average I think that to perform your best as an elite athlete fueling with carbs provide a benefit. The Kenyan runners eat something like 80-10-10.
Also certain training regimes work for them.
At my level of performance, a lot of the things that make a difference between them being 1st or 2nd or 10th are simply not going to make a difference for me--they would be majoring in the minors.The caloric needs of an elite runner are not that much different than an overweight plodder on the marathon course, on the tri circuit, or on any ultra course.
Given the difference in training volume, of course they are. Someone training at the level of a Kenyan runner could be eating so much that 10% of calories would not be nearly so low as it would be for me, for example, as a desk worker who trains recreationally.
Also, there are many other things I can do to improve my performance far more than worrying about whether increasing my carb percentage (beyond how it makes me feel) would improve things. These include reducing body fat percentage (so if keto helped someone do that it might be advisable, depending also on where that person is already--personally, not overweight, but also not lean like an elite runner, and don't aspire to be, and seem to be able to lose without doing low carb anyway) and getting in the miles. Training to complete a marathon or half ironman or to meet a personal goal IS quite different from training to win it.0 -
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The caloric needs of an elite runner are not that much different than an overweight plodder on the marathon course, on the tri circuit, or on any ultra course.
That's not correct, either, unless (again) we are limiting it to low-end performance standards. An "overweight plodder" has fueling/burning/metabolic issues that make it physically impossible to do what the non-overweight non-plodder can do.
The longer the duration of the activity, the more pronounced the differences.0 -
Perhaps my choice of overweight plodder example muddies the issue unnecessarily.
A 150 pound 2H30 marathoner burns through essentially the same calories as a 150 pound 3H30 recreational runner despite a massive difference in speed and reduced time on the course.
Both the elite/faster runner and the slower recreational runner, of the same weight, have a similar basic need for ~2,500 - 3,000 calories of energy to propel them through the course.
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I don't "want it to say" anything as I don't have an agenda, it's simply interesting reading, as is the rest of the blog.
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Perhaps my choice of overweight plodder example muddies the issue unnecessarily.
A 150 pound 2H30 marathoner burns through essentially the same calories as a 150 pound 3H30 recreational runner despite a massive difference in speed and reduced time on the course.
Yes.Both the elite/faster runner and the slower recreational runner, of the same weight, have a similar basic need for ~2,500 - 3,000 calories of energy to propel them through the course.
No.
The fact that they're burning calories at vastly different *rates* matters - a lot - because both access to energy stores and metabolizing intake on the fly happens at rates that are limited.
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No to your no.
In the latest example I gave, muscle and liver glycogen will be the primary fuel source for both runners. Rates differ yes, but that's irrelevant as the stores are the same for both runners.
The 5H00 marathon plodder on the other hand might well be burning a lot of fat along the way.0 -
Given the vast majority of the North American population (and many others) are not high performing or elite athletes, perhaps we could steer this conversation away from the tangential elite and high level athletic performance track the thread has taken and instead look at the benefits and drawbacks of a lower carbohydrate diet for the average Jane and Joe tuning into MFP.0
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No to your no.
In the latest example I gave, muscle and liver glycogen will be the primary fuel source for both runners. Rates differ yes, but that's irrelevant as the stores are the same for both runners.
The point is that the two combined aren't sufficient to complete the distance. And the stores will not deplete in the same way for both runners, especially if they are refueling along the way. And tertiary fat stores will play significantly different roles for each runner.
Rates matter. There's no getting around it.
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I've noticed that with LC also.soonillbehot wrote: »I do low carb diet, but not now, not during exam period.
One thing I notice is it's harder to concentrate.
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