Low Carb, Higher Fat - 'Fat Adaptation' For Athletes

Low Carb, Higher Fat.  For some of you simple uttering those words sparks alarm bells.  How can a diet high in fat possibly be good for you?!  For others, you may be more familiar with the Low Carb, Higher Fat approach that is starting to catch on and a select few practitioners of nutritional medicine are breathing a sigh of relief that this way of eating is gaining more traction in conventional medical circles.  'Low' carbohydrate may be defined as anywhere from 10 grams to 150 grams of carbohydrate per day.  There is no set daily fat intake on a LCHF lifestyle.  Once adequate protein is taken into account, fat kilojoules are added to make up individual energy requirements.

For years, many people in the western world have followed the traditional 'Health Food Pyramid' based eating pattern, believing it to be the "panacea for wellness".   Fat was demonised and carbohydrates promoted as the key to good health.  Sadly, societies who embraced this protocol are now faced with a rapid deterioration in the health status of their population and the onset of metabolic decline at a younger age.  Totally avoidable lifestyle diseases such obesity, diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer's to name just a few, are all on the increase.  So clearly what we have been doing isn't working.  It's time to think outside of the square, and maybe a LCHF lifestyle is the means of achieving renewed health and vitality.  You heard right!  Eating FAT is going to save us!

It is now widely recognised that chronic inflammation is a major contributing factor in almost every modern day medical condition.  Inflammation is a body's natural response to injury, infection and stress.  A pro-inflammatory response also occurs in response to certain food groups, especially highly refined carbohydrate.  Acute inflammatory responses are tiggered by the immune system, the body's internal security guard, border patrol and ED doctor.  However we are now living in a world where stress is an accepted and expected part of everday living.  There's simply too much to do and too little time to do it.  Add to this our love affair with processed carbohydrates i.e. breads, pastries, pasta, biscuits, noodles, cakes, lollies, sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, soft drinks and so called energy drinks and you are left with a ticking time bomb in the form of an inundated immune system, chronic inflammation and severely fluctuating/rollercoaster blood sugar levels.  And if you are sitting there thinking 'well I'm an athlete.  I train hard and need the energy so I can get away with eating any/all of the above...'  Think again.  Exercise has numerous benefits, it does not give you a 'get out of jail free card'!

As athletes we have trained, competed and lived by the day to day notion that carbohydrates are essential for energy.  We have been taught that we can only store glucose, as glycogen, in our muscles and liver and that this will only provide us with enough energy for approximately 2 hours of moderate exercise.  When muscle becomes depleted of carbohydrate, exercise intensity decreases to a level determined by the body's ability to burn fat, so we tuck into our stash of gels and sports drinks to avoid the dreaded 'wall' and keep our exercise output up.  We get back from training 'starving' and set about demolishing everything in sight.  My go-to was toast, cereal, coke and custard squares.  I'd stuff myself then do it all again a couple of hours later, because once again I was pretty hungry!  My metabolism, I thought, was 'though the roof!'

What was really going on inside my body?  I was on the already mentioned blood sugar rollercoaster of high blood glucose and subsequent insulin release.  Combine this with:
(a) an immune system initiating inflammatory responses left, right and centre
(b) the addictive effects of sugar and wheat telling my brain it wanted another hit
(c) a digestive system struggling to cope with the copious amounts of food being thrown at it and...
(d) the increased cortisol circulation following exercise further contributing to high blood glucose.
 

Of course I was totally warranted in wanting to sleep the afternoon away!  I thought it made perfect sense.  I'd just completed a tough session.  Not once did the thought cross my mind that the main reason I felt 'so smashed!' was not from the workout, but from what I had just been feeding myself before, during and after training.

The body loves balance, equilibrium or homeostasis.  Call it what you will.  Our body will do everything in its power to maintain its pre-set levels: temperature, hormones, blood glucose, etc.  This takes a great deal of energy, especially in todays environment where we are exposed to both external (exogenous) and internal (endogenous) toxins every minute of the day.  If we don't listen to our bodies, the balance will start to tip and signs of compromised health and vitality can start to creep in.  Unfortunately, many of us are so out of tune with our own systems, that we don't recognise these symptoms for what they are.  Feeling smashed, irritable, depressed and anxious, along with chronic aches or pains and nagging colds or coughs is NOT normal!

Nowadays, the average New Zealander is consuming roughly 60 kilograms of sugar per year and we are only talking about added sugar here!  Compare that to our ancestors of even the not so ancient variety, our grandparents grandparents, who consumed no more than about 2 kilograms per year!  In fact, in the past 30 years alone, worldwide sugar consuptiom has increased a whopping 46%!
When we consume a daily diet high in carbohydrate, every day we ride the glycaemic rollercoaster.  Every day the pancreas works hard producing and secreting insulin to restore resting blood sugar levels.  Every day the insulin receptors receive a knock at the door and the muscles open the flood gates to yet another truckload of glucose with the liver left to deal with the excess.  The liver converts the excess to fat and sends it off to the fat cells where it's 'stored for a rainy day' or times of food shortage!

Thank goodness food shortage mostly isn't an issue today.  After only a few short hours without food, our sugar-burning bodies start to freak out.  We can't think, we're starving and we get HANGRY!  Which begs the question, just how did we get to the 21st century if we can't even contemplate the thought of training on an empty stomach, let alone a famine?

We have a staggering amount of fat stored as energy within our bodies.  Even the leanest individual with 10% body fat and weighing 60 kilograms has 54 000 kilojoules (calories) of stored fat!  This is what got our ancestors through times of food shortage.  They were able to tap into this fuel supply with great efficiency, unlike us.  We now have access to food 24/7.  Highly refined carbohydrates are cheap, they fill you up (for all but a short period of time) and make you feel good.  Carbohydrates release serotonin, the body's feel-good hormone.  The brain makes the connection between food and feeling good and sends messages telling us to consume more carbohydrate which can result in overconsumption of these macronutrients, a potential extra 400 kilojoules per day to simply satisfy such sugar cravings!  As already discussed, the liver will send this excess to the fat cells for storage.  This is obviously not ideal for those hill climbs!  On top of this is the fact that glucose is easily converted to energy and so, in abundance, this is the form of energy the body will choose.  We are thorough-'bread' ( excuse the pun) sugar-burners!

The implications of this for anyone, athletes included, is a total reliance on carbohydrates for energy.  As we diligently ensure we keep our 'energy' levels topped up by regular feeding throughout the day, our bodies never have a chance to adapt to using an alternative energy source, i.e. fat!  So when faced with a potentially life threatening situation of no food, like when your bag of gels flops out of your back pocket without you realising and you start to feel the telltale signs of dwindling 'energy'/glycogen supplies, the dreaded wall appears and you hit it with a BONK.  What would happen though if our bodies were more accustomed to tapping into our abundant supply of fat for energy production?

As already discussed, our ability to exercise beyond the point of carbohydrate depletion is limited by our body's capacity to mobilise and burn fat as fuel.  An average sugar-burning athlete is able to achieve a peak fat oxidation rate of approximately 0.5 grams per minute or 270 kilojoules (calories) per hour.  A 'fat adapted' athlete on the other hand, can potentially achieve over and above three times this rate of fat metabolism.  Elite ultra-runners following a LCHF eating plan (10 grams of carbohydrate/day) achieved levels of 1.8 grams per minute in the recent FASTER study (Fat Adapted Substrate use in Trained Elite Runners - Jeff Volek, 2015).  That's a massive 972 kilojoules (calories) per hour.  The fat-burners reached this point at a higher relative intensity, 70% of maximum oxygen consumption (VO₂ max) compared to the sugar-burners who achieved their peak fat oxidation at 55% VO₂ max respectively.  So what are the implications of these results and why should you want to give 'fat adaptation' whirl?

What the FASTER study shows is that 'fat adapted' athletes are able to perform at a higher intensity whilst utilising fat for energy, thus having a sparing effect on glycogen stores which can be put to good use in those final few kilometres or sprint finish!  'Fat adapted' athletes are less reliant on carbohydrates for performance which places less importance on carbohydrate fueling during training and racing.  For those of you who suffer from gastro-intestinal (GI) complaints or struggle trying to get enough fuel on board to sustain your performance this is pretty exciting news.  Instead of force feeding yourselves with gels and sugary sports drinks, wasting time crouched in a bush or trying to 'run' hunched over to alleviate stomach cramps and you can ignore conventional guidelines to consume at least 1 gram of carbohydrate per kilogram of body weight per hour and simply let your body do what it has evolutionally been designed to do and that is burn fat.  Even if you don't experience GI issues, when having to fuel at regular intervals your body must digest this 'food' and so diverts energy towards the digestion process, thus lowering the amount of energy available for both your muscles and brain to maintain desired levels of performance.

This principle of energy diversion towards digestion continues into the recovery process.  As we know, exercise is a form of stress.  Sore muscles indicate muscle fiber damage and promote acute inflammatory responses from the immune system.  Given the right post-training conditions the body will seek to repair, renew and expel metabolites in order to strengthen its systems to enable it to better deal with future stress, i.e. your next training session.  However, if you finish your training session and then spend the rest of the day eating every couple of hours your body will be kept busy breaking down food, secreting enzymes, absorbing nutrients, maintaining blood glucose and keeping things moving through your gut.  This is of primary concern for your body as food left sitting 'unattended' will quickly start to cause problems.  Bloating and gas caused by fermentation of partially broken down food particles along with constipation, diarrhea and reabsorption of toxins from the colon will give your body even more to deal with.  Of less concern will be the processes required for efficient recovery.  Therefore consuming a diet high in carbohydrate, illiciting the blood sugar rollercoaster response requiring you to eat every few hours post training will negatively impact the time and quality of your recovery.
 

It is well known that aerobic activity increases production of free radicals in the body.  But what isn't so well known is that carbohydrates when burned for energy both during exercise and at rest are a major source of free radicals (via the production of advanced glycation end products).  According to Jeff Volek and Stephen Phinney from the FASTER study, these free radicals go on to wreak havoc in the body causing further inflammation that overwhelm systemic anti-oxidant defenses leading to impaired immune function and loss of gastro-intestinal integrity.  In contrast fat is a much 'cleaner' burning fuel resulting in less free radical production.  Therefore Volek and Phinney advocate the use of a "well formulated low carbohydrate diet" to reduce oxidative stress and inflammation and maintain better gut and immune functions.

While fat is a very necessary part of a healthy approach to eating, not all dietary fats are created equal.  Healthy fat in the form of omega-3s, mono-unsaturated oils and saturated fat from healthy grass fed animals are all anti-inflammatory in nature.  They will help to offset free radical damage and chronic inflammation speeding recovery and increasing your ability to get back out there the next day full of beans (or healthy fat and delicious greens).  Highly refined vegetable oils such as soyabean, sunflower and rice bran oils along with hydrogenated oil or trans fats found in condiments, muesli bars, margarine and store-bought baking have deletorious effects on our health.  In many processed products high levels of preservatives, synthetic flavourings, colours and emulsifiers accompany these harmful fats and pose just as much threat to our health.  All of a sudden my gels and jetplanes, coke and custard squares don't seem to fit into the profile of a fit, fast, injury-free athlete.

Let me rattle off a final few benefits of a LCHF lifestyle.  You will decrease your risk factors for nearly every chronic disease out there by simply reducing inflammation in your body.  You will experience better hormonal regulation which equals happy, healthy adrenals, decreased levels of fatigue, anxiety and depression.  Your brain will love you for all the healthy, neural activity promoting, anti-inflammatory fats you are now incorporating in your diet, you might even feel more intelligent!

As you significantly reduce the amount of insulin being produced in response to carbohydrate consumption, insulin inhibited fat oxidation will now be able to take place and those last few kilos that you could never seem to shake no matter how hard you trained will drop off just like that!  Your skin will clear up and become radiant due to decreased blood sugar levels which in excess cause over stimulation of sebrum secreting endothelial cells causing acne.  'HANGRY' outbursts will be a thing of the past, you won't have to think about food 24/7 due to the satiating effects of healthy fat and you'll become a nicer person to be around!  Not only might you unleash your full athletic potential but it might just translate into other areas of your life too.  I know it did for me.  I found my happy place in a bowl full of coconut cream, chia pudding with blueberries and avocado and a couple of pieces of super dark, delicious chocolate as my spoon!

And my blood work, you might ask?! Perfect!