VO2 Max
I've been convinced lately that a low-carb/high fat diet is an excellent way to deliver great performance. Recently I had my performance tested at Athleticamps in Folsom, CA. They are a very professional outfit serving the competitive cycling community. Bruce is a USA Cycling coach and worked at UC Davis for years in their athletic performance department. At the end of my VO2Max session he is looking at my data, then started to ask questions about when the last time I ate, what I ate etc. Then I told him that I was a very low-carb athlete. I saw the light bulb go on! He said that my CO2 was really low for the level of effort I was putting out. This makes sense due to the fact that I'm not burning glycogen, but oxidizing fat for the effort. So in a way, my diet is saving the planet from too much CO2. For reference, my VO2 max was 4.42 L/min, 61.5 mL/kg/min and my power was 4.2W/kg. The 61.5 number is about the 98th percentile for my age group, however the watts/kg was not as high as I hoped. This will be my focus during the off-season training, to increase my power to weight ratio. Stay tuned for next years numbers.
Fondo Fun
This past weekend (Oct 5th 2103), I rode in Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo. I signed up for the Medio or metric century in Jan, well before I had completed any centuries, so parting my normal extreme nature, I chose a shorter route. It was a tough course with a 1.6 mile climb including portions of 12% grade. I finished pretty strong with gas in the tank. The last thing I ate was In-n-Out protein-style double-double the night before. I got up at 6am and rode 8 miles to the start line by 7:15am. Water in 2 bottles for the ride and some electrolytes at the 45 mile rest stop. I finished at 11:30am in 38th place out of 1413 men, in my 45-49 category with 190 men, I finished 7th. Nearly all of my competitors were on the high-carb plan. The rest stops were stocked heavily with fruit, sugary drinks, GU packs, muffins (cake), potatoes and other sorts of carbs. I watched many people stuff muffins in their faces as they rode off. I got water and rode. It seemed a simpler way to fuel, bring my ~86,000 KCal (kilo calories, most people just say calories) that my body has available in the way of fat. I had 9.5KG's of fat in my body comp test multiplied by 9 KCal per gram of fat. 9500 x 9 = 85,500, enough fuel for me to ride fasted for days. The Fondo took about 2800 KCal's to complete, so I had plenty in the bank. Another huge advantage is that oxidizing fat produces 34 ATP vs. 2-4 ATP with glycogen metabolism, so I get much much more bang for the buck burning fat than carbs. The Dr. Peter Attia video below entitled The Advantaged Metabolic State goes into the detail of how this works.
I've been convinced lately that a low-carb/high fat diet is an excellent way to deliver great performance. Recently I had my performance tested at Athleticamps in Folsom, CA. They are a very professional outfit serving the competitive cycling community. Bruce is a USA Cycling coach and worked at UC Davis for years in their athletic performance department. At the end of my VO2Max session he is looking at my data, then started to ask questions about when the last time I ate, what I ate etc. Then I told him that I was a very low-carb athlete. I saw the light bulb go on! He said that my CO2 was really low for the level of effort I was putting out. This makes sense due to the fact that I'm not burning glycogen, but oxidizing fat for the effort. So in a way, my diet is saving the planet from too much CO2. For reference, my VO2 max was 4.42 L/min, 61.5 mL/kg/min and my power was 4.2W/kg. The 61.5 number is about the 98th percentile for my age group, however the watts/kg was not as high as I hoped. This will be my focus during the off-season training, to increase my power to weight ratio. Stay tuned for next years numbers.
Fondo Fun
This past weekend (Oct 5th 2103), I rode in Levi Leipheimer's Gran Fondo. I signed up for the Medio or metric century in Jan, well before I had completed any centuries, so parting my normal extreme nature, I chose a shorter route. It was a tough course with a 1.6 mile climb including portions of 12% grade. I finished pretty strong with gas in the tank. The last thing I ate was In-n-Out protein-style double-double the night before. I got up at 6am and rode 8 miles to the start line by 7:15am. Water in 2 bottles for the ride and some electrolytes at the 45 mile rest stop. I finished at 11:30am in 38th place out of 1413 men, in my 45-49 category with 190 men, I finished 7th. Nearly all of my competitors were on the high-carb plan. The rest stops were stocked heavily with fruit, sugary drinks, GU packs, muffins (cake), potatoes and other sorts of carbs. I watched many people stuff muffins in their faces as they rode off. I got water and rode. It seemed a simpler way to fuel, bring my ~86,000 KCal (kilo calories, most people just say calories) that my body has available in the way of fat. I had 9.5KG's of fat in my body comp test multiplied by 9 KCal per gram of fat. 9500 x 9 = 85,500, enough fuel for me to ride fasted for days. The Fondo took about 2800 KCal's to complete, so I had plenty in the bank. Another huge advantage is that oxidizing fat produces 34 ATP vs. 2-4 ATP with glycogen metabolism, so I get much much more bang for the buck burning fat than carbs. The Dr. Peter Attia video below entitled The Advantaged Metabolic State goes into the detail of how this works.
Dr. Peter Attia MD
Conventional wisdom says you need to eat carbs to exercise. As many know, that's not true. But how low carb can you go -- and are there even benefits from eating extremely low carb?
Peter Attia is a medical doctor and an endurance athlete. He's learned from the world's biggest experts on keto-adaptation (such as Dr Stephen Phinney) and in the last few years he has relentlessly experimented on himself.
Here Dr Attia shares his insights on very low carb (ketogenic) diets and physical and mental performance.
Peter Attia is a medical doctor and an endurance athlete. He's learned from the world's biggest experts on keto-adaptation (such as Dr Stephen Phinney) and in the last few years he has relentlessly experimented on himself.
Here Dr Attia shares his insights on very low carb (ketogenic) diets and physical and mental performance.
Peter Attia is a relentless self-experimenter, obsessed with the idea of a "quantified self." In the presentation he will share two components of his physical transformation as he evolved from "fit but fat and metabolically deranged" to "fit, lean, and metabolically dialed in." In particular, Peter will focus on the possible advantages of a ketogenic diet, and in the process share much of what he's learned implementing it in himself and hundreds of others over the past two years.
Does low carb inhibit performance at higher levels?
Here is a great research paper that proves there is no reduction in explosive performance due to a ketogenic diet.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411406/?report=classic
But for those who don't want to read research papers, here is the summary:
Conclusions
Despite concerns of coaches and doctors about the possible detrimental effects of low carbohydrate diets on athletic performance and the well known importance of carbohydrates there are no data about very low carbohydrate ketogenic diets (VLCKD) and strength performance. The undeniable and sudden effect of VLCKD on fat loss may be useful for those athletes who compete in sports based on weight class. We have demonstrated that using VLCKD for a relatively short time period (i.e. 30days) can decrease body weight and body fat without negative effects on strength performance in high level athletes.
Here is a great research paper that proves there is no reduction in explosive performance due to a ketogenic diet.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3411406/?report=classic
But for those who don't want to read research papers, here is the summary:
Conclusions
Despite concerns of coaches and doctors about the possible detrimental effects of low carbohydrate diets on athletic performance and the well known importance of carbohydrates there are no data about very low carbohydrate ketogenic diets (VLCKD) and strength performance. The undeniable and sudden effect of VLCKD on fat loss may be useful for those athletes who compete in sports based on weight class. We have demonstrated that using VLCKD for a relatively short time period (i.e. 30days) can decrease body weight and body fat without negative effects on strength performance in high level athletes.