Switch it up - "Low Carb Healthy Fat" for Improved Athletic Performance

Bring it on!!

Yes, I can see you now rolling your eyes and thinking, I train really hard and need carbs for energy, LCHF will definitely not work for me.

I get it, I’ve been there. Carb loading pre workout’s, pasta parties the night before a race and the shots and gels that provide the grams per kilo per hour during the race.Not to mention the litres of flat coke that I swallowed to complete an Ironman Triathlon in a respectable time for a 40yr old!

The AIS is still recommending 300g plus of carbs daily, with more on training days and even more on race day….REALLY?

How do you get the essential proteins and fats in, with that many carbs, without busting the calories into next week?

20 years later, I no longer agree with these guidelines. Modern science is telling a different story and a lot of athletes prepared to make the switch to LCHF are reaping the benefits;

• Chris Froome, legendary cyclist, dropped his carbs, lost 20 lbs and then won the Tour 3 times.

• LeBron James and Vinny Guadagnino are advocates, as is cricketer Shane Watson

• The NZ All Blacks won the World Cup with dramatically reduced carbs.

• Zach Bitter set the 100 mile run world record in Aug 2019 training and racing on the Ketogenic diet.

I am no way hating on every carbohydrate - but they all break down in the body to glucose, another word for SUGAR right?

The problem with modern carbohydrates is they are highly refined and heavily processed. They tend to be high in gluten, additives, artificial flavours, colours, high-fructose corn syrup and unfermented processed soy. Yes, even your beloved protein bar can be a victim here.

These foods are highly inflammatory. We know that endurance and sprint sports all cause an inflammatory response within the body, so why make this worse by chowing down on inflammatory foods too!

A bit of science….When you use carbs as the main component of every meal, your blood sugar and Insulin will rise and then over the course of an hour or two plummet, leaving you HUNGRY for more, and HANGRY if you don’t get them like now!

These surges of Insulin every day, every year, can lead to metabolic problems for many of us. Think Insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver, cardiovascular disease and obesity…don’t forget insulin is our fat-storage hormone. Yes, athletes do develop these conditions, and they are not always overweight, but their body composition is not optimal, they may be TOFI - thin on the outside, fat on the inside. This is my story, endurance training up to 30hrs per week and still holding on to those pesky 2-3kgs of stubborn belly fat. WTF!!

OKAY…There is a great solution!

Most of us are walking around carrying plenty of energy in the form of BODY FAT-even your leanest athlete has at least 100,000 calories in-store available to continuously fuel the body.

How cool would it be if we could ACCESS that fat for energy, lose a few kilos of body fat whilst maintaining that valuable muscle?

Keep reading…

It’s all about getting FAT-ADAPTED…It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen!

Your goal is to become metabolically flexible so you can burn both fat and sugar when you need it, and never BONK again..Interested?

All you need is two weeks of Real Food..single ingredient, the correct macros and attention to electrolytes.

If you come unstuck and feel like crap, it will be electrolytes, we dump a lot of fluid, salt, potassium and magnesium when we stop eating processed food (yes beloved sour-dough and other grains included) so you may need to supplement to feel your best.

TRY this for starters…

• Breakfast - eggs, bacon, avocado, mushrooms on rocket (add sweet potato on training days)

• Lunch - a bunless grass-fed burger topped with cheese and avocado on a green salad with extra virgin olive oil

• Dinner - grilled salmon with broccoli and asparagus sautéed in butter.

How good is that!! If you really need to be vego, you’ll require a bit more tweaking to keep the carbs down, but it is certainly do-able.

Once fat-adapted you can explore further bio-hacks to top-shelf your performance…fasted training, nutritional ketosis, intermittent fasting, cold therapy and infra-red sauna. (YAY I do the lot and at 66 have never felt better, body fat down and energy up-winning!)

If you want to give it a go, I can give you some coaching brenda@leanco.com.au

Plus there are a heap of resources out there, including;

• Deep Nutrition-Dr Catherine Shanahan

• Wired To Eat-Rob Wolf

• Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living - Drs Phinney and Volek

• Challenging Conventional Dietary Guidelines - Prof Tim Noakes on youtube

• High-Intensity Health - a podcast with Mike Mutzel

• Dietdoctor.com

• Ditchthecarbs.com