Fleck wrote:
It’s odd that he gained weight since the premise was to lose weight and use fat stores for glycogen in long endurance efforts. Looks like it backfired. Study after study has shown that the "mixture" of Carbohydrate and fat used when training racing is relatively fixed. It's predominately carbohydrate at the training/racing intensities that are common for most endurance sports athletes and that ratio stays the same as intensity ramps up. In other words, if you want to burn more fat - train harder and longer!!
Where people get this wrong is they buy into this falsity that by altering or manipulating diet and training intensity you can some how dial up the amount of fat you are burning relative to carbohydrate like you are turning dials on a stereo - that is false/wrong! If there is anything here - it's 1 to 2% stuff. Work on the 98% that we know works first, before moving onto the experimental 1 - 2% stuff. Why is this always so hard to understand?
As you noted - best thing to do is eat a well rounded diet with a focus on vegetables and fruit, and appropriate amounts of protein and fat.
So GTN went to the Porsche Performance center and did some testing to determine "fat burning" zones...let's just say the fat burning efforts were quite high. Which is much different from what I remember being told as a young athlete 9-10 minute pace is the fat burning zone...well not freakin' true!
Washed up footy player turned Triathlete.