I just listened to a podcast on IM Talk, interviewing a dietician, Bob Seebohar, about metabolic efficiency.
His message is to keep carbs low before and during training (and racing) sessions, in order to prevent any spike in blood sugars. The idea is that the body can efficiently burn fat, even during intensive sessions, as long as there is not an increase in insulin to counter it. Instead of carbo loading pre-race, and eating a big bowl of cereal pre-workout, and eating gels every half an hour during a workout, he reckons stick to less carbohydrate rich foods and you will be able to go for a 3 hour ride without needing any supplementary food source. And that you can increase your efficiency such that only 5-10% of your energy needs come from an external source.
Fascinating stuff, and may be something in it for those unable to drop weight, even when training. I’m a bit dark that only yesterday I placed another order for $140, 2 x 25 gel, and am thinking I may not need it.
Then again, maybe I will? Has anyone else heard the podcast or pursued this concept?
Bob and his theory have been around for a while. I agree that it’s an interesting idea, and he’s done case studies with some really exciting results. The problem is that it’s a relatively new theory that flies in the face of decades of nutritional science. He’s having a lot of trouble getting it accepted into mainstream science and getting funding for larger studies.
One of the barriers to entry for athletes is that one has to completely shut down training. While you’re “detoxing” your body from a high carb/high sugar diet, you have to keep your training relatively infrequent and ALL easy aerobic. Most competitive athletes aren’t willing to do that, especially when results haven’t been proven by research. It’s kind of a vicious cycle.
I’d be interested to see more studies done if he can ever do them. But until then there’s not much to be said about it. Just another interesting theory.
I think there is a lot to the idea but simply reducing the amount of carbohydrate is not the important point, changing the balance of carbohydrate to fat is what is really important. I wrote about physiological adaption to dietary fat recently:
I also wrote about race/ training nutrition and how much is necessary, how much is too much and what limits Ironman performance at the top end. I think you need to 1) use a high proportion of fat for fuel but also 2) turn up on race day with glycogen stored and gels in your back pocket if you are planning to race at a high intensity for many hours.
he reckons stick to less carbohydrate rich foods and you will be able to go for a 3 hour ride without needing any supplementary food source.
You could probably do this no matter your diet. How hard is that 3 hour ride?
If performance is a goal over a 3 hour event, you aren’t going to have an optimal result without some carbohydrate. Also, I would be wary of any advice from someone claiming an insulin response to carbohydrate consumption during exercise.
I just listened to a podcast on IM Talk, interviewing a dietician, Bob Seebohar, about metabolic efficiency.
His message is to keep carbs low before and during training (and racing) sessions, in order to prevent any spike in blood sugars. The idea is that the body can efficiently burn fat, even during intensive sessions, as long as there is not an increase in insulin to counter it. Instead of carbo loading pre-race, and eating a big bowl of cereal pre-workout, and eating gels every half an hour during a workout, he reckons stick to less carbohydrate rich foods and you will be able to go for a 3 hour ride without needing any supplementary food source. And that you can increase your efficiency such that only 5-10% of your energy needs come from an external source.
Fascinating stuff, and may be something in it for those unable to drop weight, even when training. I’m a bit dark that only yesterday I placed another order for $140, 2 x 25 gel, and am thinking I may not need it.
Then again, maybe I will? Has anyone else heard the podcast or pursued this concept?
he reckons stick to less carbohydrate rich foods and you will be able to go for a 3 hour ride without needing any supplementary food source.
You could probably do this no matter your diet. How hard is that 3 hour ride?
If performance is a goal over a 3 hour event, you aren’t going to have an optimal result without some carbohydrate. Also, I would be wary of any advice from someone claiming an insulin response to carbohydrate consumption during exercise.
yeah, i just did a 3 hr ride yesterday, and was starting to think i must be an awesome athlete to be able to sustain without food… thanks for bringing me back down to Earth hahaha
I just listened to a podcast on IM Talk, interviewing a dietician, Bob Seebohar, about metabolic efficiency.
His message is to keep carbs low before and during training (and racing) sessions, in order to prevent any spike in blood sugars. The idea is that the body can efficiently burn fat, even during intensive sessions, as long as there is not an increase in insulin to counter it. Instead of carbo loading pre-race, and eating a big bowl of cereal pre-workout, and eating gels every half an hour during a workout, he reckons stick to less carbohydrate rich foods and you will be able to go for a 3 hour ride without needing any supplementary food source. And that you can increase your efficiency such that only 5-10% of your energy needs come from an external source.
Fascinating stuff, and may be something in it for those unable to drop weight, even when training. I’m a bit dark that only yesterday I placed another order for $140, 2 x 25 gel, and am thinking I may not need it.
Then again, maybe I will? Has anyone else heard the podcast or pursued this concept?
It’s my understanding that there is a low to non-existent insulin response from eating carbs while exercising. The body and brain are aware of sugar needs and prefer sugar as a source of energy. When consuming roughly 100-400 calories per hour, you are still taking in less calories than your are burning. Since insulin acts to store sugar, it is not needed in a negative calorie situation. Whereas I am sure that we can train our bodies to burn fat more efficiently, I am also sure that fat burns in a sugar flame. Depleting your body of its sugar load will also hinder its fat metabolism, cause intensity to decrease while increasing fatigue, and delay recovery. As is my understanding.
I decided to give this a shot because I was working, going to grad school, and fitting in workouts where I could. Most of the workouts were de-stressing workouts, so no crazy hard intervals or anything else like that. All aerobic. I also wanted to see if I could lean out a bit before the season.
I’d say it’s working for me. I had purchased Bob’s book. I’ve been doing 2+ hr workouts and feeling great, I’ve lost some fat it seems and I have abs I’ve never seen before. I don’t often weigh myself since I don’t have a scale at home, but I did lose some weight when I checked at the school pool a couple of weeks ago. It also seems I’ve lost 1.5 inches off my waist (and I’m rather small to begin with).
Recently I have started to add intensity since grad school is over. At this point and for longer workouts, I will incorporate “traditional nutrition” - gels and drinks, etc as I need them. I don’t think Bob was advocating the elimination of these things entirely, rather what I got out of the book was that if you take a period of time to train your metabolic efficiency, then when you do go to train and race harder, you’ll need a bit less of those drinks and gels and have less GI issues and better energy levels.
It is advocated to incorporate whole grains / sports nutritional items during the hard training and racing season.
Whereas I am sure that we can train our bodies to burn fat more efficiently, I am also sure that fat burns in a sugar flame. Depleting your body of its sugar load will also hinder its fat metabolism, cause intensity to decrease while increasing fatigue, and delay recovery. As is my understanding.
I don’t know that the body “learns” to burn fat more efficiently. As I understand it, as an athlete becomes more fit (i.e. increases FTP/threshold pace), that athlete increases mitochondrial density in skeletal muscle. More mitochondria = more fat oxidation (more ATP provided by aerobic processes) at a given workload.
I can tell, you esp. Scott that those athletes I test who have high carb diets and have lactate tests, they cross over quite quickly and it is almost impossible to make them fat burners until they change to lower glycemic carb diets with more fat and protein. Once they do that things change quickly…Very important concept for long distance events such as IM or Ultras…we have plenty of fat stores around no matter who you are.
Bob is a proponent of some recovery nutrition esp the carb/protein ratio within an hour of working out. Just depends if you want to follow real science or just see what works…
I wouldn’t try it if you paid me. If your an IM athlete, you have two main limiter’s on race day. Durability and Fueling. Why spend weeks a year not eating on the rides and runs, then race day comes and you stuff your face all day long and end of walking most of the run because of stomach problems. At that point how much fat you burn doesn’t mean a thing! It takes a lot of food to go fast at IM. You must practice your fueling plan for a long time. Stomach problems during race day are caused by two things, over pacing and not practicing the correct plan enough.
The other problem with his theory is that he has no good data to back up any of these claims. Sure he has charts and graphs showing you “better fat burning” but where is the control group? I am almost certain that if you took a group of athletes who were training at the same intensity’s as the non eater’s after 12 weeks of nothing but aerobic training they would be pretty equal on the “fat burning” scale. I mean, thats the point, lots of aerobic volume to make you a better “fat burner” Not only that but I would bet the group that was able to eat was not only having better 2nd and 3rd workouts of the day they would also be overall healthier athletes.
I wouldn’t try it if you paid me. If your an IM athlete, you have two main limiter’s on race day. Durability and Fueling. Why spend weeks a year not eating on the rides and runs, then race day comes and you stuff your face all day long and end of walking most of the run. At that point how much fat you burn doesn’t mean a thing!
The other problem with his theory is that he has no good data to back up any of these claims. Sure he has charts and graphs showing you “better fat burning” but where is the control group? I am almost certain that if you took a group of athletes who were training at the same intensity’s as the non eater’s after 12 weeks of nothing but aerobic training they would be pretty equal on the “fat burning” scale. I mean, thats the point, lots of aerobic volume to make you a better “fat burner” Not only that but I would bet the group that was able to eat was not only having better 2nd and 3rd workouts of the day they would also be overall healthier athletes.
I will reiterate. There are control groups, this is not a new concept.
hahaha