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Sounds reasonable to me. I've been eating keto for a long time and I always feel like I have fat energy reserves to draw on. I wonder if keto-adapted men and wo

Sounds reasonable to me. I've been eating keto for a long time and I always feel like I have fat energy reserves to draw on. I wonder if keto-adapted men and women would outperform carb-adapted counterparts in ultra-endurance. From personal experience there is a difference and it is a big difference.

Mountain_Skies 7y ago
The body can only convert so much fat into energy at a given moment. Usually we have both carbs we've recently eaten to fuel us plus a store of glycogen. On Keto you should have little to no glycogen and only whatever small number of carbs you've eaten recently. If your energy expenditure exceeds what they body can convert from fat along with whatever it can extract from your limited carbs and whatever glycogen is hanging around, you'll get an energy crash. Keto might be good for ultra endurance events where there is little to no sprinting involved. Just keep a nice steady pace at the level that can be fueled by the body's capacity to convert fat into energy.
- stefan_ 7y ago
  Except then you would still eat carbs the night before a race because not having glycogen is just intentionally gimping yourself for no imaginable possible gain. It's not like the mj of glycogen energy is weighing you down. You should absolutely train in a glycogen depleted state just so you will know what it feels like and can deal with it. But it's not how you would ever start a race.
- mdhen 7y ago
  Yeah doing a lot of anaerobic activities when on a zero or Ultra low carb diet will tend to wear you out quicklydue to glycogen depletion.
crikli 7y ago
Researchers have not seen any evidence that the ketogenic diet (or any other diet that trains the body to engage lipolysis to a greater degree) increases exercise capacity. They have seen evidence that these diets can retool the body to more readily use fat as an energy substrate. While this doesn't translate to performance gains, it can mean that on a multi-hour/multi-day effort that a self-supported athlete might need to have a bit less food in their packs as well as foods with a higher proportion of fat that are lighter. Lighter pack = faster athlete. But...even low intensity exercise over long duration is going to result in the recruitment of FTa/FTb muscle fibers that run almost exclusively by glycolyis. So an athlete counting on fat to be the primary energy substrate has be really highly trained, practiced, and know their pacing thresholds really well to keep the recruitment of those muscle fibers to a minimum. Best paper I know of on the subject is this one: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b7ffebe4b0568a75e3316b/t/569ff94e42f552509507b7b9/1453324628174/Burke+review+fat+adaptation.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b7ffebe4b0568a75e33... Best book I know of on long-duration effort is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Training-New-Alpinism-Climber-Athlete-ebook/dp/B00ILZ8S0K https://www.amazon.com/Training-New-Alpinism-Climber-Athlete...
- GreaterFool 7y ago
  I can only speak to my personal experience. I’m not an athlete but I lift, bike and so on. On empty stomach. I don’t eat before training. I could never do that on carb diet.
  - evandev 7y ago
    Speaking from my personal experience to counter this, I run in the mornings up to 1 hour on an empty stomach. While I don't follow one diet, a larger portion of my food is carb based. I follow TFTNA (Training for the New Alpinism) and Uphill Athlete (Steve/Scott's new book) training regiments that Parent mentions. They do talk about retooling your body to use fat reserves more than carbs. While I'm sure the evidence shows that keto diet might make this switch faster and easier, someone on a non-keto diet (carb based) can also do this.
    - crikli 7y ago
      Haven't read Uphill Athlete yet...I think it ships in a few days. Really looking forward to it and to going to see Scott/Steve speak in Denver.
      - evandev 7y ago
        I don't think I'll be able to make any of their talks because the nearest city is a bit away, but I do frequent their forums/site which has an incredible trove of information. https://www.uphillathlete.com/ https://www.uphillathlete.com/
        crikli 7y ago
        Agreed! I love that Scott is so active on there. Those guys are legit. My other very favorite resource is Shawn Bearden's Science of Ultra podcast, which is where I learned of the research paper I linked in my first post. Here's the one on fat adaptation: https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/19 https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/19 . He has lots of pretty hardcore exercise scientists and researchers on. It's one of my favorite things to listen to while grinding up a hill. :)
thrav 7y ago
There is a world record holder for 1000 mile races who is all about running off only fat. Advises to eat nothing before the race, and to refuse all of the gu and gels they try to hand you while running. I successfully completed a marathon 3 months after reading his book after having never run more than 3 miles in my life. (Stu Mittleman - Slow Burn)
ErikAugust 7y ago
There are a couple examples: Zach Bitter (50 mile - 24 hour races) and Tim Olson (100 mile trail). Both have held notable records. In the marathon distance or shorter, being fat adapted would be a bad thing, as you couldn't train at upper capacities. But where you are running purely aerobically for very long periods of time (12+ hours), this may be an advantage. The secondary (or even primary) advantage would be a low carb or ketogenic diet is that it is anti-inflammatory. People who run ultra distances do huge volumes of training, and it may be enabled by a lack of inflammation.
tedmcory77 7y ago
I’m an ultra marathoner; training low carb and racing high gave me best performance at distance and seems to dramatically reduce recovery times.
drdrey 7y ago
Some elite ultrarunners are on LCHF diets, like Zach Miller, Timothy Olson or Jeff Browning. I don't think any of them are on the keto diet specifically. But the vast majority of them are on the typical high-carb runner diet.
nasmorn 7y ago
No. But modern training methods include fasted workouts to improve fat metabolism. If you are ok with sub maximal performance keto can be a good way to reach it as the highest keto fat burning is higher than when you use carbs as well. the absolute performance is quite a bit better if you consume carbs though.

Mountain_Skies 7y ago

The body can only convert so much fat into energy at a given moment. Usually we have both carbs we've recently eaten to fuel us plus a store of glycogen. On Keto you should have little to no glycogen and only whatever small number of carbs you've eaten recently. If your energy expenditure exceeds what they body can convert from fat along with whatever it can extract from your limited carbs and whatever glycogen is hanging around, you'll get an energy crash. Keto might be good for ultra endurance events where there is little to no sprinting involved. Just keep a nice steady pace at the level that can be fueled by the body's capacity to convert fat into energy.

stefan_ 7y ago
Except then you would still eat carbs the night before a race because not having glycogen is just intentionally gimping yourself for no imaginable possible gain. It's not like the mj of glycogen energy is weighing you down. You should absolutely train in a glycogen depleted state just so you will know what it feels like and can deal with it. But it's not how you would ever start a race.
mdhen 7y ago
Yeah doing a lot of anaerobic activities when on a zero or Ultra low carb diet will tend to wear you out quicklydue to glycogen depletion.

crikli 7y ago

Researchers have not seen any evidence that the ketogenic diet (or any other diet that trains the body to engage lipolysis to a greater degree) increases exercise capacity. They have seen evidence that these diets can retool the body to more readily use fat as an energy substrate. While this doesn't translate to performance gains, it can mean that on a multi-hour/multi-day effort that a self-supported athlete might need to have a bit less food in their packs as well as foods with a higher proportion of fat that are lighter. Lighter pack = faster athlete. But...even low intensity exercise over long duration is going to result in the recruitment of FTa/FTb muscle fibers that run almost exclusively by glycolyis. So an athlete counting on fat to be the primary energy substrate has be really highly trained, practiced, and know their pacing thresholds really well to keep the recruitment of those muscle fibers to a minimum. Best paper I know of on the subject is this one: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b7ffebe4b0568a75e3316b/t/569ff94e42f552509507b7b9/1453324628174/Burke+review+fat+adaptation.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b7ffebe4b0568a75e33... Best book I know of on long-duration effort is this one: https://www.amazon.com/Training-New-Alpinism-Climber-Athlete-ebook/dp/B00ILZ8S0K https://www.amazon.com/Training-New-Alpinism-Climber-Athlete...

GreaterFool 7y ago
I can only speak to my personal experience. I’m not an athlete but I lift, bike and so on. On empty stomach. I don’t eat before training. I could never do that on carb diet.
- evandev 7y ago
  Speaking from my personal experience to counter this, I run in the mornings up to 1 hour on an empty stomach. While I don't follow one diet, a larger portion of my food is carb based. I follow TFTNA (Training for the New Alpinism) and Uphill Athlete (Steve/Scott's new book) training regiments that Parent mentions. They do talk about retooling your body to use fat reserves more than carbs. While I'm sure the evidence shows that keto diet might make this switch faster and easier, someone on a non-keto diet (carb based) can also do this.
  - crikli 7y ago
    Haven't read Uphill Athlete yet...I think it ships in a few days. Really looking forward to it and to going to see Scott/Steve speak in Denver.
    - evandev 7y ago
      I don't think I'll be able to make any of their talks because the nearest city is a bit away, but I do frequent their forums/site which has an incredible trove of information. https://www.uphillathlete.com/ https://www.uphillathlete.com/
      - crikli 7y ago
        Agreed! I love that Scott is so active on there. Those guys are legit. My other very favorite resource is Shawn Bearden's Science of Ultra podcast, which is where I learned of the research paper I linked in my first post. Here's the one on fat adaptation: https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/19 https://www.scienceofultra.com/podcasts/19 . He has lots of pretty hardcore exercise scientists and researchers on. It's one of my favorite things to listen to while grinding up a hill. :)

thrav 7y ago

There is a world record holder for 1000 mile races who is all about running off only fat. Advises to eat nothing before the race, and to refuse all of the gu and gels they try to hand you while running. I successfully completed a marathon 3 months after reading his book after having never run more than 3 miles in my life. (Stu Mittleman - Slow Burn)

ErikAugust 7y ago

There are a couple examples: Zach Bitter (50 mile - 24 hour races) and Tim Olson (100 mile trail). Both have held notable records. In the marathon distance or shorter, being fat adapted would be a bad thing, as you couldn't train at upper capacities. But where you are running purely aerobically for very long periods of time (12+ hours), this may be an advantage. The secondary (or even primary) advantage would be a low carb or ketogenic diet is that it is anti-inflammatory. People who run ultra distances do huge volumes of training, and it may be enabled by a lack of inflammation.

tedmcory77 7y ago

I’m an ultra marathoner; training low carb and racing high gave me best performance at distance and seems to dramatically reduce recovery times.

drdrey 7y ago

Some elite ultrarunners are on LCHF diets, like Zach Miller, Timothy Olson or Jeff Browning. I don't think any of them are on the keto diet specifically. But the vast majority of them are on the typical high-carb runner diet.

nasmorn 7y ago

No. But modern training methods include fasted workouts to improve fat metabolism. If you are ok with sub maximal performance keto can be a good way to reach it as the highest keto fat burning is higher than when you use carbs as well. the absolute performance is quite a bit better if you consume carbs though.