Snytjie

Good heavens...

I'd like to hear what the good Prof finds in his research. Maybe I'll mail him, but he must be a very busy man. I'd like to tune up the fat burning engine more. As is well known one would still need quite a bit of glucose even if it is revving well. I'm very wary of relying on the gluconeogenesis engine for that glucose. I'm a layman, but I'm sure this process is an emergency response of the body. And during endurance exercise that to me means added stress to an already stressed out body. For now the man Maffetone's method must help to tune the fat burning machine. I can't wait to see what my RER is like after my current over-aerobic threshold training (3 months) and racing season (4 months). I wouldn't mind to be corrected on the gluconeogenesis. There just isn't enough research around to sooth my fears...

Hi, No, it was a VOmax test combined with a Respiratory Exchange Ratio test. I ate high protein/low carb for six months up to November last year, and LCHF since then (9 months now). Trained since April 2012 for triathlon. I lost 14 kgs since starting training/high protein diet, and 4 of those most recently on LCHF. I take on carbs in sessions longer than 2 hours, and with recovery drinks after exercise lasting longer than an hour. I used commercial ones, but nowadays make my own with two raw eggs, 500ml full fat milk, L-glutamine powder and 20g glucose powder. Apart from this, I'm quite strict on LCHF although I stick to carb levels of 80-100g a day. I do sometimes 'cheat', but this is irregular and mostly happens when eating out or visiting friends and family.

Eventually got my RER and VOmax test results back. VOmax was measured at 49 while the average for males my age is 43-52. The RER results are very interesting to me. I put it into a table with those of Mike Pigg from Phil Maffetone's book as reference. Maffetone's formula was spot on for me at the beginning. I did the normal 180 - age, but added 5 as I've been training for a year when I started Maffetone's method. It brought me to an aerobic threshold of 148. The testing now shows it's 1 lower at 147. What I'm unsure of, is how I will be getting to a threshold of 152 by the end of this year (180-age+10 if I reach two years of training without injury). Right now my RER at 152 is not even close... What is also interesting, is to see how quickly the burning of glucose escalates after exceeding my threshold (147+). Just two beats later I'm burning 70% glucose I was hoping to do a 70.3 triathlon in December at 155-160 effort, but I now think I'll blow up. I'll be burning 1000 calories an hour with 300 coming from fat, and can only replace 400 by digestion. It leaves me with a deficit of 300 per hour, or 1700 over 5:45. My stores will only have about 1500. Maybe gluconeogenesis can provide the shortfall, but it is still risky. It would be better to do 50% of the biking at threshold to make sure I have enough for a run at 155-165 HR. This also strengthens my intention of not excluding carb intake during prolonged exercise. If I go over 2 hours I will take in 300-400 kcal per hour. To leave it to my liver to produce 700 kcal during hour 3 and beyond feels way too taxing.

Maybe one should rethink entering a long distance triathlon if you are unsure about one of the disciplines.

Thanks guys, Booked it in at Stoke. Will report on outcome. S.

Hi, My wife recently could donated a frame with a Manitou fork, which we built up to launch her into her MTB career... Is there someone who could refer me to a reputable technician for servicing this grant piece of equipment? I'm in Cape Town. Much appreciated.

Incredible achievement. Conrad, you're the (Cave-) man!

Hi htone, I have no ill effects from the wheat. I eat marmite sandwiches as they are part of the Ironman oncourse nutrition, and I thought it best to get used to it. If I wasn't eating that, I would probably opt for a potato with salt and butter. It's really about the salty part. As one contender said recently: after 10 hours of sweet gels and drinks the marmite sandwiches tasted like lobster... I did the VOmax and RER test at the SSISA and at UCT's division. It was gas/breath analysis. I'm not sure how the test group was selected: I was referred to them after enquiring about the costs of testing my RER. I don't know why it takes two weeks. They probably want to conclude all the reporting before sending out the results.

Snap!

Your body will always need carbs as well as fat during exercise. This advice by JCZA and htone reflects not only what Friel et al say as, but also people like Peter Attia who is a LCHF fanatic (in the positive sense of the word). Attia himself takes carbs during prolonged/HIT in the form of superstarch. Because your body stores so much more energy in the form of fat than glucose, the trick is to teach it to burn as much fat as possible. But glucose will still be used. Your body will first source the needed glucose from muscle and liver glycogen which has about 1500 kcal available. When this gets low/depleted, the body needs to get it from either digestion or glyconeogenesis (the liver producing glucose from fat and protein). When considering endurance sport, this is generally where viewpoints of LCHF start to differ. It is apperantly possible to train your body to produce enough glucose through glyconeogenesis to do considerable amounts of endurance activity (e.g. many people who do long sessions/races on water only). Other, like JCZA and myself, feel it is easier/better to rather digest the needed carbs. In my opinion, glyconeogenesis is an emergency response of the body. Endurance sport already stresses the body significantly, so I do not feel comfortable with adding to that stress by calling on emergency responses. I don't argue for either one over the other, though. Some people have particular reasons for shying away from carbs even during exercise. Others do not need to take such critical steps. I have a strict LCHF diet around exercise, but during 3 hour+ sessions and races digest 300-350 kcal of carbs form both solid foods (bananas, marmite sandwich) and gels/chews. I did a RER and VOmax test a week ago, and am waiting anxiously for the results. The RER will show the exact proportion of fat and glucose burning my body does at various HR. That way you can emperically measure how much carbs you need at a given HR/effort/pace and prevent carb overload.

Hey, hey, hey! That's my strategy for the coming season... passing a few okes on smart bikes on my Raleigh with clip on bars.

What I would like to know, is why they don't use Bela-Bela dam as the base for the race. They already close the road going past it. Sure, there are less facilities at the dam than at the Forever resort, but is would definitely give a way better atmosphere to the race and make it more attractive. You set up the bike course back into town along the way it is now, and the run towards the west of the dam along the same road. Does spectator value in town really weigh so much that you include such a stupid swim in your race?

As a relative newcomer to triathlon I would like to affirm the approaches by Red Zone and DaveM above. It certainly works for me at this early stage. For sprint and olympic distances I bought plans from TriathlonGeek. Although they worked, I didn't have a thorough understanding of what I'm actually doing. I just followed the plan. Coming up to race days, I was fairly nervous because of this. Now I'm also training for 70.3. I've changed completely. I bought two triathlon books (by Phil Maffetone and Joe Friel), read (most of) Tim Noakes Lore of Running, and buy TriathlonSA monthly. Based on this I've made my own plan. It has the necessary aspects of base building, anaerobic training, tapering and rest in it. For example, the latest TriathlonSA has some great anaerobic/speed sessions in it which will fill up a good portion of that phase of my training. The plan is devised around my own life situation. I started early (April) and during the base building to mid- Sept I have weekly escalations of 7% in all sessions. Sessions are sorted in 10 day cycles with 3 runs, 3 swims and 3 bikes (including both a bike-run and swim-bike brick) and two rest days. I seldom feel pressured and even after loosing a month of training due to illness, I'm well on track to my first 70.3 in December. It's really not that difficult to devise a plan that suits your own life. You have already done the most important thing: start early enough. I think most pressure people feel is because they leave it late and then want to crash a 12 week program from Nov on into their already busy lives. Now that would be a proper source of nervousness for me. If you like/prefer company in training, then I would suggest joining one of the clubs. You will have to keep to certain times then.

Can't see dates for the 2014 Prestige, but this year's was in the first week of Feb.

Things are now getting congested around that time. I really wanted to do the Midmar Ultra on 1 December, and in recent times the Rockman and now Jailbreak was added to that exact week. Hectic. Maybe it would be better to do Jailbreak in December and then rather the Feb installment of Midmar? December: Jailbreak January: Ironman 70.3 February: Midmar Ultra March: Buffelspoort 70.3 Is that doable?

Hallo, A while ago someone asked for advice to combat the onset of a cold a week or so before a race. I think it was on the 2013 Ironman 70.3 thread. Advice given by an experienced Hubber included drinking a cocktail of a few things. At the time I also tried it, and it worked very well. Due to the data loss here I cannot find that thread again. Can someone maybe remember what it was, or is the OP still here? The coctail included Green Tea and Echinacea, but I cannot recall the other two ingredients...

I don't think you are wrong for feeling short-changed, so to speak. A specific medical condition should be taken as due grounds for a refund, or at least a transfer to a race by the same organisers. It has also been mentioned here that it is a safety issue too in 70.3 or Ironman races, where it is dangerous to motivate people to race when they are sick or injured because they do not want to loose the money. I think that there are so few races that organisers can take the luxury in financial planning of just flatly refusing any refund, even those who have a legitimate case to withdraw. It is likely to take some time to become better. There needs to be more competition for entries. Sorry to hear about the mishap.

I watched the Madrid race the other night. Murray was 54s behind the leaders (incl Brownlee and Gomez) after the swim, and 1:04 after the bike while in 14th place. During the run he then jumped 8 places to finish 6th. He still ran 40s or so slower than Brownlee but it was probably after he realised he is not going to make the podium. The effort to catch up on the bike must make the difference between him and the podium finishers.

Good read. It is definitely not "too late already" for the active participants on this thread. There is a lot of variety here and no-one gets 'flamed' for being different from the next person. Don't know if you got that impression, but I certainly did not. My views are different from most, e.g. about taking in carbs during racing/extended training sessions, and I never got the impression that I'm being flamed for having a different opinion from the next man.

I've followed it for a year, and I'm happy. I have nothing to compare it against: I only started training seriously for the first time in my life about 18 months ago. I've research training methods, -plans and - perspectives extensively during this time. I find Maffetone's arguments convincing and agreeing with people like Joe Friel and tim Noakes. As I see it, his basic premises are: 1. Your body stores large amounts of fat and limited amounts of glucose to use as endurance fuel. If you use mostly glucose as fuel, you cannot digest enough to replace expenditure. You will run out of fuel in longer events. Therefore, the more effectively you burn fat the more endurance you'll have. 2. His formula point you towards your anaerobic threshold. Below this threshold you burn mostly fat, and above it mostly glucose. 3. Training at the threshold for extended "base-building periods" results in you becoming faster while still burning mostly fat. This is a good recipe for endurance events. It sort of a sweetspot between optimum fat burning and speed. 4. Anaerobic training is also added to improve your speed, but only after building good base. 5. Low- intensity training like this allows you to race faster while minimizing the risk for injury and over- training. A LCHF diet definitely resonates with this type of training. I'm doing the training and the LCHF diet, and I'm very happy. I never feel shattered during training (apart form a few hard anaerobic sessions leading up to a race), and in 3 races I've comfortably broke my goal race times. During 2103/2014 I have a four 70.3 triathlon season, and I guess that would be the ultimate test for me. I can imagine that this type of training must be very difficult at first for those used to constant high- intensity or interval training. But as is testified to in his book by a few pro's, its worth it in the end. And, what's good enough for Mark Allen certainly is good enough for me

Hi Dave, I got it a little differently from Maffetone. He does allow for anaerobic/high intensity training, but states that it shouldn't be more than 10 weeks and only following an extended periond of base training. He also states that as little as four weeks of anaerobic training is adequate, and that you can follow any of the tried and tested methods like Fartlek etc. To me the important thing seemed to build proper base before doing a little bit of high intensity, race- pace training.

Hi Eben, Reading Phil Maffetone, Joe Friel and Peter Attia's work on exercise and low- carb diets, I have learnt that your body will always need substantial amounts of carbs (which it convert to glycogen for fuel) in addition to fat when doing extended and/or endurance racing. The higher your heart rate goes, the more substantial the proportion of carbs/glycogen needed. Your body can only store a limited amount of carbs/glycogen (about 1500 kcal) in its muscle cells, which means that you will have to get additional glycogen somewhere. You can get the additional glycogen in one of two ways: digestion of carbs or by means of your liver converting protein into glucose (gluconeogenesis). If you do not digest carbs during high intensity racing, your body will have to rely on the latter (see Attia's writings on this). I suspect that this contributes to the 4-6 months of adaptation everyone speaks about: your body has to learn to get additional glycogen through liver function rather than digestion. This is probably why you struggle currently with high intensity racing while not digesting carbs. My opinion is that I'd rather give my body the needed carbs in the easiest way during intensive training/racing digesting low- GI carbs.

In the spirit of our n=1 experiment reporting on the lost thread, here follows mine as to help kick-off the current one. Excuse the length: I gave the full Monty for the odd chance that it will contribute to a more integrated understanding of the LCHF diet and exercise. Background: My experiences with sport throughout my life led me to believe that I had very little athletic ability. I never had any speed nor was I able to build any meaningful level of endurance. I now know that these experiences were mediated by i) my own ignorance of proper training methods, ii) the ignorance of most sport coaches during my school career, and iii) the way in which sport was practised in those days. I know it now because, after realising in January of 2012 that I have to do something about my fitness if I wish to maintain a good quality of life, I researched proper training methods and went for a number of assessments and lessons by skilled persons. This provided me with more adequate perspectives. It resulted in me starting to train for triathlon in April 2012. To date I’ve done two sprint distance races followed by two Olympic distance races. I’m currently training for the 70.3 distance and will hopefully do a four event series of these from December 2013 - April 2014. I do not wish to race anyone but myself, so I am focussed on finishing comfortably (6-6.5 hours for the 70.3) rather than breaking myself to pieces on race day. If I survive the series with body, mind and marriage intact I will explore the possibility of doing the Ironman in 2015. Starting operation ‘Get in Shape’ in 2012 included changing my diet. A dietician provided a balanced diet plan consisting 43% low-GI Carb, 36% Fat and 21% Protein. I am 1.83m, weighed 101kg and was 15kg overweight. I have hereditary cholesterol and when my total level was 8.6 in 2010 I started taking 40mg Aspavor. Late 2011 my total cholesterol levelled at around 5, and I reduced dosage to 10mg. Coupled with increasing exercise levels, I brought my weight down to 90kg by July when I reached a plato. In August 2012 I did a triathlon- specific evaluation at Velocity Sports Lab in Hout Bay. My BMI was still 26 with 22.6% body fat. I was not happy with the plato in weight loss, but despite already knowing about LCHF decided to give my current regime more time. When my weight and body fat % was still stable by November, I lost faith in my diet and changed to LCHF. An additional contributing factor to me changing was that I started to follow Phil Maffetone’s training regime which focusses on aerobic base building to enhance your body’s ability to burn fat for fuel during endurance sport. It made sense to align my diet to that which I tried to attain in training. I initially misunderstood the concept and was really on a high-protein low-carb diet for two months before the LCHF thread here on The Hub got me on the right track. Currently: I’ve been on LCHF for five/seven months depending on how you see the high protein part. I lost another 4kg and weigh 86kg. The apparatus at Virgin measures my body fat at 18%. When I went onto proper LCHF, my diet consisted of 10% Carb, 20% Protein and 70% Fat. I stopped using MyFitnessPal after two months as I thought I got the hang of it. And with logging food, reading The Hub, training and family life I couldn’t justify my salary with a clear conscience. So I dropped logging food. Blood work last week showed everything in good order with total cholesterol at 5 dead, LDL at 2.9 (should be <3.0) and HDL at 1.6 (should be >1.00). I’m in an arm wrestle with my (very good) GP about ceasing statins for a few months. During my last week of training I swam 5km, cycled 155km and ran 32km (all aerobic threshold intensity) which sees me well on track to handle the planned races from December forward. I’m happy. A few perspectives resulting from my experience: 1. I have never measured my Ketone levels. I’ve never had enough motivation to buy a blood meter, and I do not want to confuse myself with Ketostix whose readings can be inconclusive. I changed slowly and as long as all feels good and there is no loss in endurance level I’m content. I have to be burning fat effectively because I wouldn’t be able to handle the volumes of training otherwise. I’ve never bonked, and can do without experiencing it. 2. I never experienced any carb flu, loss of energy or change in training capability following the start of LCHF. I attribute it to the Maffetone method already enhancing my body’s ability to burn fat before starting LCHF. I think the easy route to LCHF is exercise first followed by diet change. 3. I’m not absolutely against significant carb intake. What matters for me, is the effect of significant carb intake. Obviously, when sedentary, the effect of significant carb intake will be negative and will propel me back into inefficient fat burning and ill health. However, I’m not convinced that, for example, Tim Noakes’ endeavour to see how far you can push endurance without using carbs is applicable to the majority of people. Endurance sport puts a major strain on my body. In addition to high volumes of fat burning my body needs carbs/glycogen to function during such sports. My body needs more of it than what can be stored in my glycogen stores. Noakes and others like Peter Attia is busy researching whether your body can provide enough glycogen through gluconeogenesis to satisfy this demand, and it seems that it is possible. I don’t like it though. I am not comfortable to use an ‘emergency’ bodily function when I can meet that need by eating carbs during exercise. As long as I’m happy that my training and diet maintains my body’s ability to burn fat effectively, I’ll rather provide the glucose to it in an easy way when the going gets tough. There is not enough motivation for me to see how long/far I can go on water alone. I take in 200-300 kcal of carbs per hour of exercise from the second hour onwards. It leaves a deficit of 700-800kcal which will be made up mostly by fat burning. In addition to this, I’ve tried to up fat and protein levels in my immediate post-exercise recovery nutrition while cutting the carbs. It is not as effective as providing a 2-3:1 ration of carbs to protein. Doing the latter sees me recover much quicker. I do concede that certain individuals have a more serious health status than me and that there is motivation for them to keep carb intake to minimum. 4. I think one should ease into the LCHF diet. I’ve seen a few family members regressing to high carb diets because they experience or perceive a sudden loss of quality of life when changing to LCHF. When you like cooking for example and have developed a certain taste over decades, I would not recommend changing quickly. Easy does it. We should not give in to the modern world’s assertions that there is a quick-fix solution for everything. Phew! Verbal diarrhoea comes to mind. Anyway, thank you to all contributors on the LCHF discussion on The Hub. Your inputs have helped a lot of us and will continue to do so in the future.

Add 20ml Coconut oil and 20ml Flaxseed oil and leave out the honey, and you have a very nice fat shake for the morning with about one third of your daily fat needs.