Why the Fat?

For our bodies, no matter what the ‘big sugar,’ the fitness and without forgetting the weight-loss industries keep telling us, body fat is premium fuel and healthy fat burning is the hallmark of a well-functioning aerobic system and ultimately health. This ability can be summarized in the term endurance; while we might not run very fast, we can run much longer and further than most species (coupled with the fact we can regulate our body temperature through sweating). Even the leanest of us have 40,000+kcal (roughly 40+ hours of cycling at a moderate pace) that we carry so we all have many miles worth of fuel. Therefore a logical question is:

Why do we have to eat 3 times a day (at regular periods) if we have on tap such great resources instead of just relying on solely on stored energy/fat?

In the Experiments in Speed, I document less than obvious solutions that (can potentially) lead to big positive changes in life and athletic performances alike. Going down the nutrional ketosis road the obvious ‘next levelm’ if you can put it that waym is the true metabolic efficiency – being able to utilise solely stored body fat for all of your body (athletic) energy needs essentially taking out having to eat unless absolutely necessary. Why would anyone want to do that though, I already had to cut refined carohydrates and sugar out I am NOT giving away food, food is good!

Scared Shitless

Digestion takes approximately 300kcal (or 16%) out of an average daily need of 2000kcal .

Blood Partioning

Out circulatory and lymphatic system is what carries nutrients around therefore when having to digest it is largely residing in the gut (lookup figures), therefore less of it is available to fuel moving muscles. The opposite is true when exercising – most of the blood is supplying the muscle tissue with oxygen. You can see how it is a either one or the other type of situation. A logical conclusion here is that you should not be doing vigorous exercise after a meal or you should not be eating while doing vigorous exercise. No problem here, right? Sleep is paramount for recovery (it is a mostly a brain process), therefore you don’t want extra energy going other places while you sleep. No big meals right before going to sleep or so the popular wisdom goes.

The above we have hardcoded into our survival. As they say the color of adrenaline is brown… In extreme danger every bit of energy must go for outrun said challenge, so anything not necessary at the moment gets dumped (another pun intended). In the wild, male bears fighting (to the death) have been observed doing the exact same thing. Being able to carry our fuel (as body fat) is a massive advantage and you don’t want to have to be eating/digesting all the time and hence using precious energy. With fat though, there is more than meets the eye.

Fat and the Human body

Fat has many roles in the human body, among them being:

• Insulation both from cold (such as the blubber of polar animals) and from heat in order to prevent evaporation of water and hence dehydration
• Immune system a large part of the cells in the immune system are made of fat, hence why frequent colds indicate a poorly functioning immune system (for example due to too much stress and/or disbalance of fat in the body)
• Hormones and hormone like substances (such as eicosanoids) are responsible for controlling important body wide processes such inflammation and healing (anti-inflammation)
• The Brain is 70+% fat by content and it is pretty much our brain and creative ability that define us as being human.
• Energy – 9kcal per gram of fat as compared to 4kcal/gram+2g of water weight from carbohydrates (glucose). And yes protein also gives 9kcal/gram though this means muscle breakdown (rarely a good thing) and the broken down protein follows a similar metabolic pathway as glucose (with all associated drawbacks, more on that below)

Therefore you probably realize why even when healthy (and by healthy I mean having healthy fat burning, not whatever crazy images (of people popping anti-depressants for example) you see in the media) fat is precious and a certain minimum must stick around (pun intended) since energy for performing daily tasks, while a priority is not among the top of the list I just mentioned.

Why Fast?

The most obvious, though misguided reason is to lose weight. Misguided why? Being overfat is largely a *hormonal* problem. Insulin being the main culprit (in probably 75-90% of all cases) with thyroid deregulation accounting for the rest. What does insulin do? It causes us to store energy (fat) and not burn it. What causes insulin secretion? Refined carbohydrates (flour, bread, pasta, corn starch, table sugar etc.). Therefore not eating *anything* will certainly cause insulin levels to drop, though calorie restriction (aka starving yourself) is the WORST possible way to lose weight AND keep it off in the long term AND stay a healthy and a functional human being. Why you ask? More on that in the following paragraphs =).

The other top reason is to “cleanse” yourself and pretty much all religions involve some kind of fasting (Ramadan, 40 day no meat fast, etc.). While fasting can do that, why did you put the poisonous stuff in your body in the first place? Again, while noble it is a touch misguided and counterintuitive. It has its practical applications.

The current state of information is that we are glucose based creatures and we need to eat to ‘keep our blood sugar up.’ Yes it is true we can burn various macronutrients (fats, carbohydrates, protein and ketones) in order to have energy and ultimately survive and there is an optimal way we obtain our daily energy

• Fat – predominant energy source for all activities
• Glucose – high bursts and/or high intensity (fight-or-flight)
• Protein – mostly during state of starvation and/or depending on diet (ie lots of meat)
• Ketones – brain fuel (keto clarity) as well as universal fuel for all cells; starvation fuel.

We can manage in extreme conditions such as starvation or as aforementioned eating refined carbohydrates in order to ‘avoid low blood sugar.’ The caveat especially with predominatly carbohydrate (glucose) based metabolism is that it is quick and dirty. Quick because it is short lasting (~2000kcal) and dirty since it is pro inflammatory and it is literally stressful. It is no surprise that most (chronic) diseases such as sclerosis, cancer, dementia, Alzheimer’s start as a mild inflammation. In addition high levels of glucose accelerate the glycation of proteins (an irreersible process) – or in simple terms they speed up the aging process on a very basic cellular level. We are simply not designed to survive in prolonged and constant release of insulin. Furthermore such metabolic efficiency for a lack of lighter and better sounding term causes less cell division – which in overly simplified terms means the following: our cells have only a limited  number of times they can divide and multiply in our lifetime – it is a natural process of senescence or as mentioned above aging.

Therefore in order to avoid all the negative effects (including glycation/aging) you should be eating at very prolonged intervals and restricting calories. Hence the term intermittent fasting. Overall the idea is that your body becomes very efficient since there is no ready supply of food at all times, as well as not constantly using energy for digestion, while that energy can be used to do other things (recover, etc.). Simple

Sidenote: (Intermittent) fasting is NOT a first step if you have been eating the currently accepted Western diet consisting of grains  (bread, pastas, etc) and various corn starch derived products as well as sugar laden snacks. By starving yourself you will end up hungry, angry (aka hangry) and overall disatisfied with life in general. It is a process starting cutting out refined carbohdyrates and junk food FIRST. Intermittent fasting (potentially) comes afterwards. Why? More on that below…

How Did I go About I?

Dr. Rhonda Patrick (https://www.foundmyfitness.com) is among some of the people at the forefront of high-quality health, nutrition and fitness research. Her conversations on Joe Rogan’s Podcast are always eye opening and in a way give a quick summary on a lot of the topics she has been researching. Intermittent fasting is one such topic more precisely getting all your food within a 10 hour window with the remaining 14h spent in a fasting condition. As a comparison, some of the pioneers of low carbohydrate diets and lifetime health and weight Loss – Dr. Robert Atkins suggests 4 with nor more than 6 waking hours with no food and another pioneer in the field of health, fat-burnign and fitness Dr. Phil Maffetone suggests 2-4h between meals with 12h of ‘fasting’ after your last meal/during sleep. As such bringing it to 14h is not too far fetched. Hey intermittent fasting (boy what a fancy sounding name) it is the latest thing all the cool kids are doing, right?

Intermittent Fasting – My Experience

I decided that my 10h window would be from 9am-7pm in order to actually sit down with my wife and son in the evening rather tha having to eat my last meal at 16h (4pm). On a typical day it allowed me to leave earlier since I didn’t eat breakfast. Since I have a 16km (10mi) one way commute to work by bike, it meant a fasted workout and I had to pack both breakfast and lunch which on a hilly commute is extra weight. Though I got even less traffic than normal so less air pollution (at least in theory) and overall calmer state of mind – both are not to be ignored in our fast-paced and constantly busy world.

While I was fully functional until 9am, it was quite challenging, it did not feel normal. Obviously, the initial adjustment period is a stress and it took some time to find a rhythm. Overall it didn’t get easier after some time either – by some time I mean 3 weeks which is usually a sufficient period for the body to adjust to new habits. I still ate lunch and dinner with an occasional small snack. My food did NOT change, just the window for eating got smaller.

I did not notice any positive recovery benefits and/or improved sleep or any weight loss (ever since I discovered Dr. Maffetone’s work my weight has been scarily constant in a good way). It bears repeating that after all the cause of extra fat is HORMONAL (insulin is a hormone) and when there is a slight suggestion of energy shortage, your body would enter into energy survival mode rather than dropping fat. Fasting and/or restricted-calorie diets are the WORST way to lose weight and keep it off in the long term. Though in my case we are talking intermittent fasting, not something extreme like a famine or starving yourself for days. What did happen though was the following:

• I got a cold for the first time in probably 2 years with the mother of all sore throats in probably more than 10 years.
• Took me a week to recover and around 10 days until my speed/aerobic condition was back to where it was.
• While we treat chefs as rockstars and as a consequence posses a vast (and often health damaging) reverance for food, by stressing about meal times and schedules, eating becomes literaly a process of getting ingredients inside your stomach and is no fun way to approach life.

You win some and you lose some – as such this experiment in speed was not a truly positive one.

Why? Maybe there are ways to optimise it, why 14hours and not 13 for example? Why not eat smaller meals or 2 bigger ones instead of 3? Does this mean I will get old and wrinkly faster?!?! This is beyond the point I am trying to make.

Therefore….

Conclusion

Oh Clarice, your problem is, you need to get more fun out of life.

-Hannibal Lecter

I am what you can call average guy with a wife and a kid, with performance oriented athletic pursuits (I have an 8h day job on the side), I spend 10+ h/week riding my bike and overall trying to be as active as possible. A good number of you overlap a to a greater or lesser degree with me.

From, *personal experimentation* in today’s life peppered with many activities (such as job, family, commuting, etc.) intermittent fasting is a step too much. In the words of the health practioner Brie Wieselman, stress is system by which the brain interprets the world outside of us and inside our bodies and adjusts our hormones in order that we are best prepared to respond, given the situation, life challenges (bosses, deadlines, bears, crying babies, etc.).

In the modern industrialized world, there are simply too many things (air pollution, noise, computer screens, etc.) that needs dealing with and that requires energy, whether it is a conscious effort or something we do on autopilot. Being metabolically efficient (burning predominantly fat for fuel) provides the FREEDOM to be able to defy rigid food schedules; lunch at noon, why, says who?; slept in once so had to skip breakfast – no problem, 12h flight so you avoid the junk food screaming at you from all sides – no big deal. Had to skip lunch in order to finish that project, sure thing! It is a modern day survival if you’d like to call it. You can deal with it without much negative effects such as the ‘low blood sugar headache,’ brain fog and such wihtout a second thought. In the end we need energy to keep everything running optimal before things start shutting down/slowing down and alarm bells (aka stress) starts going off.

If you are professional athlete on a lucrative contract (I am theorizing here) without too many publicity commitments and you can pick and choose your travel schedule as you see fit, so all you can do is eat/train/sleep, or you live off the grid, or anybody along that continuum, most likely you can push fasting further, you simply have less things that ‘stress’ you. For most of us intermittent fasting is an unnecessary and easily avoidable stressor. I have been mentioning that before, though I had to test it – gotta be your own test monkey=).

Seeing babies develop is a HUGE eye opener. We all have the necessary firmware hardcoded into our genes. Whether we evolved from primates or a higher power/race put it there, is beyond the point. Our bodies KNOW what is good and have been doing so for many thousands of years. Hunger among other things is a potent signal, we should learn to respect it. We have a perfect system to regulate energy expenditure – if you don’t need a lot of energy you just get less hungry. If you overeat one meal you just eat less the next one, just don’t force feed yourself. Granted refined carbohdrates and hyperinsulin secretion can trick us (and hence why as of today 75% of the WORLD’s population is overfat). Having healthy fat burning is largely synonymous with being healthy allows us to separate and isolate hunger from being able to function and make informed, reasonable and quite often creative decisions. Yes we can run on fat quite well when food supply is short or even totally absent. The most important take home message here is: It is not so much an intermittent fasting, though a step towards body awareness – what does your body need to function optimally given YOUR everyday situation. Even when pushed to extreme we know how to endure. Your body and your freedom to experiment and decide.

Taking Charge

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It became very clear to me sitting out there today, that every decision I’ve ever made, in my entire life, has been wrong. My life is the opposite of everything I want it to be. Every instinct I have, in every of life, be it something to wear, something to eat … It’s all been wrong.

-George Costanza

It is an ongoing process, and although we would want it to be, things rarely go in a linear fashion. Along the road many pattern,questions and misconceptions seem to appear, therefore in this article I am going to address those common questions, misconceptions about the MAF training method.

My continuous extremely positive experience with the MAF Method can be found under the Me and MAF tag.

How many hours a week do I need to do so I get an effect?

24 hours a day, seven days a week. Whaaat?!?! Seriously, man, how many??
The whole thing (MAF method) is a lifestyle, not something that you do in your free time. In the end it is the same body that has to deal with everything that you throw (or don’t throw) at it. That includes what you eat so that you stay healthy, minimise inflammation, etc. Your job, family situation and many stresses (yes many) that we all encoutner on a daily basis all come into the picture. How you manage all that and combine it with the fact hat we as creatures are made for movement (bike, run, swim, etc), not stilness – is personal. One week it might be 4 hours, some it might be 14. You have to experiment (and yes get it wrong every once and a while).

Well that leaves me with 4 hours weekly to train. I can’t be competitive with so little training time!!!

As already metnioned it is a 24/7 type of deal that you are doing. That included minimising stress, optimising your diet, transforming your sedentary lifestyle into being more active in general. If 4h/week stress free is all you can spare for activity SPECIFIC training, so be it. I am going to put a huge disclaimer here that I am not your job/marriage/family counselor though if 4h/week is what is left after you take care of all your responsibilities and you have dreams of becoming a professional athlete, your life as it currently is not the most optimal way of going towards achieving that goal.With that out of the way, to get back to the 4hours, the only goal is to be better than the person you were before, NOT versus others. Competition is good, though the idea is to improve yourself first and afterwards go out and see how you compare with others.

But, but, but I have races next week. I want to ride with my buddies or else they will think I am a wimp! After all – If you ain’t first, you are last!!!

The only person (or one of two if you subscribe to many of the various deities) you have to answer first to is yourself. Not your team manager, training buddies, coach, girlfriend/wife, or some guy on the internet (me). If you can honestly stand in front of a mirror and say that this is what you truly want to be doing and truly feels like is the best for you, fine. Though as they say if you have to ask….

Here having children puts life in an totally different perspective. Babies as cute (and sometimes really  patience demanding) as they are, in general come into this world pretty helpless. EVERY little first time accomplishement, such as grabbing that toy, sitting upright, turning over, crawling a couple of feet , all result in the baby having a huge smile of satisfaction. Somewhere along the way we have managed to put or let others (ie media) instill (whatever unreasonable crazy) notions, goals, etc. in our heads, notions that we end up defining ourselves with and worse stuff that haunts us constantly, bordering on paranoid.

You didn’t meet your weekly mileage goal, could not beat your PR, failed to qualify for the national team, got left out of the Olympic selection, etc, etc. (I have seen and/or experienced many of these first hand) Rarely it is the end of the world, yes really. Life goes on. You had the freedom and opportunity to do some or all of the above. It was/is a PRIVILEGE, for the most part you chose to do it, nobody held a gun to your head, even in the cases of Eastern European sport talent incubators, it was considered lucky if your child got toted as an Olympic hopeful (what happened afterwards is another story). See what you could do better and move on. Past is a story and in the worlds of Joe Strummer: The future is unwritten.

“Great sport begins where good health ends” – Bertolt Brecht

Making a living as a professional competitior is hard work. The good news is that for the most part, outside of team/sport politics, which for sure are not to be ignored, the criteria  are clearly defined and results are very easily qualified objectively.  This is also the bad news; to finish first, first you must finish. While I am not going to comment of what is required in order to achieve top-performance since this is an ethical question reagrding the limits of us as humans that [amazon text=sport physiologists have pondered for centuries – ie whether it is physiological or pathological&asin=0029147654]. Without your health you have nothing. Maybe you have a job to come back to, maybe you don’t. You have put too much time that you will never get back trying to achieve something, so you have to make sure you can be at your best. Injuries (that includes overtraining, hormonal problems, depression) can literally make it or break it all.  How many people are forced to retire due to ongoing ailments? Crashes and such aside, most were entirely plain old overtraining.

In the end the evergreen ‘old guys’ are considered an exception and retiring at 26-28 is the norm. While especially when it comes to endurance we should get better as we age.  A strength coach once said, and I am paraphrasing, don’t look at the junior sensation, ask how the old guys are managing to stay in prime condition for so long. They know something.

So OK, this means I can I cheat every once and a while, right?

Let me put this in a different perspective aka put a George Costanza spin to it. So there is this thing that makes you healthy, not fat, full of energy (aka not tired), you sleep better, you feel better and you gain fitness (speed, etc.) without the constant soreness, pain and suffering AND you want to drop it for a quick fix??? Seriously??? For a cookie??? Again, seriously?!?

Yes that ‘thing’ I mentioned in the previous sentence is taking charge of your health, personal development and ultimately fitness aka the MAF method. Yes, depraving yourself of all the positive benefits is cheating, not resisting the afternoon cookies (and the ‘pleasures of food’) at work as yet again ‘popular wisdom’ seems to suggest. Hey people cheat on their super model wives….so what do I know…

Maybe it’s a case of the grass being greener on the other side, with the only difference being that almost all of us (myself included) have ALREADY been to that other side for many years…it wasn’t greener and it was more like thorns and barren, rather than grass. If you keep drawing blanks with popular wisdom and the way you used to do things, maybe it is time for a change or doing the OPPOSITE of what has not been working for you. While sometimes circumstances make it inevitable, this should be a rare exception and not a cause of major freak out obsessive compulsive episodes. And by all means do sprint to get out of the way of that runaway car, even though you might go above your MAF heartrate and you are in your base building period. Common sense goes a long way.=)

I can train at a higher heart rate every once in a while, right? Can’t be that bad…

The MAF HR represents one thing – the point at which your body burns predominantly fat as a fuel (referred to as FATMax). The best way to find that point is by doing a metabolic test. This option is currently (as of 2017) quite costly and reserved for high end (performance) research. The 180 formula is the culmination of many years of research by Dr. Phil Maffetone with good number of athletes so this is the next best thing you can do. Here is the most important thing you need to get from the so called 180 formula – your metabolism does NOT care whether you are running, swimming , cycling, uphill, downhill, etc.  It doesn’t care what your personal feelings towards it are.

But this whole thing makes me slow…dead slow

As mentioned above, your Maximum Aerobic heart rate (MAF HR) is simply a value at which your body uses predominantly fat and that is a reflection of your health and hence fitness. Endurance is a FUNDAMENTAL human feature. I don’t see speed in that picture. The fact that you go slow is just simply that you cannot burn fat efficiently YET (due to many reasons). It will get there. How fast and when, nobody can tell you that (unless they are lying or misinformed). You will be changed by the MAF method that is a fact. Therefore trying to link speed and fat metabolism is like trying to smell the color purple and see the music. It’s metaphorical at best.

Ok so where do I start? Is it gluten free? High fat? Low carb? 2 week test?

If you go and visit the Balkans and my home country Bulgaria, which I highly recommend you do, you will inadvertaendly notice that yoghurt, feta cheese and such are a staple for everything. Where I am going with this is that eating dairy has been going on for generations and lactose tolerance is more or less a positive mutation. To this day full fat raw (unpasteurised) dairy  represent a good part of what I consume on a daily basis and I lack the negative side effects that most people associate with dairy products. I am most likely different than you and a lot of people in that department. Where we are the same is that refined carbohdyrates (flour, corn starch, sugar) and hence hyper insulin secretion have no place in our bodies…PERIOD. I am not even going to give junkfood the time of day to mention that this is NOT food, it is junk though. It is taking responsibility for what you put on your plate/grocery bags and that means educating yourself so that you can make informed decisions that are best for your health, rather than because this person, advertising or govenrment/pharmaceutical agency told you to. Whatever you want to call it, hey feel free. My friends refer to it as Nikola’s theory.

I (already) am a fat burning machine! Therefore, I don’t need to eat since there is plenty of fat in my body even though I am super lean!

Ever heard the story of the farmer who finally taught his donkey to not eat and it died on him (the animal’s courage!). Well the moral is that we need energy to function and even plants don’t just rely solely on sunlight. Given human metabolism we have many metabolic pathways to overlap since it is survival of the species that is the most important we can use variety of fuels. In short I am quoting a previous article directly.

Human metabolism is quite robust with many of the pathways overlapping, hey it is survival that we are after. While we can get by in extreme states, even when high performance is needed (the ‘classic athlete high carb diet/carbo loading, etc. come to mind and many Olympic medals to its name) The important part is that all systems must be functioning at their optimum. Each one has a niche (specific role) that it does best:

• Fat – predominant energy source for all activities
• Glucose – high bursts and/or high intensity (fight-or-flight)
• Protein – mostly during state of starvation and/or depending on diet (ie lots of meat)
• Ketones – brain fuel (keto clarity) as well as universal fuel for all cells; starvation fuel.

You want optimal rather than extreme. What is optimal for you and your (athletic) needs is for YOU to figure out, there is no formula and if anybody tries to convince you otherwise they are either lying or very very misinformed. If you have to eat below 50g of carbohydrates a day to enter ketosis – Fine. Remain in mild ketosis and eating 150-200g of carbohydrates a day – also fine – it is individual and you should be your own test monkey/lab rat.

While being metabolically efficient for a lack of better term does give you the freedom from needing to (over)eat every one or two hours and especially going wihtout food has no major effect on energy and brain clarity, that energy needs to come from somewhere (food). Starvation is interpreted as stress, which is cumulative and in modern fast paced societies it might be the straw that broke the camel’s back (animal anology yet again). Don’t be afraid to experiment within reasonable limits. If you have a 16km/10 mile hilly bike commute one way you might wanna pack a lunch at the very least.

But I have a family/wife/cat/children, do I start with diet, lowering intenisty, walking barefoot, ketosis, 2 week test AAARGHHHH!!! I just can’t do it, it’s TOO MUCH too handle!!!

Who is asking you to do it all at once? Rome was not built in a day. Goal is becoming better than you were before. Nobody said anything about you comparing your chapter one with somebody else’s chapter 15. It’s quite often a tango, two steps forward one step back. It’s the overall progress that matters. Though in my opinion cutting out refined carbohydrates, sugar and stopping being afraid of saturated fat is a very good first step.

Does it mean NEVER doing any high intensity workouts, strength training, etc.?!?

When you look annoyed all the time, people think you are busy.

-George Costanza

Today wearing stress as a badge of honor has become fashionable. If you ain’t stressed you are not trying hard enough. Therefore the accepted norm is the worn out, coffee (or other stimulant) driven person who never stops to just smell the flowers, time is money and no pain – no gain; it’s a rat race ALL the time. Unsurprisingly overtraining follows the same stages of stress (alert, resistance and exhaustion). It is after all physical stress we are inflicting when we practice and compete (not excluding the mental/motivation aspects as well). Most of us (myself included) for a good long time have existed between the second and final stage. If you ain’t sore and suffering you will never improve…so the ‘popular wisdom goes.

Going through (athletic) life in such an unsustainable manner shows its ugly face with injuries, constant fatigue, hormonal problems, inflammation and plethora of many hits against your health. This is among the prime reason while most professionals retire, quite often forced by ailments, around 26-28 years of age and/or that young sensation that gets chewed up by the PRO ranks to never come back. Therefore it is getting out of that negative pattern of overstress/overtraining that should be the priority. In 99% of cases this means slowing, down, training less (volume and intensity). Strength and interval training are both extremely taxing types of activities so if you are trying to reduce the overall stress you won’t go doing tough workouts. The term (aerobic) base gets thrown around haphazardly, and while an imperfect and incomplete definition – your health is the foundation for everything and without it you are adding strength, intensity to dysfunction. You don’t build a skyscraper on a marshland, wihtout some serious foundation work. Most people’s fitness is held (often quite literally) sports tape, willpower and/or caffeine and sugar drinks (I was the latter case for quite a while). Once you get that under control after as long as it takes, your body will be able to handle it. Don’t believe me? Ever ‘had the legs’ in a race/workout and seem to be never fatiguing? Why should that be the one time per season exception and not the rule?

But how does the whole thing relate to life and other activites ie not running and triathlon?

Metabolically limited sports aka truly fitness contests such as (marathon, ultra) running, triathlon, rowing etc. are the perfect real-life laboratory for a method like MAF since fitness is THE MAIN limiter and a direct reflection of success – how hard you can go is how hard you can go (poor running form, inefficient swimming stroke just make you use more energy for the same amount of effort). Your results do NOT depend on what others are doing, interfering with the competition (positively or negatively) is against the rules. Yes if somebody is much faster you don’t go trying to keep up if that means dropping off in 5minutes. Therefore other sports where tactics play a much higher role such as team sports (ie basketball) or in my case cycling, people treat it as an excuse to ‘cheat’ and treat training like racing – hard and fast all the time. I can see where the confusion might have originated. Fundamentally you must be prepared for the challenges that your chosen activity requires (that includes life as well).

Challenge me with what you say?

Let me explain…

Sidenote: I am in 100% agreement that the way most cycling races unfold is truly the worst way efficiency wise; like sprinting out of every corner for every hill ALL the time, even in quiet parts of the race and in the grupetto. The technique mentioned leaves most people associating road racing with suffering and most participants not making it past the halfway mark. If a move goes, you don’t know if the breakaway is going to stick so you have to follow it.  Hey don’t hate the players, hate the game.

Neuromuscular vs Metabolic

We are not headless chickens. EVERYTHING originates from the brain therefore the ability for example to pedal a bike sustainably at high cadence starts neuromuscularly FIRST. Same goes with running fast, swimming butterfly stroke, etc. I don’t have to tell you how ‘easy’ it is to follow complex instructions when you are crosseyed from fatigue. It doesn’t work. Also why a complex movmement is broken down into simple ones first and why visualisation is an extremely valuable tool.  The above works most efficiently when you are not fatigued and can pull all the stops without ill effects. This is why you only need VERY little high intensity training done WHEN 100% fit and healthy (1-2 weeks according to Dr. Maffetone himself). All you are doing is entering the basic instructions/patterns in your brain so that you can do them on autopilot when the opportunity arises (attacks, sprints, etc.). Once you literally know what to do, your metabolism will do its best to meet the demands the brain is sending. Ideally you want a muscle that is adept at burning both fat and glucose (carbohydrates), with the energy coming predominantly from fat well into the medium intensities. When it comes to human physiology this is the most efficient and least stressful way of doing things. This is where the so haphzardly thrown term (aerobic) ‘base’ really comes into play. Endurance and hence fat burning and aerobic condition is a fundamental human feature as such it is no surpise all comprise the main elements of health and fitness. It is literally a foundation with health and aerobic condition/fat burning going hand in hand.

When tired and pushed too hard we would ALWAYS revert to old (suboptimal) patterns when the base is shaky. It’s the brain that pull the emergency brakes to prevent further damage/overstress. This is the reason why strength training must incorporate only few heavy reps done not to fatigue. Everybody can win on a good day, the trick is to be able to do it on a bad day. Here winning does not always mean first place on the podium. For example, in my days as a rower most workouts (85%+) were done at 18-20 strokes per minute (spm) (the actual intensity was another story…ie not MAF) as compared to the 32-36 spm race pace. [amazon text=Somebody calculated that for an Olympic cycle&asin=0449910032] (4yrs) it takes almost a million strokes done in practice for every stroke in the final race.  My most successful season was when the only high intensity workouts were couple 3 on 10 (3 strokes to build up speed, 10 strokes at race pace) and than easy to recover for a total of 50-70 race-like strokes for the whole workout (as compared to the ~220 strokes needed to finish a typical 2k (1.25mi race). In the case of cycling this is why occasional motopacing or fast paced group riding are both very potent workouts – you go at race speed though way below race power (due to drafting).

MAF HR and training zones and numbers must always be regarded into the greater picture that is the human body and metabolism.

So after all this what should I make of this MAF method thing?

You are in charge. Your time, your body, your sport. You have your best interest and that means taking responsibility for it all; never stop being curious and constantly asking why. It’s rarely a simple answer, don’t ever let someone tell you otherwise. Don’t confuse that with it being DIFFICULT to figure out. In the words of the nobel prize winning Physicist Richard Feynman – there is a pleasure in finding things out. If you have been drawing blanks with whatever it is you have been doing (diet, bodyweight,training, life, etc), it’s time for a (major) change.

In practical terms back to the quote that inspired that post: whatever seems to be the ‘popular wisdom’ you should do the opposite. While a brainless method, it is a good way to begin to question a subject and being able to find out the whole story behind the big picture – for example how saturated fat got labeled the villain and how we are currently in a fat phobic culture while it is the unhelathiest we have been as species on a global term for a loooong time

As a final note, while challenging for a good number of the A-type driven individuals that most of us(endurance athletes) are, or strive to be – don’t take things too seriously and treat life in a clinical and compartmentalised manner. We don’t get out of the whole thing alive (at least not until science figures out how to infuse our consciousness in a machine, even so). Therefore it is too short of a time to obsess over the usually insignificant (such as power numbers, race results, training hours, what your neighbor is doing and you are not).

Go out there and have fun!

My continuous extremely positive experience with the MAF Method can be found under the Me and MAF tag.

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Using only a number as the litmus test of whether you are strong or not is self-defeating. You will get older. You will not be able to continue to set personal all-time bests forever. But you can continue to get stronger mentally. You can adjust to whatever the environment is and challenge yourself to push past wherever you are at the moment, in any way you can, and feel good knowing you just made yourself a better man or woman.

-Pavel Tsatsouline

Why am I not seeing improvement at MAF? Why do I slow down? Do I need to do MAF tests if I don’t race?

Those among many similar ones, are questions that crop up quite often and I receive a number of emails with more or less the same ponderings, therefore I decided to write out my experiences and get a discussion going.

While seeing tremendous improvements in many aspects of my life, not just MAF tests, at some point we all face challenges. The above, coupled with the fact that everything goes in cycles can often times lead to confusion and more ferquently frustration.

Unfortunately we look for formulas and (quick fix) prescriptions in search for an easy straighforward explanation of what is a complex problem by nature.

How and Why my MAF Tests Slowed Down and What Did I Do to Fix It.

I am sending a warning that it is the PRINCIPLES behind everything I am going to tell you that are ultimately important. My personal expreinces are just examples; almost certainly your own situation is vastly different than mine. Though first I want go address something first.

Do I need to do MAF tests if I am not going to race (and I just do the whole thing for health reasons)?

As usual you need to ask the right questions

What does a MAF Test Represent?

Sideote: MAF tests are NOT the same as your MAF HR which is a metabolic component ie the maximum HR at which you utilise predominantle fat for energy rather than glucose (carbohydrates).

The MAF tests represent the health and condition of your aerobic system. The aerobic system and hence endurance are fundametal human features (we all have both) that comprise EVERYTHING that goes on with your body (hormones, stress, metabolism, muscle imbalances etc.). That everything is all interconnected, you cannot isolate the components, therefore if something changes, the rest responds. The human body is an amazing ‘machine.’ Where am I going with this?

The MAF tests represent the output of the whole ‘system,’ as a result what you see on this final end means that something has changed and you gotta take a broad look at the big picture. This is where even modern (western) medicine falls extremely short – it treats symptoms rather than causes ie neck muscle imbalance and extreme fatigue both cause a headache, however, by just taking ibuprofen you are only addressing/masking the headache, not what caused it (and you added (even more) chemical stress to the system). You would still have tense neck muscles (for example from looking down at your smartphone all day) and be extermely tired (ie from not sleeping enough). Therefore by performing MAF tests you have a baseline, a number (we all love numbers and formulas…) that describes YOUR health and fitness (at that particular point in time).

But I don’t race! What do I care about numbers?

Racing and choice of an activity are just small details (more on that below). What we mostly have lost and want to regain (with the MAF method) is total conscious awareness of our bodies. You have to be your own coach and your own lab experiment. Therefore you need to know how it feels when things are doing fine and when they go haywire. If you eat a certain food how does that affect you? If you sleep an extra hour every day, do you feel better? Therefore I HIGHLY advise anybody to perform MAF tests for some time (3-6 months), if during that time you see lack of progress and even regression, this is a GOOD thing, since it forces you to think and look for the cause – to ask why. Also here is where I want to go on a slight tangent…

Comptartmentalisation of Life

The current way of separating how we do things is extremely flawed. What do I mean by that (and I really don’t mean to offend anybody, I really don’t since I was doing things in the same manner for a long time) – if you go 1h a day to the gym (first good for you) and the rest of the time you sit behind a desk and pound potato chips, cookies, donuts (whatever is around the office), and than watch the latest sitcom (and/or your smartphone) late into the evening so you have agitated sleep, quite opposite to what people around you might call you – you are NOT a sporty person – you are somebody who goes to the gym for 1 hour out of 24 a day. Go to ANY office, from the stiff corporate one the hip enterpreneur one, you will see that same thing, it is scary! Do you honestly believe that 1 can undo 23? We have comptartmentalised activities – “This is where and how I work and afterwards I am active for this amount of time and than I have fun on this day.” Something that is as hollistic as human life has been downgraded to a game of numbers. Elite athletes are not immune to the problem and the term ‘active couch potato’ is slowly gaining ground. It is always the same body that has to take all of the above. You cannot be making massive compromises 95% of the time and expect one hour to undo it all. Back in the day cyclists in the UK had one bike that they rode with luggage and fenders most of the time to work, on the weekends they RODE to races, swapped wheels, removed the unecesary (fenders, racks, etc) and raced the same bike – it was a tool for the job. They didn’t need to ‘train,’ they rode enough kilometeres just going to work!; they took the occasional tour/camping trip by bike without a second thought and the frequent club ride (they also smoked pipes but that is another question).

Nowadays ‘training’ is something we have to do on the side for tiny fraction of the time, we have to sacrifice and make time for it. Where I am going with the tangent?

The whole thing (the MAF method or whatever you want to call it) is a lifetime journey. You cannot be doing MAF for 1h and expect significant, if any results. You truly have to address EVERY aspect of your life (sleep, stress, food, etc), of course not all at once… It’s not a question of compartmentisation, but one of synchronicity. Sure you can’t win an Ironman by just being a truly (my emphasis) active and healthy person, HOWEVER, you MUST be able to enter and finish one without even a thought and without needing (serious) medical attention afterwards, if not an ironman, you should be able to finish a running marathon without a second thought. You aim for total awareness and health and fitness, what activity you choose is just details and whether you decide to pin a number and compete is your choice, your freedom to decide. You cannot change it all at once, you can start for example by cutting off sugar, by moving more during the day, by taking your shoes and walking barefoot as much as possible, ride your bike to work instead of driving, etc.
I am NOT denying the progress and the plethora of high quality training equipment and gadgets that are out there; this is a good thing, the unfortunate side effect for us is the disconnect.

So closing the tangent, I had amazing progress with more or less 9months with the MAF method, to be honest, while not breaking any power records I cannot recall ever such an upward trend in ALL the years (24 to be precise) of doing (competitive) sports, though at one point my MAF tests slowed down. At the time of writing this post, I have gotten everything more or less back on track as such I am sharing how I troubleshot the whole thing. Your mileage may (and most certainly will) vary.=)

When and Why My MAF Tests Slowed Down?

Right around the end of August couple of things happened in my life and though I could feel that I was not 100%, I didn’t do anythign crazy like increase my training hours etc, though one thing i did was remove the screen showing power from my bike computer. I knew i was slowing down, I didn’t need a reminder! Also I keep my MAF tests on a spreadsheet tIat I update weekly, though as you will see, I already had enough on my plate, so the spreadsheet wasn’t exactly a priority…so I missed the trend by a week or two. I have two segments that I ride often enough (and I have data for both since September 2015 when I started with the MAF method). I record the power I produce on my bike (more power @ MAF HR = more fitness) So if you look at the continued graph from my previous post, the nice and linear upward trend changed right around the middle of August 2016 and really crashed in October 2016.

The monthly averages of course followed the trend (significant drop in August 2016 and than in October 2016)

It’s been a long time since I first realized that it is never a simple answer, there is not one SINGLE thing that made a change happen (ok of course in force majeure type of circumstances like crashes, though in those situations it is blatantly obvious). So the things that happened in no particular order:

• The birth of my son
• Jo Nesbo and Terry Pratchett and my 19:00 rule
• An August heatwave (36+C/100+F degrees)
• Riding my bike on my 25min hilly commute to/from work ‘by feel’ with a quite dysfunctional position.

So let’s look more carefully

Birth of my Son

Quoting Larry Smith (TED link)

Do you really think it’s appropriate that you should actually take children and use them as a shield?

-Larry Smith

This is the single happiest moment in my life and as such it is probably the biggest change anyone can experience. Children and family are often used as a shield or in simple terms as an excuse of why something can’t be done. Yes it means disturbed sleep and yes it is a change a MASSIVE ONE, and yes you can’t (initially) keep training as you had been used to. Though not realizing how big of an impact it actually is – in itself is the reason why fatigue and stress slowly creep in.

Jo Nesbo and Terry Pratchett

My 19:00 rule (when I drop EVERYTHING and also means ZERO electronics after 19:00h) slowly became more like the 23:00 rule. The Harry Hole series of novels (by Jo Nesbo) kept me up at night and I read the first three books in the series in maybe a week. Same goes with my long time favorite – Terry Pratchett. I cannot overemphasize the importance of sleep.

Heatwave

I had a blast – pun intended. It was hot, though I really got into the role fo a Tour de France cyclist and constantly dousing myself with water. It didn’t feel any slower/harder than usual, though my brain knows better. I don’t take heat particularly well (championship link) – I never really lived where I had enough time to acclimatise as such in my MAF Hr zone, my power was lower. We had 2-3 days of 36+C so that was enough to make a numerical (ie numbers slowed down while I was actually fine) impact on my progress, looking back it was quite significant.

Riding my bike on my 25min hilly commute to/from work ‘by feel’

I emphasize 25min and hilly since while it was (past tense…) nice to work so close to home, I lived on the bottom of a significant hill (Mt.Valerian) and my job was on the other side. Pretty much it was uphill (after sitting down for a good part of the day) as soon as I left so without really taking time to warm up and feeling fresh and energised it was very easy to push it a bit harder every day; it the end I was going 1 gear harder up the hill. I didn’t wear my HR monitor since I thought I could feel enough. That went for about 2-3 weeks. I have no numbers to pin anything down though I was more sore than usual for quite some time. (which i discovered was due to disfunctional and unstable position on my commuting bike, more on that in a future article on stability) Also it was short enough that anybody even the biggest couch potato can claw their way through the duration, it wasn’t an endurance challenge and if i wanted I could have sprinted all the way without bonking, etc.

What REALLY made my MAF tests slow down?

Granted each of those is/can be significant on its own, some more than others, the real reason was that I had lost awareness and in a way recalibrated my feel of things. This is VERY easy to do (ever cheated on a diet? – one cookie becomes one too many). Therefore I had let things drift, gotten into a rut, found a rhythm, whatever you want to call it. I had failed to acknowledge that things have changed and as such required an adjustment – I kept doing things the old way. This is the single reason why any aspect of life changes negatively, including MAF tests slowing down – you have lost awareness and FAILED to acknowledge and respond to new changes. Fear not, as they say you can’t know where the limit is if you never go past it – it’s a constnat process of (fine) tuning.

How did I fix it?

That was actually the easy part. Figuring out things were not going as before was the tough one. Since changes take time I reinforced the 19:00 very strictly. Also my day job situation changed, so most of my cycling is done commmuting (10mi/17km each way or ~2.5h every day) and actually the weekends I take to recover and as a consequence I don’t ride my usual MAF segments that often. I made some MAF segments on my way to work and I am seeing progress and my numbers are close to baseline in my “old” MAF segments. About the latter (adapting your MAF semgents) I have a separate post coming in the next week or two. Last but not least I addressed my position on my commuting bike (using Steve Hogg’s methods and after some initial break in period my soreness is gone and I am much more comfortable and able to produce sustainable efforts day in and day out.

More or less my MAF numbers returned to normal (graph above), most importantly by looking a year from now at the same time, the improvement is staggering (in some cases 40Watts!!!). While numbers are just that and they really don’t represent all the many positive experiences in pretty much every aspect of my life.  I also noticed that just a year ago my pace dropped of significantly only an hour into the ride (difference between blue and orange bars).

Conclusion

Life is cyclic and as such peaks would be followed by trophs; ups and downs are an integral part of nature. In addition there is seldomly a real simple answer to a problem, especially when it comes to health and fitness. Therefore any changes from normal, whatever, that might be for YOU, require attention, since they might point towards underlying issues that need adressing. It is a continous process of learning to be more consciously aware of your body and the signals it is sending you, rather than falling back to old and usually less optimal (or downright unhealthy) patterns of doing things. Your experiences will be unique and different; mine as desribed  above were just an illustration.

More similar articles can be found under the Me and MAF tag.

Continuing Education

The opening quote is inspired by:

[amazon text=The Kettlebell – Simple and Sinister&asin=0989892409]  – Pavel Tsatsouline

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=0938045199]

[amazon text=The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing&asin=1616080655] – Dr. Philip Maffetone

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1616080655]

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Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.
― H. James Harrington

While it is never a simple explanation, if you have to break it down, when it comes to food for health and fitness you can more or less narrow it down to:

• (Refined) carbohydrates and hence the subsequent release of lots insulin make you fat and unhealthy = BAD
• Saturated fats make you healthy and full of energy = GOOD.

Granted human metabolic pathways represent a plate of spaghetti and things are not as clearcut as above, the important point is that our physiology is uniquely adapted to break down fats in order to produce energy. The reasons being many, though providing 9kcal per gram compared to the measly 4kcal+water weight as available from glucose (carbohydrate). After all why would we store fat otherwise???

Since it is survival (and hence reproduction) that we are always after, putting all the eggs into one energy source basket, is rarely a good idea. As a result, we can break down all the macronutrients – proteins, carbohydrates and as I already mentioned – fats. We can synthesize most of the macronutrients and convert/re-convert them – a truly fail safe mechanism. The tricky part is that fats cannot pass the blood brain barrier and it is our brains with the vast creative ability that makes us human. Even at rest, the brain consumes significant amounts of energy and some of it must be left for the rest of the body. Therefore the next logical question is where does ALL that energy come from?

Sidenote #1: Bonking. The glucose receptors/transporters are the doors responsible for glucose getting into the cells where it can be used by the mitochondria to produce energy. The said receptors come in many varieties and not surprisingly the one with the highest affinity (GLUT3) is found in neurons. Blood glucose (90-110mg/dl) is extremely limited, coupled to the fact we store roughly 250g/2000kcal in the form of glycogen and we can burn 750+kcal/hour and only absorb ~350kcal/hour; it makes up for a train on a crash course. Therefore if/when glucose is our bodies’ primary choice of fuel when supplies get tight it is the brain that gets first dibs. When that happens the feeling that probably most of us have experienced happens – bonking/hitting the wall; in order to remain functional the brain shuts down everything that is not necessary in order to protect itself and make sure it continues to perform though at a basic level.

Energy and the Human Body

Lemons

Yes lemons…kinda….As mentioned above human metabolism is a plate of spaghetti, therefore I don’t aim to put you to sleep while discussing the many similarly named intermediates that comprise the citric acid cycle.

The important point is that ALL cells with mitochondria can perform the said cycle. Red blood cells are among the few that can’t. As long as a macronutrient (fat, carbohydrate, etc.) can be broken down (to any of that fancy name substances you see in the diagram at ANY step of the cycle, we can use it for energy.)

• Carbohydrates (mainly glucose) get burned by glycolysis
• Fats get utilized via beta oxidation as well as can be broken down to ketone bodies (ketones)
• Proteins get broken down to their amino acids which are further chopped down to keto acids which get broken down to ketones.

Keto what says you?

The 4th fuel – Ketones

It bears repeating that insulin is the energy storage (aka fat MAKING) hormone. It is released in huge amounts mainly due to the consumption of highly refined (quickly digested) carbohydrates. It’s a direct relationship with no buts and no ifs. When carbohydrate intake is lowered and as such insulin levels decrease, the levels of another hormone glucagon go up. The body starts breaking down fatty acids and releasing stored glucose to be used as fuel. Some of the excess fatty acids get taken up by the liver and converted to ketones. If no carbs come in soon, the stored carbohydrates (glycogen) are depleted and the following things happen:

1. The liver starts making glucose through gluconeogenesis. Proteins (muscle tissue) are the preferred raw material.
2. The brain switches from almost 100% dependency on glucose to ~75+% ketones and some glucose for energy
3. Fat becomes the main fuel source for all cells with the brain happily chomping down ketones and as such gluconeogenesis slows down since it is no longer the main glucose consumer. Ketone concentration in the blood increases in the range of 0.5mM to 5mM.

While it might not be so obvious to you, this is what happens when you starve yourself (or fast). As mentioned in the opening paragraphs, it is the brain that defines us (we are not headless chickens after all…) and as such it must have sufficient energy in order to run the show. If we were to continue using glucose we would have to continuously keep breaking down muscles in order to supply the raw material for gluconeogenesis. When food wasn’t a touch away we needed to be able to function optimally, otherwise we would not have survived as a species. From first glance ketosis is an emergency mechanism until food is available again. Evidence is mourning that long term ketosis is beneficial – Drs Jeff Volek and Stephen Phinney are among the pioneers in the field are and [amazon text=I highly recommend their work&asin=B005CVV2AE]. They showed that ketosis can beneficial for endurance performance. In addition a ketogenic diet has been an approved and successful treatment for childhood epilepsy.

Therefore you can jumpstart the process by fasting. HOWEVER, any food shortage is interpreted as stress.  If your body relies predominantly on fat you should be able to fast without ill effects and even do fasted workouts. Though keep in mind that stress is cumulative and in the modern fast paced society, it might be one thing too many. The other method  for entering into ketosis (gaining popularity ) is by drastically reducing carbohydrate intake so that insulin levels are kept low.

Here is a good place to make a VERY important distinction.

Ketosis and Beta oxidation (fat burning) are NOT the same thing. They can and do occur simultaneously in EVERYBODY (the degree differs; more on that below) and hence why ketones are sometimes referred as the 4th fuel. I was for a long time under the impression that fat burning was the equivalent of ketosis. I believe that a lot of people that have discovered the benefits of the so called high-fat/low carbohydrate diets, are under the same wrong/inaccurate impression. Since after couple of days after removing highly insulin producing foods (pastas, sweets, etc.), the brain switches predominantly to ketones for energy and I can personally attest that the amount and constant duration of mental awareness was (and still is!!!) something that I have never experienced. This is what is commonly referred to as “keto clarity.” Therefore it all gets labeled as ketosis and people (myself included) start wondering:

Should I be in ketosis? Would I get laid if I do so? Will it pay my house loan?

That all leads to freaking out for a lack of better word. So on to the next part…

Sidenote #2: Ketosis vs ketoacidosis. A still remember a biochemistry course in college where a reputable textbook said that ketosis is a pathological state, also refereed to as ketoacidosis. Even a good number of health professionals keep repeating that ad nauseum. If you starve long enough you enter into the said state and you can die. Yes you can starve to death, though it is not because of ketosis or ketoacidosis. In the total absence of insulin (aka Type 1 diabetes), since the cells cannot absorb nutrients, the body literally freaks out it is starving, fat metabolism, as described above goes into overdrive and since ketones are acidic as they accumulate in the blood; the buffering system gets overloaded and at concentrations of 20+mmol you can go into a coma, etc. Ketoacidosis is an extreme form of ketosis. With a functioning pancreas (that can produce insulin) and if you are not a raging alcoholic, the above simply cannot happen, it is physiologically impossible. During starvation or in low carbohydrate (<50g/day) diets, 0.2-8mmol is something we can all live happily and the long terms effects of ketosis are starting to get more positive reviews in the scientific literature.

Is Ketosis for YOU? My Experience

After years of pastas and carbohydrate rich foods as the standard endurance athlete diet, being introduced to [amazon text=Dr. Phil Maffetone’s big yellow book&asin=1616080655] lead me down a rabbit hole of high-fat diets and subsequently into ketosis. I didn’t stress too much about it since it all made sense, though since carbs were the enemy I kept them as low as possible – in simple terms that means only 1-2 pieces of fruit per day. Therefore I was curious where I was on the whole nutritonal ketosis thing. So I decided to measure it all.

While there are various gadgets in development to test the levels of ketones from the breath and or urine, what is in our blood will always be the true reflection on what is going on with our bodies, as such this is the best way. There are few commercially available meters on the market, the one available to me was [amazon text=Freestyle Optium Neo&asin=B01GCMYNKM]. Keep in mind that at the time of this writing each sample runs close to 2eur (2usd). I don’t claim that my results have any scientific value. I had a 20 pack of test strips and I tested various states (post fasted workouts, morning/afternoon, etc.). I didn’t do duplicates, statistical analysis etc. This is beyond the point I am trying to make. So what numbers did i get?

The maximum level I got was 0.5mmol, with typical levels (even hours after a fasted workout), in the range of 0.2-0.3mmol. In short I was in mild ketosis, not in the true ‘nutritional ketosis territory’ (0.5-5mmol). Going even lower carb would be uncomfortable and difficult for me and my levels did NOT change after I introduced the occasional sweet potato and/or more fruits in my days – in general stopping freaking out about daily carbohydrates.

Is ketosis for YOU?  I can’t tell you that. What I can do is explain….

What Does It All Mean?

Athletes or not we need energy to survive. I am borrowing the graphs from Alan Couzens’s articles on metabolic testing. It’s a fancy term showing how our bodies use energy and how it can be drastically influenced by diet and or training methods (high intensity intervals for example). Energy (calories) coming from fat (blue) and carbohydrates (orange) are plotted vs power output (x, horizontal axis).

Glucose Burner or “Metabolically challenged athlete”

This is your currently (as of 2017) endurance athlete surviving on high carbohydrate diet (pasta, sports drinks, gels) and subscribing to the “no pain no gain” methods of training such as you have to train fast to race fast, intensity over volume (quality over quantity), etc. That was most certainly me some years back.

Fat burning is tiny spec in the sea of orange. Why is that limiting? Remember we have 2000kcal stored, can burn 750+kcal/h and can only absorb ~350kcal/h from carbohydrates. This is before getting to the fact that glucose metabolism is highly inflammatory due to oxidative stress, among other things.

Keto Athlete

Low/restricted carbohydrate diets are gaining popularity, though if taken too far you get the following.

Fat burning is off the charts and is the predominant process even into higher intensities, though at some point, everything shuts down. You have reached a glass ceiling, like the sonic barrier that was deemed impossible to break through for airplanes. Though we managed to break it and while a metaphor, below is an example of how it should all more or less look like.

The Metabolically Optimal Athlete

Ironman and triathlons in general are metabolic limited events aka for the most part as hard as you can go is as hard as you can go and that is directly related to finishing times. Therefore how does an Elite athlete there look like?

Fat metabolism is still quite significant, though as intensities ramp up, fat metabolism while still significant and even increasing at some point gives significant way to glucose. If you overlap the keto athlete and the ironman one, you see that it is both the peak and the WIDTH of fat burning that is important.

The above cases are quite illustrative (even if you are not a triathlete). You want muscles that are adept at burning both fat and glucose WHEN NEEDED. This is NOT an excuse to be pounding sugary sports drinks and eating cookies. It is an illustration on how we function and that while we can get by in extreme states, even when high performance is needed (the ‘classic athlete high carb diet/carbo loading, etc. come to mind and many Olympic medals to its name) The important part is that all systems must be functioning at their optimum. Each one has a niche (specific role) that it does best:

• Fat – predominant energy source for all activities
• Glucose – high bursts and/or high intensity (fight-or-flight)
• Protein – mostly during state of starvation and/or depending on diet (ie lots of meat)
• Ketones – brain fuel (keto clarity) as well as universal fuel for all cells; starvation fuel.

You want optimal rather than extreme. What is optimal for you and your (athletic) needs is for YOU to figure out, there is no formula and if anybody tries to convince you otherwise they are either lying or very very misinformed. If you have to eat below 50g of carbohydrates a day to enter ketosis – Fine. Remain in mild ketosis and eating 150-200g of carbohydrates a day – also fine – it is individual and you should be your own test monkey/lab rat.

Conclusion and Rant

Conclusion

I did it as a curiosity and the expense prevented me from REALLY obsessing about it ie testing every day, etc. I can ride for 3+h fasted without a problem (no low energy, headaches, etc), for 5h without a second thought (I get bored and sometimes annoyed of myself and my own thoughts/conversations in my head at anything longer) with only water and when I return home I am actually full with energy (ok relatively speaking); I am not ready to collapse and don’t need LOTS of coffee to even get off the couch…oh memories) and I am not dashing for the fridge in search for a quick ‘pick me up’ snack. My energy levels throughout the day are constantly high and the brain clarity doesn’t seize to amaze me. Therefore I am confident, my fat burning is at a decent level, whatever numbers on some display show. In the end this is the goal – become aware of what it takes so that you can tap into your body virtually limitless fuel supply – fat which is intertwined into so many ESSENTIAL life processes so that you ultimately achieve health and fitness. In parallel it goes into achieving awareness and being your own test monkey regarding your own life and health – whether it means amount of daily carbohydrates or other aspects.

Rant

I saved the ‘best’ for last. This is a bit of a paradox since with things as they are, no company would from the goodness of their heart go out and take the pains and money to develop such a device (blood glucose/ketone meter) if there was not an explicit need. Yet the need exists due to the avalanche, bullet train speed increase of metabolic diseases with obesity and diabetes topping the carts at 30+% of populations worldwide as of 2016. If it wasn’t for a simple entirely preventable cause – insulin resistance caused by refined carbohydrates, it wouldn’t be so bad making a profit out of it. Granted con and scam artists ‘make a living’ with much more ethically questionable ways, the exploits of the pharma industry influences me, you and everybody. The basic set for my ‘experiment’ cost me close to EUR100 (~USD100) at the time of this post. I am no diabetic so I paid it 100%. If I were, the health insurance would cover at least 70% and that takes into account that diabetics have to measure their blood glucose after every meal, and believing the advertising (and doctors!!!!?!?!?!) you are stuck with Type 2 diabetes for life (medication, consumables, etc) – you are the cash cow of the pharma industry. A healthcare system depends on healthy people being more than the sick ones, therefore eventually (and sooner than I imagine for sure) the system would collapse and when I actually need healthcare – yes I am looking at you drivers checking your phones and NOT paying attention to cyclists and other road users – I would have to pay it all out of pocket, yet a sizeable chunk of my wages (and hence MY TIME) goes into health insurance and I still pay quite a bit of premiums regardless (like Vitamin D blood tests). As we are now, there is an increasing number of people relegated to ‘life support’ with type 2 diabetes, obesity and metabolic syndrome, while the cause is simple and everybody is paying dearly in terms of money and more importantly health, more often than not not being able to refuse to do so. This is something I cannot agree with. #endrant

Burn more fat people, it’s good for everybody.

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Continuing Education

[amazon text=The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance&asin=0983490716] – Dr. Stephen Phinney and Prof. Jeff Volek.

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This article is for my personal use and educational purposes only, please always consult a licensed health professional. I cannot be held responsible for any damages caused by the information contained in this article.

The post Experiments in Speed: Nutritional Ketosis appeared first on The Tall Cyclist.

Well let me tell you a story…

Not too long ago in a region far away, lived an (fictitious) indigenous tribe called the Chukchi. Some of the activites they performed were logging in the thick Syberian forests. True to their ancient or some might say primitive ways, they used only a handful of hand tools, yet a SINGLE person could chop a massive truckload of wood in one day (try it, it’s MUCH harder than you think…). Though the marketing and product managers of their time of a certain chainsaw making company decided that the ‘primitive’ people needed some technology. So our managers in question, put their pointy shoes on and off they went to the deep Syberian forests to promote their product.

“Hello logger,  we want to sell you this chainsaw to make your life easier.

“Axe fine every day, no need for orange metal machine.”

“Yes we understand logger, however, with this chainsaw you would be able to do more work. Up to 20%*!

*by purchasing our monthly maintenance plan and over-priced spare parts that we will charge you dearly for and never deliver on time.“

“Ok I try, but I tell you machine no good, axe better”

They sold him a chainsaw and merrily went back to the comfort of their office, with visions of all the products and maintenance plans they will sell to all the indigenous people.

Not too much time passed and news started cropping up of how their product was turning out absolutely massive productivity numbers. What did you know it was from the region where they had met our friend – the logger. Further investigation was needed. Pointy shoes were adjsuted and…

“Hello logger, as our constant efforts for process improvements to meet the latest standards, neccesites we inspect how our products are being used.”

“What the F***?”

“Show us how you can use the orange machine to chop two truckloads of wood per day”

“Machine heavy, but me very happy, I make twice more money. I show you!”

The managers stepped back and let the logger do his thing. It was an impressive simbiosis of man and machine in the eternal struggle of man versus nature. Splinters were flying, smoke was rising, it was an epic sight, worthy of poems, myths and legends.

“You think we should tell him how to turn it on???”

“Are you F*&#(! crazy?!??!? He will decimate the region and we will be out of a job in 2 days!”

What does that have to do with coaching and (endurance) sports?

Everything.

Too much coaching today is what I call  hand-holding and life-support; do this or that workout 5 times and wait for me to tell you what is next rather than this is why we do things and you are in charge. 

I get asked or more accurately condescended quite often that this or that guy or gal parties all night, drinks, smokes, eats junk food, trains only when they want to, in the OPPOSITE way of what is considered sustainable  and productive (or any combiantion of the above), yet they are very good, often PRO, maybe even the frequent winner in what they do. Who am I to tell them that what they do is wrong?

The role of the coach should ALWAYS be to make the athletes better, by giving them the correct tools and knowledge for the job and TEACH them (NOT spoon feed them) how to use the tools SAFELY. Ultimately after some time the coach will not be needed, besides the occasional maintenance.

Everybody is at a different level – total begginer or advanced. What makes coaching fulfilling for people like me is figuring out where the person stands; it is not as blatantly obvious as in the story most of the time. It is a (lifelong) process and YOU the athlete are the main character behind the story, you should take the full responsibility for it, the coach is just there to show you that while with a chainsaw you can chop trees down easier, you still have to go to the forest yourself.

Be safe and sane people!

No innocent indigineous people, trees or pointy shoes wearing marketing managers were harmed in the making of this article.

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Cover image: www.pixabay.com

The post Story of the Chainsaw appeared first on The Tall Cyclist.

This is the first post of what I call “Training and Coaching Wisdom”

What Prompted Me Start The Series?

Sadly and quite unfortunately “Motivation, good coaching and sensible training” have all become synonymous with “No Pain, No Gain/Glory/etc.” The coach has been painted like a vicious drill sergeant while the athletes are quite often described as weak if they are not breaking down and suffering in a media constructed image of performance. These short extremely shallow, short sighted  and quite damaging “methods” has claimed many an (aspiring) athletes, myself included. Fortunately, there are some remarkable individuals that go down to the fundamentals of human performance and come with truly amazing methods. Unsurprisingly these same people in just a few words can put what I have come to think of as cornerstones on the way of becoming a better athlete.

Ultimately the time spent training is only miniscule on the greater scale and it is unreasonable to believe that only then it is when we make progress.  Becoming a better person is intertwined with high performance, as such personal (athletic) improvement is a constant daily process.

This is how the “Coaching and Training Wisdom” was born.

It serves  to break through the fake slogans, get to the fundamentals and share some of the true gems out there to help everybody on their way to improvement.

The first instalment in the “Coaching and Training Wisdom Wisdom” comes from Kelly Starrett in his absolutely amazing book: [amazon text=Becoming a Supple Leopard&asin=1628600837]

Kelly Starrett on Lifestyle’s Role in Performance

Seeing what is right in front of very noses is usually the toughest.  Unfortunately what most fellow athletes and coaches seem to constantly ignore –  we are humans first and everything else follows from there.

You cannot make basic lifestyle errors and expect your body to be able to absorb the consequences when you are working in a performance-biased paradigm.

The most commonly overlooked aspects include:

• No warm-up or cool-down
• Sleep deprivation
• Dehydration
• Poor nutrition
• Prolonged sitting
• Stress

Furthermore, Kelly Starrett goes on the explain that top performance does not always always mean good technique. Or something that is a recurring them in this blog – “Fit, But Unhealthy”

Underlying all this beautifully complex technology [that is the human body] is a simple truth: Your body has an amazing capacity to deal with poor mechanics. Again, your body can generate huge amounts of force and endure a ton of punishment in spite of your bad technique and tissue restrictions. You can move fast, lift heavy, and sit all day with poor technique and still perform well.

While short-lived results might provide some satisfaction, ultimately injuries develop.

But eventually your body will tell you that you’re doing something wrong. And it doesn’t just whisper in your ear; it rams the message down your throat by zapping your ability to generate force and opening the floodgates to pain.

Again, we need to move away from the practice-makes-perfect paradigm and realize that practice makes permanent.

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Kelly Starrett

Kelly Starrett – [amazon text=Becoming a Supple Leopard&asin=1628600837]

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1628600837]

Kelly Starrett – [amazon text=Ready to Run&asin=1628600098]

[amazon template=thumbnail&asin=1628600098]
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