Low Carb (Paleo) Half Marathon Report

On 2004-09-30, Ignoramus29063 wrote:

I am training to run a long distance on LC. For that, I want to train
the fuel system that will be working predominantly during a long run,
which is fat oxidation.

Then don't do any speed work, because speed work does NOT train fat
oxidation. Speed work not only uses carbs, you depend heavily on the
lactic acid energy system. Grab yourself any physiology book or search
the web and take a look at how anaerobic metabolism works.

If you do wish to do some speed work, you should at least understand
what it is for. It is NOT for training fat oxidation -- aerobic training
runs and especially long aerobic training runs that do this.

Taking carbs before short runs would defeat
this purpose and train my carb oxidation system,

As would speed work, because speed work is heavily dependent on anaerobic
metabolism.

which is completely pointless as far as preparing to burn fat efficiently
during a marathon is concerned.

"Burning fat efficiently" is not the only thing you need to be able to do
for marathon performance. If your maximum aerobic capacity is higher, then
your sub maximum capacity is also higher, which means that you are more
likely to be in the "fat burning zone" at a faster pace.

Speed work is primarily for boosting your aerobic capacity.

It also improves your running economy -- meaning that you are able to run at
a faster pace by burning less calories.

Hence, I will train, including speedwork, on LC. I already started
yesterday.

At least try to read some books -- running books, not crackpot fad diet
books -- so that you are not any more ignorant than necessary.

Performance of my speed work is only relevant as far as it improves my
whole marathon performance. Surely, I could run faster if I burned
carbs on tiny 15 minute runs. So what?

So improving your aerobic capacity will improve your marathon performance.

I would be burning fat during
the marathon, not carbs. So, I would rather train for speedwork on
LC -- stressing the fat oxidation system --

NO!!!!! Please desist with this idiocy. Read a book. And shut the hell up
about what the purpose of speed work is until you've actually learned
something about training.

Would you train your triceps to improve your pullups performance? I
hope not.

An analog would be doing sets of 10 bench presses to improve your 1 rep
max performance. Sure, the sets of 10 train your lactic acid energy system,
which the powerlifter doesn't really need for competition. But they also
produce adaptions which are useful, for example, hypertrophy.

The fact that the powerlifter doesn't need that energy system in competition
does not mean that they should avoid it in training like some sort of deranged
religious fundamentalist.

Why, then, would I train my carb oxidation system to improve my fat
oxidation performance?

You would train at a high speed to improve your maximal aerobic capacity
and your running economy. That way, you reduce your caloric requirements
at a given speed, which means lower fuel requirements.

You also don't burn carbs as rapidly since you can run more aerobically
(lower percentage of maximal effort means less dependency on lactic acid
system) at a given pace.

My objective is to show that a marathon can be run by an ordinary
low carber, with reasonable preparation, in under 4 hours. That will,

You're not an "ordinary low carber", you are a very stubborn fool. An
"ordinary low carber", even a diabetic, will take carbs during a race.

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

On 9/30/2004 11:58 AM, Ignoramus29063 wrote:
In article sAV6d.11942$XC.388@trndny08, Tony wrote:

Snipped from below: "the following 3 diets: 14-day
high carbohydrate with 70 +/- 9 percent energy (%E) carbohydrate, 16
+/- 5%E fat, and 14 +/- 2%E protein; 14-day high fat with 66 +/- 10%E
fat, 20 +/- 3%E protein, and 15 +/- 4%E carbohydrate; and 11.5-day
high-fat diet followed by 2.5-day carbohydrate-loading"

I'm very suspicious why they didn't try to use more balanced percentages.
If you're comparing a higher fat diet to a higher carb diet, keep the
protein the same, and keep the fat/carb percentages opposite, for example:

60%C / 20%F / 20%P and
20%C / 60%F / 20%P and why not throw in
40%C / 40%F / 20%P for comparison, and
50%C / 30%F / 20%P (my personal favorite

The high carb version they used is slanted and may have included inadequate
protein. Also it included too little fat. It's well known that the diet
has to have adequate amounts of fat as well as protein. If you don't eat
enough fat it won't be stored in between the muscle fibres, which is more
available than body fat. This alone could account for their perceived
result. Nobody is arguing that you don't need fat to perform well - for
endurance activities fat is always the primary fuel. Also, as you know,
tests of 2 weeks duration mean little if the body is used to something very
different. This study is flawed.


In a 3,000 calorie diet, 15% of calories from protein amounts to 450
calories from protein, or to 112 grams of protein. That's hardly
insufficient.

Otherwise, yes, it would be interesting to test your favorite
macronutrient combination as well.

What the study shows is that, for endurance events, a high carb diet is
not at all superior.

i
PLEASE take alt.support.diet OFF these crossposts!

--
jmk in NC

On 2004-09-30, Robert Grumbine wrote:
In article OeX6d.3556$va.2301@trndny03,
Tony wrote:
Donovan Rebbechi wrote in message ...
On 2004-09-30, Ignoramus29063 wrote:

In a 3,000 calorie diet, 15% of calories from protein amounts to 450
calories from protein, or to 112 grams of protein. That's hardly
insufficient.

An appropriate amount for an endurance athlete is about 0.8gm/lb , so 112gm
is borderline at best.


I've seen higher figures than that even in the low-carb "protein power"
diet:
http://www.proteinpower.com/faq/protein.html#calculate

My point is those percentages are arbitrary and slightly unbalanced. Also,
the test only lasted 2 weeks. The fat % in the high-carb diet they use is
also probably far lower than most athletes eat. One could argue that
adequate protein and fat are more important than carbs for normal function,
so shaving their percentages so low could very definitely skew things.

iirc, the protein figure Sam quotes for endurance athletes is 1.4-1.6 g/kg.
For the canonical 70 kg athlete, that's 100 g/day, give or take. Sedentary,
iirc, is 0.6 g/kg. The 1.6 g/kg does round to 0.8 gm/lb (well, 0.7), so
I guess that's where Donovan got his figure.

I think I've seen 1.5-1.7. The exact numbers depend on the study, different
studies get different numbers, but they seem to be consistently in the .6-.8
range for athletes.

These numbers are what you need to maintain even nitrogen balance,
they're the x intercepts of the least squares line estimate of nitrogen
balance as a function of protein intake. The numbers don't include any safety
margin.

I agree with your basic approach re macronutrient intake (compute
protein in absolute amounts and split the rest between fat and carbs).

Cheers,
--
Donovan Rebbechi
http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~elflord/

"jmk" wrote in message
...
On 9/30/2004 11:58 AM, Ignoramus29063 wrote:
In article sAV6d.11942$XC.388@trndny08, Tony wrote:

Snipped from below: "the following 3 diets: 14-day
high carbohydrate with 70 +/- 9 percent energy (%E) carbohydrate, 16
+/- 5%E fat, and 14 +/- 2%E protein; 14-day high fat with 66 +/- 10%E
fat, 20 +/- 3%E protein, and 15 +/- 4%E carbohydrate; and 11.5-day
high-fat diet followed by 2.5-day carbohydrate-loading"

I'm very suspicious why they didn't try to use more balanced
percentages.
If you're comparing a higher fat diet to a higher carb diet, keep the
protein the same, and keep the fat/carb percentages opposite, for
example:

60%C / 20%F / 20%P and
20%C / 60%F / 20%P and why not throw in
40%C / 40%F / 20%P for comparison, and
50%C / 30%F / 20%P (my personal favorite

The high carb version they used is slanted and may have included
inadequate
protein. Also it included too little fat. It's well known that the
diet
has to have adequate amounts of fat as well as protein. If you don't
eat
enough fat it won't be stored in between the muscle fibres, which is
more
available than body fat. This alone could account for their perceived
result. Nobody is arguing that you don't need fat to perform well - for
endurance activities fat is always the primary fuel. Also, as you know,
tests of 2 weeks duration mean little if the body is used to something
very
different. This study is flawed.


In a 3,000 calorie diet, 15% of calories from protein amounts to 450
calories from protein, or to 112 grams of protein. That's hardly
insufficient.

Otherwise, yes, it would be interesting to test your favorite
macronutrient combination as well.

What the study shows is that, for endurance events, a high carb diet is
not at all superior.

i

PLEASE take alt.support.diet OFF these crossposts!

--
jmk in NC

Just skip the thread if you don't want to read it you jackass. Yes, it
really is that easy.

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:16 GMT, Tony wrote:

This study is flawed.

How would you know?

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:16 GMT, Tony wrote:

This study is flawed.

How would you know?

MU wrote:

On Thu, 30 Sep 2004 15:26:16 GMT, Tony wrote:

This study is flawed.

How would you know?

See if you can handle this. Not everybody is as ill-equipped to deal
with science as you.

HTH

Bob

"rayfield" wrote in message
...

"jmk" wrote in message
...

PLEASE take alt.support.diet OFF these crossposts!

--
jmk in NC

Just skip the thread if you don't want to read it you jackass. Yes, it
really is that easy.

I think that jackass is the one defending the lack of netiquette here if not
the attention seeking idiot that did it in the first place. It's been asked
by at least 3 people now to have the group removed.

Jenn