Low carb and endurance running -- results of my experiment

"Ignoramus13667" wrote in message
...
In article , Phil M. wrote:
Ignoramus13667 wrote:

I eat about 3 lbs of vegetables per day,

This might be the reason for the runner's trots issue you were
having.

I think that you are exactly right. On the day before half marathon, I
will eat a lot less vegs, for this reason. On the morning of the
marathon, I will have to get up at about 4am to drive to east Moline,
will probably eat just a bit of something that is easy on the
stomach. Have not decided what.

Hav a couple of Snickers bars.

-DF

"Jane Lumley" wrote in message
...
Any clue about how far you go before you are burning mainly fat, or is
that, too, individual?

To keep it simple as soon as you move you are burning fat and Glycogen.
When you are going slow as in walking you are burning mostly fat and
very little glycogen. As you add speed you burn more glycogen. When you
are sprinting you are using pure glycogen and very little, if any fat.So
yes it is individual, in that each persons burn ration is different. As
we learn to run further and faster our efficiency gets better. The
bottom line, when you are out of glycogen, i.e bonk, it is painful run.
Like trying to run a gas engine on diesel fuel.



And (dumb question, doubtless) if endurance athletes burn fat, why do
they need carbs in order not to bonk in the UK, bonk means you have
lots of - er - energy...?

I know, just like the term fanny pack. In the US boink means the UK
bonk.

Bear with me; I've never been in a club and I only know what Runners'
World chooses to tell me.

Spend you subscription money something like Peak Running Performance and
use the RW pages for toilet paper.

-DF

The purpose of the food diary would be to assess changes in energy intake.
Did the group losing the most weight also reduce energy intake? Did the
exercisers that maintained weight increase energy intake, etc.


"Donovan Rebbechi" wrote in message
...
On 2004-09-20, Sam wrote:
People who start exercising sometimes self-select to change eating
habits.
Would have been a better study if the subjects had kept food diaries,
but
any research can be picked apart (mine certainly has been!).

I don't agree -- the point of the study is simply to ask whether or not
there's
a main effect of exercise. If they had results with the food diary, the
result
could have been interpreted as

(a) an effect of keeping a food diary
(b) an effect of exercise
(c) an interaction effect of exercise and keeping a diary.

Of course you could distinguish these by having diary-only and
exercise-only
groups, and you're no doubt familiar with studies of a similar nature
(control
vs diet vs exercise vs diet+exercise).

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

"Doug Freese" wrote in message
...

"Sam" wrote in message
.net...
WHAT? Ex phys texts are incredibly fun to read. I have read a lot
of
them!

Do you find Noakes fun to read? That's like saying it's fun reading an
advanced Calculus text.

-DF


I do like reading Noakes. Do not always agree with him, but like to read
him. Of course this comes from a person who reads the original research out
of the journals.

"MU" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:07:12 GMT, Tony wrote:

The body can also be trained to burn fats better by doing extremely long
distance at low intensity.

Tony, you need to get off this idea that this exercise or that exercise
accelerates fat burning.

Fat is burned in the absence of other energy dependent chemistries being
available.

You need to read some studies then. When I get back to work, I will give
you the citations to several. One of the effects of endurance training is
to increase the contribution of fatty acid oxidation at a given intensity.

MU wrote:


I'm sure you have no clue who I am.


Well, Great Athlete God, who are you?
Why hide behind a munged address and initials?

The respected posters here use real names.

Mike Tennent
"IronPenguin"

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:42:13 GMT, Tony wrote:

What are "energy dependent chemistries" that's a mouthful.

Put simply, and very generally, the body uses either oxygen or an
assortment of other (in)organic chemicals to use for fuel. People call this
aerobic or anaerobic (better termed oxygen dependent and oxygen
independent).

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:42:13 GMT, Tony wrote:

Yes, so?

You asked, I answered.

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:42:13 GMT, Tony wrote:

Both fats and glycogen are always being consumed in some
proportion (as well as protien).

Yes, so?

Muscle glycogen
is preserved by the body when possible, burning fats first.

Rarely. Systemic glycogen (liver, muscle etc) is a primary source of fuel
for human motion. Fats are into the fuel equation (again, very generally)
when these primary sources are (nearly) consumed.

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:42:13 GMT, Tony wrote:

That's not true. Fats are utilized first, and glycogen is utilized more as
exercise intensity goes up. This is commonly accepted.

It maybe commonly accepted but it is incorrect.

Doing long
periods of training at low intensity will improve the fat burning system
over time.

Improve it? Maybe. Rely on it? Certainly.

Or is Lance Armstrong wasting his time riding 5-7 hours/day at
HR 110-120 in the off season?

Champions waste their time, I have seen it consistently. Is he? Probably
not.

There are reasons he has more glycogen left
than other racers at the end of the racing day when its needed.

Switching between oxygen dependency and independency is a very personal,
biomechanical issue. When is LA using non oxygen resources; when only O2
resources?

Your wording is an abuse of the English language worse even than mine LA
does many forms of training at many intensities. All aerobic training
utilizes oxygen, either with fat or glucose. Anaerobic training is done
exclusively on glycogen.

The terms anaerobic and aerobic are substituted for the more appropriate
and accurate terms O2 (in)dependency. Note "dependency" not reliance. No
one is ever completely reliant regardless of the activity on O2 or the
macronutrient chemistries.

Excuse me, maybe you read some texts that I didn't read, but that doesn't
mean you understood them, and you don't explain your points very clearly.

Question: if the body always uses muslce glycogen up first, no matter what
the effort level (I think this is what you said), then why does it even
bother to store muscle glycogen? Wouldn't nature tend to select those
individuals whose bodies saved their more explosive fuel (glycogen) for
times when it could help save one's life? As in Fight or Flight!

- Tony

In article ,
Jane Lumley wrote:
In article , Doug Freese
writes
Sprinters burn solid glycogen while endurance folks like myself that run
for 20+ hours burn mostly fat. Endurance folks train their bodies via
the long run and speed work to enhance burning fat as opposed to
glycogen so you don't bonk.

This is really interesting, and I never heard it put just like this
before.

Any clue about how far you go before you are burning mainly fat, or is
that, too, individual?

It's a matter first of intensity level of the exercise. If you're
running at a level you could (with due training) maintain for 20+ hours,
you're burning mostly fat -- even if you stop at 20 minutes.

The second point, and it's a minor variation on that fundamental principle,
is that your body uses more glycogen when you first start than later
on, even at constant intensity level. iirc, though, it's a matter
of a few percent or tens of percent difference, rather than the factor of
2+ that the intensity level makes.

The precise percentages are indeed individual. The principle, though,
of intensity drives proportion of substrate (fat vs. glycogen) use
holds for all.

And (dumb question, doubtless) if endurance athletes burn fat, why do
they need carbs in order not to bonk in the UK, bonk means you have
lots of - er - energy...?

Saying is "Fat burns in a fire of glycogen". Some glycogen is
necessary in order to drive the reaction that takes energy (mostly)
from the fats. After you run out of glycogen, the result is
the US bonk, which is not nearly as fun as the UK bonk. What
your body does then is drag protein in to keep the fat-burning
reaction going. This is highly inefficient (= little energy
production) and just downright unpleasant.


For illustration purposes, we sometimes talk as if only one thing
('carb burning' 'fat burning' 'training VO2max' ...) were going on.
The truth is more like all possible reactions are always going on in
the body. You're always burning some of each possible substrate,
it's just that the proportions shift. You're always using each
possible energy-supplying reaction; even for ultramarathoners, some
of the lactic-acid producing reaction is done. But the proportions
shift.
--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

"MU" wrote in message
...
On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:42:13 GMT, Tony wrote:

What are "energy dependent chemistries" that's a mouthful.

Put simply, and very generally, the body uses either oxygen or an
assortment of other (in)organic chemicals to use for fuel. People call
this
aerobic or anaerobic (better termed oxygen dependent and oxygen
independent).

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:42:13 GMT, Tony wrote:

Yes, so?

You asked, I answered.

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:42:13 GMT, Tony wrote:

Both fats and glycogen are always being consumed in some
proportion (as well as protien).

Yes, so?

Muscle glycogen
is preserved by the body when possible, burning fats first.

Rarely. Systemic glycogen (liver, muscle etc) is a primary source of
fuel
for human motion. Fats are into the fuel equation (again, very
generally)
when these primary sources are (nearly) consumed.

On Wed, 22 Sep 2004 17:42:13 GMT, Tony wrote:

That's not true. Fats are utilized first, and glycogen is utilized more
as
exercise intensity goes up. This is commonly accepted.

It maybe commonly accepted but it is incorrect.

I would be interested to read a text that shows that as intensity
increases, glycogen utilization does not increase. Please point me to a
text or a referenced journal article.



Doing long
periods of training at low intensity will improve the fat burning
system
over time.

Improve it? Maybe. Rely on it? Certainly.

Or is Lance Armstrong wasting his time riding 5-7 hours/day at
HR 110-120 in the off season?

Champions waste their time, I have seen it consistently. Is he? Probably
not.

There are reasons he has more glycogen left
than other racers at the end of the racing day when its needed.

Switching between oxygen dependency and independency is a very personal,
biomechanical issue. When is LA using non oxygen resources; when only O2
resources?

Your wording is an abuse of the English language worse even than mine
LA
does many forms of training at many intensities. All aerobic training
utilizes oxygen, either with fat or glucose. Anaerobic training is done
exclusively on glycogen.

The terms anaerobic and aerobic are substituted for the more appropriate
and accurate terms O2 (in)dependency. Note "dependency" not reliance. No
one is ever completely reliant regardless of the activity on O2 or the
macronutrient chemistries.