I’ve written about it in the past in plain, black and white terms in this article. Activity at a high heart rate requires a lot of carbohydrates for optimal performance. The longer the duration of that activity, the more carbohydrates you need to maintain peak performance. In fact, some research even shows that time to exhaustion doing various activities is perfectly proportional to the amount of carbohydrates consumed (refer to the article I just mentioned for more).
And, contrary to the beliefs of some, being relatively inactive doesn’t mean that a high-fat diet with fewer carbs is a better metabolic matchup either.
I recently sat down with one of the leading voices in the Paleo movement, competitive athlete Stephanie Gaudreau, to discuss this. You know when someone from the Paleo world is advocating the consumption of large quantities of carbohydrates, that it must be a smart thing for most people to do, particularly athletes. More importantly, many Paleophiles are still suffering from lack of carbohydrates in their diet because all of the wonderful things they’ve heard about meat and fat and relatively horrible things they’ve heard about carbohydrates. It raises insulin you know (not really, unless you think what happens one hour after a meal is all that matters in the universe).
Clearing up the confusion, and hopefully saving some innocent souls from the physiological mediocrity of being in a carb-deficient state on a chronic basis, I bring you episode 11 of the 180DegreeHealth podcast. Check it out HERE.
Honestly, I didn’t listen to the podcast, but just reading the small amount of information above…YES! I personally choose to/have to resort to processed foods because I just can’t (or don’t want to) eat the volume of food that’s required to hit my needs. I 100% function best on a high carb/high sugar diet. For whatever it’s worth, most everyone else I know working in the fitness industry does, too.
Hint: We’re eating brownies and jelly beans in the private back room and/or in our cars.
Amen. With truly hard training, it is difficult to keep up with the calorie and carbohydrate demands without at least some hyperconcentrated foods.
I actually brought my abnormal c3/c4 complement blood work readings, which are indicative of lupus, to normal by consuming large amounts of carbohydrates and sugar. For years I had severely reduced my intake of sugar/carbs. So yeah, I’m pretty sure “junk food” is not really junk at all.
Sorry don’t mean to comment so much, but have been noticing a trend in sport athletes. I read that the LA Lakers began going paleo (including Kobe Bryant) in 2013. I don’t know if anyone here knows much about the NBA, but this was the first season that the Lakers missed the playoffs since 04-05. Their record was 27-55… Coincidence??? I’ve read a few other situations like this in pro athletes thus far. Interesting stuff.
Yeah, lots of injuries as well. I definitely don’t think any of it is a coincidence at all. Ridiculous stuff.
I also haven’t listened to the podcast yet but absolutely agree with this article, finally took me a while for the information you provide here on the blog- a long time reader of the old blog- while I agree with your opinions and research being ex anorexic and paleo I was too scared to experiment- but once I took the leap into fear my training (which is basically training like an athlete 5 days a week) has improved and soared through the roof. Starch fat salt before deadlifts and anything endurance just leaves me feeling healed even when I finish an intensive session- and when I was protein and fat based I was suffering massively. Thanks for all of the athletic posts recently!
Ahh this is frustrating. Due to a medical issue (severe hypoglycemia) I have successfully kept myself 90% blood sugar drop free by lowering my carb intake big time. Probably not keto – not sure I don’t count- but I felt great for 2 months (and I still do besides being SORE all the time from exercise). I lift and do intense exercise 4 times a week and this past week I cannot get away from being sore! The only explanation I have is my carbs are so much lower. But my hypoglycemia is better! What to do?
I talk about this extensively in my short book Hypoglycemia. Ultimately it’s probably best to experiment to try to fix the hypoglycemia without removing carbs, as just removing carbs to treat a blood sugar problem really isn’t fixing anything, and it can lead to LOTS of new problems as you are experiencing. Working with Dr. Garrett Smith on balancing out some of your mineral ratios might also help. I know it’s helped him quite a bit.
I was born with hypo and body temp issues and they have been there all my life but suddenly became unbearable. I figured my history with anorexia was to blame but even after nourishing myself it got worse over the span of a couple years. I couldn’t leave the house! I am scared to reintroduce more carbs – even though I am not CRAZY low I am definitely MUCH lower in carbs than I was. I feel so much better but
WHy has this site become a graveyard?!
Low carb crowd is becoming mainstream while you guys have run off!