Fat: Fuel for Better Performance?
Posted by
Heather J.
A few articles have been published recently that suggest a moderate-fat diet is preferable than a low-fat diet for endurance athletes. True, we do need to make sure we get enough healthy fat and protein in our diets for a number of reasons, but Dr. Lewis G. Maharam, running physician and blogger for Runner’s World, argues that the standard 10 to 15 percent-fat diet will accommodate most of our needs. His take gets to the heart of the matter: we want to perform better, and we would probably rather burn fat than store it. Point taken! “Your goal is not fat loading but fat burning, and there's a way to do that better,” he writes. “Fat is used for fuel in lower-intensity exercise, say at less than 70 percent of your body's maximum oxygen capacity. But training exclusively at that level doesn't help the process go any better: run slow, race slow, burn fat, start it all again.
What you want is for fat to also help you at higher speeds, which means working on a boost to your oxygen capacity, or VO2 max. After all, the higher the "max" from which the 70% is figured, the more fat energy you'll use in racing. An elite marathoner may zip around that 26.2-mile course at a relatively modest 75% of a lofty VO2 max, and nearly a third of the fuel burned will be fat. Your second strategy should be to work on your anaerobic threshold—the exercise intensity at which your body, desperate for air, stops using anything but its most efficient fuel, glycogen. At this point you're no longer burning fat, and you're also producing lactic acid, a fatigue-enhancing by-product.
Books have been written on boosting your VO2 max and anaerobic threshold, so we'll steer clear of that here. Just remember: Fat is not, and never was, a training aid. It's a fact of life. All you need to do is condition yourself to use it. Your body will use what it needs for muscle recovery.”
Posted by Heather J.
A few articles have been published recently that suggest a moderate-fat diet is preferable than a low-fat diet for endurance athletes. True, we do need to make sure we get enough healthy fat and protein in our diets for a number of reasons, but Dr. Lewis G. Maharam, running physician and blogger for Runner’s World, argues that the standard 10 to 15 percent-fat diet will accommodate most of our needs. His take gets to the heart of the matter: we want to perform better, and we would probably rather burn fat than store it. Point taken! “Your goal is not fat loading but fat burning, and there's a way to do that better,” he writes. “Fat is used for fuel in lower-intensity exercise, say at less than 70 percent of your body's maximum oxygen capacity. But training exclusively at that level doesn't help the process go any better: run slow, race slow, burn fat, start it all again.
What you want is for fat to also help you at higher speeds, which means working on a boost to your oxygen capacity, or VO2 max. After all, the higher the "max" from which the 70% is figured, the more fat energy you'll use in racing. An elite marathoner may zip around that 26.2-mile course at a relatively modest 75% of a lofty VO2 max, and nearly a third of the fuel burned will be fat. Your second strategy should be to work on your anaerobic threshold—the exercise intensity at which your body, desperate for air, stops using anything but its most efficient fuel, glycogen. At this point you're no longer burning fat, and you're also producing lactic acid, a fatigue-enhancing by-product.
Books have been written on boosting your VO2 max and anaerobic threshold, so we'll steer clear of that here. Just remember: Fat is not, and never was, a training aid. It's a fact of life. All you need to do is condition yourself to use it. Your body will use what it needs for muscle recovery.”