Running Lean with Patrick McGilvray
I talk a lot about carbs here on the podcast, mainly why it’s advised to keep your carbs low if you’re a runner who wants to lose weight and use body fat as fuel for running. I realized I haven’t …
Continue Reading about 246. The Macronutrient That Matters Most for Runners →
There is so much contradictory advice out there when it comes to losing weight. It’s really hard to know what’s right and what’s just BS. I’ve always taken the approach that you need to ignore …
Continue Reading about 242. Top 10 Weight Loss Tips for Runners →
A lot of runners are told not to lose weight while training for a race. There are many reasons why they are given this advice (which I cover in today’s episode), but I don’t necessarily agree with …
Continue Reading about 220. Should You Lose Weight While Training for a Race? →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 220 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, and today, Should You Lose Weight While Training For A Race.
So a lot of runners are told not to lose weight while training for an event. And there are many reasons why they are given this advice, which I’m going to cover in today’s episode, rest assured, but I don’t necessarily agree with all of it.
I believe that there’s a right way and a wrong way to lose weight as a runner, even when you’re training for an event like a half or a full marathon. So in this episode, can you and should you lose weight while training for a race?
But first, I know I share a lot of information here about nutrition, weight loss, improving your running, and building strength. And if you’re new to the podcast, welcome. But all this stuff might seem a little overwhelming to you and might be a little confusing, and you may not know where to even begin with all of this stuff.
So if that sounds like you, no worries, I’ve got you covered, I created a free training to help you get started with all this stuff. It’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
You’re going to learn the basics of nutrition, strength, endurance and mindset, all geared towards you the long-distance runner. So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger and become the most badass version of yourself yet, this free training is exactly what you need. Just go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training and get started on your weight loss journey today.
Okay, so why I’m talking about this today, should you lose weight while training for a race? I have heard from a lot of people that I talk to out there in the running community that they’ve been told that they should not try to lose weight while they are training for some event, like a marathon half marathon, even for a 5k.
Like you don’t want to, to you know, try to lose weight, just focus on running. Don’t worry about the weight loss. And it could even be bad for you, it could hurt your running. And there are a few things that I want you guys to consider when we talk about this subject today.
So, the first thing before I get into some of the reasons why we’re told not to try to lose weight while training for some event, the first thing to think about is what most runners think the answer is to weight loss.
So most runners believe, and even most coaches that I talk to, that the way you’re going to lose weight is to run more. So pick a race, pick a marathon, and start training for the marathon up to your weekly mileage, you’re going to be running more than ever, and you’re going to lose weight like crazy.
And I don’t know about you guys, but that was not always the case for me. In fact, I went through periods where I was running a lot and gaining weight. And I talked to people all the time who told me the same thing.
They’re like, yeah, you’re the first person that’s ever actually said out loud. What happened to me, was I was training for a marathon and I was gaining weight. And I don’t understand what’s going on there. All the experts tell me I should be losing weight, because I’m doing all this running. But this is the exact opposite of what’s happening to me.
And so I had that same experience, you know, I think there was a period there over the length of two or three years where I was running a couple of marathons a year, I was training for a bunch of ultra marathons.
And in that process, and it was just a couple of years, I gained like 40 pounds, that’s a lot of weight gain over the course of a few years. So for me, I had that experience of trying to, you know, run more and trying to lose weight, but it wasn’t working.
I was actually gaining weight in the process. Okay. So let’s start with why most runners gain weight while they’re training for a marathon. So one of the reasons why is that increased activity levels can lead to increased appetite. This happens for most people.
So you start training more, you’re running a lot more miles and you’re exerting a lot more energy, you’re using a lot more energy. And so your body’s natural response is to want to replace that energy that you’re expending. So you are going to be more hungry and so you end up eating more.
And especially if you’re eating the wrong kinds of foods, you end up overeating. And that’s a really hard way to lose weight. If you’re constantly overeating, then you know, your weight loss is going to be very challenging for you. Okay?
Another reason why a lot of runners gain weight while training for some events is they’re eating the typical runner’s diet. So they’re eating not only more food, but they’re eating that typical runner’s diet of all the carbs all the time.
And so when you increase your carb and your sugar intake, you are going to be holding on to body fat, you won’t be able to burn that body fat, it’s very hard to burn fat when you’re consuming a high, high carb diet, you know, the more carbs you eat, the more you crave carbs, and that makes it very hard to moderate.
And people are like, well just eat sugar. It’s fine, everything’s fine in moderation, you know, but I gotta tell you, I don’t know about you guys. But for me, eating sugar in moderation is very hard for me. Because the more you eat that stuff, the more you crave that stuff, and then you can’t get enough.
Your brain, and your body just want more and more and more. And it’s really difficult to moderate that stuff. And if you are a runner who is eating that typical carbohydrate-laden diet, so I call this being a carb-adapted runner, you’re you’ve adapted to using carbs as fuel, you will naturally need to consume more carbs to maintain high mileage, which leads to even more intense cravings, and an even harder time burning fat.
So your weight is mostly affected by your diet, not by the amount of exercise you’re doing. And nutrition has a much bigger impact on your body composition, the amount of fat that you’re carrying the amount of muscle that you’re carrying, versus exercise, exercise can help you to put on muscle, obviously, it can help you to lose some fat, but nutrition is a much bigger driver of body composition.
Okay, so we just have to understand that these are some of the reasons why you know, it’s why a lot of runners gain weight, even though they’re training for a marathon, okay? It’s not as simple as just calories in calories out. If it was that simple.
You know, you would always lose a ton of weight when you’re training for a marathon. But that is definitely not the case. And I talk to people every single day who tell me this, okay, so it’s not as simple as calories in calories out, increased activity levels lead to increased appetite.
Increased carb and sugar intake means your body’s going to be storing more body fat, it’s really hard to burn the fat. When you’re eating that high-carb diet, the more of that stuff you eat, the more you crave that stuff, the more you rely on that stuff for fuel for running, the more you want that stuff. So all of these things lead to it being very challenging to lose weight as a runner.
Another reason why runners are told not to attempt to lose weight while they’re training for an event is because just about every diet out there is going by this principle of calories in calories out, right?
So they want you to get into a calorie deficit and maintain it. And that’s how you lose weight. And that’s the principle that most diets follow when it comes to weight loss. And it works until it doesn’t work. So if you spend enough time in a calorie deficit, this is going to lead to a dramatically slowed metabolism.
So for example, if you’re eating 800 calories a day, you’re gonna lose weight doing that, okay, but eventually, your metabolism will slow down to match that 800-calorie energy intake that you’re getting.
Because your body’s like, listen, we’re only getting 800 calories a day, our energy output is, you know, at resting metabolic rate is 2000 calories a day, we need to lower that we need to keep lowering this until we can match the energy that’s coming in and over time, people that are in a calorie deficit for a long period of time, they find that their weight loss stalls for a long time and then they start to gain weight, because now their metabolism has slowed down to match the energy that’s coming in.
And it’s even worse if you’re training for something because then you’re exerting more energy and you’re not giving yourself the food that you need and the fuel that you need to repair and recover from all the training that you’re doing. You know, a lot of runners go into a calorie deficit while they’re training. And that’s a problem because your body needs the fuel.
You know most diets that are going by the calories in calories out principle is not recommended because you’re going to be lowering your calorie intake while you’re training. And your body can’t deal with that, like you need the fuel for running, you need the fuel for your running performance, you need the fuel for repair and recovery.
So being in a calorie deficit, while you’re training for a half marathon marathon is not recommended. And so that’s the main reason why most people are like, you know, don’t try to lose weight while you’re training for something, it’s really hard. And your running is going to suffer and it’s not good for you.
So this is why a lot of runners are told not to try to lose weight, while they are training for something, okay? The reason why a lot of runners gain weight, while training is you know, they are eating a diet that literally locks fat in their fat cells.
So when you’re eating a diet that’s high in sugar, and high in carbs, you are literally going to be holding on to fat and those fat cells. So their energy output goes up, right, because they’re training more, their energy intake goes up, because they’re eating more than ever. And they’re locking all the fat in their fat cells. This makes for a very tough combination if you’re trying to lose weight, right?
So runners who are trying to lose weight, and they’re training for an event, you know, they’re making a lot of these mistakes. So there is a better way to do things, okay? And this all focuses around this idea of burning fat, right?
If you want to lose weight, you have to burn fat, I think we can all agree on that, right? And if you’re eating the all-carb all the time typical runner’s diet, burning fat is going to be very difficult for you.
So imagine your body has a fuel tank, and there’s fat in that fuel tank, and then there’s carbs in that fuel tank, sugar, whatever you want to call it, it’s all the same thing. It’s all carbohydrates, essentially, the very top of that fuel tank, the most easily accessible fuel is the carbs as fuel. And your body has a very limited supply of that, but it is available pretty easily.
Okay, once that’s gone, you can start tapping into that larger amount of fuel that you have, which is your stored body fat, you can use stored body fat as fuel, which is amazing. But when you’re eating carbs all the time, you’re eating sugar all the time, you’re you know, training with all the carbs and the sugar and stuff like that, it’s very hard to get into that fat-burning zone, it’s very hard to get into that fat burning state, you’re not going to dip into the fat as fuel.
So when you’re eating that high-carb diet, this is what locks your fat in the fat cells. Insulin is the driver of this. So high-carb diet means high blood sugar means high insulin, high insulin, it locks fat into fat cells.
When you do the opposite, when you do kind of a lower carb diet, that means fat is available to be burned. So the low-carb diet means that your blood sugar is low, or you know normal, your insulin levels are normal and then fat burning can take place.
Okay, so high-carb diet equals storing fat, low-carb diet equals burning fat. Just keep that in mind. That’s a good principle to follow right there. So, if fat burning is the goal, which it should be, then everything you do should be to optimize fat burning.
So that means keeping the carbs low, getting into that fat-burning state and then maintaining it, you know, so switching from being a carb-adapted runner to a fat-adapted runner. So you’ve adapted your body to using your own stored body fat as a fuel source.
If you want to lose weight, you have to burn fat. And eating the typical runner’s diet of all carbs all the times means that you have effectively shut down fat burning and losing weight will be extremely difficult for you.
Okay, but what about running? Aren’t you going to crash and burn without all the carbs? Don’t you need carbs to run? And I think you know the answer to this already if you’ve been listening to this podcast at all, but I’m going to break this down a little bit for you.
So carbs, yes, they’re a great source of fuel for running. This has been pretty well established since the 1980s. You know runners have been using this all-carb approach to running since then. The problem with this is you’re relying on one fuel source, you’re relying on carbs for fuel and that’s it.
And it’s a finite amount of energy that you can store as you know blood glucose and glycogen that’s stored in your liver and your muscles. It’s like around 1800 to 2000 calories of fuel essentially. And this is going to run out in it’s different for each person. But let’s say around 90 minutes or so, and you’re gonna hit the wall and you’re gonna crash and burn.
This is like so many runners hit the wall in the later stages of a marathon, they literally run out of gas in the tank, you know. And for most people, that means that even if you’re running half marathon, you’re gonna be probably hitting the wall, three-quarters of the way into the race.
All right, you know, unless you’re super fast, and you get it done in less than 90 minutes. But for most of us, I think, you know, two hour-ish, you know, half, you know, somewhere around that range is pretty normal.
But if you’re relying on carbs for that, then it’s going to be tough for you. Okay. Another issue with relying solely on carbs as fuel, is that you have to keep ingesting carbs in order to sustain the running. And this can cause a lot of stomach distress with people, it can cause disaster pants, which is something you definitely don’t want to happen while you’re out there running a race.
Have you ever seen somebody sprint off to the Porta Potty, they’re like, oh, maybe a little too much sugar, I don’t know. But the other source of fuel that your body produces naturally is fat, stored body fat. This is an incredible fuel for endurance athletes.
And listen, the whole reason we store fat is to use it later for fuel, you know, eat some food, some of that energy gets used right away from the food that we eat. And some of that gets stored as fat. This is the natural order of things.
This goes back to our ancient ancestors, who went through periods of feasting and fasting, they were very well adapted to use their own stored body fat as fuel, you know, they would find food, meat, berries, honey, whatever some of that energy would be used right away, some would be stored as body fat, then they would have periods were fasting, where they were fasting. And food was kind of scarce, you know.
But it wasn’t a problem because they had all the fuel they needed on board. And they tapped into that stored body fat they were they were fat-adapted, essentially. And I think this is our natural state as human beings to be fat adapted. In order, it’s during these times of limited food availability, that we develop the ability to use our own stored body fat as fuel, and it’s very effective. And we use it very, very well.
Humans do it, animals do it. Think about a bear fattening up for the winter. And then they can live all winter long, hibernating, essentially using their own stored body fat as fuel. And you see those bears coming out of hibernation, they’re all skinny. It’s pretty funny looking, actually.
But they’ve essentially been using that stored body fat as fuel. And so we have that same mechanism built in basically, you know, I kind of feel like hibernating all winter, that would be amazing.
The problem with us as humans, though, is that we never stopped storing the fat we’re just constantly eating the kinds of foods and overeating and just always adding fat to the equation and never burning the fat, right?
So if you want to lose the weight, you have to burn the fat you have to get your body into that fat-burning state and maintain that fat-burning state. So you need to get fat-adapted, you need to adapt to using your own stored body fat as fuel.
So using your own body fat as fuel against the natural state of is humans, we’ve been doing it for millennia. It’s a very effective fuel for endurance activities like persistent hunting or running a marathon. You know, if you can only store 1800 to 2000 calories of glucose or glycogen, as you know for sugar.
Basically, as a carb-adapted athlete, you can easily store more than 100,000 calories as fat. Even the leanest runners have enough body fat to run for days and days nonstop without the need to refuel. That fat is an amazing source of fuel for endurance athletes, okay?
And again, this isn’t some weird fad. Using fat as fuel is something we’ve always done as human beings. Lots of endurance athletes, lots of the top endurance athletes in the world are actually using this approach this fat adaptation approach as a tool to improve their endurance and their racing performance.
So it’s not something they’re doing because it’s detrimental to running, they’re doing it because it’s really beneficial. And it actually gives them an edge it gives them a tool that most runners are not using. When you can get really good at burning fat you have a tool that most other people are not using.
And then fat-adapted doesn’t mean that you never use carbs for fuel. It means improving fat burning immensely. And also using some carbs as fuel so you can get the best of both worlds. So you can use both of these fuel sources very effectively. And you can kind of go back and forth between the two and use two at the same time.
And most runners don’t do this. They’re just using the one form of fuel they’re using the sugar as fuel and they’re trying to I just rely on that as the only source of fuel. So they’re leaving this whole other thing on the table. So don’t do that.
But when you’re using fat as fuel, what happens? You burn the fat, your you lose the weight, like this is an amazing way of not only improving your running performance but also losing weight. And yes, you can do this while you’re training for an event or a race. Okay.
So I think you know, the answer here is pretty clear, you can do both, you can train for a race without inhibiting your performance. And you can lose weight in the process. But you have to take a different approach, you can’t do the all-carb approach because for most people, that just doesn’t work.
For some people that works great, and that’s fine. If you don’t have a problem getting you know, gaining weight while you’re training and stuff like that, then you keep doing your thing. That’s awesome. But if you’re somebody who gains weight, well, whenever you even look at carbs, or when you’re training for something, and you’re like, why am I gaining weight while I’m training for this marathon?
If that sounds like you, then cutting down the carbs might be a way to get your body burning fat. And that might work really well for you. You know, don’t cut your calories. That approach probably isn’t going to work either. You know, you got to give your body the fuel that it needs, but cut out the carbs and the sugar and see if that helps.
Okay, get your body into the fat-burning state. It’ll help improve your weight loss. It’ll help improve your running performance. And I think it’s definitely something you should try. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
Whether you are just getting into running or have been at it a while, you should be actively working on improving your endurance. While there are many methods out there that are designed to help …
Continue Reading about 217. 5 Ways to Improve Your Endurance →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 217 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. Today, I’m talking about five ways to improve your endurance. So whether you are just getting into running, or maybe you’ve been at it for a while, you should be actively working on improving your endurance.
And there are many, many methods out there that are designed to help you improve your endurance. But there are a few key principles I think most runners overlook. So today, I’ve got five ways to improve your endurance to help you run longer, and make running easier in general, who doesn’t want that? I know I do.
But first, I know I share a lot of information here on the podcast about running and nutrition and weight loss and building strength and all these topics. And if you’re new to the podcast, this might all feel a little bit overwhelming and confusing to you. And you just don’t know where to start.
You’re like Patrick, where should I start? Well, funny, you should ask because I created a free hour-long training video that can get you started. It’s called 5 Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner.
You’re going to learn all the basics of nutrition and endurance and mindset and building strength. All for you the runner who is maybe interested in improving your body composition, losing some weight.
So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, and you’re ready to become the most badass version of yourself yet, which you are, I know you are, then this free training is exactly what you need.
Just go to runningleancoaching.com click on Free Training. I know it’s so logical, right? And get started on your weight loss journey today. Okay, so five ways to improve your endurance. Why am I talking about this today?
Well, lots of runners that I talked to don’t know where to begin with this, or they are not really working to improve their endurance, and they don’t understand why they’re not improving their endurance.
So if you’re a new runner, you might have no idea how to build your endurance, you might be just thinking that you’re just going to run and just keep running and just see if it pans out, you know, see if it works.
Somehow see if some magic happens, where you’re going to be, have more endurance, be able to run longer, and maybe run easier. Seasoned runners that I know, might not be feeling very good when they run and they’re like, I don’t understand what’s happening here. I’m running all the time, but I can’t seem to get faster, I can’t seem to run longer, running still feels really hard all the time.
So you know, whether you are a new runner, and just getting started with all this or you’re a more advanced runner or a seasoned runner, and you want to improve your endurance, then you should be actively doing a few things to help you improve that endurance.
Okay, so, and like I said at the beginning here, there’s a lot a lot of principles, if you just start Googling, you know how to improve your endurance as a runner, you’re going to find 20, 30, 40 different ways of doing that. I’m going to narrow it down to a few that I found, or that I that I tend to help people with more than others.
Because these are the things that kind of get overlooked a lot. Okay, so I’m going to talk about some things that may be overlooked. Okay. So why would you want to be actively improving your endurance as a runner?
Well, you might want to run longer distances. So maybe you’ve got a certain race distance that you’re training for, or that you would like to do someday. So maybe you’re a 5k runner, and you want to be able to run a 10k.
Or maybe you’re doing half marathons and you want to run a full marathon, or maybe you run full marathons and you’re ready to take on an ultra marathon. You know, so whether you want to run, you know, five miles or fifty miles, I think that building your endurance as a runner, or improving your endurance as a runner is key, it’s just going to make running feel easier. Okay?
So you might run a longer race, you might just want to run more miles every week. So you might love running, and you just want to be able to run more. So you just want to instead of running, you know, 10 or 15 miles a week you want to bump that up to like 15 or 30 miles a week.
So you don’t necessarily want to train for some ultra marathon, but you just want to be able to run more days or, you know, longer distances. For each typical training run that you do, you might want to run a faster race. So you might want to get faster for a particular distance.
So that could be whatever, whatever distance your jam is, but you may want to get faster and improve your endurance. Sounds kind of counterintuitive, but it can actually help you to get faster, I’m gonna talk about that here in just a minute.
And you might just want to improve your endurance for your heart health because improving your cardiovascular system is so good for your heart, right? The bottom line here is that you probably just want running to feel easier.
And I think most of us would agree that yeah, I want running to feel easier. Now I have to say this running is never going to feel easy, but it can feel easier. Running is hard. You know what I mean? Like, you get out there and you run. And it’s kind of hard, you know, but have you ever had one of those runs where you’re like, that just felt it felt easier, like that felt really good, you know, for a change?
That’s what we want, we want running to feel easier, it’s still going to be a workout, you know, just like swimming is a workout, cycling is a workout, but we want it to feel a little bit easier. Because when it feels easier, you’re going to want to do it more, and you can go longer if it’s feeling easier, right?
So I’m going to give you guys a couple of keys, here, I have five different ways that we can improve our endurance. And the first one is this, and this is going to come as no surprise to you, but it is to just run more so increase your volume.
So increasing your volume is the easiest way that you can build your endurance and build that aerobic system. So the aerobic system, you know, is the slow running system that you use, for most of your running, hopefully, something around like 80% of your running should be done in that aerobic zone.
Which means you’re not pushing it too hard, you’re going pretty easy. So the simplest way to run to increase your endurance is to run more, you know, it’s just like anything else, when you practice doing it more, it becomes easier.
You know, like, if you want to play the guitar, you got to practice playing the guitar and you’re gonna suck at it for a while, it’s gonna be hard, but the more you do it, the easier, it’s gonna get the same with running, you want to run longer than you have to practice running longer. If you want to run more, you gotta practice running more. Okay.
So why this works is because you are building an aerobic engine here, right? This is your endurance engine, this is probably the most important factor in long-distance running is building that strong aerobic engine.
Okay, so most training programs, they feature a lot of aerobic running, and some of them have some speed work built into them. But that that aerobic engine, your ability to run longer, at a slower pace is slower, you know.
Pace is the number one thing you can do to improve your endurance, okay? So if you want to improve your aerobic engine, increase the volume that you are running, and that will help you to build a stronger aerobic engine, it also helps to increase your running efficiency.
So when you can run more efficiently, you’re going to be able to run further, this is going to improve your endurance as well. And running, you know won’t use as much energy. You know, a lot of running, especially when you get into longer distance stuff is about energy conservation, right? We don’t want to be spending energy, flailing your arms around, or running all weird.
I’ve seen some people that run pretty weird. And I’m like, man, how do they do that? Like they, they can run long distances, and they have some strange gaits, you know. But when you run more, you can typically improve your gait. And one thing I’ll just say, a little sidebar about improving your gait or changing your gait as a runner.
As a running coach, we’re sort of taught that we shouldn’t really mess with people’s gaits too much like you should just run the way that you run because that is going to be the most natural way for you to run.
So don’t think that you’re running wrong. Just because you’re going to gradually when you increase your volume, your running volume, you are going to get more efficient running the way that you run naturally.
So I know it sounds kind of weird, but like don’t worry about if you have a weird gait or something like that or if you don’t think your running form is very good. Don’t worry about it seriously. Just run the way you run and over time, you’re going to be very efficient running that way.
Okay, for the most part now, there are some rare exceptions of people that have really weird flailing legs or arms or something like that, which we probably want to check out a little bit. But for the most part, your running gait is fine. So don’t don’t stress out about that too much.
Okay, so we want to improve our running efficiency, we want to be more efficient as a runner, and we want to use less energy as a runner, and increasing your volume will help with this. When you increase your volume, you also are preparing yourself for fatigue in races especially the longer runs right, when you increase your mileage, you’re going to be dealing with fatigue pretty often, and you’re going to get better at dealing with fatigue, fatigue is something that will happen.
It just happens, you know, it’s part of running. And so consistently dealing with fatigue and pushing yourself to that point of like, oh, I’m feeling pretty tight, this is really hard. That’s a good thing.
And that leads me to the last reason why increasing volume will help you improve your endurance is it helps you to build resilience and helps you to build mental toughness, you know, you’ve done all this hard work, you’ve you know, hit fatigue a bunch of times in your training, you’ve run longer distances, you’ve improved your volume immensely.
Now you have some resilience and mental toughness, some grit, okay, so when it’s time to dig deep in a race when you got to like really push it towards the end of a race in order to hit that PR or something like that, you’re going to have that mental toughness that’s going to be there. Okay?
Now, a little pro tip about increasing your mileage. Don’t feel like you can just do a huge increases in your mileage, you know, week to week, you don’t want to do too much too soon. This is what most new runners do. They’re like, oh, I can run. You know, I ran five miles last week, I’m gonna run 10 miles next week, don’t do that.
Try to stick to the 10% rule. That means that we never increase our mileage more than 10%. So for new runners, I would stick to this pretty hardcore. If you’re a pretty experienced runner, and you have been running for years and you’re not injured or anything like that you can be a little looser with the 10% rule. You can do 15%, you know, sometimes 20%, but don’t want to go too much too soon. This is a recipe for disaster, especially for most new runners.
Most new runners, they get injured because they do too much too soon. So increase your volume slowly. That means if you run 10 miles this week, next week, you’re gonna run 11 miles, and then you’re gonna just keep using that 10% rule. Okay, it takes time. So just give it the time that it needs, but increase your volume. That’s number one.
Number two, and this is one where I don’t see a lot of people talking about this, but you probably want to change your diet, you probably want to start training your body to use a fuel source that you have onboard already. That will help improve your endurance immensely. That is your own stored body fat.
And this is called getting fat-adapted, it means that you are basically switching your main fuel source from sugar to fat, from carbohydrates to your own stored body fat. If you want to take a deep dive into this, I talked about getting fat-adapted and using fat as fuel in the last episode of the podcast, number 216: An Alternatieve Way To Fuel Long Distance Running.
So definitely check that out. But here’s some little key takeaways here. Number one, think of your energy stores as a fuel tank. And at the very top of the fuel tank you have this tiny little sliver of sugar or carbohydrate that’s available as fuel.
And then below that sugar, you’ve got this massive storage tank of stored body fat as fuel. So most runners what they’re doing is they’re using the sugar at the top a little tiny bit of the fat. Yeah, we always are burning a little bit of both.
But most runners are burning primarily sugar and when that is available, that’s all they’re going to burn so they have to continually feed with carbohydrates in order to keep that sugar fuel tank that sugar part of the fuel tank topped off.
When you’re doing that you are just relying on sugar as a fuel source and it is a good fuel source for running it does work, but there are problems with that. Eating a lot of sugar causes a lot of people to gain weight and I’m one of those people.
Eating a lot of sugar, especially during running can really upset a lot of runners’ stomachs. And that is not something you want. You don’t want to have disaster pants while you’re out there running. I hear too many stories about that actually, and I don’t really need to know about what’s going on during the run when you’re eating too much sugar.
But people have really upset stomachs with trying to consume all that sugar. And most runners are not really fat-adapted, so they’re not using that stored body fat as fuel. So they hit the wall pretty often, like they just run out of fuel, because that that small little bit of fuel once it’s gone, they haven’t trained themselves to tap into that stored body fat.
So getting fat-adapted just means you’re primarily burning fat as fuel, and you’re not really relying on all the sugar, which is such a good way to go. Because then you don’t need to feel as much during these longer runs, you won’t get the stomach upset.
And you can basically, you’re going to feel like you can run forever like you’re going to feel like you can run long distances much longer. So this is a great way to improve your endurance that just not a lot of people are talking about out there. Okay.
That’s one principle that most runners overlook. But it is key if you want to improve your endurance as a runner, change your diet, get fat-adapted, ditch the sugar, and start you know, relying on your own stored body fat as a fuel source and your endurance is going to go through the roof. Again, check out the last episode number 216 on a deep dive into getting fat-adapted.
Okay, the third way to improve your endurance is to get stronger. So you want to be intentionally building strength as a runner. And this means like head to toe, actively building strength every single week, this has to be part of your training regimen.
You can’t just go well you know, I do strength training a couple of times a month or whatever, once a week, that’s just not enough. And again, I did a whole episode talking about how to build strength and the benefits of building strength in episode number 199. So check out that episode for sure I take a deep dive into how to do it and, and how to actively build strength.
But when we’re talking about building strength, we’re talking about building stronger muscles, you go to the gym, you lift something heavy, you overload the muscle group that you’re working, and then you have a positive adaptation, you build stronger muscles, okay?
Stronger muscles take longer to fatigue, this is a good thing as a runner, that means you can run much longer before you hit the wall because you have stronger muscles and you can go longer before your muscles are going to give out on you. Okay?
Building strength does not just mean stronger muscles, it also means you build stronger connective tissues like tendons and ligaments, and stronger bones as well, which is really important. But that tendons and ligaments, this is where most runners get injured.
Most running injuries are tendon injuries, like a tendinitis type of thing, which basically just means like you have a pulled or strained tendon of some sort, you know. And if you are a runner, and you’re ramping up your mileage and you want to build your endurance, you do not want to get injured through this process, right?
So actively building strength on a regular basis will help you to stave off injury, and help you to improve your endurance at the same time. So win-win.
Now running will help you develop stronger muscles, especially stronger leg muscles. And runners are like, well, I’m running and so that’s enough. That’s all I need to do. But it’s really not enough, okay, it’s not enough to just run.
First of all, you have to understand that running is a catabolic activity, meaning it breaks down muscle tissue, especially if you’re running a ton of mileage. So if you’re not actively doing some strength training to offset that and getting enough protein, you’re probably going to be losing muscle in the process.
Now it doesn’t mean you’re going to you know, waste away to nothing because running does help to develop muscle. But there’s a little bit of a breakdown that’s happening as well. So what you want to do is you want to hit the gym, and you want to be actively building stronger muscles, especially the stronger leg muscles in the gym.
Because when you do that, that’s going to help improve your running endurance, it’s going to help improve your speed as a runner, it’s going to help you become a more powerful runner. Strong runners are fast runners, strong runners are more powerful runners and strong runners can go longer.
So the third key really to improving your endurance is to get stronger because you’ll be able to go longer, you’ll stave off injury, and you’re going to be running is just going to feel easier for you.
Okay, number four is to run faster. I know this sounds counterintuitive if you want to improve your endurance you have to run faster. But speed work is one area that gets overlooked by runners who want to improve their endurance.
Most people have a love-hate relationship with speed work, they hate doing it. Maybe it’s a hate-hate relationship. They hate doing it. And it feels terrible. But the love part of it would be this: when you do speed work consistently, running will get easier.
You know, if you want to be a faster runner, you probably understand that you need to do your speed work, right? But doing the speed work. And doing it consistently will also help to improve your endurance as well. And most runners don’t realize this.
And when I talk about doing speed work, we’re talking about anything where you’re running and you’re pushing it, you start to feel like you’re pushing it a little or pushing it moderately hard, too hard.
So if you’re not pushing it, then that’s what we call the aerobic zone or easy running, this is a good thing. Just think of the cutoff as just being like, I don’t really feel like I’m pushing it at all. That’s when you’re in the aerobic zone.
But if you’re like, oh, I’m pushing it a little bit or I’m pushing a priority right now, that’s then you’re into the doing the speed work type of zones, okay. So really, I love HIIT training and I love tempo runs.
Tempo runs are where you’re running consistently, at a faster pace than your goal, half marathon or marathon pace, whatever your race pace is, let’s say your race pace is a 10-minute mile, then tempo runs need to be done 30 to 60 seconds faster.
So you might do a mile warm-up. And then you’re going to run 2, 3, 4 miles at that tempo pace. So that is like 30 to 60 seconds faster than your race pace. And then you’re going to do like a mile cooldown, okay, that’s a tempo run.
HIIT training is high-intensity interval training, this can be any kind of interval, it could be four hundred repeats, it can be thirty-second sprints, it can be hill repeats, it can be, I like to do longer repeats like 1/3 mile repeats, that you could do eight hundreds, like there are so many different ways of doing HIIT training, but it is so good for you.
So doing the speed work is key. If you want to run longer, then you need to improve your speed. So you want to do the speed work. Here’s why. When you do speed work, this will help to improve your VO2 max. This is the maximum amount of oxygen that you utilize while you’re running.
Higher VO2 max levels will indicate better aerobic capacity and improved endurance. Also, the speed work helps to improve your lactate threshold. So it can raise your lactate threshold doing the speed work will cause your body to produce lactate while you’re training.
Your body will then adapt and burn the lactate more efficiently the next time, so you have a positive adaptation from doing this kind of HIIT training especially. So this means that at higher intensities, you can go longer before fatigue or pain slows you down. So you got to improve that lactate threshold in you know, raise the lactate threshold speed work is how you do it.
The other reason why speed work will help you build endurance is because it helps to improve your body’s ability to deliver oxygen to working muscles. Oxygen delivery is key in endurance. And one really good way to improve your endurance is to do the speed work.
It also helps you with energy production. So your body has this ability to produce energy with oxygen and without oxygen. So when you’re without oxygen is like what we call the anaerobic zone, that’s when you’re doing like sprinting, you’re gonna just run out of gas at some point, you can only sprint for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, something like that.
And then you’re going to absolutely hit the wall. So when we practice that kind of interval training, you’re training your body to use oxygen more effectively. Another key to doing this speed work is that it helps to improve your ability to use both fat and carbohydrates as fuel sources, which is really a key right there, okay.
Because when you’re doing the speed work, you can bump up your body’s ability to burn fat. And a lot of people say well, you know I’m running faster, so I have to have the sugar. I need gels I need to fuel up I need to use sugar. You really don’t.
There have been a lot of athletes. One that comes to mind is Jeff Browning. He’s an ultra runner. And this guy’s been fat-adapted for years. He’s an elite ultra runner, he wins all kinds of stuff. Amazing guy. But he has been proven.
They’ve done some testing on him. And they’ve shown that he has the ability to burn fat, like more than just about anybody else out there. So most runners who are carb-adapted, they hit this switchover point around 65% of their VO2 max where they’re going from burning mostly sugar, or I’m sorry, burning mostly fat to burning mostly sugar.
So 65% is the traditional cutoff point or changeover point for most carb-adapted runners. But guys like Jeff Browning, he’s trained his body to use fat, mainly fat as fuel up to 90-95% of his VO2 max.
Even some people can go up to 100% of their VO2 max using just fat as fuel, it’s pretty awesome. You know, because that means that you can go much faster than previously thought possible. Right.
And then lastly, running faster helps to improve your cardiovascular fitness, it helps to improve your muscular endurance, and just helps you to improve as an athlete overall. So the speed work is key to improving your endurance for all these reasons.
And then lastly, number five. The fifth way to improve your endurance as a runner, and this is probably the biggest key to all of this is you have to be consistent, it takes time to build endurance as a runner. And consistency is going to be the key to doing this.
If you only do these things here and there, so if you do the speed work, you know, once a month or something like that, because you hate it. I talk to so many people are like I hate doing speed work. But I want to get faster, oh, I want to run longer. Okay, well, then you got to do the speed work.
But if you do these things inconsistently, you’re gonna get inconsistent results, right? You’re just not going to get there. You need to be consistent with your training volume, with your diet, with your strength training, and with your speed work. Consistency is key.
The way you accomplish anything in this world really is to take consistent aligned action, what are the actions that you need to take that are going to get you to this goal? Okay, make sure you know what to do. That’s key, right? But then practice doing those things consistently. That’s it. That is the key right there. Okay.
I mentioned like learning how to play the guitar earlier. If you want to learn how to play the guitar, you have to practice it and you have to be consistent with it. And it’s going to suck at the beginning and you’re going to be terrible. And everybody’s going to tell you to stop playing because it sounds awful. But you have to stick with it. And you got to keep doing it.
You have to take consistent aligned action if you want to accomplish anything in this world. Okay. Practice consistently improving your endurance and you’ll be running longer and easier before you know it. Cool. All right, that’s all I got for you today. I love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
As runners, we’ve been told over the last 40 years or so that the only way to fuel for running is with carbohydrates. Loads and loads of carbs. Eat lots of carbs every day, carb load the day …
Continue Reading about 216. An Alternative Way To Fuel Long-Distance Running →
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 216 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today, an alternative way to fuel long-distance running. So as runners, we’ve been told over the last 40 years or so that the only way to fuel for running is with carbohydrates, carbs, loads and loads of carbs.
Eat lots of carbs every day, carbo-load the day before you run, carb up in the morning pre-run, consume ample carbs during your run. And then of course, you’re gonna want some carbs for recovery after your run.
This has been the standard approach since the 1980s. But it’s definitely not the only way to do things. The thing is, this approach just doesn’t work for everyone. Some people like me gain a lot of weight eating all those carbs regardless of how much we run. So in this episode, I offer an alternative way to fuel long-distance running one that doesn’t cause you to gain all that weight in the process.
But first, I know I share a lot of information here on the podcast about nutrition, weight loss, and improving your running. If you’re new to the podcast, it can probably feel a little overwhelming. And you’re like I don’t even know where to start with all this.
And if that sounds like you, totally cool, I got you covered. I created a free training. It’s about an hour long. It’s a video that you can watch, you can check it out anytime it’s called 5 Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronge Runner.
In this video, you’re gonna learn the basics of nutrition, strength, endurance, and mindset, all these things that are geared towards you the long-distance runner. So if you’re ready to get leaner, and if you’re ready to get stronger, if you’re ready to become the most badass version of yourself that I know you are, then this free training is exactly what you need to get started. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training.
Okay, so let’s talk about an alternative way to fuel long-distance running. Why do I want to talk about this today? Because I keep hearing from runners and I keep reading articles online and social media posts for runners that talk about eating all the carbs.
And I’m like, gosh, are we still talking about this? Since the 1980s, the carb-loading approach has been the gold standard, so to speak for runners just eat all the carbs, and you’re going to find that most coaches teach this approach.
Most experts, quote-unquote experts, teach this approach. When I got my running, coaching certification, when I went through my coaching certification program, I was taught this approach. And this approach is fine. And it does work for some people. But it doesn’t work for everybody.
For some of us, like me, eating all those carbs caused us to gain a lot of weight in the process. You know, and I’m not against having carbohydrates. In fact, I think using carbohydrates strategically for running is a great tool.
It’s a really good tool that you have in your tool belt, why not use the carbohydrates as fuel, especially for the higher intensity stuff or races? But eating all the carbs all the time, is what we’ve been taught and it just doesn’t work for everybody.
You know, I’m one of those people that is very sensitive to carbohydrates. You know, I eat carbs and I gain weight. And so if I just take this standard approach to fueling for long-distance running, I ballooned up 40 more pounds, 50 more pounds, whatever.
You know, I’ve shared this before where I was training for ultra marathons, I was running all the time, I was doing a ton of mileage and gaining weight in the process. You can’t outrun the wrong diet, right?
So for me the all carbs all the time approach while I loved it. Who doesn’t love eating carbs all the time? Oh, pizza, sure. Ice cream. Yep, that’s going to, I mean, I’m a runner, so I gotta eat this stuff. Right? Spaghetti all the time. Like I was just I was eating tons of bread and pasta. And sugar, like this was my diet. You know, it was like a 90% carbohydrates, you know?
And I just kept gaining weight and gaining weight and I was like wow, even though I was running a ton, you know, I was training for ultra marathons and running ultra marathons regularly and then gaining weight in the process does not make sense, right?
You are supposed to lose weight when you start training. Well, the wrong diet won’t allow that to happen, right, so the wrong diet will cause the weight to continually stack up. So for me, this this all carbs all the time approach is one that I tried, and it just didn’t work for me.
You know, I also found that I would crash and burn during long-distance events. And I’m like, what’s going on here, because I’m using all the fuel. You know, I’m taking all the gels and I’m eating, I’m pre-loading with carbs and do all this stuff. But I keep crashing and burning and mile 18 to 22 of a marathon, you know.
And I was like this, this isn’t working, like there’s got to be a different approach here. Okay. And there is, there are, there is an alternative approach, there are probably multiple other approaches that you can take.
But there’s one specific that I want to talk about today, one that doesn’t require eating all the carbs all the time, and one that doesn’t require you to gain a bunch of weight in the process, if that’s you.
And listen, if you’re the kind of person that can eat all those carbs, and not gain any weight, and it works really well for you, then keep doing your thing. Keep doing that. My hat’s off to you. But if you’re somebody that’s like Patrick, that really doesn’t work for me, then listen up, because here’s the different approach you want to take.
You want to get yourself fat-adapted. So we’re talking about this concept of fat adaptation. Fat adaptation means that you train your body to burn your stored body fat as fuel for long-distance running.
When you stop eating all the sugar and all the carbs constantly, you give your body a chance to tap into your stored body fat as fuel. So the way this works, essentially, is think about your different fuel sources in your body as like a fuel tank, and the top layer of that fuel tank is what’s gets burned first.
And that top layer is going to be sugar, essentially glucose, glycogen, that kind of stuff. So that is going to be burned first. And as long as that’s available, that is what’s going to be constantly burned. Okay.
And so the concept, but behind all carbs all the time thing is like you want to keep that top layer of the tank filled at all times so that you’re constantly always burning that. The problem is that when you run out of that, maybe you get to mile 20 of the marathon and you just haven’t done a good job of keeping up with the amount of carbs that you need for that event, or you haven’t trained yourself to metabolize carbs that to that extent.
That top layer of the tank is going to run out and then you’re going to crash because you don’t, you don’t have access to that lower portion of the gas tank, which is the biggest portion, I’m going to say it’s probably like 90% of that gas tank is going to be your fat stores.
But you don’t have access to that because you haven’t trained your body to use that fat as fuel, like the pathways are not there. So what happens is that when you stop eating the sugar and the carbs all the time?
You start to train your body to use the alternative fuel source, the fat stores the stored body fat, you know, we all eat some, you know, we all eat food and some of that energy that we consume gets used towards working muscles, some of that energy gets stored as fat to be used later as fuel.
The problem is we’ve just gotten so far away from using our stored body fat as fuel, it’s kind of like we just constantly put wood on the woodpile, but we’re never burning the wood it just keeps stacking up that’s our fat stores just getting bigger and bigger.
So when you train yourself to tap into those stored to your stored body fat as a fuel, now you have this like almost unlimited fuel source for running. So that’s the concept of fat-adaptation, you’re removing the sugar and the carbs that that initial, like, let’s say 10%.
And I’m kind of making these numbers up but just think of it like you know, we only have the capacity to store like 2000 calories as of energy as glucose but we have our body fat can can store hundreds of thousands of calories of energy as stored body fat, so just know that yeah, it’s probably like 10% and 90%, something like that. It’s probably more like 99 and 1% or something okay.
Anyway, so we want to get ourselves fat-adapted we want to be able to adapt to using that stored body fat as fuel. Okay, now, people hear this and they’re like, oh, that’s crazy. That’s just some weird fringe thing, it’s probably a fad, and it’s gonna go away.
Listen, we’ve been doing this for millennia, as human beings, we’ve been doing it for more than millennia, for like millions of years. Fat Burning is our natural state as human beings. You know, we store some of that energy we consume as body fat, and we use it when we’re not eating.
This is the way the human body is designed, you know, there’s periods of feasting, and there’s periods of fasting during those periods of fasting, we should be tapping into our stored body fat as fuel. Humans are really good at this, we are naturally really good at using fat as fuel.
And we’re naturally good distance runners like we used to be hunter-gatherers, we used to be a persistence Hunter, so we would, we would chase down prey, and we would outrun them not from a speed perspective, but from a time perspective like we would, you know, cut an antelope out of the herd or whatever.
And they might be able to outrun us in the short distance, but over time, like over hours and days, we would run them down to where they just would die of exhaustion. You know, poor antelope. I know, but good for us, because now we have this nutrient-dense meal that would that would sustain us, you know.
So the human body is designed to use that stored body fat as fuel during those times when we didn’t have the other food coming in. Okay. So to say that, oh, you have to consume all the carbs, all the pasta, all the bread all the time, just to be able to run?
That’s actually the new thing. That’s actually the weird fad thing that we’ve only been doing for the last 40 years or so. Right? I mean, isn’t that interesting that people look at this fat-burning thing. And they’re like, oh, you know, that’s not the way you should do it.
And I’m like, well, listen, we’ve been amazing runners for millions of years as humans and we never had to eat all the pasta and bread and gels and stuff like that. Why now? Should we have to do that? Okay.
So not only is it not a fad thing, or some weird approach, like there are elite runners that have adopted this approach for years and years and years, and they’re at the top of their game, you know, I’m gonna mention a couple of them here.
And I’ve talked about these guys before on the podcast here. And there are countless others too, but these guys just are kind of like the top, you know, the top 1% or whatever. Jeff Browning. He’s an ultra runner. He’s finished nearly 200 ultra marathons in his career. He’s had over 40 career ultra marathon wins 29 of those at the 100 mile plus distance, making him second in the world for the most 100 mile wins in history.
Ranked seven times in the top 10 of ultra running magazines, North American Ultra Runner of the year, ranked third in Ultra running magazines, North American Ultra Runner of the decade. He builds multiple, multiple course records, including the Moab 240 course record, and he is a low carb, low carb, high-fat kind of he takes that approach to his training.
You know, he’s very vocal about his fat-burning approach, his fat-adapted approach to ultra running, you know, he doesn’t consume all the sugars and all the gels and all the pasta and all the carbs. All right.
And another one that comes to mind is Mike McKnight. He’s an ultra runner. He specializes in the 200 mile distance. And he posed several wins every year for different events. He’s kind of known because he ran 118 Miles while consuming zero calories, zero calories. He ran 118 miles. He was just relying on his own stored body fat for fuel and he’s a pretty, pretty lean guy. You know? He’s amazing.
And I actually tried this, I was like, hey, you know, I’m gonna I’m gonna give this a shot. I didn’t do 180 miles but I did two marathons and a 50k ultra marathon on zero calories just to say like, Oh, can I even do this? Yeah, I could do it and I was fine. Really no problems whatsoever.
And then of course, there’s Zach Bitter. He’s an American ultramarathon runner. He specializes in the 100 miler distance and he’s done like over 60 ultras. He’s known for his low-carb diet, which he uses for training and racing nutrition. He had the record for the 100 miler. One point of 11 hours, 19 minutes and 13 seconds. I’m gonna say that one more time because that is a crazy number, he ran 100 miles and 11 hours in 90 minutes. That’s insane.
He’s the holder of the 12-hour American record at 104.88 miles. He claims the 100-mile and 12-hour world records at the Six Days in the Dome event in Milwaukee in 2019. Competed for team USA world 100 Kilometer team three times.
So these are guys, these are just some of the guys who are benefiting and their, their elite athletes who are at the top of their game. And they’re taking this low-carb approach to distance running. They’re not consuming all the carbs all the time. Yeah, they do use some carbs for their events.
And they’ll tell you, you know, you can check them out, or their websites, check them out on social media, they have podcasts and stuff like that, you can totally listen to what these guys say. And they’ll tell you they do like maybe, you know, 30 to 50 grams of carbs per hour for these events, which is not a lot. But they’re not eating all the carbs all the time. They’re taking this fat adaptation approach to running and it’s working really, really well for them. Okay.
Another thing to consider here is that if your goal is to lose weight, then this is a great way to lose weight. Because listen, if you want to lose weight, what do you got to do? You have to burn a fat, right?
We’re not talking about weight loss, we’re talking about fat loss. So you have to burn the fat. If you are burning the fat, you are losing weight. And it’s really hard to burn the fat when you’re on that super high-carb runner’s type of diet, right?
Because of the whole fuel source prioritization, you know, you’re going to burn through the glucose first, then you’re going to tap into the fat but you gotta like, You got to eliminate that top 1% or whatever of your fuel tank.
So if fat burning is the key to weight loss, which it is, wouldn’t you want to do it? It that makes fat burning the priority? Yes, you would. When you eat for fat-burning, you’re running improves your endurance and improves and you lose weight in the process. Right?
So if you’re somebody who is interested in losing weight, this approach might work for you, it may be something you want to consider. Okay, and and listen, when we talk about a low-carb approach to fueling a low-carb diet, a low-carb, you know, nutrition approach; a lot of people think, you know, you’re talking about keto, or doing no carbs or carnivore or something like that.
No, it’s not about that. It’s about finding the right amount of carbs that keeps you burning fat, while also helping you’re running because carbs are helpful for running, right? You don’t have to be Mike McKnight and do the zero-calorie thing. But it’s cool that the human body can do that, you know.
That’s fat-adaptation. And it’s most impressive, like what that guy does, right? And by the way, this guy is not fat, right? You don’t need a ton of body fat, to be able to use your own stored body fat as fuel.
Even the leanest of athletes can benefit from fat adaptation as an approach. Okay, so this doesn’t mean that you’re never eating any carbs, you can still eat some carbs. I use carbs for fuel, and I encourage my clients to use carbs for fuel, but we prefer like whole food sources of carbs, you know, we might be talking about bananas or sweet potatoes or rice or something like that, right?
And obviously, everybody’s a little bit different. And you have to kind of experiment with what works for you. But there’s, there’s tons of great options just from the natural world like and sticking with whole food sources of carbohydrates is great.
Now I get it that when you’re in any event, like you can’t carry a bunch of sweet potatoes or bananas with you. I mean, it’s just really not that convenient. But what’s cool is that there are a bunch of brands out there that cater to the low-carb endurance athlete, and they have entire product lines that are geared towards helping you fuel for running while maintaining that fat-burning state.
So like Hammer Nutrition is one you can use. S-Fuels, Muir energy, and there are a bunch of other brands out there and new ones coming out all the time. So that’s a very encouraging thing that there are companies out there that are that are gearing their product lines towards the low carb endurance athlete. Okay.
Now, just like I said, at the beginning of this podcast that the high-carb approach isn’t for everyone, just like that, like the fat-adapted approach probably isn’t for everyone. So I’m not going to come out here and say that everybody should do this. And everybody will benefit from this.
Some people do really fine eating all the carbs and the sugar and the gels, and they never have to worry about gaining weight. And if that’s you, that is amazing. That’s definitely not me. But if you struggle with losing weight, and you love running, then this might be the approach that you want to try.
You know, the only way you can tell if it works through you, or if you enjoy it, or if you can do this as a lifestyle as to give it a shot, you might see the weight start to come off, you might experience running feeling easier than ever before.
You might see your energy levels are better all day long, no more afternoon crashes, you might begin to think more clearly be able to focus and concentrate better. And as always, if you want help with any of this, you can always reach out to me you can go to my website runningleancoaching.com.
Every day I help runners get fat-adapted, lose weight, improve their running performance and make all this a lifestyle. So whatever approach you take cool, but it has to be something that is sustainable for you. Because if it’s not sustainable for you, it’s not going to work because this stuff takes time.
You know, if you want to lose weight, and you want to improve your diet, improve your nutrition, improve your running and your nutrition for running specifically, then you’re gonna have to take a little bit of time to figure out what works for you. And it has to be something that you can do sustainably long term, right?
So I work with my clients, we work together to make sure whatever they’re doing is something that they can do on their own like for good, or it’s not about quick fixes, but lifestyle changes, right being fit and healthy isn’t a destination we’re trying to get to. It’s how we live our life. Okay. Consider the fat-adapted approach. I think it’s amazing. It works really well for me and countless people that I work with. Give it a shot. You never know. That’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean and I will talk to you soon.
Lots of runners look pretty healthy on the outside. They exercise a lot, maintain a decent weight, have low body fat percentage, low BMI, and generally look fit. But inside there could be a lot …
My name is Patrick McGilvray, and I’m an experienced marathoner, ultra runner, Sports Nutritionist, Master Life Coach, and weight loss coach for runners. I’ve dedicated my life to helping runners just like you properly fuel your body and your mind. So you can get leaner, get stronger, run faster, and run longer than you ever thought possible. This is Running Lean.
Hey there, and welcome to episode 191 of Running Lean. My name is Patrick McGilvray, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners and today: Fit But Unhealthy. So, lots of runners look pretty healthy on the outside, they exercise a lot, they maintain a decent weight, they have a low body fat percentage, low BMI, they generally look and feel fit. but inside there could be a lot more going on that no one really sees.
So I came across this study recently that looked at low carbohydrate diets versus high carbohydrate diets and their effects on athletic performance. And the results are pretty interesting from the athletic performance standpoint, but also kind of surprising from a health perspective.
So today, I’m going to look at what it means to be fit but unhealthy, and what you can do to make sure you are both. But first, as The Weight Loss Coach for Runners, I’ve helped hundreds of runners over the last few years lose a lot of weight; but here’s a little secret to the people who I work with, it’s not about losing weight. I know it sounds contrary, but hear me out.
Losing weight is great. And it inevitably happens, but the real goal of working together is to help you become the healthiest and most badass version of yourself. When you make the commitment to change your relationship with food and exercise when you focus on building strength and endurance.
When you do the internal work of developing the right mindset, you will absolutely transform yourself into a leaner, stronger runner and the healthiest version of yourself yet. So weight loss is not the goal. It’s just a nice side effect of you becoming your fittest and healthiest self.
So make the commitment today to improve your health and fitness. And you’ll lose that extra weight along the way. And if you want a little help with all this, as always, you can join the Running Lean Coaching Project.
That’s my unique weight loss coaching program for runners. Just go to runningleancoaching.com/join to learn more about that. And if you want a little bit of help, just getting started with all this stuff, then I have just the thing to help you get started on the right track.
I put together a free training for you. It’s about an hour long, it’s called Five Simple Steps To Becoming A Leaner Stronger Runner. I will teach you how to lose weight the right way and keep it off for good without running a million miles a week.
A few of the things that you’re gonna learn in this in depth training, why running more and eating less is not an effective way to lose weight, the one thing runners typically don’t do when they are trying to lose weight, the best fuel to use to improve your endurance and help your weight loss, and the right mindset shifts required to make all these changes last for life.
You’re going to learn how to crush your weight loss goals and your running goals directly from me, The Weight Loss Coach for Runners. So if you’re ready to get leaner and stronger, to run faster and longer and to become the healthiest, most badass version of yourself, then you need to check out this free training now just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Free Training. Cool. Awesome.
Okay, so let’s talk about Fit But Unhealthy. So I came across this study recently. The study was called low and high carbohydrate isocaloric diets on performance, fat oxidation, glucose and cardio metabolic health in middle age males. Kind of a mouthful.
This was published in the Journal Frontiers in nutrition in February of 2023. So it’s a pretty recent study. And the study was conducted by some of the pretty well known researchers in the low carb endurance and athletic world like Professor Tim Noakes, Dominic D’Agostino, Dr. Jeff Bullock.
And one of the reasons that they did this study is that since the 1970s, there has been this shift towards a high carbohydrate, low fat diet for health benefits, but also for training benefits. You know, a lot of the professional athletes since the 70s have shifted to a high carbohydrate, low fat diet because they want to reap the benefits of all the carbohydrates in their diet.
So that they can, you know, run faster, right and, and improve their athletic performance. Most athletes hit a crossover point in their fuel system. So they go from burning mostly fat to almost exclusively burning carbohydrates.
So they reach this crossover point where fat burning effectively shuts down around 85% of the of their VO2 max. So around 85% of most athletes’ VO2 max, they hit this crossover point where fat burning pretty much shuts down to zero.
And unless you have ample stores of carbohydrate to use this fuel, you bonk you crash and burn, you hit the wall. So countering all of this, this is what’s been known and been followed and adhered to, since the 1970s or so encountering all of this is the fact that there’s a lot of athletes and a huge growing number of athletes that have been following a low carb high fat diet.
And they have been able to dramatically increase their fuel crossover point to well above that 85% mark previously seen. So they wanted to do this study, to just see what was going on here and really, you know, try to predict or try to show what would happen between these two groups of athletes, the low carb diet athletes and the high carb diet athletes.
They wanted to see what the results would be on athletic performance. So they conducted this study, it was 31 days, so it was four weeks long. And they compare the two groups of competitive athletes, these were middle aged men in their 40s, they were in good shape, they had low body fat percentages, like 12-16% body fat, low BMI.
They exercised around six hours a week. And so they were competitive athletes in their 40s, mostly runners, and they divided them into two groups, they had one group that was a low carb high fat diet, the other group was a high carb low fat diet.
They assessed both diets, and they were strictly controlling macros calories and their training load. So this study was really well done. And they were very strict about making sure the only difference in these two groups of men was that their one group was eating a low carb, higher fat diet, and the other was eating a high carb lower fat diet.
And then they had them do some performance tests. So each of the subjects in the test visited the lab on 10 different occasions during that 31 day period. And they performed tests periodically, but the two main tests that they did was a one mile time trial, and then six by 800 sprints.
And so they did testing throughout, but they did some time trials at the beginning. And then at the end of the study. And all these things were very tightly controlled, all the variables were tightly controlled, to make sure the only difference between the groups was their dietary intervention.
Now, the performance side of things was pretty interesting because the results showed that both groups performed almost exactly the same in these high intensity exercises. So there was no difference really between the performance of the low carb group and the high carb group.
There was a huge difference though in fat burning. So the high carb, low fat group, their fat burning peaked around .69 grams of fat burn per minute. Whereas the low carb group, their fat burning peaked around 1.85 grams per minute, which is the highest rate of fat oxidation ever recorded.
Okay, so the big difference between these two groups was the amount of fat that the low carb group was able to burn and they were at 1.85 grams per minute where the high carb group peaked around .7 grams of fat burn per minute. That’s a huge, huge difference.
So what this is saying is that depending on your dietary protocol, either way, you’re going to be able to perform at high intensities, about the same whether you’re doing a low carb diet or a high carb diet, okay?
So we can sort of take this off the table that a high carb diet is required to perform at higher intensities. Okay. So something else that I found really interesting and this is what prompted me to want to talk about this today is that in the group that was eating the high carb diet, they were doing all these blood tests on on all these people just to see like, you know, what, they were just measuring all kinds of things.
And one of the things they were looking at was blood glucose averages, and they did like fasting blood glucose tests. And one thing that was really fascinating is that the high carb group, 30% of them had average blood glucose greater than 100 milligrams per deciliter, which is consistent with prediabetes. So 100-125 is diagnosed as pre diabetes.
And there’s where in the 111 to 115 range, on average, 30% of these super fit competitive athletes with low BMI 12 to 16%, body fat, they looked great. They were very competitive runners, they appeared on the outside to be super fit, but are they healthy?
They’re being diagnosed with pre diabetes, because of their blood sugar being greater than 100 milligrams per deciliter on average during this 31 day study. And they did these tests many, many times. So this wasn’t like a one time deal.
The other interesting thing about this is that these people were also the greatest responders to carbohydrate restriction, which means that those individuals with a higher mean glucose, so the higher the individuals with those prediabetes numbers with the higher mean glucose, were more responsive to carbohydrate restriction treatment.
And all of their glycemic parameters were greatly improved if they switch to a low carb high fat diet. So average glucose was significantly lower, starting on day eight of the low carb and then remained lower throughout. And so the 31 day average glucose levels were down by 15%.
If they had switched to that low carb high fat diet. So some of the key findings that I’m just going to read this to you, these are some key findings from the study itself. So one of them is that athletes achieved equivalent exercise performance during a one mile time trial and a six by 800 meter interval session after a 31 day habituation to low carb or high carb diets.
When controlling calories training load, body composition changes across the groups. Another key finding during the later stages of the six by 800 interval sessions athletes achieve the highest rates of fat oxidation yet reported. According to current understanding, this is paradoxical since these high rates were measured in subjects exercising edit intensity, which was a which the rate of fat oxidation should be approaching zero.
Okay, so these were, the intensity level was greater than 90% of their VO2 max and their fat oxidation should have been at zero, but it was increasing. Crazy, right? And the low carb high fat consistently reduced glucose levels and glucose variability, which along with a large inverse relationship observed between main glucose on high carb and the percentage change mean glucose when switching to low carb.
So importantly, 30% of subjects who had a 31 day mean fasting glucose of greater than 100 on high carb were also the largest responders to the carbohydrate restriction, right? No subjects on the low carb high fat diet had a 31 day average mean glucose of greater than 100. Okay, so these results challenge the existing paradigm. The diets with higher carbohydrates are superior for athletic performance even during shorter duration higher intensity exercise which has been known or thought to be the case for a long time now.
Critically, these results demonstrate that lower carbohydrate intake may be a therapeutic strategy, even for an athlete, to improve glycemic index, particularly in those with or at risk for diabetes without requiring changes in body composition. Like you don’t need to lose a bunch of weight or physical activity, you don’t need to be exercising a ton more.
Interestingly, these results also demonstrate a unique association between glycemic responsiveness to carbohydrate restriction, fat oxidation rates, suggesting that there’s an important relationship here between glycemic parameters and metabolic responsiveness.
Okay, so my sort of interpretation, I was reading a lot of that from the study itself. It’s very scientifically written, a little dry, in my opinion, but my interpretation is this: that the low carb high fat diet produces the same results from an athletic performance perspective as the high carb diet.
And once you’re on that low carb diet for several weeks, weeks, your rate of fat oxidation goes way up. And this is key for both endurance. So being able to burn more fat helps you from an endurance standpoint, and helps improve weight loss, right, you have to burn fat if you want to lose weight, and that the high carb diet can lead to adverse health effects like pre diabetes.
And this is an interesting study because they looked at, you know, seemingly fit healthy men with low body fat percentages, normal body weight, normal BMI, all that they’re all competitive athletes, they exercise more than six hours per week, they didn’t have any medical diagnosis.
They weren’t on any medications, but 30% of them of the high carb group had, you know, blood glucose levels consistent with prediabetes, this is a problem, right? This is consistent with a prior analysis they did, which found that 30% of sub-elite endurance athletes, so this is like your average weekend warrior that’s just out there running for fun, like me, and you probably exercise, less than like six hours per week, had undetected prediabetes when measured via CGM, continuous glucose monitoring devices.
So a prior study has shown that 30% of athletes who seemingly are fit on the outside have this prediabetes condition. So they were fit but not healthy. And this is an important distinction. Do you want to just look healthy on the outside? Or would you rather look healthy on the outside and actually be healthy as a human being from the inside out?
So just because we see somebody on Instagram who looks healthy, they have lean body mass, low body fat percentage they’re ripped, they got abs for days, does not mean that they are healthy. It does not mean that they aren’t having some sort of internal issues or some, you know, condition like prediabetes.
And following the standard dietary advice, which is a very high carb diet, and low in fat, seems to cause metabolic dysfunction in around 30% of the population. And this is just the most fit population, whether you’re very competitive athletes or weekend warriors.
We’re not even looking at the people who do not exercise regularly, who are kind of sedentary. So it’s no wonder that obesity rates are what they are right now here in the US, which is over 42% of the US population is considered obese, over 42%.
This is the first time that here in the US the national rate of obesity has passed the 40% mark. And it’s further evidence of the country’s obesity crisis. The national adult obesity rate has increased by 26% since 2008. I’m gonna say that again, because it’s crazy.
The national adult obesity rate has increased by 26% since 2008.
And I say this all the time, you can’t outrun a bad diet, and this is what I’m talking about. These are very fit individuals who run a lot, who are very competitive, who all appear to be in perfect shape. But there’s more to the story. Your diet matters, what you eat matters. You cannot outrun a bad diet. Sure, exercise is important.
Keep running. Do that for sure, but it’s not going to solve all your health issues. You have to pay attention to the foods that you eat. And all this exercise and all this fitness won’t help keep you healthy unless you also change your diet. It’s up to you to take things into your own hands.
Don’t do what the powers be out there, the food companies, the government or whatever, what they’re telling you to do typically doesn’t work. You have to take things in your own hands. And listen, low carb, it’s not a fad diet. It’s not keto. It doesn’t mean you never eat another grain of rice your whole life, doesn’t involve eating sticks of butter wrapped in bacon, as good as that sounds.
If you want to learn more about my thoughts on carbs, I did an episode about this last week called Carbs Are Not The Enemy. Carbs are not the enemy. There are some carbs that are great and great for endurance athletes and great for weight loss, you just have to do them the right way.
So listen to that episode, for sure it’ll help you, you know, could get a good understanding of that. So if you’re a runner, and you want to improve your health, like really improve your health from the inside out, then making the switch to a lower carb diet might just be what you need.
And as always, I can coach you through all of this. We’ll put together a nutrition plan that fits your lifestyle and gets you to your health and fitness goals. Just go to runningleancoaching.com and click on Work With Me.
Okay, that’s all I got for you today. Love you all, keep on Running Lean, and I will talk to you soon.
