Low-carb and endurance sports

Our earliest ancestors lived on earth a few million years ago. Carbohydrate intake was modest back then and only increased with the advent of agriculture a good 10,000 years ago. What does this mean for us? Do we now all have to jump on the current low-carb trend?

Despite the many paleo diets propagated today, we do not know for certain what the diet was like in the Stone Age. We can also assume that there was no single paleo diet. The Stone Age lasted around 2.5 million years. There were certainly different diets during this time. However, today's best guesses are that carbohydrates provided 20 to 30 per cent of energy, while fats and proteins each provided 25 to 60 per cent.

Low-carb for the sedentary

Carbohydrates are now recommended to account for 40 to 50 per cent of energy for adults, and a lot more for sports. Both recommendations for carbohydrates are therefore significantly higher than what humans have eaten for practically the entire history of evolution. How should this be assessed?

A high intake of carbohydrates increases the risk of civilisation diseases such as diabetes or cardiovascular diseases. A reduced intake of carbohydrates is therefore more sensible for adults than a high intake, provided that physical activity is modest to low. Regular physical activity cancels out these negative effects.

However, the relationship between diet and health has not yet been sufficiently researched. Science has too little data on this:

Low carb in sport

From 1985 to 2005, there was a whole series of studies in sports science on high-fat diets in endurance sports. A high-fat, and therefore low-carb diet, should maximise fat metabolism, thereby conserving glycogen stores and thus leading to better performance.

A high-fat diet of this kind for a few days actually increases fat burning during endurance exercise. However, this does not lead to better endurance performance compared to a conventional carbohydrate-orientated diet. In addition, many athletes find training during such a diet much more strenuous.

Most endurance athletes will only be able to achieve their maximum performance with sufficient carbohydrate intake. Up to a duration of three hours, carbohydrates are the limiting energy source for intensive performance. Accordingly, classic, carbohydrate-rich diets are recommended here.

Low carb in between

Infrequent phases or training sessions with a low intake of carbohydrates are an interesting aspect. The aim is to increase fat metabolism more quickly, which results in higher performance
. The problem with this is that if you carry out too many low-carb phases, you will most likely slip into overtraining sooner or later due to the low carbohydrate intake. Therefore, only adults who are already well-trained should incorporate such low-carb units into their training plan.

In addition, it is always advisable to discuss this with a nutrition coach or doctor in advance.

Summary

• Reduced carbohydrate intake makes the most sense for people who are not very physically active to maintain their health.

Instead of a portion of cereal products such as bread, pasta and rice at all main meals, only two of them, and in between meals, it can easily be just once a day.

• For performance-focused endurance athletes, on the other hand, you need enough carbohydrates: in many situations, six to eight grams of carbohydrates per kilogramme of body weight is a sensible amount (the food pyramid for athletes gives specific recommendations).
• In very intensive training phases and directly before a competition, increase the amount of carbohydrates a little, in quieter phases reduce it accordingly, a few low-carb phases bring variety into everyday life.
• Get advice from your doctor or a nutrition coach in advance

When it's on, it's on:

It's not just low-carb phases that add variety to your daily routine. Reading phases have the same effect. You can find reading material here
.