Today Debbie talks to Dina Griffin again about how an athlete wants to approach their diet during training and in the off-season. She also talks about the difference between ketosis and just having a controlled carbohydrate intake. In her opinion, many people don’t have to go the more extreme route of ketosis, but rather, they can control the amount and types of carbs that they are consuming to enhance their training.

Debbie wonders what a person’s plates will look like for eating throughout the seasons. In winter, Dina recommends a half a plate between high-quality proteins and fats, and the other half non-starchy vegetables. An athlete can start adding carbs in the form of starchy veggies or whole grains during the spring. However, this only applies to training days, so days where you have a short workout, you can stick with the half and half model. In the summer, you might ramp up the carbs a little more, but Dina makes the point that all of this is dependent on individual responses, types of training and the types of athletic goals that you have as well. So while she is providing some general rules, she’s aware that there may be many exceptions.

She also makes the point that our concept of metabolic efficiency for athletes is certainly fat burning, but it doesn’t require that we engage in ketosis. An article came out recently about athletic diet, but her critique of this study is that it only recognizes a high-carb approach and ketosis. She is recommending a controlled carbohydrate approach, which is neither. Her response to the review follows:

Research Article Review

by eNRG performance Sport Dietitians Dina Griffin and Becca Rick

As Sport Dietitians, we assume responsibility for staying up-to-date on current research in an effort to educate ourselves and our clients.  Used in conjunction with what we see to work in practice with our athletes and clients, research helps to guide the nutrition recommendations we provide. As such, it is critical that we analyze research by digging into the fine details that aren't necessarily provided in an abstract or in line with the message that is ultimately passed along to consumers.  

A recently published review article in The Journal of Sports Medicine entitled 'Carbohydrate Dependence During Prolonged, Intense Endurance Exercise' by Hawley and Leckey (link here) caught our attention and inspired us to provide our community with an analysis.  The main points of the review article include:

When reading through the details of the review paper and considering how the main points are summarized, there are a numerous considerations we noted:

While the authors recognize the importance of nutrition periodization, their conclusions are to continue promotion of high carbohydrate availability before and during competitions for endurance athletes.  Nutrition Periodization strategies absolutely should be employed for athletes, yet part of a periodized plan can also include Metabolic Efficiency Training to utilize dietary and exercise strategies that enhance the body's ability to utilize a greater proportion of endogenous fat stores. As mentioned above, there is not a need to implement very low carbohydrate diets in order to yield various health and athletic benefits. Perhaps as the body of research grows, review articles like this will better acknowledge this viable alternative to fueling the endurance athlete. However, it is also clear that we must be mindful of where nutrition messages arise as some can be heavily influenced by the sports nutrition industry.

These are just a few of our compiled thoughts on this latest review article. Look for future blog posts exploring more research perspectives related to the growing field of fat oxidation research and its application for health and athletic performance. 

Dina earned her master’s degree in Food Science and Human Nutrition from Colorado State University and is a Board Certified Specialist in Sport Dietetics and a Certified Level II Metabolic Efficiency Training Specialist. She is a competitive half marathon and marathon runner, age group triathlete, and ultrarunner earning top placement and age group wins in several races.

She is a sport nutritionist at eNRGperfomance.com. For more information about metabolic efficiency go to metabolicefficiency.org.