Ultras are attainable on a strict LCHF diet

On the LCHF podcast, we’re talking the low carb healthy fat diet and today’s question comes from another ultra marathoner and I thought we’d get Vinnie Tortorich on the show to answer this question and it comes from Rob. Vinnie, interesting question, there’s an ultra marathon here in South Africa called the Comrades Marathon. It’s about 56 miles, it’s brutal, 12 hours is the cut off that you’ve got to do it in and Rob’s planning on running it.

He’s been following the low carb healthy fat diet for the last six months or so. He reckons he’s been about 90% compliant he says, but when he does get to running at the 15km mark or longer, so around the 10 mile mark he says he feels like he’s running out of energy and he starts to crave carbohydrates. Also after several days of training, his muscles get successively weaker as if he’s not able to replenish his glycogen reserves.

Is there anything he can do to improve or speed up the conversion of fat to energy when is needed and it is a bit of a long process to become fat adapted isn’t it? Vinnie, you want to get your body sort of burning fat as opposed to carbohydrates on these long endurance events.