Ketogenic diet vs standard high carb diet for runners

Elite runners do not do fad diets. They train.

Young, heavy-training genetic outliers are not inclined to take away one of their greatest pleasures in life: shoving carbs down the gullet. It is not until they retire and have to think about their health and expanding waistlines that something like keto would even get on their radar.

A couple of ultra guys (Jeff Browning and Zack Bitter) have had great success with it, as well as some of the top TDF guys. I am keto and it hasn't hurt my shorter distance stuff, but hasn't boosted it either (though I am healthier and more durable). It does make weight control effortless, so I am at my best weight ever for running/climbing in my 60s.

What 20-something athlete is going to voluntarily give up beer (or ugali, if Kenyan)?

Moto wrote:

Elite runners do not do fad diets. They train.

It's a "fad diet" alright...only 2.6 million years old.

Doubt anyone is going full keto, but I'm sure the big boys have a pretty high amount of fat in their diet

Billy blue 47 wrote:

Anyone know any high level

Runners. Not your local cross fitters ... but anyone competing at a high level on the keto diet?

No, you won't find anyone running fast on the keto diet. Yes, some top ultra runners, but if you look closely they are eating carbs before and during races.

That said there will be plenty of hobby joggers chiming in about how they love keto.

paper bag wrote:

Billy blue 47 wrote:

Anyone know any high level

Runners. Not your local cross fitters ... but anyone competing at a high level on the keto diet?

No, you won't find anyone running fast on the keto diet. Yes, some top ultra runners, but if you look closely they are eating carbs before and during races.

If you understood physiology, you would know why they do this, albeit they use carbs at a much lower rate than their not-as-fat-adapted competition (see the excellent FASTER study by Volek and Phinney).

This lowered carb requirement is a major reason why Jeff Browning, who struggled for years with stomach issues as a high-carb vegan, has never had a setback due to stomach problems since becoming fat-adapted, a malady which plagues runners such as Sage Canaday over the longer distances.

Yes, if only I understood physiology.

Keto Diet is designed for sedentary obese diabetics, not runners.

Fat as an energy source may work for ultras.

It's pretty simple, your body derives aerobic energy exclusively from simple sugars. Any other molecules must be converted into simple sugars to be converted via cellular respiration into ATP. They teach this in BIO 101. Fat is incredibly difficult to convert into a simple sugar to be used for cellular resp., thus the process is slowed tremendously. This might pass as okay for someone jogging but at any elite level race at a popular distance it simply doesn't make any sense. They're a reason Kipchoge was taking 80+ (can't remember if it was 80 or 100 that maurten said he took) grams of carbs per hour when he set the record.

Also, fat consumption causes just about all plaque buildup in arteries, and high fat containing foods like meats and dairy cause inflammation as well as many other well documented health issue such as diabetes and cancer. Processed meats are viewed by the world health organization as nearly as carcinogenic as cigarettes.

Also, if you've taken a bit of bio you'll know that the body also doesn't like to convert simple sugars into fats to be stored, which is why elite runners are so lean. Carbs you consume are stored with water as glycogen, this simplifies the energy producing process. I really don't get the keto makes you lean stuff. You get lean from it because you're deprived of calories. I'd rather race fast and be carbed TF up than jog around feeling horrible but in a ketogenic state.

Here's a couple good videos about this topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFijW8A2Prc&t=970s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyOACAdvAsE

DW wrote:

Doubt anyone is going full keto, but I'm sure the big boys have a pretty high amount of fat in their diet

thats not keto having fat

I recently tried Keto for 5 weeks or so (

I recently tried keto for 5 weeks and it was terrible! I was on 30g carbs net per day. Speed across the board was worse. Speed endurance was particularly bad. Ironically endurance was also worse at slow speeds (65% V02 max). Near the end of keto I time trialed a half marathon on the same course I did earlier in the year. I was significantly slower, despite being done in easier conditions. Pre-keto half: 1:16, 170lbs, 65F, 75% RH. Keto half: 1:26, 161lbs, 50F, 74% RH.

Not surprising really when you are depriving yourself of fuel.

Carb Power wrote:

Keto Diet is designed for sedentary obese diabetics, not runners.

Fat as an energy source may work for ultras.

This is exactly right. It's not complicated.

Fat is an incredible source of energy for the body but the process is SLOW! Great for Ultra runners. Great for our ancestors who primarily walked, worked, and ran at a controlled slower pace for a long period of time.

If your muscles and liver are deprived of glycogen stores before a run than you're going to be short of fuel for any effort over 65% VO2Max. This is not theoretical.

I've been on keto/fat adaptted for three years and all of my times have improved, on easier, less stressful training. Sure there were a few setbacks in the first months, but the benefits were obvious once I learned from my mistakes. You are going "against the grain" (pun intended) of everything you were taught was "healthy", so of course it is not going to be easy for most.

"I tried keto for (x-weeks, usually under eight) and got WORSE!" This is like people who try to increase mileage and after less than one/two months declare high mileage a failure and they have never run worse. You did it wrong and you ignored your body's requirements to adapt properly. That is OK, because most diet advice out there is absolute crap. Your best bet is to find a good mentor or people who have been through the process, not just lone-wolfing it.

And to the morans who think that ingested carbs are the "only energy source" that your body can use, aside from being absolutely wrong on the physiology, you are like the "running is bad for your knees" slugs looking for a cop-out. FACT: Carbs are NOT a necessary component of a healthy diet, fats and protein are.

I will be charitable, because it took me DECADES to come to the reality and gravity of the lies and misinformation that we have all been subjected to (runners worst of all, since all the diet advice is always carb! carb! carb!). Then you have idiot vegans jumping in with their complete lack of experience with a healthy omnivore diet and their Jesus-complex-I'll-save-the-world agenda driving even harder down the road which leads inevitably to insulin-resistance and skinnyfat carb-dependence. I know, I was a vegetarian quietly "saving the planet while eating healthy" for two decades. The two unheatlhiest decades of my life, BTW.

Finally, you can get 90% of the benefits of keto (at least medium-term) without having to "eat keto", but to simply eat in a window of 2-6 hours/day. You will quickly find out what the quality food is, and what is junk and filler (spoiler alert: the low-nutrition food is most of the base of so-called food pyramid, the quality is at the top). THAT is where I would start most people trying to understand diet and how their body works. If you don't have the discipline and awareness for intermittent fasting, you will never succeed on any diet.

I have nominated you for the fad diet hall of fame and the nutritional biochemistry comedy hall of fame. Well done.

nutritional biochemistry is real wrote:

I have nominated you for the fad diet hall of fame and the nutritional biochemistry comedy hall of fame. Well done.

In between your pseudo-authoritative, self-satisfied attempts at trolling, perhaps you could inform all of us as to the minimum daily human *requirements* for carbohydrates?

The OP was talking about elite runners. What times are you running completely on keto? I’m guessing not even sub 15 5k.

I don't quite understand. How much vegetables can you eat on a keto diet? It seems to me that eating a wide variety of vegetables and berries daily with a little bit of nuts, fish and protein can't be bad. A spinach, pepper and mushroom omelette for breakfast. A salad with a small piece of fish for lunch and veggies with just a couple ounces of meat in the evening is probably healthier than any high fat diet.