What fat fasting did for me this weekend…

Posted In: Fitness July 11th, 2016 divider 2 Comments »

So we’ve been told to carb load for any “endurance” workouts for decades, right? Well I’ve been reading more and more on how that notion has been blown out of water (stay tuned for a review of Mark Sission’s Primal Blueprint soon). And as always, I like to test these theories as opposed to just reading about them.

So on the weekend I went for a ride with a buddy in rain (it made it kinda fun, see the pic above!) to test out the new nutrition principles.

Basically fat fasting refers to the fact you’re fasting minus some calories from fat, in order to keep your blood sugar low and burn more fat in the process. For a lot of people it comes in the form of Bulletproof Coffee or some variation of it. It’s been my breakfast of choice for the past 2 months or so.

I’m training to be a fat burning machine. Even until recently I thought we needed sugar and/or carbs to get out the door for any type of activity, especially the long stuff. Now I can say that I’m not all that convinced it’s not a marketing ploy. And it seems burning fat is a “cleaner” form of fuel for the body and the brain.

My current macro intakes have changed dramatically since the last time I did any long(er) distances on a regular basis. These days I take in close to 250 grams of fat per day, for pretty close to 80% of my calories. And my energy levels are higher than they’ve been in a long while. I know, right?

I don’t record speed anything on the bike anymore so I can’t tell you all my performance metrics but all I can tell you is that I was keeping pace and enjoying it. And yes, it was only 2 hours and it wasn’t that intense but I really felt amazing throughout. I even did a 2-hour hike later that afternoon in the Gats. All this on less than 50g of carbs per day. I think I’m on to something!

I’m doing more and more of my activities in a fasted state and I’m not finding any drop offs in energy level. It will be interesting to see where this takes me. Stay tuned…