Name: The art and science of low carbohydrate performance
ISBN: 9780983490715

What Hacker News says

mountain_peakMar 2020

Not claiming that the science is settled, but I when I entered keto over 10 years ago (TL:DR daily 10K+ 'performance' runner, neuropathy from glucose intolerance - genetic, avoid all drugs), I wanted to be sure that I could run without ingesting carbs (since everyone said you couldn't).

Read "The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance" and can absolutely say that after an initial horrible period that lasted for months, I was eventually able to run further and just as fast as I used to when I was carbo-loading. I can honestly say that running is more difficult now - my legs are generally sore and I don't feel like I'm 'flying along', but I've always tracked my times with Garmin, then Apple, and the stats belie how I feel.

From the book: "[Keto-adaptation] allows even a very lean (10% body fat) athlete access to more than 40,000 kcal from body fat, rather than starting a prolonged event depending primarily on ~2000 kcal of glycogen."

I think the studies you quoted would back-up the authors, but I also wanted to lend my long-term personal experience. I can't recall where I read it, but thought adaption also occurred in leg muscles where they found a massive increase in the number of mitochondria for athletes on keto.

I tested myself daily for years until I found a combination of diet and exercise that worked. My body definitely adapted and became much more efficient at burning fat - there's no performance 'wall' anymore, but I think the experience is different for everyone.

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ShanboMar 2017

Kind of crazy that you guys don't understand this yet. I may not know how to hack, but I know how the body operates. Most people would do well to read Volek & Phinney, both 'the art and science of low carbohydrate living' and 'the art and science of low carbohydrate performance'

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tmercJun 2016

I think in keto, the kidneys flush sodium instead of retains it. If you're interested, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance by Volek and Phinney is a good read.

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tsomctlJan 2018

No you don't.

Source: The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance by Phinney and Volek

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SoftwareMavenJul 2014

Steve Phinney and Jeff Volek have done a lot of research into high performance athletes using a ketogenic diet (see, for instance, The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance[1]). Extreme endurance athletes are using ketogenic diets as a tool to smash records in ultramarathon running[2].

Nobody needs carbohydrate. That doesn't mean carbs are necessarily bad, but the long-time trope that you have to have them if you want to move further than your couch is just silly and has long been disproven (if, by nobody else, hunter-gatherers who had gone days without food while running down a kill).

Phinney and Volek have found interesting things about fat and high-intensity exercise:

* Fat utilization in keto-adapted individuals that is, literally, re-writing textbooks. Levels of fat mobilization that have never been seen in laboratories is being recorded. This likely has a genetic component, what I would consider the opposite of the multiple copies of the amylase gene that highly carb-tolerant people seem to have.

* Fat requires less oxygen to utilize, leading to less lactic acid, less muscle tissue damage, and faster recovery.

* Keto-adapted athletes are much more efficient in their use of their glycogen stores, using less when passing 70% VO2-max and replenishing supplies faster. They do not store as much glycogen as carb-burners, so the net effect winds up being about the same amount of power from glycogen between carb and fat burners.

That doesn't mean there are no athletes who would see benefits of carbs, but, in a fat-adapted state, those carbs can be much, much more strategic in nature (the cyclist sprinting over the hill, the olympic lifter in competition, etc). Peter Attia talks a lot about his strategic use of carbs while exercising[3].

Personally, I see beans as a food to be very cautious with. The phytates, lectins, and saponins in them are there to protect the seed, since plants can't run away to protect their offspring. They use chemical warfare, and are quite good at it, leading to poor absorption of nutrients[4]. Properly preparing them (soaking and fermenting) can address this problem, something done in all societies previous to the 20th century, but rarely done now.

I also can't see any reason to use low fat, well, anything. Fat is a perfectly healthy macronutrient, and, when going for low fat, you are typically getting a lot of sugar and additives put in to replace the taste and texture of the lost fat. On the other hand, live-cultured dairy products, for those who can tolerate lactose, are an amazing food.

1. http://www.artandscienceoflowcarb.com/the-art-and-science-of...

2. http://www.meandmydiabetes.com/2012/08/11/western-states-100...

3. http://eatingacademy.com

4. http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/49/1/140.short

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