Why Are The Government Making You Fat ?

I'm going to cut straight to the answer for those of you who get bored with reading. It's very profitable for big business that's why. Yes it's all about making money. Still with me ? Want to know more ? Here's how it's happening. You are being told to eat far too many carbohydrates, mostly in the form of sugar. A recent critical analyses study into the treatment of Diabetes with a low carb diet was packed full of useful information.

The table explains that the obesity epidemic started after carbohydrate intake reached 43% of total daily calorific intake. For a man eating 2500 calories a day this is 269 grams per day.

So lets have a look at the government guidlines in the UK.

Well what do you know ? The UK guidelines say you can eat 300g a day. For a man that's 48%, way over the amount that causes obesity !

So why are the government advising you to eat far too many cabohydrates/sugars ? I told you, money.

There are eight advisers to the government on Nutrtion and 5 of them are in the pay of sugar and confectionery companies.

You can read the full article HERE

So how do you lose all that fat the government and big business have been feeding you. You eat fat, that's right, eat less carbs and more fat. Eating fat does not make you fat, carbs do.

Eating fat is healthy there is no link between fat ( whether saturated or not ) and heart disease. In fact it looks likely that Carbohydrate intake is linked to coronary disease.

Even our 'Fast Diet' friend Dr Michael Mosley has now been convinced that we had it all wrong.

A low carb. high fat diet is the way to a healthy life, I know I'm on one. 

Carbohydrate Intake During Exercise

I'm sure you all know that in order to maintain your ability to run or cycle over 90 minutes you must intake carbohydrates. Certain companies who supply carbohydrate powders and gels would like you to take up to 90g per hour.

I'm no expert but I do like to experiment with my training and nutrition. Since October 27th 2013 I have been mostly on a Low Carb High Fat LCHF Diet.

It's great ! Initially on exercise days I ate more carbs especially on days with long and/or strenuous cycles. Lately I have been reducing the amount of carbohydrates consumed on exercise days.

For example, I would consume around 50g carbs on a non exercise days and up to the government guideline amount of 300g on a workout day. ( WARNING: If you follow the governments advice on Carbohydrate intake, you WILL get fat ! )

Now it's around 150g or less more when exercising. I don't even bother with the essential post workout carb intake. I just have protein.

Lets go straight in and look what I did at the weekend.

A 4 hours cycle over 100km

You can see average heart rate is 149 BPM, for me this is classed asTempo (Zone 3)as per my LTHR zones.

 My effort was averaged out as 139 watts which is Endurance ( Zone 2 ). There's always a wee bit of crossover here depending on other factors.

Anyway after 90min I really should have been tucking away up to 90g carbs to keep my muscles going right ? Well no.

What I had was one scoop of High 5 2:1 Energy Source in each 750ml drinks bottle which lasted me the whole four hours. Each serving ( which is two scoops ) provides 44g carbohydrate. So I only consumed 11g per hour. No cramp, no exhaustion.

Ah, maybe I just scraped home before my carb supply ran out. Well luckily I have been monitoring my blood glucose during this experimental period. If I have two Weetabix ( under 30g carbs ) for breakfast my blood glucose after two hours in around 5.5-5.8 m/mol. Immediately after this ride it was 5.8 m/mol.

Wait a minute, if I had consumed all those recommended carbs I would have done a much better job right ?

Let's see.

Trust me, that's the same ride from three weeks ago. Shows how accurate the Garmin is when you look at the Km. Anyway, I knocked 10 minutes off the ride time and with a lower heart rate and power output than in this one.

Food for thought, so long as you keep your carbs lo :)

#LCHF

What Do I Eat ?

I got back into cycling at the end of last year. Read the full story about my arthritis HERE and the motivational tools and training aids HERE

There is still a missing parameter in the fitness and health equation, my diet.

The word diet has all sorts of connotations and people have tried to get around this by saying, this is not a diet is a lifestyle ! Well, this is just the stuff I eat after a lot of research, several attempts at similar eating regimes and a little give and take I arrived at this.

It is to a large extent Low Carb High Fat. Yes, I'm a cyclist and I'm saying LCHF ! Also see bottom of page for info.

That may sound crazy, Carbs are your easy fuel, to cycle you need to eat as much as possible right ? Well not really. Take a look at what I have eaten over the past few days. Now I don't usually track my food all the time, However I was away from home last week and ate the food in the Hotel so I'm just checking I'm back on track again.

Normal day with no planned workout would be something like this:

The food tracker is Fatsecret and I have set a RDI of 2200 calories. You can see the small amount of carbs consumed and fat eaten in it's place. What about the Protein I hear you ask ?

Well a recent article in Cycling Fitness by an Olympic Nutritionist suggests that over 35 years of age should consume 2g of Protein per Kg of body weight. (Dr Sharon Madigan )

At 66kg - 67 Kg that's 132g. Having eaten that regularly over the last few months I'm pretty sure that most over 35's are NOT getting enough !

Anyway, onto a workout day. This was a 60 minute turbo session workout around the Sweetspot, see my Trainer Road blog.

Aye the good old Weetabix for breakfast, two hours before the training session, also there's the PhD ISO 7 drink post workout. I never even managed to get near the set RDI. I'm actually just eating to hunger, as I said I don't usually even track what I eat. Last Fridays 2225 calories may have been related to the fact that I ate quite a lot of carbs at the Hotel the day before. I have discovered that when you eat carbs it actually makes you hungrier throughout the day and the next day !

Tuesday and we are having a day off again. Few carbs and lots of lovely fat.

So what's eating all that fat done to my body and my fitness ? Well I have beaten all my Strava segment times from the past few years so I'm a lot fitter and have MORE muscle mass.

My cycling performance has increased. Here are my results for a local hill climb.

I had been back cycling since August and only started my exercise and diet program at the end of October. I thought my September time was fast and that I would not easily beat it !

As for my weight and body fat, well here is the graph. I was 71Kg in October 2013 and 22.1% body fat.

Today I'm 66.4Kg and 18.4% body fat, the main thing is I feel great aswell ! Another great benefit is NO heartburn/indigestion. Over a year ago I was taking Ibuprofen and Paracetemol for my knee pain. I stopped because of an upset stomach but the indigestion continued all year until I started my new way of eating !

When I first started doing this along with cycling I had a lot more carbs before, during and after excercise. I have been cutting this back recently with no negative effects. As I continue to experiment I will take food or a gel out with me just in case I need it :)

I would just like to say a big thanks to Andreas Eenfeldt   

It's nice to see some sense in a sea of diet confusion and stupidity !

If you want an excellent example of a self inflicted scientific study with proper control and all the data ( even more than me ) have a look at this. Peter Attia, experiment.

Another cycling and triathlon specific story can be found here Bob Seebohar

Get fit and lose weight, there's no excuse. LCHF !