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Athletes, diabetes and blood sugars

CherryAA

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,170
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Diet only
In the quest to get LCHF accepted as a standard diet, some of the most vociferous opponents are " athletes" - the concept being that to become a super athlete you need a big carb load to achieve speed etc. This then translates down to the more everyday athletes being told they need carbs for performance.

They measured blood glucose in 12 such sub =elite athletes here.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5094325/#!po=39.2308

The results are astonishing. I doubt that there is a single person who is successfully control T2 diabetes on here, by whatever means, who if faced with the results shown on these charts would not be panicking about imminent limbs dropping, off ,blindness and general illness.

The amount of spikes across all 12 is horrendous ! and thse are all non diabetic " fit" people.

I'm astounded.
 
I work in the industry.
Sport like the health industry is slowly but surely coming round that carbing up before doing their sport is finding out higher spikes than they should when not.
Some sportsmen I know carb down during the post season. To ensure that they don't gain weight.
In the sport where I work the carb is balanced with protein and some fats, a lot of lean chicken is used, sports drink is now frowned upon. Protein is becoming more prevalent in recovery, depending on how many games they play, the nutritionist changes the diet, a lot of eggs for breakfast.
Nutritional supplements are widely used.

It has been noticed especially in the states that a lot of metabolic syndrome conditions are prevalent in ex pro sportsmen. I have read of symptoms similar to Hypoglycaemia and of course diabetes.

Funnily enough my team use water to dehydrate!
 
I was a top level semi pro tennis player and before I was diagnosed, I ate a lot of high carbs to increase energy levels and increase performance.

Now I’m just thinking how on Earth can I play at such a high level with low carbing and just rely on protein and fats?
 
Hi @CherryAA thanks for this posting, I have mentioned several times in posts that athletes are starting to get pre-diabetic numbers, and I believe many so called "normal" eaters are in the same boat. Professor Noakes talks a lot about his experience of developing diabetes, Dr Stephen Phinney assisted a husband and wife break and sea crossing record on LCHF (the husband had previously tipped into the pre-diabetic range), just 2 examples I can remember during my research.

Even as a non - athlete I can power walk for 6 miles and then do a 15 minute HiiT weight session, fasted and with nothing to eat for a further 6 hours, so pro athletes can do this no problem on the protocol. There is a question about explosive events such as sprints needing carbs, but long distance doesn't.

I read a hybrid protocol of LCHF and carbs on the day is a good compromise for those needing explosive power.
 
Basically because your body can access far more fuel in the form of body fat on a low carb higher fat diet than it can on a high carb one, where you have to top up with carbs ar much more frequent intervals.

Have a look at Volek and Phinney's book on The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Performance.

Robbity


 

I tried to switch to fully fat adapted several times but I’m struggling.

Which fats should I increase in my diet?
 


I suspect that you might find, if you give it long enough to actually become properly fat adapted you can still do what you did if not more . I think a huge proportion of the current view that you truly need high carbs, is that actually persuading athletes that they need high carbs then trickles down to the rest of us in the form of sports drinks. because it takes a while to become fat adapted, in the absence of the burning deck of diabetes, sportsmen are not persuaded to stay the course for long enough to find out. In the meantime, instead they carry on carb. loading and storing up problems for themselves, as you have found.

I am not an athlete, but I am sure I speak for many of us here that when loaded with carbohydrate we could hardly get up the stairs and now many of us can nearly skip up hills. Diabetes takes quite a long time to show through in terms of blood glucose measures, you are " ill" with hyperinsulinaemia for ages before that. That in turn means that all the time you were playing as a top level semi -pro your performance was already being affected by your illness. If as a result of your new diet your insulin and glucose is now behaving itself, then you may find your actual performance becomes even better than before not worse. If you believe it doesn't affect your performance for the worse it probably won't.
 
NewTD2 said:
I tried to switch to fully fat adapted several times but I’m struggling.

Which fats should I increase in my diet?
Click to expand...

The trick is to embrace adding fat to your meals - so for example have a steak and a bearnaise sauce with some green veg , salmon with a tartare sauce. add copious amounts of olive oil and a balsamic vinegar to your salads, add double cream to your coffee, eat the skin off your chicken thighs, enjoy bacon and eggs however you like them. Add coconut oil to stuff, eat lots of avocados. eat fatty nuts - macadamia or example.

There is no need to go mad, simply accept the fact that a good slug of the chosen fat is fine instead of being utterly frightened to use them at all. Also make sure you bin all vegetable oils, all low fat spreads, and anything which is marketed as healthy for you - cholesterol, low fat or otherwise - its all tosh.

Bear in mind its a process that can take weeks, even months before your body automatically chooses fats first - it was a good 6 months for me.
 

I am currently watching a true " non diabetic" on a freestyle. flat line at 3.9-4.2 rise to maybe 5 ish with a full sugar fried food om 6 hit. All of those results shown in the "athletes" monitors are fully diabetic in comparison to a true " non- diabetic" reading. My friend's a1c is 4.2 % and his average for the day is about 4.3% . If performance coaches are thinking that the people they are training can take the carbs based on these results, then there is something seriously wrong with sports science and its clear that actually we are closer to 90% of the population being diabetic in some form or another not the current figures bandied about.
I am utterly shocked by the above numbers, none of us would be happy with them at all.
 

Many thanks!
 

Dr Tamsin Lewis seems to have done pretty well on it: http://www.sportiedoc.com/
 
NewTD2 said:
I tried to switch to fully fat adapted several times but I’m struggling.

Which fats should I increase in my diet?
Click to expand...
Maybe get hold of a copy of the recommended book and read it? Phinney and Volek are considered the fathers of low carb athletics and yes they literally wrote the book.
 
I do have issues with the Freestyle Libre, as my numbers when I used this were in the 2's and 3's, so stopped using this, after trying on 3 separate occasions. My One Touch Select Plus tracks identically to my Diabetic Nurses NHS synchronised meter (as at 28th Dec) so I trust this.
 
NewTD2 said:
I tried to switch to fully fat adapted several times but I’m struggling.

Which fats should I increase in my diet?
Click to expand...
Possibly the ones recommended to you on your other posts?
 

Interesting. Big carbs plus exercise for me makes me feel great, but since I've started actually monitoring myself properly, I now know it's bad news for my bgs.

It reminds me of Steve Redgrave's story, which I think in a nutshell goes:

He started getting stupid thirsty while training (and using very high carb diet including bags of doughnuts!); his doctor finds his blood sugars are approaching 30mmol/l; he is diagnosed T2; he gets told to cut down the carbs which he does; he finds he can't train as well as he wants; his doctor suggests upping the carbs right back up and compensating with insulin injections; he wins the olympics.

Often recounted as a heroic story, and of course on a personal level for him it was and is. His doctor was also praised for being forward-thinking in the idea of upping the carbs and the insulin to allow him to keep training hard. Something tells me that, with hindsight, this approach would no longer be seen as forward-thinking!
 

Tim Noakes is *the* go to guy on nutrition and sports. You have to admire his honesty.
 
Grandson has been zero carbs high protein intake for over two months now spends 3 to 4 hours in the gym every day intensive weight training. He has a passion for body building.
 
i am not 100% sure about this but believe that Chris Froome eats low carb. He is also an Asmatic & he still manages to ride the big tours with a surprising ease.
Just an example of having to carb up being a load of old codswallop
 
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