Jan 19, 2016
My guest today is Louise Burke, PhD
Dr. Burke is Head of Discipline in Sports Nutrition for the
Australian Institute of Sport. She is also Chair in Sports
Nutrition, Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Australian
Catholic University. She served as Team dietitian for the
Australian Olympic team for the past 5 Olympics ( specifically in:
1996, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012). Her long list of peer-reviewed
publications have been cited nearly 4,000 times. She is the author
of the books Practical Sports Nutrition and Clinical Sports
Nutrition. She is one of the top sports nutrition experts on the
planet and she is a world leading expert on today’s topic of fat
adaptation in endurance sport training and performance.
How much hype and hyperbole have you heard on the topic of fat
adaptation in endurance performance? How often have you wanted the
rigorous answers to specific questions on whether the science truly
bears out this approach? Within the ultra marathon community, the
idea of adapting substrate sources to prefer fat is a very popular
topic. The idea is that a higher percentage use of fat will spare
glycogen and thereby improve performance in an endurance event.
Basically, the intent is to delay running out of internal stores of
carbohydrate because it may be challenging to ingest
and absorb carbohydrates at a rate that can keep up with use
in an ultra marathon.
Today, Dr. Burke
helps us understand the history of this topic and cuts straight to
the unbiased exploration of the currently available data. Note that
this idea has been around for a long time and it’s current
popularity is a renaissance of previous waves of enthusiasm.
What’s the real skinny on fat adaptation? This episode covers it
all, including best practice guidelines for your top
performance.
Our wrap-up action items today are the answers to:
- What are the most common mistakes Dr. Burke sees ultra endurance athletes making with their overall nutrition? And, what should you be doing?
- What would she say to an ultra endurance athlete interested in training and performing at their best today, regarding fat adapting diets?