Originally Posted by
Sixty Fiver
"And as multitudes of paleo converts claim (and anecdotal evidence suggests), this may be the key to optimizing performance and extending careers into the late thirties and beyond."
"Dr. Stephen Phinney, a professor emeritus at UC Davis, has spent three decades studying low-carb performance. The mainstream consensus has been that you need carbs to do anything other than very moderate intensity exercise. But after a period of adaptation, the body will switch over from carbohydrate to fat as its main fuel for exercise with equal or better performance. That makes an athlete essentially "bonk-proof," says Phinney.
Zabruskie was not really on a paleo diet but significantly reduced his carb intake to just under 150 grams a day while increasing his fat intake to 323 grams and protein at 239 grams (to support strength training) and this was a 3800 calorie a day diet.
One could roughly cut that in half for the average male which would give a carb/fat/protein breakdown of 75/160/120.
The trouble with Phinney's assertions is that he refuses point blank to reveal the data he claims to have collected from the 2012 Western States 100. One of the reasons, I suspect, is that his methodology was flawed... he admits his data collection was slammed together at almost the last minute.
There are also several claims that switching to the paleo diet by Western State runners improved their digestive tolerance. But there is no base data to show what the cause for their previous issues were -- just anecdotal claims.
Could those issues have been over-exertion, intake of carbs without adequate electrolyte intake, dehydration, or a number of other factors? Could their switch to paleo have coincided with other changes in their race management or different ambient conditions?