The long distance endurance athletes have a fear of bonk when the glicogen stores are so greatly depleted in the muscles and brain to almost have to stand, close to fainting. The battery is depleted, thatswhy they replenish constantly with carbohydrates before, during, after the competition…
Well, on the ketogenic diet it simply doesn’t happen because your body switches to a fat based metabolism when it uses fatty acids and ketone bodies instead of glucose for power generation. This fuel is a much more economical and we have larger storage capacity.
More than once I experienced it on myself, such as today. I could keep a medium tempo in a 32-km canoeing (around 3 hour) all the way, while I drank a total of a half liters of water, without any isotonic drink. In the past, I took with me always some sugary drink or 1-2 banana to keep up the tempo without bonking. Breakfast was now just a greasy scrambled eggs (only 4 eggs which is not so much compared to me). In the past, I started with a large bowl of oatmeal, fruit, protein shakes…
So the long-term aerobic work is clearly better for me with this diet, I am looking forward to see how does it work on a race run at full throttle! I can meaningfully respond to it approx in a month.
Do you have similar experiences?
My Hungarian blog article from 11/03/2016