Carbo loading - Athletes not using it

The Correct Nutrition and Diet for Athletes. Part 3: So what is wrong with carbo-loading, UK

There are two problems that those who recommend carbo-loading don't appear to realise:

• Firstly, the body can't store carbohydrates in large quantities and most people already get more than enough carbohydrates to fuel their bodies' daily activities. All carbohydrates, whether they are bread, pasta, sugar or jam when you put them in your mouth, enter the bloodstream as glucose. And the bloodstream can only hold so much. The body, being a well-run power plant, puts the leftovers in storage to use in the future if it's needed. Some is stored as a type of starch called glycogen, but as it can't store much of this, the body turns most of the excess into fat and keeps it on deposit in the body's fat cells. And we see it walking around the streets wherever we go, hanging off bodies in a most unattractive way. Put simply, carbo-loading cannot work simply because excess carbs are not stored in a readily usable way.
• The second problem lies in how the body uses its various options for fuel. Each of our body's cells contains lots of very small power plants called mitochondria . It is they that produce the energy we need from the food that we consume. Glucose is usually called the body's 'preferred fuel' because, if it is available, our bodies have been conditioned from birth to use it first. But it is not the best fuel. That distinction belongs to fats - or fatty acids, to give them their scientific name. Before the mitochondria can use either glucose or fatty acid as a fuel, it has to be transported into the mitochondria.

Fatty acids are transported into the mitochondria as completely intact molecules. Glucose, on the other hand, can be transported only after it has been broken down first into pyruvate by the process of glycolysis . This is then used anaerobically to produce energy with lactate as a by-product.

The by-products of the energy-production process when fatty acids are used are carbon dioxide and water, both of which are easily excreted. But when glucose is used, the lactic acid produced in the conversion process can build up in muscle cells and make them ache. It is this that is the cause of the aching muscles or pain involved in strenuous exercise - 'the wall' as athletes call it. This 'wall' severely limits an athlete's performance.

But it is not necessary ever to 'hit the wall'. If you do, your diet is wrong.

Now let's look at a real athlete

It was 1968 at the Mexico City Olympic Games. The spectators at the marathon went wild as a relatively unknown Ethiopian, Degaga (Mamo) Wolde, won the marathon. Not only was the thirty-six-year-old runner the oldest man ever to win this prestigious event, he did it in a time that has not been bettered to this day.

So what was Wolde's secret?

Wolde was a member of the Oromo or Galla, a traditionally pastoral tribe who live in West and South Ethiopia and part of Kenya. Traditionally the Oromo were nomadic herders like their neighbours, the Maasai and Samburu tribes.⁽¹⁾ His life consisted of herding and running after and hunting wild game on foot. His diet, like other similar tribes, was one high in animal meat and fat, with practically no carbohydrate. Subsequent tests showed that Wolde's body, under conditions of physical load, readily burned fat as its main energy source. Wolde had no concept of 'hitting the wall'. It had never happened to him.