THE VIKING MANIFESTO Part 1: The New Science of Healthy Eating

by Shawn Klosterman 17

February 09th, 2015 Lifestyle, Opinion

Not intended as medical advice, please consult with a doctor before starting any new diet.

THE VIKING MANIFESTO: Piecing Together a New Approach to Nutrition and Training for Swimmers from Scientific and Anecdotal Evidence.

Part 1:  The New Science of Healthy Eating

jesustoast

Nutrition can often be like politics and religion. People tend to dig their heels in and stand up for their long held beliefs even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Sometimes they don’t even know how they first formed those beliefs. Unfortunately in America, when it comes to nutrition, much of our base knowledge stems from advertising.

 

Feel free to add nutrition to the list of things you shouldn’t talk about when you’re drunk. I am not drunk right now but you might think I am when you hear me out. I came here to tell you that the standard nutrition advice you have heard all your life might just be completely wrong. The 60-70% carbohydrate, low-fat ideal is something that I have hardly heard anyone question in my thirty years of swimming, so I am taking it on with a few posts at SwimSwam along with more at the blog I share with Chris DeSantis, The Swim Brief.  A lot of what I will have to say here will be speculation based on things I have read, but all I can ask is that you follow along and form your own opinion as we go. I understand that I am not a world-class swimmer and I would qualify as merely a mediocre high school and club coach at best so it is hard to consider me any kind of an expert.  I also understand that I am not a nutritionist, and I am aware that many of the links I will direct you to are blogs and such, but if you follow them you will find all the science you need.  I can also direct you to more if you have questions.  This has become a passion of mine, as it was the launching pad for an unexpected and surprisingly successful comeback to swimming in my forties that would not have happened if I had never changed my relationship with food. I hope you can keep an open mind and follow me as I present the other side of the story regarding advances in the science of training and nutrition.

 

I have always felt there was some sort of disconnect between the advice I was given in my exercise physiology and nutrition courses while pursuing my degree and what would be truly optimal for me as a swimmer. I remember being frustrated that most of the studies referred to in the textbooks were done on marathon runners or power-lifters, with us 1-2 minute racers in the middle being ignored.  I was genuinely interested in the science and wanted someone smarter than me to just tell me what to do.  I was the kid who liked reading the textbook even when it wasn’t assigned. I remember being a little uneasy when we were told to keep our blood sugar high to enhance performance, and to eat small snacks often or have sugary sports drinks to avoid dips in energy, partly because most of that advice came from studies done at the Gatorade institute which seemed to be a conflict of interest, and also because that advice seemed to work horribly for me.  Carb loading and sipping Gatorade made me feel awful. The “carb-carb-carb-gotta-keep-blood-sugar-up” plan backfired on me more often than not. The first meet where my school provided Powerade on deck was the worst shave meet I had in four years of college– but who was I to question science, right? I was a twenty year old kid with a mohawk.  I looked pretty stupid trying to argue with a professor who used to run marathons.  I still remember going to a doctor about my unreasonable fatigue and being told I need to “choose better carbs” and eat them more often, as though they just assumed I was eating skittles for most of my calories.

ELF_320

Come to think of it, carb loading at the Mo State swimmer house did get a little out of hand…

So imagine my surprise when at age 38 I stumbled upon the concept of ketones as a legitimate energy source. Suddenly I felt as though I had been lied to about food all my life, and the more I researched, the more that feeling reached conspiracy-theory levels. Ketones were hardly mentioned in my degree program.  They were presented as an inefficient fuel created by breaking down fatty acids during starvation to help us get by. So then why are there so many runners, cyclists, triathletes, and power lifters out there on the web claiming that ketones are a super fuel that keeps them from bonking on ultra-endurance races, promotes better recovery from workouts, and are starting to become the basis of treatments for several chronic diseases?  Huh?

 

Here’s how it works. A normal, healthy metabolism will typically produce a small amount of ketones overnight or any time you fast. Some people, if they knew this, might freak out thinking this could be dangerous considering the problems that can be associated with low blood sugar and the fact that one of the worst complications from diabetes is called ketoacidosis, which is often confused with nutritional ketosis. Ketones are a natural energy source from burning fat. If you lose a few pounds of body fat your ketones have been elevated– no question. The problem is that we gradually lose the ability to do this efficiently as we become insulin resistant.  Insulin can block our access to fats for fuel and stands in the way of ketogenesis, so essentially, when our blood sugar is up, our fat burning ability is turned down. This is a safety mechanism:  we have to burn glucose in the bloodstream first since high levels can be toxic, therefore fat tends to be stored when glucose is freely available in high amounts.  If we become insulin resistant, our blood sugar and insulin levels are chronically high which leads to many complications over time. Insulin resistance is strongly correlated with metabolic syndrome. The weight you gain as you age, even though you might feel you are eating healthy, is not necessarily normal. It is often tied to the level of insulin resistance you have developed over the years, and when that becomes strong enough, you are on the edge of diabetes.  There is a clinic at Duke that treats obesity and diabetes simply by replacing medication with a ketogenic diet, which flies in the face of our medical industry’s standard treatment but has had tremendous success.  And oh yeah, did I mention that the ketogenic diet has also been known as a treatment for epilepsy for over a hundred years and is now being seriously studied as a potential treatment option in a wide range of ailments from Alzheimer’s to cancer?  There are numerous health benefits that come with removing carbohydrate from our diets and increasing our fat intake, and ketones are now being researched as an anti-aging mechanism.  My stomach issues (among other things,) cleared up immediately after dropping carbohydrate from my diet, and I now wake up at 5am ready to rock every day rather than suffering my way out of bed–, but hey, maybe it’s the 35 pounds I lost that are just making me think I feel better, right?

 

But what about your heart, Viking?  Won’t it explode if we get rid of whole grains and add fat?  You might as well attach a rocket to your cholesterol numbers, right?! Well, in the next few years you are going to see more articles like this one, and this one, almost apologizing for getting it completely wrong over the last few decades. If you follow the most recent science you will see saturated fats and cholesterol being vindicated, with sugars and other carbohydrates now being blamed for heart disease. The tide is turning and it is fascinating to watch. Old science, food politics and our food and medical industries are being taken to task by a more informed public. The cascade of problems above, many of them accelerated by our obsession with sugary drinks and other sources of high or hidden fructose, is also the reason we now have children with Type 2 Diabetes even though it was once called “Adult Onset Diabetes” and is also why we now have children turning up with Fatty Liver Disease like an alcoholic.  Fructose is primarily processed in the liver, which is why it tends to have a higher correlation with diabetes and with the creation of visceral fat.  Fructose is a much greater contributing factor to heart disease than saturated fats and cholesterol, but don’t try telling the American Heart Association that.

 

Check out this great exchange between a columnist and a spokesman for the AHA.  Situations like this are the reason Max Planck once said “Science progresses one funeral at a time.”  Add money to that mix and you can imagine why it might take a few more funerals to get our political, education, food, pharmaceutical and medical industries on board with a new approach to healthy eating.

IMG_4059

Eating fat doesn’t make you fat– apparently it makes you fast.

I get approximately 75 percent of my calories from fat, mostly saturated, and eat no grains whatsoever.  My cholesterol did go up, but I am not worried about heart disease and neither is my doctor.  Studies have shown that most people who switch to low carb move to more favorable lipid profiles, and for people like me whose cholesterol goes up, it is usually a short-term side effect.  Cholesterol is considered one risk factor for heart disease, and it is not necessarily a risk factor in and of itself. As a matter of fact, it was recently shown that in the elderly, higher LDL scores are correlated with lower all-cause mortality. Oxidized LDL is proving to be the problem, and if we avoid the most easily oxidized fats and reduce inflammation we reduce risk.  Here is a great blog from a heart doctor who switched to a paleo diet and happened upon something that urges new studies to be done.  He has excellent N=1 evidence that even with a high LDL particle count, which is considered a dangerous indicator, scans show that his levels of arterial thickness might have reversed.  The significance here is that the medical establishment doesn’t really believe this can happen.  It is accepted that build up in the arteries is cumulative and does not reverse itself.  This doctor seems to think that this diet that pulls fat from cells so efficiently might also pull it from the walls of arteries in the same way.  If that is true, we might be on to something that could change our entire medical system.

Bill Nye

We have sciency stuff that needs to be done. Anybody got this guy’s number?

If you want to read more about this stuff, I can recommend all sorts of great links.  Watch for more to come at SwimSwam and feel free to save http://www.swimbrief.net in your favorites to check in there once in a while as well. The rabbit hole is deep on this topic.  My swimming comeback has really been a fantastic journey of self-experimentation and thorough investigation and I want to share a whole new world of nutrition knowledge with all of you, my friends in swimming.

 

My next post will be a brief review of some of the science that we coaches learn early on in our careers to help lay a foundation for future posts, where I will sum up why I believe the low-carb high-fat diet is not just a healthy option for the average Joe.  I believe LCHF is the way we Homo Sapiens were designed to eat, and I think I can make a great argument about why it is also optimal for swimmers.  Even more, I will argue that because of the specific metabolic adaptations related to LCHF, there is also an optimal way to train and prepare for races.   Please stay tuned.


The Viking is a delusional swim blogger who has made a commitment to train for the next sixty years to breaking every masters swimming record in the 100-104 age group. Watch for his masterpiece, “A Completely Made-Up History of Competitive Swimming” to hit bookshelves soon.

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Kim
8 years ago

Someone just shared this with me after I shared my sons’ experience with keto and swimming. I’m glad to see dialogue in the coaching and long term athletics community. I went keto to recover from brain injury. After a couple months, my whole family joined me out of solidarity. Since then, my year round teen swimmers have improved from good, to competitive, to beasts. Every meet, they fend off carb pushers in favor of guacamole and pork rinds. Other parents used to regard them with pity and whisper about me. Now, they’re noticing that my kids aren’t just good swimmers and physically imposing, but that they’re disciplined and polite. They ask how we do it, and for recipes. Keep it… Read more »

The Screaming Viking
Reply to  Kim
8 years ago

Glad to hear it is working well for you! I am three years in and it keeps getting better for me.

9 years ago

What’s this I hear about Carbo loading at missouri state??

swim mom
9 years ago

If an athlete is interested in trying this, should they transition from old diet slowly, or just switch over. How long before they feel a difference in their swimming?

Reply to  swim mom
9 years ago

I don’t recommend jumping into this mid-season… I hope to have a chapter in this multi-part series about how to make the transition and it will have a lot of links of recommended reading. I absolutely do not want to lead anyone into changing their diet without really doing their research. I hope to be able to present readers with all of the resources they need to make an educated decision and to be able to answer any questions that come up as they make the change. and of course… I have to recommend talking to your doctor first too! I talk to mine about it all the time.

Pye
9 years ago

Good article,

To add….

Studies now show there are two types of LDL particle size.

HFLC diet increases the LARGE size particle LDL which is good, so more of these help you.

The dangerous one created when carbs are burning are the small LDL particles.

So the count of LDL is still important, but the size of the LDL particles is key.

Read: “the art and science of low carb living” for all the medical explainations

JILL GRABEL
9 years ago

This idea sounds dangerous for athletes who must practice 10 to 25 hours per week. Can one really garner the 3000 to 5000 calories of quick energy, required for 10 to 25 hours of practice per week, through ketone bodies? I’m not a swimmer but when I’m doing legs (squats etc) at the gym and don’t have enough carbs available, after about 30 minutes, it feels like someone took an ax to my head. I wouldn’t wish that feeling on any young athlete.

JILL GRABEL
Reply to  JILL GRABEL
9 years ago

Yeah, yeah, I know it takes a few days of low carb dieting to get the brain to run on ketone bodies. Just seems risky. I’m not for a skittle diet or anything, but one should at least eat some fruits and veggies and maybe root vegetables like potatoes, yams and taro.

Reply to  JILL GRABEL
9 years ago

1. Keto does allow for some veggies… More on that later.
2. Many feel there is a minimum carb requirement for endurance athletes, but again, more on that later.

Either way, traditional high carb dieting is something I wouldn’t ever go back to, no matter how much yardage I am putting in.

RA
9 years ago

Do you think this explained your “unreasonable fatigue?” The reason I ask is that I fell into a pit of fatigue and in the end had to scrap my peak meet. I was swimming fine, then all of a sudden, I could no longer come with come to the times that I normally went in practice and just felt exhausted. No amount of rest brought me out of this state. After two months away from swimming, I came back. My endurance events are better, but I can’t hit the same sprint speeds that I was prior to the fatigue. My training regimen is the same.

I got tested for mono, and mono like virus’ but was negative and all blood… Read more »

Reply to  RA
9 years ago

personally, yes on both counts: fatigue and consistency. I feel great.

wave rider
9 years ago

This is an excellent article that brings up some great points. Hopefully the anti-saturated fat mentality will be a thing of the past within next few years. A lot of people are beginning to realize this reality but there are many people who still believe saturated fat is an enemy which is Brian Williams level total nonsense. Many people don’t know the history of how fat became evil. One of the links you posted alludes to it. The original fat substitute, Crisco, was originally created as an engine lubricate on submarines. Proctor and Gamble bought the patent and tried use it as an ingredient in soap. That didn’t work out so they came up with the idea to use it… Read more »

wave rider
Reply to  wave rider
9 years ago

just to clarify, crisco is mostly unsaturated fat but it still has some saturated fat in it. Not all fat is equal. Any oil made from seeds or vegetables is bad because it oxidizes and can turn into trans fat when heated. This includes olive oil which a lot like to pretend that the laws of chemistry don’t apply to. Olive oil still oxidizes and causes free radical damage. It happens at a much lower rate than others oils but it’s still not good. There are some other hidden dangers in seed oil, such as estrogen mimicking chemicals in soybean oil. Soybean oil is found in most salad dressings and in a lot of sauces and dips.

Animal fat… Read more »

Reply to  wave rider
9 years ago

Wave Rider– you are gonna love the rest of the manifesto. You are correct about those fats and the history behind it all. Saturated fats are the most stable. I cook with animal fats, butter or coconut oil. I drizzle olive oil but don’t heat it. and there is a long list of “fake” oils that I don’t go anywhere near if I am preparing the food myself.

have you seen this one?:
http://healthimpactnews.com/2014/ldl-bad-cholesterol-indicates-an-amino-acid-deficiency-99-year-old-researcher-says/

wave rider
Reply to  The Screaming Viking!
9 years ago

I haven’t seen that but I have read some similar things.

I think I know where you might be heading with this in terms of metabolic adaptation. If the body is forced used fat more efficiently because of the low carb intake, there may be some other processes that take place that you might not think about. For example, since the body knows there is a limited intake of carbs/availibity of glucose it will force the muscles to use the glycogen stores more efficiently. I just thought of this and I’m thinking out loud, I have no idea if this is actually the case. But there should be a faster rate of conversion of fast twitch muscle fibers becoming oxidative.… Read more »

Reply to  wave rider
9 years ago

the manifesto has several parts and you are on track with one of the most important parts. I might bounce some ideas off of you some time if you are interested. let me know how to reach you with a pm…

jman
Reply to  wave rider
9 years ago

I need to read all the articles but i can tell you that your Crisco story is BS.