Insulin resistant, pre-diabetic and kicking butt at 44 years young.
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When I turned 40, I thought it was time to look deeper into my health. I had always been an athlete and stayed in moderately good shape. When I lived in NYC, I would jog on a regular basis and go to the gym a few times a week. In the past decade and a half I’ve ventured into endurance sports, running marathons, doing triathlons, long distance bike rides (both on and off road) and had a few years competing in 24-48hr Adventure Races. I always thought I was the picture of health, eating an 80/20 diet, 80% good stuff. Then I had my blood work checked.
You guessed it, insulin resistance. “What they F@$K is that?,” I asked myself, obviously shocked by any negative results from my blood work. I’m healthy. I run, I bike, I do yoga, I meditate, I eat healthy… for the most part. Ahhhh, that’s it, for the most part. And, the not so most part consists of overloading on carbohydrates and sugar!
Here was a normal morning: wake up, take care of the morning bathroom visit, brush my teeth, meditate, then get ready for my workout. I’d put one scoop of my “pre-workout” blend in a bottle, slug it down and be on my way. A 45-60 minute trail run in the books, sweat, grit, nature and feeling strong! Back home for my “post-workout/recovery” blend in a bottle while I relax, towel off some sweat and stretch a little. Shower up, get ready for work and make myself a nice protein shake with my protein blend, a banana, strawberries, blueberries, almond milk… I know, you’re hungry now, aren’t you? Well, turns out, that little trifecta was my road to diabetes.
Those 3 drinks combined, I’ve probably ingested about 80-120gms of carbohydrates over the course of 75 minutes. According to my MD friends and my sport scientist friends, the body can only handle about 50-60gms of carbs per hour which means I’m overloading my pancreas. For your information, when you eat, your blood sugar rises, then your pancreas secretes insulin to stabilize your blood sugar. This is a good thing, unless of course you’re overloading on a regular basis and the pancreas just can’t keep up with the amount of carbs you’re taking in. That’s when the body finally says, ‘I can’t handle this anymore,’ and the effect of the insulin ends, hence, insulin resistance. After your pancreas continues secreting insulin to no avail, it finally breaks down and you have full blown diabetes. Thankfully that hasn’t happened to me and I’m about to reverse this so-called diagnosis of insulin resistance.
I’ll be honest, it took about a year and a half and 2 rounds of blood tests to get serious about the condition, but since my wife kicks me in the tush sometimes, she’s got me on a new protocol. Enter the low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet. It’s basically a paleo diet and it makes complete sense.
I knew there were some endurance athlete comrades of mine that were fat burners. Kilian Jornet for one, ran up Mt. McKinley in 9hr43min on one bottle of water and one gel pack! What??!! I know, I thought the same thing, but now I understand. He is fat-adapted. And those of you who want to play with fire, feel free to continue on your sugar/carb burning ways, but I have a much more efficient way for you to burn fuel.
In our body we have 2 main sources of fuel, carbohydrates and fat. We’ve been conditioned to believe that we need to burn carbs, carbs, carbs. An entire industry has been built around burning sugar as fuel. Look at Gatorade, Powerbar and all the other sport drinks and energy bars. It’s incredible! But why would we want to burn such a small tank when we have a tank of fat that is 15-20 times larger to burn?
That’s right, at any given time we have about 2000 calories of carbohydrate stores, while an elite athlete, who looks like he or she has no body fat, has 30-40,000 calories of fat stores! Why wouldn’t we want to burn the fat tank first? As my friend Mark Sisson, author of the Primal Blueprint and MarksDailyApple.com says, “we need to be fat-burning beasts!”
As it turns out, he’s right, as are many of his colleagues. I recently ran an Xterra half marathon trail run and yes, I burned fat. I didn’t have my normal oatmeal, banana breakfast with my “pre-workout” blend. I had my cheese and avocado omelet two hours before the race. This was my first ever completely fat burning race, so I was nervous and at times definitely thought I was going to bonk. Mark told me to keep a gel pack only for emergency, but by this time I had spent 8 weeks on a low carb, high fat, moderate protein diet and I trained without fuel. I knew I could run the distance without carbs, this issue for me was going to be the pace. Could I compete at or just below my threshold for 13.1miles with 2800ft of climbing?
The answer was a clear yes! Not only did I shave 8 minutes off my time from 3 years ago, but I finished 2nd in my division vs. 7th from 3 years ago and 15th overall vs. 39th overall 3 years ago. I’m happy to report, that I’ve gotten stronger and faster as a fat burner and I’m so excited about what the future holds! I’m having my blood work taken in a few weeks, so look for my follow up report then, but according to friends, doctors, scientists and the lab, I’m on my way to reversing my insulin resistance!
Those of you interested in more information about the subject feel free to contact me and here are a few great resources:
www.marksdailyapple.com
www.hdlabinc.com
www.artandscienceoflowcarb.com
Source: 30dB.com – Carbs vs Protein
Photo Credit: TeddyMcDonald.com
Dear Ted:
Your article was very interesting.
I would like to have a phone conversation with you about ketosis. My number is 561-716-1100. Or email me your contact number. I will give you a call. Which time of the day is best for you. I am in Eastern Time Zone.
Andrea