Ok longer day than expected.
I’ll move this forward in a smaller way than I thought I’d have time for.
First the disclaimer, when I talk about this stuff, I’ll often say, “Humans have adapted” if I slip, I’ll say evolved. I’ve worked with enough people that, eventually, someone gets offended. So let it be said I don’t care if you are a creationist or an evolutionist or something else I’ve never heard of, and the debate doesn’t interest me; either your faith says you were created to function metabolically like you do or nature selection removed all your other options. In the end, it doesn’t matter for this conversation. If I suggest you read primal endurance and you read it don’t get offended by the evolution statements in the opening chapters go focus on the findings and let that stuff roll off of you it doesn’t matter, and you don’t have to agree with those parts. What matters is this stuff works, and it works for the majority of average people statistically, we are all average the few that are not; don’t need this stuff they can go make millions and hire coaches to do it differently. Ok, now, with that out of the way.
The Zone 2 stuff works because your metabolism is built to survive famine, starvation, and the shortage of food. When you put food into your body and nutrients into your blood, your body is going to release insulin, and insulin has 1 function; store energy as fat. That’s the simple reason calorie counting logs are the surefire way to lose weight. It is just not always the type of weight you are after.
Ok so point #1 that we need to memorize to guide our training. The Brain runs on Glucose as it main energy substrate. Memorize that.
Your Brain needs a continuous supply of glucose in your blood. Without a substrate for energy to feed the brain, you are in serious trouble. Fortunately, the brain can also run on Ketones such as β-hydroxybutyrate (βHB) and acetoacetate (AcAc), as occurs with fasting, prolonged starvation, or chronic feeding of a high fat/low carbohydrate diet (ketogenic diet).
So Let’s play with the Glucose info for a bit. You have glucose in your blood, in your muscles, and in that gel pack in your pocket. When you exercise, you start to burn the glucose in your blood, and, eventually, what’s stored in your muscles. How much is in your blood depends on when you last ingested the source and whether or not insulin has started to convert it to fat.
" At exercise onset, blood [glucose] transiently rises before beginning to decline after ∼30 min, causing a subsequent decline in blood [insulin] and rise in blood glucagon. This leads to many downstream effects, including an increase in glucose output from the liver to maintain adequate glucose in the blood to fuel both the muscles and the brain." Blood Glucose Regulation during Prolonged, Submaximal, Continuous Exercise: A Guide for Clinicians - PMC
This is on average, and it’s why your first 30 minutes of endurance exercise hurt more than you think it should. While unproven, the prevailing thought is that during this 30-minute mark the “The Central Governor Theory” kicks in more and more aggressively. The idea is that your brain is going WTF are you doing? You consuming all my fuel, and you get the I should quit soon feeling. If you pound a sugar gel, the feeling passes. However, if you press on without the gel; then the Brain tells the liver to get to work and make fuel., So what’s a liver to do but follow instructions? The liver can take two paths; it can break down Protein into glucose or it can break done fat into Ketones for fuel. The liver’s going to choose what’s in your blood first and kick into action. If there’s a ton of protein present, then it’s going that route first; because fat is precious because you might look like Smeagol if you lose your precious…
This is the problem with taking onboard protein before or during an endurance ride if you are trying to burn off fat; you are encouraging your body to continue to run on glucose, and you can’t get the weight loss or the fat adaption you really want. It gets worse once you consume all the protein to make glucose; there isn’t anything left for muscle synthesis after the workout; and the liver, as it switches to fat burning will continue to pull protein from other sources to make some glucose; your brain is stubborn about it Glucose preference it’s not going to tell the liver to stop once that seal is broken on protein conversion. Ok it will stop but the pivot takes about 20 minutes in the average person depending how which study we look at. UNLESS you are going hard; in that case you are going to deplete your muscle glycogen and then your going to start eating into muscle itself to some degree until you take on simple sugars or you bonk and the The Central Governor Theory ends your day. If you think you have bonked you probably haven’t; you more likely had a TCGT shutdown, a true bonk requires defeating the TCGT, and it looks like Julie Moss in 1982 https://youtu.be/nVKqFAPdjIA very few people have the will to get this bad. So don’t miss use bonk if you can avoid it.
Ok so what happens if you don’t put protein or sugar in. Welll that’s the good stuff. After 30 minutes the brain will say liver get to it I’m afraid this fool is killing me. If fat is prevalent in the blood and sugar and protein are not; The liver is going straight to ketone production; and it will deplete free fat in the blood first; follow by instructing the muscles to start breaking down the surrounding fat. This is the part that requires adaptation. IF the body you are piloting is a carb munching machine; your muscle really don’t want to do this because they are lazy.
At this point there are two types of people those that practice Keto or Perodic randomized fasting (PRF) ; or carb addicts that are doing proper endurance work. If you are Keto or PRF then you body is going to kick in to fat mod high gear; and at minute 35 you start to feel darn good. The reason you need to stay in Zone 2 is you don’t want your body to start questing for Glucuse because sorry your fat burning is really only useful for zone 2 efforts. This is why the strict MAF philosophy of don’t go over the limit. So Keto and PRF people your happy.
Meanwhile, Our Carb critters not so much; if you live by carbs, then you have to teach your body to do this new thing. That means you are NOT going to see great results for 4 weeks. You will see steadily improving results, but you might feel pretty crappy during those 4 weeks, and you need to stick with it. It’s best if you can just go hard-core endurance for the 4 weeks and take your lumps. Ask anyone that’s gone Keto or PRF at first; the headaches and the flu feeling will make you question your life choice; but as the fog clears, you feel great, and your brain will seem lively because you’ll begin to “idle” on fat even if you aren’t eating it as your primary food source, this is because your brain gets most of the glucose for itself and it’s a happy mental monster. If I’m coaching a carb addict, they kick, scream and call me names for these for weeks. They tell me it’s not working, it’s stupid, and that they are getting slower. And then it starts to work; and they complain less; and eventually they learn to say “yes coach” or they get mad and kick me to the curb.
Ok, so how do I tie this hot mess together into simple things you can use and remember?
- Endurance rides are Zone 2
- You need to train your body to use fat for the fuel in Zone 2
- You have plenty of fat you won’t run out
- Any exercise effort will start with Glucose
- On average you need 30 minutes to deplete glucose
- Your brain doesn’t want you to deplete glucose and it’s going to try and stop you
- Sugar and Protein before endurance ride bad, they block fat adations. Fat meanwhile is just fine before a ride. Have the spoon full of almond butter.
- Easy to access protein will put the body in to cannibalization mode
- Pushing hard after 30 minutes without fueling will flip back out of fat burning and has negative effects. Going hard has to be fueled you can’t escape that if you want to get stronger. The point of these rides and this part of training is not to go hard
- You can get gains from minute 35 onwards, but you start to hit the upper limits at 3 hours
- Fasted endurance rides are best; no food prior for 3 hours prior; and just drink water with electrolytes while riding sets you up for success.
- Caffine has ZERO impact to athletic output unless you go super extreme so don’t worry about that drug just consume however you normally do. Coming in low on caffeine compared to normal is actually a negative.
- You have to put in the 4 weeks to really see the light.
- A proper Endurance base phase will only demand about 6-8 hours of your time a week so take that time crunch philosophy and chuck it in the garbage; that’s just quick fix nonsense.
Now for everyone going BUT BUT BUT …Chilll. This is just the endurance part of training; it’s the foundation part. It’s important because most people have athletic skills built on a foundation of quicksand. This endurance stuff is bedrock. If you want a tall house you need a solid foundation and nobody is saying you will do this forever, but if you neglected it you are going to have to do it longer than you like; just not a a long as you fear.
Sorry but it’s way too late to do a grammar proof read; I’ll do that tomorrow and clean this up to fix any readability issues.