Episode #21

Steph Lowe

Supercharging Your Athletic Performance With a Ketogenic Diet

021: Supercharging Your Athletic Performance With a Ketogenic Diet - Steph Lowe
Athletes assumed they needed carbohydrates to perform and without that fuel or without high amounts of that fuel their performance would suffer, but now we know that the opposite can be true. Click To Tweet

If you’ve ever looked for advice on how to boost your physical performance, increase your endurance, or recover faster, you’ve probably realized most athletes believe that loading up on carbs is the best way to get the job done.

That’s why sugary energy drinks and sports gels exist. The sugar is supposed to give you a burst of energy that either keeps you going during an intense workout or helps you recover when you’re done.

At first, this might seem reasonable — sugar turns to glucose, which gives you immediate energy or gets stored as glycogen that your muscles use for recovery.

There’s just one problem: This glucose-burning cycle creates a lot of internal inflammation, which harms your metabolism, delays recovery (ironically), gets in the way of your performance goals, and triggers gastrointestinal issues.

Sure, you may be able to look fit by chugging down sugar-laden protein shakes and energy bars after workouts, but you’re causing internal cell damage that hurts you in the long-run.

Today’s guest, Steph Lowe, experienced this cycle (and the problems that come with it) first-hand as a triathlete, so she decided to do something about it.

She knew she wanted to help other athletes find a cleaner and healthier strategy for enhancing their performance, so she became a sports nutritionist and founded The Natural Nutritionist, where she helps others athletes optimize both their health and performance through a low carb, high fat ketogenic diet.

When you fix your metabolism, when your plate is built of the most nutrient-dense foods, when your blood sugar is stable, by default you don’t need to snack and you are naturally having less meals. Click To Tweet

She’s one of the top nutritionists setting the record straight on how ketosis influences performance, and today she tells us exactly how athletes can get better results from their workouts and optimize their overall health by switching to ketosis and ditching sugary fuels.

Listen in if you want to perform at your best — whether you’re a seasoned athlete or a casual gym-goer.

In this episode, we go over:

  • The common health problems athletes suffer when they follow a traditional high-carb diet (and how to fix them with a LCHF ketogenic diet)
  • Why food quality is essential in a LCHF diet
  • How to switch from carb-burning mode to a high performance, fat-burning state
  • How long it takes athletes to feel great on a ketogenic diet
  • How health markers change when athletes switch to a LCHF diet
  • Common myths and misconceptions about the effects of a LCHF diet on performance
  • Why keto macro recommendations for athletes are completely individual
  • Why protein and carb macros should change depending on the intensity of your training
  • Lifestyle strategies that support athletic performance and endurance
  • How refined carbs and sugar shut down your fat-burning capacity
  • How carb-loading unleashes inflammation in your body
  • The effect of inflammation on performance, gut health, cognition, and mental health.
  • How research on endurance athletes has been compromised by refined food corporations
  • How MCT oil powder can help you ease into ketosis
  • Why fasting is a muscle that can be trained, not an innate ability
  • The one thing that can slow down your progress even when you’re reducing carbs and training better
  • How to optimize your sleep to improve your performance
  • How Steph helps women enter ketosis according to their hormone levels
  • What made Steph pursue her sports nutrition career

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