Do You Really Need 120g Of Carbs An Hour?

0:00They actually measured exogenous carbohydrate oxidation using the isotope test that we mentioned before and actually found out that they didn't need 120 grams an hour because they couldn't actually utilize it. The day's guest is Dr. Alan McCovan and he's back to discuss the second part of our carbohydrate discussion. Is 90 grams an hour the ceiling that athletes should be shooting for? And that's exactly what we discussed today. We review the recent review papers discussing this important point and then also discuss a lot of the other literature that investigates whether 90 grams an hour is the ceiling at which you should be shooting for. Fascinating talk. We definitely dive into some of the science and look at the practical outcomes as well and explore the questions that haven't been answered in the literature today. So grab a gel, maybe grab a banana,

1:03whatever your carbohydrate of choice is and enjoy this discussion on fuel in sessions. Good day, Alan. How's things, man? I'm good. I'm good. Good to be back. Yep. Part two, mate, of carbohydrates and the research that's come out recently questioning everything and anything about carbs and high carbs. And we obviously went through his carb loading plus seabur and had our opinions on that paper. And then we thought, let's dive into the next part of this, which is really looking at in session fueling and filling within, I guess, training and racing and is 90 grams the ceiling. And as I touched on in the first paper, there is another paper by Dan Pluse and colleagues, which was titled Fueled or Fault, examining the evidence and mechanisms behind ultra high carbohydrate intake in endurance athletes. So I thought we'd dive into this one, mate. Absolutely. I mean, you did say before new research,

2:04I'd say there's new papers, but part of the point of both of those papers, the last one and this one is there's no new research. Yes, that's very good. And actually, it's a very good point because this was a narrative description, wasn't it? It was a review paper and just looking at what is available and as we touched on in the carbohydrate loading paper, there's probably just shows a dearth of research out there to do with what we're discussing today, which is high carbohydrate. Or as they term it ultra high carbohydrate intake, it's interesting, isn't it? Because 90 grams an hour is now probably not considered ultra high. Whereas a few years ago, probably was. Now it's just sort of sitting as a, you know, a, I guess, in this paper, they're sort of talking about as a ceiling and is it the ceiling of where we should be shooting for? And, you know, what is happening with ultra high, which is, I guess, 120 grams or more per hour. So yeah, let's dive in. Where do you want to start, mate? What's your take on this?

3:05Yeah, so I guess to explain a little bit about the background to this paper, I suppose. So you mentioned, you know, in that 90s gram and hour kind of ceiling during exercise. And a lot of people still think of that as kind of like this landmark of value that you'd either add above it or below it. Like it's this sort of key point on the spectrum, I suppose, for like a better term. And a lot of that historically goes back to research back to the 2000s when we started to look at what we call multiple transportable carbohydrates. So the work of Versa ASCII, you can drop amongst others, showing that, you know, once you add glucose and fructose together, you can get more carbohydrate absorbed at one time during exercise. And then more of that can go through to be used as a fuel source. And that can lead on in studies where they did measure performance into improvements in performance compared to taking 90 grams an hour of carbs from just sources of glucose alone. Interestingly, most of those didn't compare 90 to 60,

4:06which is what post people would assume. They actually compared 90 to 90, but 90 of a glucose fructose mix versus 90 of a pure glucose source of carbohydrate. And so the 90, like you've talked to Asuka about it, the 90 wasn't some magical number at all. He was just a nice easy target from a research point of view. And then that flowed through to recommendations, not because they thought 90 was better than 80 or 90 was better than 100 or 105 or anything like that. It was simply that they felt that that was a reasonable practical number to aim for based on the types of products that were available at the time, based on what people were used to consuming at the time. And we're talking late 2000s, early 2010s when these recommendations started to come out. And so that 90 gram an hour kind of became folklore in terms of the number that if you're above that, you're into ultra high carb territory and if you're below it, you're not kind of think.

5:07But really it was just based on Asuka's thoughts of, oh, that's a high number where that glucose fructose combination is necessary, but is still a practically achievable number for most athletes in most situations at the time that those recommendations were written 15 years ago or so. Yeah, and I guess it's this whole, you know, the glucose fructose element to this, isn't it? Because I guess as we start looking at what is available and what we're seeing with this exogenous carbohydrate oxidation and changes maybe even in GI complaints, like is it the lack of evidence on the current, say the two to one ratio or is it, is there also a lack of evidence around that sort of one to point eight ratio? And is that where we should be sort of directing the research because, you know, as we do know, there is an upper, this appears to be a, definitely an upper ceiling to how much glucose can be absorbed

6:10and oxidized. So is the issue that we just don't have the research surrounding different ratios, which as you said, that ratio of two to one was just more a ratio of convenience at the time. Mm. Yeah, so you're right. So the absorption of glucose and then oxidation of that glucose, so actually getting it into the cells and being used as a fuel source seems to top out for most people around the sort of 60 to 70 gram an hour mark. Now, more recent research suggests that for some people, it's actually a bit lower than that. And for some people, it can be higher than that as well. The fructose side of things is not one where there's been like this clear ceiling observed. And it's probably because people hit a limit in terms of just total tolerance of either the volume of food and fluids going through the system or just total carbohydrate in the gut itself rather than a hard ceiling for fructose in itself. So we haven't got that observed sort of increase

7:12and then plateau off like we do for glucose with fructose. And so the suggestion is that start off where 60 grams an hour of glucose and then just keep adding fructose as tolerated. So if you get to 90, that becomes a two to one ratio. If you go higher than that, the ratio changes again and you get to the sorts of ratios. You were talking about some hill of use one to one, some one to point eight or point eight to one and there's sort of different ratios there. But I guess the theory there and I emphasize that it's theory is that as you go higher and higher, obviously that ratio needs to tend towards more fructose relative to glucose because you've hit that kind of ceiling for glucose and you just keep adding fructose as required until you hit the total amount that you're aiming for. So it's more about the amounts rather than the ratio itself. Yeah, but okay. And I mean, is that the problem with some of the products to date? Do you think where, you know, obviously some of these products are based on a two to one ratio and then you start going above 90 grams an hour

8:14and then you have people staying to complain of gel or complaints and that's because ultimately the total amount of malt, extra and all glucose is actually now well above 70 grams an hour. Like is that a major issue? I mean, it's not major issue, but is it an issue with some of these products? Look, it could be potentially for a lot of people if they're not able to. I guess they're going above 90 grams. Yeah, correct. So if they're starting to push like 120, 140 grams an hour with two to one products, then yeah, potentially that could definitely be an issue. And that's why you've seen a few brands come out with products with ratios that are got a bit more fructose relative to glucose for that exact reason to try and push this higher. And a lot of that push has come through professional road cycling, particularly on the men's pro cycling side of things. And so that's where you've seen a lot of that work and product development sort of go hand in hand along those lines. But yes, you're right, the two to one ratio is designed for about 90 grams an hour of carbohydrate.

9:15Theoretically, if you're down around 60 grams an hour of carbohydrate or less, the ratio is irrelevant. It doesn't matter. It could be pure glucose. And I guess the thing I'd add to that, depending on the sport that you're doing, if real food is part of what you're consuming, the vast majority of real foods with a few exceptions are going to be purely glucose post digestion. So anything that's kind of, you know, bread based, for example, the lot of sort of handheld real food options are kind of made with bread or baked types of things, whether it's based on bread or rice or something like that. They're going to digest down similarly to glucose or maltodextrin into glucose. There's really not much fructose there. And so that is a consideration when it comes to mixing and matching not only products, but real food in a lot of sports as well, particularly some of the, maybe the ultra marathon running, the trail running side of things. Yeah, it is, I mean, I know we're sort of digressing a little bit from this, but it is,

10:15it is something that I think a lot of athletes don't consider is that, you know, they start eating, they're consuming, so these products of two to one. And then layering in real food on top and that total amount of glucose that ends up being consumed could be the issue, could be the real food on top of the sports supplements, well, those supplementary food types like the gels and whatnot, just because it just adds up too much glucose in the end. Hmm. Let's get back to this paper. So I guess the question I had and the thing that we've discussed about this paper is obviously is a lovely click baity title of Fjordle Fould, you know, I probably came up with that one. But like, is it a weak argument in that no serious practitioner is going to be prescribing ultra high carbohydrate intakes to an athlete who does not require it? And that's, that's where I'm like, okay, I understand what

11:19they're saying around the evidence is lacking, but again, go back, you know, lack of evidence is always evidence of lack of effect because we know that there are athletes out there benefiting from taking more than 90 grams an hour. Now that's anecdotal. I get that. Like, but I can hand on heart say that I do not know one professional athlete who is not taking in more than 90 grams an hour on the bike to try athletes you're talking about. Try, that's try athletes and then hearing anecdotally about, you know, the world tour cyclists and looking at female cyclists in the world tour that we deal with. Like they take in more than 90 grams an hour. So there's something there. Now we're obviously talking about athletes that have very high energy expenditures. And if you look at their estimated total carbohydrate oxidation rates and what they're pushing, like theoretically,

12:21they should benefit from more than 90 grams an hour. Shouldn't that? Well, potentially, potentially. There's a couple of parts to this. The first bit I think which you know on the head there is that you're coming back to that question, does any serious practitioner sort of recommend this? I think, you know, often we have guidelines like published guidelines and anyone can sort of take those published guidelines and use them how they wish. So obviously they're intended for practitioners to use when they're working with athletes, but they'll get reported through media, through social media. So there's a lot of coaches, sports scientists, athletes themselves, families and friends who will look at those things and sometimes take them quite literally and say, oh, well, the recommendation says 90 grams an hour. But as you said, you know, any practitioner worth their salt understands that the guideline is a starting point. It's not a hard number to follow. It's not a recipe. It's a guideline. And so, yeah, you're right.

13:21Like no practitioner probably sits there and says, everyone should consume this or, you know, because a world tour cyclist is taking 160 grams an hour, everyone else should too. So it's something that we deliberately spent a lot of time looking at from a fueling perspective in terms of the recommendations we make within the app for people during exercise. And that's the recognition that you know, a world tour cyclist with an FTP of 400 plus watts has very different energy needs and carbohydrate needs. And they're going to expend a lot more energy and carbohydrate on the bike for the same zone two session or an interval session or whatever it is compared to, you know, a recreational cyclist who has an FTP of 200 watts, you know, you're talking about completely different scenarios. And so it is one of the dangers of taking something that's being done at world tour level with or without research support and we can get into that. But then applying that to someone who's not at the world tour level doesn't necessarily mean they need that amount.

14:22And I think that's part of the point that's been made in this paper, but not the only point that's been made. Yeah, but it is fascinating because I've seen this time and time again from unfortunately from coaches. I think they see these numbers being thrown around and then they start recommending it to their athletes to consume. And then they reach out saying, I don't understand why my athlete is getting sick and getting all this GI complaints. And I know we've mentioned this before, but then you ask them what their FTP is and they say 150 watts. And you're like, well, you know, and we were just, I mean, we've re-examined sort of, you know, what the estimated amount of carbohydrate grams per hour we would provide to someone like that. And, you know, like with the recent updates, like we're talking 75 to 90 minutes for someone with an FTP, well, a power output, sorry, at that point in time of about 105 less than 150 watts, we're recommending 30 to 50 grams an hour.

15:22Like that's for a zone three session. Yeah, and that starts to give an indication of actually like understanding energy requirements and energy availability. Like there's a massive, there's a massive gap there, isn't there in the understanding of how much to prescribe to someone based on absolute and relative power or relative density, sorry, I should say. Yeah, absolutely. So at those lower powers, you can literally feed as much, if not more carbohydrate, then you're actually using or certainly a lot more than you're needing. Yeah. Given that you've got stores of glycogen already. So, yeah, I mean, from that perspective, it's, you know, you definitely agree with the argument of this paper that you don't need more than 90 grams an hour all the time. I guess the other part of the argument is that there's a lack of evidence that anyone needs more than 90 grams an hour. And we can obviously get into that. So the other thing that, you know, base around this.

16:23So I think it's pretty clear not everyone deserves more than 90 grams an hour. And there's going to be levels well below 90 grams an hour. And there's going to be definitely recommendations of, but least 90 grams an hour. And in some cases, we will recommend over 90 grams an hour. Just talk us about like the oxidation, exogenous oxidation testing that is becoming available and what that means to athletes. And how can we use that current research to start to understand requirements? And then what does that hold for the future? So exogenous oxidation testing is a process where you consume carbohydrate during exercise. So that's called exogenous carbohydrate intake. It's coming in from outside the body, but during exercise. But specifically with that type of testing, what they do is they use. So carbohydrate is made up of, as the name suggests, carbon hydrogen and oxygen, carbon hydrate, hydrate being H2O water.

17:24So, carbohydrate has carbon hydrogen oxygen in it. If anyone who's done high school chemistry, you probably remember this concept of isotopes, which is that different atoms can have the same atom. Sorry, can have a different number of neutrons. And so you can have isotopes of carbon that have a different number of isotopes to the most commonly occurring one in nature and in food products. So you can get people to stop eating certain foods that have this isotope naturally in them to kind of minimize the amount of that in the system, do an excise session to deplete glycogen. So there's no glycogen that already has much of this isotope kind of stored in your muscles. And then you can consume that during exercise. You can feed up again, you can restore that glycogen, but just with foods that don't naturally contain carbon 13 in these cases, the one that they're using as what we call a tracer. And so by doing that during exercise, you can get people to exercise, you can give them carbohydrate with this particular isotope.

18:26You can give that for the glucose component or the fructose component, depending on which one you want to measure. And then you can capture breath samples as they're exercising as they breathe out because of the carbon, also the carbon part of the carbohydrate when you metabolize it during exercise, you get converted into carbon dioxide. So CO2. And so you're going to breathe that out. So you can capture the CO2 that's been breathed out and then use lab techniques to basically look at the carbon in that carbon dioxide and see if it has this particular isotope that you're feeding during exercise or not. So by doing that, you can basically say, well, how much of the carbohydrate that's been burnt during exercise is coming from those exogenous sources coming in during the exercise or was already stored in the body prior to exercise by measuring the total amount of carbs that have been used as well and just subtracting the exogenous from the total. So that's kind of the basis for how it's done.

19:27It is a quite expensive process, which is why even in research, it hasn't been used a lot. It's the sort of thing that only gets pulled out on special occasions, I guess, for a lack of a better word when you've got the research funding and a really high quality study design and the participants needed to do it. There are also other limitations around this technique. So for example, once you start getting into zone three and above, you start to run into problems with accuracy of this measurement. So most of the studies are done at quite low exercise intensities below the first lactate threshold, so typically zone one and two, because you start to run into problems with the whole metabolism of carbohydrate and not being able to actually accurately trace all of this. So it is a limitation of the technique. You can't go out and just do an interval session or a time trial, you know, a 40k time trial or something and measure this. So most of the studies have done it generally quite low intensity.

20:28And you can add on a performance part at the end, but probably you're not going to be able to capture the exogenous oxidation accurately forward, unfortunately. And is that one of the biggest drawbacks in all of the research? Like, you know, when we look at the results, like you're saying, okay, we can only go zone one, zone two. Like, that's not real world, is it? Like, that's not what we're trying to understand. Above that. Yeah, like athletes are going to be working well above that. And yes and no. Most of these research studies are then looking at how much of the carbohydrate you consume can you oxidize, for example. And there's suggestions that yes, you can go into zone three, but it's probably not going to change the interpretation of that. The flip side is if you want to measure performance, technically you don't need to measure oxidation at all. You can just measure performance and just feed the carbohydrate without measuring the oxidation. So, you know, the different ways, I guess, different permutations and combinations that you can throw these different kind of lab techniques together to build an answer to the kind of research question that you have.

21:36But again, I think this is where sometimes, you know, researchers go out to answer one question. People, whether it's in the media or coaches or practitioners or whatever, are looking for answers to us different question. Going to those studies, because that's the only thing available and then potentially sometimes misinterpreting them as well or going, oh, that's useless. They don't, don't do this at high intensities where performance actually matters, but that's not the point of the study. So, yeah, sometimes I think things can get a little bit misconstrued along the way, unfortunately. Because I mean, and you touched on something there, like ultimately if we're interested in performance, like, yeah. I've heard this argument as well. I was like, well, you don't get a goal. You don't get a medal for the rate of which you oxidize. And certainly in particular, like fat oxidation, we've heard that before, you know, great. You have a super high fat oxidation, good on you. It doesn't really matter at the end of the day, like, depends on where you finish. Like, why aren't more studies being performed, which should be cheaper based on what you're saying around these isotopes of just pure performance.

22:4660, 90, 120 gram, and then overfeed another group on 150 grams an hour. And let's look at performance outcomes. Let's look at GI distress. Yeah, I'm sure they can do a crossover. I mean, type study where you have a wash up here and repeat the process and make it an actual performance test. So, it's not necessarily a capacity test, but a true performance test. Yeah, it wasn't a big time. Yeah, there's probably a couple of parts to that. One is measuring performance accurately of the lab sound simple in theory, but is a lot harder in reality. That goes to the measurement error in whatever equipment that you're actually using. Obviously treadmills apart from maybe the new Wahoo kicker treadmill that adjust pace. We don't really have good ways of measuring self regulated paste efforts running. So we're kind of limited to cycling. So, you know, a lot of the knock is that all the researchers done and cyclic that's why.

23:50And even in cycling, there's, you know, imagine of error in terms of the accuracy of the equipment that you're using for that. The second part of that is also on the methodology, the other aspects of this is trying to control everything else that could be influencing performance and that could be the temperature, the humidity, the airflow, the noise level, any music or distractions, the way that the researchers talk to people, there's even research that suggests that, you know, whether the researcher is male or female, and the participant is male or female may influence the outcome on performance tests. The music can influence the outcome of performance tests. So all of those things make it a lot harder in reality than it kind of sounds simple, like just jump on a kicker or something and do a 40k time trial twice. And then the other aspect is the participant themselves. So you're asking people then to go into a lab, which is often a very unfamiliar environment, not exciting like it is outdoors in a real competition and give a genuine performance multiple times.

24:57And do those consistently where other factors like how you slept the night before, how your legs pulled up from training three days before, menstrual cycle potentially for females, a whole bunch of different factors that may influence that performance or just, you know, whether you have an argument with your partner that morning on the way to the lab, you know, all of these factors may go into how you actually perform on the day. And so there can be a lot of noise in that. And, you know, just getting people to come into a lab, which is not, you know, a race that they're training with all their friends for and traveling overseas for and, you know, really focused on as they've been goal for the year and to give a genuine performance multiple times, you know, crossover study is a big ask. And so actually even getting people to participate in these studies is quite difficult. And then I guess the final thing I'd say here, which comes to a lot of discussions we have on this podcast is I in the perfect world, you would have some of these studies in relatively beginner athletes, some of these studies in competitive age group athletes and some of these studies in a lead in professional athletes.

26:01Now the elite and professional athletes don't want to do the studies because they're focused on their goal events. They don't want to put out a maximum performance in the lab multiple times over when it's interrupting their training. The age competitive age group is a similar and the beginners are probably much more inconsistent in how they deliver performance from one day to the next. So yeah, a whole bunch of different studies, a whole bunch of different reasons, sorry, of why, you know, just doing a performance test sounds very simple in theory, but knowing you're a simple in reality. So we doomed forever because it just sounds like I mean, you listen to that and I'm sure people listening to it is like, geez, is it ever going to happen? And the reality is it may not happen and it may not happen effectively because like every study that is done as well, everyone will go, oh, it should have been done this way, should have been done that way. And that was a mistake. It wasn't long enough or it was, as you say, it was a time to exhaustion instead of the time trial test. They should have done this. It wasn't as many females as they should have been are they, you know, their level of athleticism or their level of fitness wasn't as representative of the other type of athlete. And so, you know, do we then fall back on what we see anecdotally.

27:16Sometimes yes. And I think if you're a professional cycling team and a sports scientist working in that professional cycling, you probably don't care to be honest. Like you've got the data on your athletes. And that's all you really are worried about. You don't need a peer reviewed study to tell you what to do. It's everyone else that I guess would like that that level of evidence. But does that sound odd on, but does that go for everyone then does anyone? It's like a fascinating concept. Like does anyone really care about what the research says if they're taking in more than 90 grams an hour and feeling bloody awesome. Like I can tell you now there are a heap of age group athletes on fuel and using well above 90 grams an hour and performing exceedingly well. And as we raised their level of grams per hour, they feel better and better. They recover is better. They perform better and their results show that and I'm like, so it's like I get it and like we are very much all for research base, but like we will base the fueling on what the athletes are able to do and what they're doing, which is I exactly how we explain before, you know, based on their FTP, but based on their run threshold.

28:34What is their expected energy expenditure? What are we trying to provide them with at that time? Do they feel better? Yes, no, do they practice it? I mean, that's the other element here isn't it like, you know, gut training does it doesn't make a difference to and are these athletes in these studies I assume if they're a good athlete, they're going to be gut trained. But then if you chuck in a heap of, you know, age group is in there and you you suddenly throw 120 grams on them and they've never done that even though they might benefit from it, is that an issue as well? I'm a bit of a two part of that. I'm sorry, but no, it's all right. Just remind me about the gut training if I forget, but like I think that first part around like, do you just rely on anecdotal evidence? Like I think if you're doing something and it's working well for you, you know, there'll be scientists who argue well is just a placebo effect and you think it's amazing. So it is amazing. It's like, well, I'll see what effect at the end of the day is still an effect. I think there are some studies that do capture performance well. There are examples of study designs that have done this. The group that now at Australian Catholic University previously at the AIS,

29:49Australians to a sport have done this with using training camps and actually, you know, they've done a lot of the work with the racewalkers. Some of that was the low carb stuff that there's been other variants, but using a similar method where they actually do training camps so they can do like a three week training camp with elite like world class level racewalkers. And then actually they organize a world athletic sanctioned event just for the study. So obviously not every lab has the resources, the contacts, the networks to pull that kind of thing off, but there are a few groups around the world that can. So that's one aspect. I know one of the authors on the paper was that's the way it's books. Yes, yeah, great. Sorry, why don't they do like obviously those racewalkers studies are fantastic, but a lot of people are like, well, I'm not a racewalker. Why aren't they doing any research on other forms of athletics? They are they're doing some in marathon runners as well. Good. Okay. Yeah, so they have. But the simple answer is the racewalkers were the ones who put their hands up to do it.

30:56They were the ones who said, yes, we'll, we'll, and they have a very tight network. They're community at the elite level are very tight because to get that many elite racewalkers to participate in the study, you need to get racewalkers from, you know, 10 or 15 different countries. So they got 10 or 15, you know, racewalkers from multiple countries on board. They got their coaches on board. They all traveled down to Australia over the Australian summer to participate in the study. So part of it is just about the collegiality of that community. They're willingness to participate in research and then putting up their hands and saying, yeah, we'll do it. And that that's how it came about really. It's not that the racewalkers were different or special and at the same time, I don't think necessarily those findings. You say, oh, racewalking is that different to marathon running that we can't extrapolate the findings. I think it's, you know, metabolically, it's, it's sort of close enough from for that purpose. The other study design and there have been some similar kind of methodologies used. So one of the authors on the paper that we're discussing today, Paul Booth.

32:03He works in the trail running, ultra trail running space works with Solomon, but he's also doing his PhD at the moment in the UK. And so he has recently done some research as part of his PhD looking at high carb intakes and performance. He's been published yet. So we don't know all the findings from that. I've only seen literally a title slide on a picture on Instagram from I think it was the recent European Collegesport Science conference, CSS. And so some of this work is starting to be done. So I think he looked at might have been 60 90 and 120 grams an hour of carbs over I think it was a 56 K outdoor trail run. So yes, he studies have been done. Probably again, you're going to get more genuine performance outside the lab. Then with even that has additional kind of practical constraints around it or, you know, things like the temperature.

33:03So if you get a crossover trial, that's diabolical because if the temperature humidity wind direction or speed is different on different days and potentially that's going to influence the result. But these studies are not doing a crossover design. They're just getting enough people that they can kind of randomize them. So yeah, there, there certainly is some studies coming with this kind of methodology, but they're certainly not quick, cheap or easy to pull off, I think, which is why you don't see them very often. And then coming back to the second part, I did remember it, which was around the training. You know, does the gut training status of the participants matter? Well, yes and no. So the interesting part here is we know that people can get trained to tolerate more carbohydrate, both anecdotally and any research. There's evidence for this. The question though is what is actually improving with the gut training? Is it just tolerance being able to have more food and fluid in your gut without having symptoms or is more of that actually being absorbed, making its way to the muscles and being used at this stage.

34:09So we have pretty good evidence that you can improve the tolerance to both food and fluids, quite significantly. But what we don't have evidence of and in fact, we probably have evidence that it may not be the case is that you can increase your body's ability to absorb and or use that carbohydrate. So gut training from the evidence that we have to date suggests that it improves the tolerance doesn't necessarily improve your ability to use that carbohydrate. But again, there's studies in this area that researchers know needs to be done. They just need to find the cash to fund the studies to do it essentially. And just on that bit about the okay, can improve the tolerance to the volume, but then is there like does it then come down to the quality of the athlete, i.e. if you can take it more, but if you're not producing the power, then it becomes irrelevant and so for therefore you never actually need to take it in versus okay, someone who's producing a lot of power hasn't actually been taking in that much carbs, probably underfueling in a sense.

35:14They start taking in more and actually they can then improve their tolerance and actually they've already they have the ability to actually utilize more of that carbohydrate. And that's that's then the difference between the quality of the athlete, isn't it? Because some athletes can actually, you know, as we've seen as well, you can get them to take in more, but they don't necessarily improve performance or anything like that through increased carbon take because they actually just don't want it. Yeah, correct. Whether it's because they don't warrant it with the examples that you gave with, you know, very low FTPs, for example, or running threshold pace. Or in some cases, for whatever reason, that person just has a limited ability to we don't know exactly either absorb or utilize carbohydrate in the, you know, whether it's from the gut, whether it's from the muscle or a combination of the two. Most research would probably suggest that gut is more of the bottleneck.

36:15But you know, Paul that I mentioned before, you know, he's done some work as I said, he works with Solomon, he worked with both the men's and women's winners of ultra-traumonblanc, UTMB last year. And in those cases, they actually measured exogenous carbohydrate oxidation using the isotope testicles we mentioned before and actually found out that they didn't need 120 grams an hour because they couldn't actually utilize it. So whether that's because the pace is low, well, if you're winning UTMB, that the answer is probably no. But they're just not able to utilize that. And in fact, the reason those athletes are so good is because well, they can still use maybe 90 grams an hour carbs, but they're very good at using fat as well. Because at the end of the day, the ultimate goal is to produce a certain amount of energy, regardless of where that energy comes from. Yeah, and that is an interesting point as well because if you actually, I mean, you know, we've had papers that have looked at exogenous carbohydrate amounts of, you know, close to two grams per minute.

37:16So, you know, we're seeing very high oxidation rates of that. But then as the level of the athlete improves theoretically, we should see an improvement in fat oxidation as well. Like a lot of everything, everything will shift, but also they're very good at burning fat most elite athletes anyway. And so therefore, does that sort of balance it out because like if you're an untrained athlete and you're working really hard, your oxidation rate is actually going to go up because like it will go up a lot, but you're relative. You're probably burning a lot more carbohydrates than someone who is very trained who is pushing out probably higher power numbers, but actually they use a lot more fat even in those higher numbers. So does net net does that balance it out and does that bring the elites back down closer to, you know, 90 or 120 grams an hour versus the untrained who maybe requires more than the 90, maybe 90 to 120 grams an hour, but they wouldn't be able to sustain that amount of effort because they're just going to get a lot of fat.

38:20So that's the method because they're just going to run out. They will just tire out. Yeah, I think the elite athletes, you know, they're able to produce, as we said, you know, lots of energy from fat and from carbohydrate, which is why their total pace or power output or whatever is so high because you need to do both very well to be able to do that. You know, you look at professional, you know, male, well, two or a level cyclists, you know, their fat oxidations are much higher than the average punter up, you know, close to levels that you see with sort of non professional athletes on keto diets. But they can still use carbohydrate very well. So they're able to use both systems well and it's because they haven't tried to pursue a strategy that fundamentally prioritizes one over the other. The fat oxidation actually just ends up improving because of the amount of training they're doing and they're going to be slightly underfuel or not underfueled, but they just can't meet their energy demands. And so in effect, the body taps into the fat and then starts to improve their ability to utilize that in conjunction whilst consuming huge amounts of carbs as well.

39:29So you talked about the UTMB, like what did they find specifically? So they were taking him what 120 grams and they were only oxidizing what 85% or something like that. I can't remember the numbers off the top of my head. It's not a published study. This is just some work that they did with those athletes privately. But I think one or both athletes had struggled historically trying to push up to that sort of 120 grams in our mark with GI issues. And then when they brought them into the lab and tested them, they realized that their carbohydrate oxidation was getting no we knew that. They were sort of more looking at that. It's got 80 to 90 topping out around there. And so. And that's total carboxidation, isn't it? No, that's exogenous. Sorry. Okay. That okay. So it's glucose and fructose. Glucose and fructose. Glucose and fructose together, though, as a total exogenous carbon. I believe so. Yes. Yeah. And so the thinking there was why feeding carbohydrate that you, you muscle can't actually use for whatever reason, doesn't matter what that reason is.

40:32But why put stuff in that you're not utilizing all you can't use. And so they actually backed off their car hydrate to about 80 to 90 grams an hour. And, you know, performance didn't decline, but gut symptoms did. And, you know, that may not be the reason they won the race, but it may have helped. Yeah, which then brings me to the paper, which I know we've discussed. Off air, maybe possibly on a previous episode, the A tour of Irubae paper with the 120 grams an hour versus 90 grams an hour versus 60 grams an hour for the ultra marathoners and looking at excise induced muscle damage markers. And so then it comes down to like, you know, is there advantages in taking on more carbohydrates above say oxidized rates like does it for these ultra events or events lasting, let's say more than five hours. So what's that might be 70.3 for some age groupers, but then again, they may not need the amount because they're not pushing out the power, but you know, let's iron man. Certainly ultra marathon ultra other races.

41:43You know, what where do you sit with like potentially that excess carbohydrate doing something or where is it going? Yeah, this is one of those sort of began answered questions in the area. And if you talk to the researchers in this area, they kind of they can speculate, but they don't really have a clear answer to it. So, yeah, I mean that that paper you referred to, there was sort of indications that there was less potentially muscle damage or biomarkers of less muscle damage. As far as I'm aware, it's been a while since I read that paper, I don't think they got them back in the next data, test them and verify that that actually translate into any differences in performance. So it's kind of an implied effect on recovery and performance rather than an actual measure of recovery or performance. So, yeah, but it is, it is an interesting one. I guess when you start to think about stage racing, which is maybe not so relevant to a lot of listeners, but it may be relevant to some.

42:43When you've got a backup day after day after day, one of the other things is that that total carbohydrate is contributing to the recovery for the next day in terms of just restoring glycogen, but also just around total calories and energy availability across several days of racing as well. Or it might be a heavy training block training camp or something like that, where you might be stringing multiple days together and certainly anecdotally what you tend to hear from people is where they increase their carbon take. Yeah, the individual sessions might be better, but certainly anecdotally for me, I think a lot of the benefit that people tend to feel is actually in the recovery. It's what happens in the sort of three to 12 hours post exercise, you know, a lot of runners that you speak to and runners are probably a good example because historically they've had fairly low carbon takes, particularly in training because they don't want to carry everything with them. But when they do start to really up the carbon take, you know, the feedback that you get is oh my long run on the weekend and you know, you used to be completely wiped out and have to go have a nap and light out on the couch all afternoon watching Netflix.

43:50And now I can just go about my day like someone who didn't go for a two hour run that morning kind of thing. So yeah, a lot of the benefit is potentially in the training and the recovery between sessions as much as it is during the session itself or on race day. Yeah, and that paper we're talking about, they did describe, I think, reductions in delayed onset muscle soreness as well with the higher carbohydrate intake versus the lower feelings, feelings reported, you know, feelings of subjective sort of tiredness and issues with that. So I think it does fit. It's sort of like, you know, again, because if you look again, someone who is pushing out a lot of power, you're never meeting, you know, if they've got a caloric expenditure of a thousand calories, I mean, you're not meeting that need through the carbohydrate. You're even if you're taking 120 grams, you're well short, you know, you're 120 grams of carbs, 480 calories and they've got a thousand calorie.

44:51You're already in a deficit. Now they're obviously going to be utilizing fat throughout that. So we know there's not going to be that exact deficit, but that extra carbohydrate that may not be utilized in that time. Like, I'm sure it's got to go somewhere. I mean, they talk of it going back into the liver and re synthesizing as well. Do you have any thoughts on that? Yeah, well, it is one of the sort of the unanswered questions and maybe using some of these isotopes, isotopes to do sort of trace of studies through the body as opposed to traces only into what's turned into energy. So one of the issues potentially is what we call malabsorption. So basically that carbohydrate never gets absorbed by the gut. And in that case, it's not contributing to anything useful apart from potentially gut issues. I'm going to say gas. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's going to get then go out by all the bacteria in your large intestine, produce gas and things like that.

45:52So yeah, from that perspective, if that's what's happening, then then that's not going to really contribute to anything helpful apart from maybe a bit of short chain fatty acids that some of that bacteria produces that might be have some minor benefits. But certainly not the kind of benefits that we're talking about here that assumes that that carbohydrate actually got absorbed into the body into the blood and went somewhere, whether it's to the muscle to get used, whether it's to deliver, whether it's to get stored as glycogen. But it has to go somewhere to be used. And is that just the unanswered question that we need more research on is like trying to actually understand where this excess carbohydrate is going? Look, I think so. The one thing with the gut training research is everyone carries on about gut training. It's really based on one or two studies. I think you guys did. Yeah, well, not me personally, but the lab that I work at. Yeah, yeah. So it's just sort of as I was starting my PhD that that paper was being published.

46:53So, yeah, and they did show a reduction in what we call breath hydrogen production, which is a marker of bowel absorption, which suggests that more of that carbohydrate did get absorbed after two weeks of gut training. Now, these were not high level athletes by any means. So, you know, where do we go from that? Hard to say. As I said earlier, you know, there are some researchers out there that really want to do the study where we take a bunch of fairly high level athletes measure the exogenous carbohydrate oxidation before gut training. Do a period of gut training and do it again to see if you can actually improve the exogenous carbohydrate oxidation through gut training because at this stage, there is no evidence one way or the other that you can do that. Some evidence just from trained, you know, testing individuals that maybe it doesn't but hard to know. Until we have that research, we won't know, but yeah, as I said, that research is not easy to do. It's expensive.

48:00I know at least one research I've spoken to says I've been wanting to do that for years, but I can't get the funding to do it. Well, that may be this person, Tim Podlaker and his group have done a bit of stuff around carboxidation and efficiency sort of, you know, dropping, I guess, within the individual as car. Effective car, intake goes up. We're not seeing change it. We see increases in exogenous carbohydrate oxidation. We don't necessarily see changes in endogenous carbohydrate oxidation. So it doesn't necessarily preserve the endogenous stores. Does it as you take in more. And then there's also that sort of and forgive me if I get this wrong, but the amount being oxidized, there's a change in the percentage isn't there with the higher amounts getting. Well, they're all roughly what 75 to 85% of the amount oxidized that crew.

49:02Yeah, yeah. So it comes back to what I was saying just then like if as you increase, whether it's, you know, you're trying to increase it through gut training, but this is the flip side is just increasing the amount of carbs consumed in general. Yeah, the total amount that ends up being oxidized tends to decrease. And so that that is the million dollar question. There's the big that didn't get oxidized. Where did it go? Is it hanging around in the gut, potentially causing problems or is it getting into the blood, but then getting stored as glycogen and I don't think that's really clear at this stage. Hopefully we'll know more in the next few years. And then the second part of that, which is one of I think the big arguments in this paper that we're discussing today is that well, you feed all this extra carbohydrate, but it doesn't spare the use of glycogen. It just means that you use less fat and more carbohydrate overall. Is that actually achieving anything worthwhile? Well, before you're under that bed and just make sure we do cover that like Tim's group actually I shouldn't go Tim. I don't know Dr. Polica. You know him. You you made to him.

50:07But most of their studies has only been with glucose as well, hasn't it? Yeah, some of some of them I think have used fructose, but a lot of them just use glucose and the reason for that is, as I said earlier, you could only really measure one at a time. And so the argument has been well glucose has that ceiling. So generally that's where you want to start because as you're going from you know 20, 30, 40, 50 grams an hour of carbohydrate and going higher and higher up to 90 and then beyond. Generally that the thought is start with glucose sort of max that out first and then add fructose on top of that. So the rationale for measuring glucose specifically and there have been some studies. I think Tim's done some work, looking at the fructose component as well. I'm not sure whether it's published yet, but I know he's been working on it. I guess that the theory behind that is will particularly in professional cycling where you have product sponsors. So you have a particular product that is the product you're using.

51:08It has a particular carb ratio. You can't change that. It is what the product is. And so the idea is, well, let's figure out how much glucose the person can oxidize. Then look at the ratio of glucose to fructose in their product and basically provide enough product per hour that you're topping out that glucose and then the fructose is going to be whatever the fructose is going to be based on that product. Now for non professional athletes where you can mix and match and choose whatever products you want or you can make up your own from raw ingredients or whatever that argument no longer holds. But I guess a lot of that work has been done with professional cycling in mind. And so that's kind of the rationale that's been taken to an extent. But yeah, you know, would registering both help. Yes, I'm not sure how much more it would help. Certainly glucose seems to be the one that one has that sort of ceiling, but two is quite variable between people as well. So knowing that is definitely helpful.

52:13Okay, so they get this test done and they find out, okay, I actually only oxidize. Let's call it 80 grams of 70 grams of glucose. But their energy expenditure estimated energy expenditure based on there. Let's talk about a cyclist their wattage is much higher is that therefore worthwhile getting the test done and then just as you said going, okay, that's the amount of glucose I need to take in. I need to take in per hour, but I actually need more energy per hour. So I need to get that through fructose. Do I just now just buy fructose powder or as you mentioned, you could use some other products and workout using these other products, the glucose and fructose amount like in your professional opinion. Is that worth an athlete doing and I guess what are the what are the factors that would make you consider recommending that to an athlete?

53:17Well, it is quite an expensive test for start. So point number one. Yep, so point number one. So you're going to have to have plenty of cash or your performance is very important to you. So let's all about so we know we know tick. There's a lot of age group endurance athletes out there who have enough money to do this. So let's say money is not and how much are they actually together? I can't remember the final figure, but I think it was somewhere between 500 and 1000 pounds for test. So it's been expensive 500 quid. Let's call it a thousand Aussie dollars up to 2000 Aussie dollars, probably 500 to 1000 US dollars. Okay, so expensive, but not out of the realm when people are spending easily that amount on a carbon water bottle holder and what and wheels in particular. So let's say price is not necessary that much of a factor. Second factor at this stage is availability. There's only a couple of labs in the UK that are doing this. I think they've got a satellite center in Germany that's also doing it.

54:19So outside of that, you'd have to fly to the UK or Germany to do the testing. So that's the second factor. And then a third bit, which I guess is what you're getting to is, you know, what information is it actually giving you and how useful actually is it. So there's probably a couple of groups of athletes where this may potentially be beneficial. One is the person who is trying to push their carbs higher and higher. But no matter what they do, no matter how much gut training they do, no matter what they try different products, different combinations and glucose fructose, they just get gut issues. Like they just have this ceiling, it might be 80, 90, 100 grams an hour, wherever it is. And no matter what they do, no matter what they try, they can't go above that. And they're looking to try and figure out why this may give some answers as to why because you're a poor glucose oxidizer, for example. So that would be sort of one group of athletes. The other would be maybe the person who's not having gut issues at the moment, but wants to know what is their potential.

55:23So this would probably be more, I would say, upcoming athletes who are sort of haven't tried to push those boundaries yet, but are trying to figure out, I guess, what is their potential to take in carbohydrate. And certainly, you know, talking to Tim and Gareth Wallace at the University of Birmingham, who's involved with that testing as well. They've sort of seen it from both angles. They've seen the athletes with gut issues that have come in and realized, well, actually I can't oxidize that much for whatever reason, whether it's genetic or something else. And they've had others where they've tested them and gone, actually your capacity is a lot higher than you thought. You can actually push it higher. And if you are getting gut issues while pushing it higher, it's probably not because of the oxidation. It is probably the gut tolerance issue, and we have good evidence that that will improve with gut training as opposed to trying to improve the oxidation, which may not. Yeah, I always think of that second, well, actually, I'll think about both groups. The person who says, I've done everything and I just can't get, you know, better. And you're like, and have you really done everything?

56:29Have you really changed the ratios? Have you really changed the products? Have you really done this on multiple times? Probably not. However, I'm sure there are some athletes out there that do continue to present with geo issues. And then the second group, I'm like, if you're new to it and you're upcoming and you really want to just try and learn, I'd be like, well, let's just do this in a practical manner first. Let's just start with increasing the amount of glucose. Okay, let's maybe top you out at, you know, you're a good athlete, you're pushing big numbers. Let's top you out at 70 or 80 grams of glucose per hour. And then just let's start using products that bring your total amount of grams per hour up by using fructose. And I just do that practically. And it's, I mean, again, coming back full circle to what we were talking about, very start is like, there are athletes that are doing that and actually responding really well and feeling great. And I would say that's a, it's a cheaper way of doing it, but B, it's also a very practical way of doing it. And the outcomes are performance specific to that athlete.

57:33And so it's beneficial in that sense. Yeah, I mean, the only other argument I can think, and I agree, I don't think every athlete needs to do that kind of testing. The only other argument I can think of is if you think about someone who's going to be in the sport for say 15 or 20 years, and they go out and consume 120 grams an hour, only to find out at the end of their time in the sport that they were only ever oxidizing 80 of it, how many hundreds or thousands of dollars worth of gels were they buying and consuming unnecessarily because it wasn't making a difference. It was increasing their risk of gut issues, whether they got them or not, maybe, maybe not, but they were consuming things that actually weren't helping them. However, if they then are performing over the course of their career and they're venting in that amount, what it was doing something. Well, maybe not necessarily, but maybe it was, and that's the unanswered question, isn't it? Well, okay, let's imagine that individual did maybe only oxidize 80 grams an hour of glucose and they've been taking in 90,

58:38and they've been winning for 10 years, you're sort of like, oh, does it matter? Well, does it matter? It's just, just $1.00 and cents. Well, they would have been expensive. They would have been in need of oxidation tests. Well, potentially. You're certainly of your sponsored athlete, not going to matter, but if you're having to pay out of your own pocket for it, then maybe the testing is worth it over 15 or 20 years of a hell of a lot of gels and drinks and things. But you know what, even for the companies, maybe for the sports companies, when they've got these athletes and these athletes are consuming huge amounts of their product, and they're like, hey, you don't actually need as much of the product, and you're probably over-consuming yet. We can actually reduce the volume of a product we're actually gifting you, and you're still performing at the same rate. Maybe that's an argument for it as well. Okay, very yet. I mean, it's, I don't know, I'm in end of the day. Oh, one other thing, actually, that's what you did mention as well.

59:38You mentioned about taking in all this carbohydrate, and the potential for, well, how did you frame it? You framed it in that you're taking in all of this, and it's shifting maybe the way in which you're utilizing the substrate in your body. So fat-based carbohydrate. And that is one of the arguments potentially for high-carb, or ultra-high carbohydrate-oxidate consumption is you get improvements in efficiency. Like, where do you sit on that? And I know we've talked about percentages here, because it's probably only read, is it, is this improvement in efficiency, is it beneficial to age group athletes as well as the elite? Do you think? Yeah, so there's two parts to this. So the bit we were talking about before is I guess the balance between fat and carbohydrate use, and then trying to, quote unquote, spare glycogen. So by taking in more carbs, exogenously theoretically,

1:00:39like if you went back 10 or 15 years, people would say, oh, that's great, because then you don't need to use the carbohydrate as glycogen, so you say if that for later on, and then you've got that available to you later on. Whereas the research and the argument in this paper is, well, actually the evidence suggests that you know you just use more carbs overall and less fat. So that's one part of it. But I think what you're getting at now is the oxidation efficiency, which is about how much oxygen is required to turn fat into energy versus turning carbohydrate into energy. And so the difference is about 5%, so you need about 5% more oxygen, roughly, to produce the same amount of energy from fat as you do to produce the same amount of energy from carbohydrate. And so that has been a lot of the discussion, particularly in some of the sort of the low-carb, high-fat kind of research, is that, you know, particularly for athletes that are really pushing up close to VO2 max, so at that limit of oxygen consumption for the athlete.

1:01:40You know, if you're up at that level, a 5% difference might therefore limit the amount of energy you can actually produce because oxygen starts to become the other end factor. Now in your more longer, lower intensity events where you're down probably below, you know, 80, 85% of VO2 max. So this is probably anything above Olympic distance in triathlon. Anything sort of above the marathon in distance running. You know, your overall intensity is going to be low enough that, you know, if you consume 5% more oxygen over the entire event, we've probably got capacity to do that anyway. The argument is more for things like the half marathon, the marathon, maybe Olympic distance triathlon, where you might be pushing up much closer to your VO2 max at the elite level than that 5% efficiency difference may be important. But I would probably argue that it's elite and professional athletes in those particular events,

1:02:41where it would be relevant and for probably everyone else, not so relevant. Is there any data to suggest like RPE in terms of higher carbohydrate intake, you know, even in age groupers, first to elite, like, you know, if they're on a low carb or lower carbohydrate intake versus say these 90 or above, is there a difference in RPE and what's actually what an athlete is reporting? And again, it could be per se, but they are they feeling, you know, do they feel like the exercise at that intensity? And I would say now probably now 70.3, I mean, certainly for the elite, they're pushing probably close to better to max for those as well now as they're moving. But is there any evidence for like improvements in RPE and with higher carbohydrate intake? It's a good question. That's one that I can't recall off the top of my head if I had to guess. I wonder if it's brain.

1:03:41Like again, in this paper, they talk about the brain derived sort of benefit of carbohydrate. And I mean, anecdotally speaking, I mean, personally taking carbs, things just feel easier. I definitely do. And whether that relates to the total amount of carb, but it's that frequency of feeding the carbohydrate, which I think then the sweetness of the product actually then does make an impact on that perceived sort of effort. Yeah. I think if you're talking, you know, like 90 grams versus 10 grams an hour potentially, but I think like 90 versus 120, I don't think there's good evidence that RPE is significantly lower or better on the 120 compared to the 19.0. And there's no correlation between that and so the oxygen, you know, efficiency. Not that I'm aware of. Yeah. Okay. So where does it leave us?

1:04:42You know, do we? I think, well, I'll ask that question to you. Where does it leave you with this paper and what the conclusions of the paper were? And what we're saying in terms of impractice and the research today? So I think where it leaves it for me is these really when we say high, like above 90 grams an hour of carbon take. I think we need to be aware that it may not always be beneficial. As we said, there is a lack of performance studies in this space to answer this question. So it's not to say that there are a whole bunch of studies saying it doesn't work. They're just a lack of studies to show either way, whether it does work or not. From, I guess, first principles point of view, theoretical point of view, the benefits are likely to be greater. The higher the level of the athlete, the more absolute power or pace that you can put out, which means it will most likely if it does have an effect is most likely to be most effective in putting it in place.

1:05:51Most effective in professional and elite athletes compared to age groupers or recreational athletes. The tolerance part of it is obviously very important if you have a lot of gut issues, your performance is probably going to be impaired regardless of why you have those gut issues. Some of those may improve with gut training, some may not. You've always got to consider that as a practical limitation to your carbon take. Just because theoretically, you should maybe benefit from 100 or 120 grams an hour or whatever it might be. If your gut doesn't tolerate it, you can't tolerate it. You may be able to improve on that as I said, but not always. The testing is incredibly expensive, the testing is incredibly inaccessible, it's interesting information, but not absolutely necessary and probably out of reach for most people anyway.

1:06:54You've got to go on that basis of tolerance and how you're feeling and if you are feeling that, experiment around with it. If you do a three week block of training at 90 grams an hour and then do another three week block of training at 120 or 130 grams an hour or whatever it is and if you feel anecdotally recovering a lot better with the 130. We may not necessarily understand exactly why, but if you feel like you're recovering better, your day to day life's better, you're functioning at work and in your relationships and things better than fantastic. If you don't, then maybe it's not that necessary. Yeah, I think, yeah, I'm very similar viewpoints to that. I think it's athlete dependent. I think not everyone needs to go above 90, not everyone needs 90. A little on that, I think 90 grams is actually quite high and a lot of athletes probably don't even require that and we're certainly seeing that. That's exactly how we lay it out in fuel in based on FTP threshold paces.

1:07:58You're not going to be blanket recommended. A very high amount if you're, as you mentioned, your absolute power, your wattage, your run speeds are very low. You're only going to see 30 or 40 grams an hour and most people might be shocked by that these days. They're like, what? Why are you only giving me 40 grams an hour and it's like because you're not that powerful, you're not that fast. I'm sorry, but you got to start there. If you start with 90 grams an hour, you're probably going to either throw up or have an interesting day in the portaloo. I think first and foremost, let's make this athlete specific. I think that is a very important part of the paper. Not everyone deserves 90 grams. Above 90 grams. I'll sit on the fence here. Actually, I won't sit on the fence at all. I will say that there are 100% athletes who benefit from going over 90 grams an hour. Why that is? We can't explain exactly, but certainly anecdotally in the field, we are seeing this time and time again.

1:09:05Everything you mentioned, they feel better after the session. They feel better in the session. Their recovery is better. They sleep better. Muscle soreness is better. It's there. Until there's proof that it doesn't do any benefit, I'm still going to recommend higher amounts of carbs to those athletes as their absolute power. That's just, you know, you could say that's crazy, but I'm not going to stop an athlete taking in more if they're benefiting from it. As long as it doesn't obviously cause any harm, and at this point in time, I'm not seeing any harm in terms of health, in terms of increased likelihood of diabetes or anything like that. I think it's an interesting paper. I would encourage everyone to read it and look at it critically. It is a reviewed paper. I think Dan and the group, you know, to the have a bias. I don't know.

1:10:07Historically, Dan does have a bit of a boss towards lower carbohydrate. But, you know, I think there's some pretty interesting points in this paper that I think everyone, you know, athlete, coaches, dieticians and nutritionists should all read and think about critically. Great. Cool. Well, mate, I reckon for the time being carbs, I think we've pretty much talked about them to death as you will often say to me, you know, I'm like, no, no, we've got to talk about them again. But look, I think for the time being, unless, you know, new research pops up and hopefully it does. Yeah, hopefully we're sort of done a little bit with this and we can move on to some interesting things like lactate gels and other sort of, you know, magic, magic potions or magic elixirs that are out there and certainly doing the rounds in social media. So the next one we do, mate, we'll bring something different and I look forward to that. Thank you for listening to fuel in sessions. If you enjoyed that, please share it with someone who will also benefit and if you haven't rated us, please go into the store where you're listening to this episode and give us a five star rating. It really helps.

1:11:21And lastly, if you're not using fuel in, please check out the link below. There's a free two week trial that you can get started with. And if you're already using fuel in, feel free to share that with someone who could also benefit from fuel in. Thanks for listening and have a great day.