“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.”

-Oscar Wilde

This article is based on  a recent vlog post on Hammer Nutrition’s site. When someone sent it to me and I read it reminded me of the famous Oscar Wilde quote, “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.” I need to qualify the quote though because Dr. French is anything but mediocre in his thinking. He is on the right track as an obvious  “Early Adopter” of OFM even though he calls it OHM.

So, let’s review this article so YOU can navigate the flood of information out there.

First of all the article starts out immediately on point. Dr. Cathy and I have an ongoing discussion on the state of affairs in Healthcare, and here is one we happened to record. Like Dr. French, we share a similar view in that modern medicine is life-saving in acute situations, but has utterly failed in addressing the underlying conditions of the myriad of chronic diseases plaguing modern man. The solutions lie in your hands outside the system, and these solutions are, for the most part, low to no cost ones. 

Optimizing Fat Metabolism Is Not Keto

Dr. French’s OHM concept is really an acronym for Human Health. And how do you attain that state? . . . by optimizing fat metabolism or OFM. You see, when you focus on the metabolism of fat using the tools of diet, supplementation, training, stress management and lifestyle in a way individualized for YOUR life you attain what I call “Higher Health and Peak Performance” . 

Dr. French’s also on point for the most part about Keto including that it is not appropriate for athletes. I feel his pain about being called Dr. Keto, because for the last 22+ years, anytime you talk about carbohydrate restriction most people, instead of listening to what you have to say, either revert to the ‘Keto’ buzzword as if it encapsulates everything you are saying, or tell you they cannot exist without carbs. 

Additionally, like Dr. French, I do not check my Blood Sugar or Ketones or Heart Rate, count calories or calculate macros. I don’t own a Garmin or any other device for my all day forays into the mountains. As you can see in this pic, I am a knuckle-dragging Neanderthal.

I want to fill in some gaps and elaborate as this is a perfect opportunity to do so.  Dom D’Agostino’s research on the benefits of a Ketogenic diet? These really are the benefits of fat metabolism. The diet is one of many factors which drive it. 

Jeff Volek and the FASTER Study 

Actually all but two of the LCD Cohort in the FASTER Study were actually OFM athletes and used carbs and VESPA in the real world of training and racing. The only time they were on a ketogenic diet was during the data collection. This is what gave them that performance edge and I suspect looking at the data the two participants who were markedly lower in the Low Carb Diet Cohort were probably chronic keto because it is well known and published in the literature that being on a chronic keto diet impacts high  performance. Here is an image of the fat oxidation data illustrating this: 

The main point is that Dr. French is spot on about not recommending a Ketogenic Diet for athletes. Those winning results of the LCD Cohort were not truly done on keto. They were mainly fat adapted which includes VESPA, and possibly with some athletes Hammer's Perpetuum or Heed as a "Strategic" Carbohydrate, such as what Dr. French uses.

Ketones and Energy

I want to stress that Ketones themselves are not energetically dense as stated in the article.  Ketones are really a proxy for fat burn and ketones actually liberate slightly less ATP than glucose….for all practical purposes ketones and glucose are interchangeable as energy substrates for quick aerobic metabolism. The king of energy generation is beta-oxidation.

When you are metabolizing fat at a high rate (>1 gram/minute) ketones are a by-product of beta-oxidation. 

What does all this science talk mean to YOU? If you are currently on a conventional high carb diet and want to stabilize your energy levels, avoid GI issues and minimize recovery time you need to consider OFM’s Metabolic Reset followed by the Adaptation phase of OFM while, if you are Keto and/or LCHF, you need to look at OFM’s ‘Strategic Carbs’ as well as other important facets of the OFM Program. Because fat metabolism is multi-dimensional, just like you and why OFM is comprehensive and individualized. 

As someone who has 22 years of experience with fat adaptation it is great to see someone like Dr. French who is not married to the dogma of a dietary camp whether it is keto or carbo. He ‘gets’ it. 

What’s most important is this is yet another voice in the endurance sphere getting the word out that there is a better way to fuel and live . . . one that taps into your limitless potential. Nothing mediocre about that. It is validation. I consider that a Win for Humanity!