Recently there has been a lot of online media coming from the conventional sports nutrition experts in defense of carbs, including a LOT of carbs. . .

And guess what! I don’t have a problem with carbs and if you’re fat adapted, you shouldn’t either!

The key is to maintain and grow your carb tolerance so you have the ability to use them for performance, when it counts, without the very real and serious downside impacts. How do you do this? Ironically, by optimizing your fat metabolism. OFM gives you the Metabolic Freedom to use carbs strategically for performance as well as to enjoy them stress-free when a social occasion or even the odd urge strikes you. 

Here is a great example; Josef “Jeff” Heusserer, enjoying a piece of the ‘Famous Almond Cake’ and an espresso in San Bartolome, Gran Canaria during a ride: 

Jeff & I constantly laugh and joke about his indulgences, like a couple of punk kids doing something dangerous and getting away with it, because Jeff is a Type 1 Diabetic and controls his Blood Sugar without any exogenous insulin, even when he has a sweet treat on a ride. Not only does he fully enjoy his Almond Cake but the strategic timing of these carbs & caffeine allows him to feel strong on the back half of his ride! The use of “Strategic Carbohydrates” and Vespa has allowed him to literally go ‘Beyond Keto’ to improve both his performance and health!

Jeff’s backstory, prior to becoming a Type 1 Diabetic is this: He did exactly what all these articles and podcasts are saying to do to ‘perform’ and his Type 1 diabetes developed exactly as a result of following all this sort of ‘expert’ advice. While in Jeff’s case it was Type 1 Diabetes, anyone who is chronically consuming lots of concentrated carbohydrates won’t escape the consequences. Like I say, “If you are consuming a lot of carbohydrates, it is not a matter of ‘if’ you are going to have a health issue, it is a matter of when and what form.” This is what all this ‘expert’ advice fails to take into consideration in these articles and podcasts. So who are they kidding except themselves? Unfortunately, while most people pursuing a sport know the overconsumption of the carbs and certainly sugar have serious health consequences, many simply don’t really ‘get it’ because, like Jeff, they don’t know what they don’t know until the consequences happen.  

Add to this that carbohydrate based products still make up the majority of ‘nutrition’ products offered by retailers. While these products have their place they are not the only options . . . 

Combined with these media pieces, it's not hard to see how the consumer is ‘Sold, Told & Controlled’ by the information others want us to see, most of the time, with Good Intentions.

So let’s examine just three of the main reasons OFM allows you to “Have your Health Cake and, occasionally, eat cake too” … just like Jeff!

1. Optimizing Fat Metabolism optimizes hormonal balance: When it comes to carbohydrate uptake and utilization, this means the high insulin sensitivity your body wants and needs to quickly and efficiently drive glucose into your cells for the rapid energy needed for aerobic threshold work and surges into anaerobic glycolysis. Unlike Keto, OFM does not downregulate your Pyruvate Dehydrogenase pathway so your cells can make full use of the glucose immediately and on demand.
2. OFM increases your vascular distensibility: These are your pipes; your arteries, veins, capillaries and micro-capillaries. OFM dramatically reduces the systemic inflammation of your blood vessels which significantly increases their capacity to their potential. It is well known that lots of glucose and lots of insulin in your blood contracts and stiffens these blood vessels and THIS actually IS the primary cause of high blood pressure! (Sorry, it’s NOT the salt!) Higher capacity to circulate blood means more oxygen, energy and nutrients into cells and more capacity to move CO2, waste products and heat out of cells for greater energy capacity whether you are burning fat, ketones or glucose.

3. Optimizing Fat Metabolism increases your mitochondria: Fat metabolism is not simply about energy production. It is about health and robustness. Every component of your body is composed of fats, including cholesterol, hormones, enzymes, cell walls and especially your mitochondria are made via a lipid based metabolic pathway. On the other hand, glucose is simply a quick, immediate energy source and when used in large amounts creates considerable oxidative stress which impacts your mitochondria. While mitochondria prefer to burn fat, they will use glucose when needed, when oxygen availability is limited, to meet the energy demand or when hormonal signaling forces them to use glucose over fat. In these situations, by optimizing fat metabolism, you have robust mitochondria which have both a greater capacity to produce energy, regardless of the energy substrate, and a LOT more ‘matches to burn’ if it happens that you are racing all out where significant oxidative stress occurs.

This yields what we call ‘Metabolic Freedom’ and when you gain the metabolic freedom offered by OFM, your body is actually better equipped to not only handle those boluses of carbohydrates but benefit from them in terms of performance and as an adaptive stress to signal to your cells to become more robust in every way. Most of all, it allows you to live life to the fullest!

So, be like Jeff BEFORE those unintended consequences impact you. 

If you are interested in learning more, download our free ebooks for a deeper dive here and here or grab a 12 pack of VESPA and, without changing a thing, experience what fat adapted performance is all about. 

When you’re ready, we offer personalized and group guidance so you can summit your mountain to peak health & performance in every aspect of your life.