BODY FAT—LESS IS NOT BEST
The other extreme of having too little body fat is also unhealthy. Unfortunately, too many athletes seek to reduce their levels of fat at the expense of their fitness and health. Part of the problem is the ongoing myth that the lower your weight, the better you’ll race. This generalization is untrue because weight loss typically involves loss of muscle, which will obviously make you race slower, as will dehydration (water being the primary number we see on the scale’s weight).
For most athletes, the process of losing body weight causes a number of metabolic problems. These include the disruption of normal hormone balance, particularly with testosterone, insulin, and others, important for optimal training and racing. While hormone imbalances are often discussed in relation to female athletes who develop menstrual disturbances, men are also affected, with problems such as reduced muscle development and bone loss. Adverse metabolic effects of insulin can also be a problem for the generation of energy, in particular reduced energy due to diminished fat burning.
As the problem of low body fat develops, the brain attempts to compensate. But athletes who consciously choose low-fat foods (which are typically much higher in refined carbohydrates and other sugars) despite the brain’s signals to increase dietary fat consumption create an ongoing vicious cycle between brain and metabolism, causing significant imbalances that can ultimately lead to poor training, injury, and diminished race performance. In an attempt to reduce body fat, athletes often sacrifice nutrients. These include essential fats for anti-inflammatory control and fat-soluble vitamins such as A, E, D, and K for many aspects of training and racing. Viewing dietary fats as the “bad” component of the diet often results in avoiding healthy foods with important fats needed to improve endurance. These include avocados, olive and coconut oils, egg yolks, and others.
The myth of “calories in, calories out” has been part of the confusion about weight loss and body fat. The concept is so simplistic that it creates lingering problems for many athletes. This antiquated idea claims that if we eat fewer calories than we burn during training, we lose weight. The problem with this notion is that it doesn’t consider whether the calories taken in are from healthy foods or not. For example, two carbohydrate foods of the same caloric value can have glycemic indexes that are significantly different, making the low-fat food more detrimental in terms of body fat. In other words, a low-fat food can cause more body fat storage than the lower glycemic item, and it can reduce conversion of body fat to energy for training and racing. This is why a dessert made from refined white flour and sugar is worse than one made with almonds and honey, even though they can have the same number of calories.
When dietary intake and training are balanced, body fat will usually find the level that is ideal for you and your particular needs.
Furthermore, it’s difficult to say what one athlete’s optimal body fat level should be. Instead, if you focus on building great aerobic function, eating well and balancing nutrition, controlling stress, and addressing other issues related to your particular needs, your body fat levels should attain their optimal level. While this may be a logical explanation, it’s not easy for many weight-conscious athletes to accept, as our society is fat-phobic and weight-obsessed.
I once had a patient named JR who was a better-than-average thirty-sevenyear-old triathlete. He was an example of what many of my patients went through. JR first came to my clinic with a recurring injury, and through careful evaluations I determined it was caused by his drifting into and out of the overtraining syndrome each year. JR’s diet was high in refined carbohydrates and low in fat and protein. With a predisposition to gaining weight easily, JR gained three to five pounds of weight each year and often had to reduce calories to control his weight. When asked about clothing sizes, JR said there was a steady increase in clothing size over recent years, especially in the waist—three inches in seven years. Among the recommendations I made to JR were to increase healthy fats and protein and improve fat burning by building more aerobic function. Over the course of the next six months, JR lost over two inches in the waist with corresponding losses all over. Not surprising to me, JR’s scale weight did not change since body fat doesn’t weigh much and as aerobic function improves it often increases muscle weight slightly. Now, with more energy, more leanness, and injury-free, JR began a long stretch of better racing.