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Prof Tim Noakes - My life in sports nutrition: from high carbs to high fats

One of our expert lecturers on the highly anticipated upcoming Sports Nutrition, Training is Prof Tim Noakes. In this 3 series lecture, Prof Tim Noakes talks about “Carbohydrates or fats for exercise performance” and “My life in sports nutrition: from high carbs to high fats Part 1 and Part 2”

In his lecture, “Carbohydrates or fats for exercise performance”, Prof Noakes presents the evidence challenging the belief that muscle glycogen is the key metabolic regulator of human exercise in performance. He provides the historical and modern evidence showing that the blood glucose concentration – reflecting the liver glycogen rather than the muscle glycogen content – is the homeostatically regulated (protected) variable that drives the metabolic response to prolonged exercise.

In his two part lecture, My life in sports nutrition: from high carbs to high fats, Prof Noakes tells his own story of how he went from promoting a high carbohydrate diet to eventually promoting a high fat diet instead. 

In part one, Prof covers his carbohydrate-promoting days via a whirlwind tour of the greatest athletic achievements, and the concurrent sports-nutrition scientific literature and evolution, from the thirties through to the early 2000’s. Until the late 1960s world class athletes ate what everyone else ate – less carbohydrate, more fat and protein (they ate what the rich people ate). He notes that before the development of Bergstrom’s muscle biopsy needle in 1967, reduction in blood glucose was seen as the limiting factor in prolonged exercise. More heavy reliance on fat as fuel over time was noted. However, from 1967 with the advent of Bergstrom’s muscle biopsy technique, muscle glycogen was measurable and began to be seen as the limiting factor in prolonged exercise. This is despite evidence that more muscle glycogen use didn’t result in better performance (Karlson & Saltin, 1971). This launched the modern era of carbophilia and fatphobia.

In Part Two of this lecture, Prof Noakes covers fat adaptation and low carbohydrate diets in athletic performance. He shows the limitations and misinterpretations of studies that concluded that low carbohydrate diets are deleterious to performance. The belief that high carbohydrate diets enhance performance relies more on conjecture and belief than on rigorously conducted placebo controlled randomised controlled trials. He goes on to contrast these with studies that show no change in performance in those adapted to a low carbohydrate diet. 

As mentioned, this training includes leading experts covering other key topics in Sports, Exercise and TCR nutrition, such as

  • Prof Tim Noakes: My life in Sports Nutrition: from High Carbs to High Fats
  • Tracey McBeath: Exercise & Modern Women
  • Dr Tro Kalyjian: Low Carbohydrate Diets & Athletic Performance
  • Dr Ben Bocchiccio: Exercise as if Your Life Depended on it. Here’s Why it Does.
  • Laurie Rauch: Nourishing your Muscles
  • Holden McRae: LCHF: Metabolically Flexible for both Low and Higher Intensity Exercise
  • Andre Obradovic: How should we Exercise when we are Moving to Low Carbohydrate High Fat (LCHF) Nutrition

This highly anticipated provides flexible online learning, allowing you to become specialized in the effective implementation of body and lifestyle transformations through exercise and sports nutrition. 

This training is open to exercise and fitness professionals as well as coaches, medical and allied health professionals. The training launches end June 2022 and is currently open for enrolment at a 30% Early Bird discount, for only $230. For more information click here

We’re here to answer your questions. For more information reach out to us on [email protected] 


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