Podcast Episode #25: What Your Parents Didn’t Tell You About Metabolic Testing

Podcast episode number 25 from BenGreenfieldFitness.com welcome to the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast, your free weekly audio exposure to cutting edge fitness, nutrition and wellness information. My name is Ben Greenfield and I'm an exercise physiologist, certified personal trainer and nutritionist. Each week I'll be bringing you information that goes outside run of the mill exercise and diet advice for so whether you're an Ironman triathlete or you're just trying to lose a few pounds, enjoy this week's podcast episode from BenGreenfieldFitness.com. Hey podcast listeners, Happy holidays and welcome to the December 9th episode from Ben Greenfield. Today's episode is going to give you just a ton of information on metabolic testing, everything that your parents didn't tell you about it. I also have an interview with pro triathlete Angela Nath, who is actually the 8th place pro female at the Half Ironman Triathlon World Championships, which happened recently down in Clearwater, Florida. We're going to do a Listener Q and A on how quickly you can actually lose your fitness after you quit training. And then I have a special announcement about an event that's going to happen on Sunday, January 4th, and I'll give you all the information on that in this week's podcast episode. So sit back and look. Listen in. Unless you're one of those crazy individuals who listens to podcasts while you're biking, running, weightlifting, driving in a car, doing jumping jacks, brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, or taking care of two screaming infants. Not that I would know what that's all about. Listener Q and A so in this week's Listener Q and A, Tony from Virginia wrote me and asked, how quickly is fitness actually lost when an individual stops training? And there's a lot of research that's been done on what happens to your skeletal muscle enzymes or your VO2 max, your oxygen capacity when you stop exercising after you've been engaged in a routine for some time. But two studies in particular have been around for a while. I'm not saying that they're the best studies on the planet because they've been around a while. Sometimes old research isn't quite as good as new research, but there's one study done in 1985 called Metabolic Characteristics of Skeletal Muscle During Detraining, and this study was done on swimmers. And there's another study called Interrelationships Between Skeletal Muscle Adaptations and Performance as studied by detraining and Retraining. And that study was actually done in 1979. And what these studies looked at was VO2 max, which is tested in exercise Metabolic test that I'll actually talk about a little bit later on in this podcast. Cardiac output. So how much oxygen your heart is actually getting to your muscle tissue. Skeletal muscle capillarization, which is basically a word that indicates how well your muscles are actually saturated with vessels to deliver blood and then aerobic capacity of the extremities, particularly the arm and the leg muscles. And what was found was after about seven days of detraining the muscles, aerobic capacity declines by about 10 to 15%. And this was indicated by a drop in the activity of mitochondrial enzymes. And these are the enzymes in your cell that are responsible for taking oxygen that you breathe in and converting it to energy. And the concentration of those enzymes starts to decline as little as 48 hours after you stop exercising. That means that if you're sedentary or you sit around for two days after you stop exercising, you can begin to lose a little bit of the oxygen utilizing capacity of your cells. Now, the other thing that can change is the actual ability of your body to deliver blood to the muscle fibers. And studies observed that this decrease was around 10 to 20% within anywhere from five to 12 days after exercise stopped. And so we'd be looking at an average of just under to a little over a week, maybe almost two weeks, where you're actually going to start to see a decrease in the amount of blood that's actually delivered to your muscle. Now, some of the other things that happen during that same length of inactivity, during that 5 to 12 day period of time was there's a little bit of a decrease in cardiac output, which is how well your heart is able to actually pump blood during a maximal effort. And so your heart's not only putting out less output, but there's also less blood getting to the muscles, period. And so you're getting a little bit lower oxygen delivery, you're getting a little bit less, less metabolic activity from exercise. And if you're an athlete, for sure, a pretty significant loss in performance if you're taking a layoff of more than about five to seven days. That's not to say that there's not a place in your program for rest and for recovery. It's very necessary. But what you want to realize is that repeated bouts of inconsistent training can actually do quite a bit of damage. I don't think many people actually realize that they can start to see a decrease in their oxygen capacity after just a couple days of not training. And that's really one of the things that I make sure to do when I'm writing out training programs for the people that I work with. For example, if I'm writing out an online training program to deliver to someone, I make sure that there are rest days in there and that there are days where some of the workouts are easy and days where some of the workouts are hard. But basically it's stacked so that you can keep coming back over and over and over again to get your exercise sessions in without injuring yourself, without over training, and without experiencing a loss in activity that can cause some of these detraining adaptations to occur. So great question, Tony. And if you have a question, email me Ben greenfield fitness.com or you can simply leave a comment in the show notes for the podcast that you may have a question about, or in the blog posting that you may have a question about. And that way I will not only get a chance to respond to your question, but also some of our other listeners may be able to pipe in. So that's this week's listener Q and A. I know I promised there would be a special announcement in this podcast and so before I get to our primary content, which is going to be on exercise, metabolic testing and everything that you may not know about it, some of the more frequently asked questions that I get, I wanted to mention something that's very exciting and could be a once in a lifetime opportunity or at least a once in a year opportunity for you. I'm going to be conducting a free live 90 minute video interview and Q and A session. So basically what that means is there's going to be a link in the show notes to this podcast or of this podcast, as well as a link in all of the podcasts and blog postings@BenGreenfieldFitness.com leading up to January 4th. That's a Sunday evening, January 4th at 5pm now what's going to happen on Sunday, January 4th at 5pm and you may want to write that down, is you can simply click on the link that I'll put in these show notes and you'll be brought to a live video page where I'm going to be talking about 12 of my top fat burning secrets for 2009. This is a new year super special and you'll be able to actually interact with me via chat. So you're going to be able to type in questions, type in comments, and I'm going to be responding to those via video and it's going to be a great way to jump start your New Year's weight loss or fat loss resolutions, as well as ask any other questions that you may have about fitness or nutrition going forward into the new year. So all of the links for that are in the show notes to this episode as well as in the show notes all future episodes leading up to January 4th. So get that in your calendar. Sunday, January 4th, 5:00pm Pacific Time 90 minute live video Q and A where I'm going to present, be presenting 12 of my top fat burning secrets and then also doing a live Q and A with you. As an exercise physiologist, I receive a lot of questions about metabolic testing, and from many of those questions I kind of get the impression that some people think that it's just, for example, for elite athletes, like a VO2 max test. And really there's a lot of things about exercise metabolic testing that I think a lot of people don't know. And so I would like to go over some of of the more common questions that people have about metabolic testing. And specifically today I'm going to focus on exercise metabolic testing. Now, if you have any goals related to weight loss, muscle gain or sports performance, you're going to want to listen in to some of these questions because I guarantee that you will be an expert on exercise metabolic testing when I finish today and you're going to be able to impress all your friends at the next round of Trivial Pursuit. But seriously, this is very important information and really, it's going to be the wave of the future in terms of exercise prescription performance prescription and weight loss prescription. Exercise metabolic testing is only getting more precise and using better and more portable technology. And remember, if you have questions after this podcast, just email me ben greenfieldfitness.com and I'll be able to help elucidate anything that was difficult understanding. So basically the first question is, why should I perform an exercise metabolic test, or what's also known as a VO2 test? I'm going to differentiate between the two in a little bit, but this test does go by the name VO2 Max. Don't let that scare you away because this test does not need to be taken to the max and and I'll explain why. So why should you perform it? Basically, it shows how your body responds to stress at different levels of intensity. So once you know how your body is responding at different heart rates to different levels of exercise, you're going to know information that helps you avoid training too much, training too little. It's going to help you avoid injury due to errors in your training and it's going to help you precisely determine exactly what intensities are going to give you the most bang for your buck when you're training. And so, basically what happens is it's a gradual progression of exercise. It's called a graded exercise test. And so you would, for example, hop onto a treadmill and you would walk for three minutes at a slow pace, and then you'd walk at a slight incline for three minutes at a brisk pace. And then maybe for the final three minutes of the test, you would do a light jog. And if you wanted to take it to a VO2 max, you might even do another stage of heavy sprinting afterwards. But what happens is your body is measured using something called indirect calorimetry, where you breathe into a mask that's attached to your face, and that mask actually collects gases that you expire and oxygen that you inspire. And based off of gas exchange, the test actually tells us how many calories you burn per minute during exercise. It also tells you how many of those calories come from fat and how many come from carbohydrates, as well as at which stage during exercise, you actually utilize the maximum amount of fat, which is an indicator of the place where you're most aerobically efficient and, of course, the place where you're going to burn the most fat as a fuel. Now, if you were to go up to your VO2 max, you would also be able to measure the maximum amount of oxygen that you're exchanging or your maximum aerobic capacity. Now, that's not necessarily, and in my opinion, it just straight up isn't the most valuable piece of data that you can get out of that test. I'll be in an article in Triathlete Magazine in a few months. That's going to talk a little bit more about why VO2 Max testing really isn't all it's cut out to be. But exercise metabolic testing, which is kind of like the 85% version of a VO2 Max test, is going to give you way more information. So what's actually measured is your oxygen inspired your carbon dioxide exhaled and your heart rate. So every few seconds, there's a sampling taken on the gas that you're moving in and out of your body, and that's paired up to your heart rate. And if you're on a bike, it's matched to the wattage that you're pushing on the bike. If you're doing on a treadmill, then what we record is the speed and the incline of the treadmill. Now, some people wonder how we're actually measuring the gases that come in and out of your body, and it's actually measured through your mouth. So rest easy. There's no gases collected from anywhere other than the only orifice that we measure from is your mouth. But there's basically a mask that covers your nose and your mouth. And the mask is connected with small tubes to a gas analyzer. You wear a heart rate strap, and there's actually a transmitter on that snap that wirelessly transmits data to a computer that tells where your heart rate is at at any point during the test. So we can figure out, you know, at heart rate X, you're burning x amount of fat x amount of carbohydrates, your VO2 is at a certain volume, your carbon dioxide produces at a certain volume. And so we're able to match all these intensities up and create a unique or a customized exercise profile for you. And some of the things that we get out of that profile I'll talk about in a second. Now, another question that I get is how often should I do this test? Basically, there is going to be a lot of data that you get out of the test that's going to change if your fitness is changing. For example, if you are an athlete in training, you will find that the amount of fat and the amount of carbohydrate that you burn while you are exercising is going to increase or decrease depending on the fitness level that you're at. Now, what I recommend is for people who are doing this test to find out how many calories are burning during exercise, what their maximum fat burning heart rate zone is, and where they're going to get the most bang for the buck out of exercise. I recommend that when you start an exercise program, you have this test performed when your fitness begins to improve. And that's usually about anywhere from four to eight weeks, get the test again, and then going forward, look at repeating this test anywhere from every two to every four months so that you can track improvements in your fitness, so that you can track changes in your heart rate and how many calories you're actually utilizing at each heart rate, and so that you can basically stay on top of the game in terms of knowing exactly what's going on inside your body during exercise. Now, if you're an athlete, I recommend that if you're doing what's called a periodization program, where you're changing up your training program as the season progresses, get the test done in the off season, get it done right before you begin, what's Typically called your base or your period of higher intensity volume training. Or I'm sorry, not higher intensity but higher volume training. Get it done at the end of your base before you begin what's usually called your build or Your typically like 8 to a 12 week lead up to a race. And then also get it just sometime during the taper of that race when you're actually going to see some changes in the way that your heart rate responds to exercise. And what you can actually do is figure out exactly how many calories you should be taking in during the actual event, as well as what heart rates you need to adhere to during the event. And we'll also talk about that in just a second. When can you get the test? Basically, you can do this test at any time, but it's best to perform it during a week or during a set of days where you haven't been exercising heavily. Because if you're inadequately recovered from exercise, sometimes what happens is muscular fatigue occurs before cardiovascular fatigue occurs if you're doing a VO2 max test. In addition, if you have not been fueling properly or you've been training very heavily, what you're going to find is that your heart rate does not really accurately reflect where it's going to be if you weren't exercising as heavily. So I recommend that you get it after a couple days of rest or even more ideally during a rest week. And when I say rest, I don't mean being completely sedentary and sitting on the couch. I just mean during a week where you're not doing a lot of high intensity exercise that's damaging to your body, like heavy weight lifting and hill sprints and things of that nature. Now, in terms of how fit you need to be before doing the test, one of the things I notice people trying to do is they wait until they're fit to get the test done. Don't do that, because this test is going to allow you to become fit or to lose fat or to gain performance as quickly as possible. And that's kind of like waiting until you're starving to eat. It's just not the ideal way to treat your body. So do this as a baseline to figure out the best way that you should train the heart rates that you should train and the intensity at which you should train to get as fit as possible. And so don't say, I'm going to get my exercise metabolic test after I've done two months or three months of training. Get it right off the bat so that you know how you should Be training. So how does an exercise metabolic test help you manage your weight? Well, basically what we're looking at when you get the test is how many calories that you burn at different intensities and how many of those calories come from fat, how many of those calories come from carbohydrate. So once you know how many calories that you're burning during exercise, you get a very clear picture of how many calories you should be eating during the day. Now granted, you should also know how many calories you're burning while you're resting so that you can put that together with your exercise metabolic data to get a clear picture of fueling needs. And that returns to the resting metabolic test, which is basically a much less complex than the exercise metabolic test and simply tells you how many calories you're burning at rest. But if you have your exercise metabolic test and your resting metabolic test info, you know exactly how many calories you're burning on any given day. And the fact of the matter is that heart rate monitors are typically pretty erroneous at telling you how many calories that you're burning. I do not recommend relying on those for a picture of caloric utilization. The exercise metabolic test is going to be be much more customized to what's going on in your body. And so what I recommend to people, once you get the test done and once you know the maximum rate of fat burning or the heart rate at which the maximum rate of fat burning occurs, do some exercise at your maximum fat burning heart rate. Now you're also going to find out where your anaerobic threshold is or where you start to breathe hard. Now typically that's the heart rate at which you're going to get a lot of benefit out of interval training or higher intensity cardiovascular training. So let's say that you find out that your fat burning heart rate occurs at 120 and your ventilatory threshold or your anaerobic threshold occurs at a heart rate of 145. Well, you could, for example, for a half hour on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, do fat burning efforts, long, slow, 30 minute fat burning efforts at your fat burning heart rate. And then on, for example, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, do interval training, like five minutes on, two and a half minutes off up at that heart rate of 145. And that's a way that you can train your body to increase metabolism and to increase oxygen consumption. At the same time, burn through good amounts of fat during training because that fat burning heart rate can teach your body how to utilize fat very efficiently. Now, if you are an athlete, you would use that fat burning heart rate as your aerobic efficiency heart rate. You use that heart rate to basically exercise for long periods of time without bonking or without hitting the wall, or without needing huge amounts of carbohydrate as a fuel. And you would of course, be able to use that anaerobic threshold heart rate and take certain percentages of that. And this is what we do is we design a customized zone training chart for you based off those heart rates. So to give you an example of how that works, when I compete in Ironman Triathlon, what I'll do is take the heart rate at which I burn the most fat, my aerobic threshold heart rate. For example, on the bicycle, for me, that occurs at a heart rate of 141. And I try and keep my heart rate within three to five beats of 141. And I also take my anaerobic threshold heart rate, or the heart rate at which I begin to utilize large amounts of carbohydrate as a fuel. And I start to breathe hard. And what I do with that heart rate is I try not to exceed that heart rate at any given point. Because once you start to burn large amounts of carbohydrate as a fuel, it's hard for your body to return to utilizing fat as a primary fuel source. So it's a good way to run out of energy quickly during a long exercise session. So I try and avoid that heart rate until I'm getting towards the end of a distance based triathlon. So we'll get into that anaerobic threshold, aerobic threshold a little bit more here in a couple minutes. But the equipment that we use, I get a question about what kind of equipment that we use. We use something called a VO 2000, and it's the same equipment that's used by many hospitals for clinical exercise. It's used by the Olympic training centers, it's used by most of the sports performance training centers in the US and then we use, at my facility, we use a computrainer based system for bicycle testing and a treadmill for exercise testing. And you do wear a mask during this test. And some of the things that you need to be aware of is that it can be a little bit claustrophobic inside that mask, even though you're getting just as much air as you would if you weren't using the mask. And so what I recommend to people and what we do is I allow you to wear the mask for a little while before we actually begin the test so that you can see how it works. If you get this test done in your town, wherever you're at, make sure you're aware that there is a mask that you have to wear. So why shouldn't you actually do a VO2 max test? Well, basically, all a VO2 max test tells you is your maximum aerobic power, your maximum aerobic capacity. So you would do this test if you wanted to find out if genetically you were predisposed to being a very good endurance athlete or if you were predisposed to consuming large, large amounts of oxygen. You could also do this test if you wanted to use it as a baseline for tracking your maximum level of fitness. But it really doesn't give you much practical data that you can utilize, other than basically a number that you, you can brag about. Now, what I recommend instead is that you do the exercise metabolic test, which goes up to about 75% of VO2 max. Actually, I'm sorry, it goes up to about 85% of VO2 max. And what you find out is your fat burning heart rate zone that I just talked about. And so you know your aerobic threshold or, or the point at which you need to do your long, slow type of training. And then you also find that your anaerobic threshold, your ventilatory threshold, where you start to breathe hard, where you start to utilize more carbohydrate as a fuel. And interestingly, that is also very, very close to what's commonly called the lactate threshold, the blood lactate threshold, which is measured via the blood and during the exercise metabolic test, you can get pretty close to finding out what your lactate threshold is. And when you're creating zones, which means that you're taking certain percentages of those heart rates to figure out where you need to be training or give you guidelines for where you need to be training during exercise. When you're using zones, typically you're not going to use zones that are based off your VO2 max heart rate. You're going to use zones that are based off your lactate threshold heart rate or your anaerobic threshold heart rate. So VO2 max data doesn't give you that much other than your peak fitness. And in people that I'm working with for weight loss, I don't do the VO2 Max test quite as much. I rely more on the exercise metabolic test. I'll use the VO2 Max test a little more often in athletes. But even if you're an athlete and you're getting this test done, realize that the information that you get at about the 85% mark is really the most valuable. And VO2 Max is just a fraction of what you can actually find out during an exercise metabolic test. How long does the test take? You're looking at exercising for anywhere from about 10 to 20 minutes. Typically, most people are going to reach 85% of their exercise capacity during a graded exercise test within that 10 to 20 minute time. Sometimes, if you want to take it to VO2 max, it can last just a little bit longer than that. I've seen people go, well, I did do a test on an Olympic Kenyan marathoner and he was on the treadmill forever. We had that thing almost maxed out. But for the most part, an exercise metabolic test is not a difficult test. Most people can exercise up to about 85% capacity and recover quite quickly and feel fine. So it's not a long test and you don't actually have to slate two, three hours out of your schedule to have it done. Now, some people ask me, I just mentioned about blood lactate versus anaerobic threshold. Some people ask me what the difference is. Well, the only difference is, is that anaerobic threshold, which is synonymous with ventilatory threshold, the two words mean the same thing. Basically, that looks at your cardiovascular output, I'm sorry, your pulmonary, the output from your lungs to measure where you start to breathe hard, where you start to blow off a lot of carbon dioxide. Now, blood lactate testing tests your lactate levels in your blood to figure out when they start to peak, when your muscles start to build up lactic acid faster than it can be removed. Now, what happens is when the lactic acid is formed in your muscles, it ends up getting converted into hydrogen ions. And those hydrogen ions eventually will get converted via a series of reactions into CO2. So when you start to breath off a lot of CO2, it's very, very close to the heart rate at which you start to produce a buildup of blood lactate. And so you're going to be able to find out a pretty close approximation of your lactate threshold when you do an exercise metabolic test. Now, why would this number be important? Because for weight loss, it lets you get fit as quickly as possible doing your interval training at this anaerobic threshold. So you bump up your metabolism very, very efficiently using this number for athletes, you get a lot of bang for your buck in terms of an improvement in your fitness when you're working out at your anaerobic threshold. Alright, your lactate threshold. Now, the other value that I mentioned in addition to that anaerobic threshold was the aerobic threshold or the fat burning zone. And basically the way that it works is when you're sitting around doing absolutely nothing, your body's using primarily fat as a fuel. And when you start to exercise, you begin to use sugar as a fuel. And, and up to a certain point you're using a mixture of fat and sugar or mixture of fat and carbohydrate. Well, there's a certain heart rate at which you're burning x amount of fat calories. And even though you might not be burning like 100% fat, which is what you would do at rest, you're burning far, far more fat than you would at rest. And that's basically your maximum fat burning zone. So I might burn 75% calories of fat at a heart rate of 120, and that might turn out to be 800 calories total of fat per hour. Once I know that I can use that as my efficiency zone, if I'm trying to lose weight, I can perform exercise sessions in that zone. And if I'm trying to last as long as possible, I'm for example, riding a bike, I can stay in that zone. That's the maximum rate of fat burning. You don't want to do all your exercising at that zone because that's not the maximum calorie burning zone, Remember, it's just the maximum fat burning zone. And so you might burn more calories and you might get a better fitness effect at higher intensities. But at that maximum fat burning zone, you're definitely at an important intensity to teach your body how to utilize fat as a fuel and also to engage in long bouts of endurance based exercise. Because you gotta realize carbohydrate or sugar, glucose, that stuff's finite. The biggest person usually has about maybe 2,500 calories of carbohydrate as a fuel source, whereas that same person would have 35,000 to 40,000 calories of fat as a fuel. And so if you're trying to exercise for a long time, like if you're an athlete, you just can't rely on carbohydrates as a fuel source. You have to figure out when you're burning a lot of fat. Some people ask me whether their values, whether the heart rate zones that get created for them, if they're the same when they're cycling versus when they're running, and typically the answer is no. Usually cycling, because it's very efficient, is going to have a lower heart rate training zone profile. Than running, which is typically inefficient. Anybody who has ridden their bicycle to the grocery store versus running to the grocery store knows that riding the bike is typically a lot easier to do. Nobody is as efficient running as they are riding a bike, assuming that they're set up properly on their bike. And so cycling just results in lower heart rates across the board, typically. So the issue with just creating training zones based on max heart rate. So what's wrong with using training zones based on your max heart rate? Well, if you're using your true maximum heart rate, you could probably get away with it. The problem is that most people don't test their true maximum heart rate. They use the number 220 minus age, which is the estimation for maximum heart rate. And only about 5 to 10% of people actually fall into a range that is accurate when they use that value or that equation for determining their maximum heart rate. You take me, for example, If I take 220 minus my age, that would result in a heart rate. I know I'm going to give away my age here. For anybody who can do math of 194, in reality, I can't get my heart rate much higher than about 185, period. I would not be able to get up to 194 if I had a gun held to my head. Maximum heart rate can be pretty erroneous if you're estimating it. Whereas the heart rates that you get during exercise metabolic testing are very precise and very spot on. And they tell you exactly where your customized heart rate training zones are. If you're gonna actually find out your true maximum heart rate, good luck. Have fun with that. It's a pretty tough test to do, but you could do it. I would recommend just doing the exercise metabolic test and taking your heart rate zones based off of your anaerobic threshold. Because remember, these zones are gonna change throughout the training year. And just ask yourself, you know, how often do you actually want to do a maximum heart rate test? Not the funnest test on the planet. And then finally, as I hope that you would suspect after this little talk that I've given, if you're not an athlete or you just exercise for fun or for general fitness, is this test irrelevant? Absolutely not. This test is for anyone who has any type of goals that are related to fat loss, weight loss, increasing metabolism, or increasing cardiovascular fitness. I would say that if you're going to be a, let's say for example, a bodybuilder who's putting on a large amount of lean muscle mass. You may not necessarily need to do an exercise metabolic test because you might not be doing a lot of cardiovascular exercise. But if, if your program involves cardiovascular exercise or involves anything having to do with nutrition or calorie intake, then this test could come in handy. I just realized I was talking about bodybuilding and having been a bodybuilder myself in the past. There are some times when you need to know exactly how many calories you're burning during exercise so that you can strip fat off your body especially quickly as possible. And this test would actually be very, very good for something like that. And so exercise metabolic testing across the board, in my opinion, is one of the gold standard tests for anybody who has any type of fitness related goals. It's not a very hard test to do. It's quick, it's about 15 to 20 minutes in most cases. It's very affordable. At my facility, we do it for anywhere between 100 and $125. The maximum I've ever seen for this test is $300. And if you think about how many hours you're going to spend exercising, well worth your time. I mean, that's about the cost of one to two personal training sessions and it can definitely give you a lot of information. So again, if you have questions about exercise metabolic testing, shoot me an email BenGreenfieldFitness.com or leave a comment in the show notes for this podcast episode. I know I talked for a little while there, but hopefully you took some things away from that that give you a little bit better understanding of exercise metabolic testing. So let's go ahead and move on to this week's interview with pro triathlete Angela Nath.

Hey, podcast listeners, this is Ben Greenfield. And on the other line, I have one of the top 10 and I believe it was the Angela, was it the number 8 or the number 7 performance at the World Half Ironman Championships in Florida?

It was eight.

Number eight. Okay, so she was top eight at world 70.3s. Angela has been a pro for not too long and I'll have her talk about that a little bit. But pro triathlete Angela Nath, originally from Canada, on the other line. How are you doing today, Angela?

I'm doing great. How about you?

Good, good. Thanks for coming on the show. I know there's a lot of people that like to hear what the pro triathletes are doing and how they're doing what they're doing, but I want to kind of hear a rundown of World 70.3. So you got 8th. 8th in the world for half ironman. How do you feel about that performance overall?

I feel it was a really good experience. I went down there as a rookie pro, so I wasn't really knowing what to expect.

And how long have you been a pro?

This is my first year. So my coach, Chuckie V. And I, we just decided to go down and just try to gain as much experience as possible. We weren't really expecting anything and just to go out there and go as hard as I could. So overall, it was great. The swim was tough for me. It's kind of my low point in all my three aspects of the swim. Bike run. But the bike was great. I did most of it on all by myself. And then one thing I really found out was throughout the whole course, it was really hard. Well, you could see a lot of drafting going on, even in the age groupers and the pros.

No.

And I found that kind of frustrating because that's one of my strongest points and events. So whenever I caught up with a group, I'd pass, so I wouldn't be able to get someone behind my wheel. But that was definitely something that was part of the race and the run. It was a tough run. There was a huge hill, so we had to go over twice.

They have hills in Florida?

Yeah, there is one. It was surprising, actually. And my whole goal was just to go as hard as I could. And when I did the first lap, found out I was just around top 10 then, and I thought, okay, I can keep on going. But then I got a second gear and got eight, so it was good.

Nice. And for people who maybe aren't familiar with that venue down there, you know, Angela's talking a little bit about the drafting. That's a world championship race. They get a lot of people that are leaving in different waves, and that course seems to get kind of congested, and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of referees out there marshalling it.

Yeah, no, actually, it was quite amazing. When I was on the run, you could see a lot of age groupers coming in in packs of 20 and 30. The whole course itself is very flat, so it's a very fast course, but it's very easy to get on behind someone. And. And the whole time I was out there, I didn't see one ref at all.

And I know that can be a frustrating experience, especially when you see so many people getting away with something that you work hard for. But what does your schedule look like this year? Are you primarily doing half ironman again?

Yeah, I'm going to focus more on Half Ironman events again this year. That's kind of my main goal is to race a lot of the 70.3 races and of course the Wildflower Triathlon and then from there just kind of take it each month. I may do some Olympics possibly here and there, but we are going to focus on the half.

So we cover on the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast quite a bit of nutrition. For someone who is doing as much to their body every day as you are. And that's something we'll talk about in just a second. But how closely do you actually monitor your nutrition?

I wouldn't say I monitor my nutrition at all really. I do pay attention to what I put in my body, but on a daily basis. I don't technically write it all down or try to decipher how much percentage of carbs and proteins and fats I have. But what is a very easy way for me to kind of monitor it is just to make sure that I'm eating a lot of raw fresh fruit and veggies and a lot of just kind of like the caveman style approach to. So if I were to go into a grocery store, I wouldn't really go down the aisles a lot. I would just stay on the outskirts and just kind of pick and match the food from there.

Can you kind of walk me through let's say a typical day that's not like a rest day for you. What would a typical day of fueling look like? Like what's some examples of what you would have for breakfast or snacking or lunch?

Okay. In the mornings usually before say swim practice or not. I have a few standard process bars there a nutritional supplement company that provide a really good bar. That's a 40, 30, 30 ratio.

That's 40 carb, 30 protein, 30 fat. And it's made by a company called Standard process.

Yeah, it's standardprocessed.com and so people can look at it there. Otherwise I would have some fruit, some nuts, just something to put in meat basically before the swim practice. But usually fat is a big one I always have in almost every meal.

Usually fat.

Yeah, like in terms of any types of seeds and nuts. And then after swimming it's usually some type of protein and veggies that we try to get in. So say eggs and, and a bunch of cut up veggies like an omelet or something and more fruits and vegetables. Basically I'm a grazer. So I don't technically have a breakfast, lunch and dinner. I Just kind of eat when I'm hungry. So sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes that's a bad thing because sometimes you just eat too much, I would think because you just eat out of boredom. So I try to think of it more of an energy source. So basically a lot of my snacks include almond butters and any type of apples. I eat probably three or four apples a day and also coconut.

Now you're eating a lot of fruit. Do you ever differentiate organic versus non organic fruit or do you wash your fruit in a specific way?

No.

Well, I would if I had the money. But basically if I had the money, I would definitely buy organic. I feel they taste a lot better and I kind of know that it's better.

Well, one of the things that I do personally and that I tell a lot of my clients to do is you can buy the non organic fruits. But anything where you're eating the skin, sometimes it can help to remove A lot of the herbicides and pesticides and things that can end up on the exterior of the fruit is when you buy it and you bring it home, you put it in the sink and you just let it sit with about a quarter to a half cup of vinegar in the sink for about five minutes. Then you rinse it off, you throw it in the fridge and that oftentimes will remove a lot of the residue on the outside. But you were saying that you have coconut.

Yeah, actually I've read a lot about coconut itself. And when I was back in high school, I went to a naturopathic doctor and he was big time into coconut oil. And back then he wanted me to take like three or four tablespoons a day. During that time, my wife, I thought that was crazy and I was really kind of against fat and couldn't really eat it that way. But now I'm trying to come around to it. I actually buy coconuts now and dried coconut just because I like the texture. But I've just read a lot about it, that it helps with metabolism. It is high in saturated fat, but it's a good. If you can read about it online. I believe there's a ton of websites out there in regards to it. In my head, I don't really have it all here with me, but I know it's very beneficial.

Yeah, it makes sense. It's actually something that we talked about in a special that we did a few weeks ago on hypothyroidism and medium chain triglycerides. You know thethe medium chain triglycerides a lot of times those will be called mcts and you'll see them in a lot of sports supplements. But yeah, coconut is one of the raw, natural sources of something like that. And just like you say, yeah, it's chock full of fat, but your body processes it pretty well for energy. So when you're actually racing or when you're training, do you follow certain nutrition protocols or are you someone who pays close attention to, say, liquid food versus solid food? Do you eat real food versus supplements or is there something special that you do during your training and your racing?

Not technically. I try to keep it simple because when you're traveling, you want to be able to have access to your food that you're going to have on race day and prior to race day. Usually the day before the race is when I actually have a lot of rice and some good quality fats and protein is kind of my main meal. I kind of cut it down at night, but I try not to have a lot of fiber foods like apples and bananas and stuff.

You're eating five apples a day or did you say five a day?

Yeah, well, sometimes it depends.

But before a race you try and taper that off.

Yeah, basically the day before the race, maybe the night. Two days before the race, I try not to have a lot of vegetables and fruit just because of the fiber. But on the day before, I do kind of chalk up on some type of rice dish. Usually is what works for me. And then the day of the race, the morning meal, I usually just eat bars. It could be anything from, again, my standard processed bars. They're really digestible and easy to eat at that time. Or just any of your standard sports bars just to get some extra carbs in. Me, I try to eat roughly around 800 calories prior to the race.

About how many hours before the race?

I have a pretty good stomach, so I usually have it about two hours before and then about 15 minutes before the swim. I usually try to get in a gel just to kind of top myself up. And then during the race, basically on the bike, I have a bottle of gel in a water bottle, so maybe four or five gels I think. And then if I need it on the race course, I'll grab a Gatorade, but it's usually water. But I do start with Gatorade or some type of powdered stuff in my bottles just to kind of give me that energy. And then usually on the run, I actually take Coke. On the run I have two small bottles I usually buy and you can get them anywhere from the grocery store. They're just small plastic bottles and they're throw away bottles and I just put D Fizz Coke in them and sip on that until they're gone.

And then basically how big are these bottles that you're getting at the grocery store? Are these things that you carry like in a fuel belt or are they in your hands? No.

They'Re actually in my hands. How many ounces? Gosh, I'm not sure.

Like if you were to take the size of say like one of the smaller, you know, 12 ounce water bottles.

Yeah, I believe it's about 8 ounces each.

So pretty.

So I have. Yeah, so 16 ounces total of D Fizz Oak. And usually that takes me throughout the whole run and up to like say mile 10. And by then I'm kind of running on fumes anyway. So if I need it I'll take a gel or Gatorade or Coke or whatever is on the race course and that's pretty much it. So it's not too special, but it works.

You were saying that down at worlds you felt like you could have come out of the water a little bit better. And the word on the street right now is that you're doing an insane amount of swimming to become a better swimmer for 2017. What are you doing for swimming in terms of yardage or in terms of meters at this point? What's the plan?

Well, the plan is just to try to get in a lot of swimming. My coach is really into strength. I mean length before strength and strength before speed. So right now we're just trying to get in as many hours as we can in the water. Last week was a big mileage week. We just started actually and I got 52,000 yards in or so.

52,000 yards in one week?

Yeah, yeah, it was pretty crazy and so it was good. But this week is now kind of a recovery, kind of absorb that. And then next week we'll go back into hopefully another 50k set, but hopefully 50,000 meters instead of 50k is the goal. And then there'll be Christmas, there'll be kind of a down, so kind of up and down for a while, but just to see what will happen to my swimming times and when we do testing and stuff just to see where is it at. So if it's getting better then we may continue, we may stop. It all depends on a day to day basis. But for now those are our typical goals that we're going to hold for at least December and probably January.

For our listeners who are perhaps swimming 2,000 to 3,000 meters a few days out of the week. Could you put 52,000 yards into perspective in terms of what a typical swim.

Workout might look like for you?

Yeah, usually it's about 5 or 6,000 yards, but mostly typically 5,000 yards in about an hour and a half. I usually do 1000 warm up and that is a mix of freestyle and back and breath. And then from there either some pulling or we have an actual set that's at base pace and it could be broken 1,000, say 4,000, 321 or 300. It's just a variety of kind of base paced stuff. But a lot of the forming right now is just long and slow and really working on form. Not so much slow that I'm kind of just doggy paddling, but just basically working on specific areas of my stroke that need help. We do a lot of kicking backstroke as well, just for the strength of it and a lot of IM kind of mixed in or we just try to mix it up so that I don't get bored in there. And then certain times of the week some of the base pace sets are a bit tough. Just to try to see if my speed is still there.

Is your hair turning white yet from all that chlorine?

Not yet, it's still brown. I look like blonde hair though, so maybe it will help.

Yeah, just ditch the swim cap and that could happen.

Yeah, exactly.

Cheap highlights.

So in five years, you know, you're a pro triathlete and obviously you're pretty serious about this sport, but what would be one of your top goals in the sport in the next five years?

Top goals? Well, basically in five years I'll be 31, so it'll kind of be just hitting my stride then where I kind of. We have all this kind of base building, strength work kind of laid down and hopefully at that time I'll be able to win some halves and possibly get into doing some IMs. I like a full Ironman, so hopefully racing, you know, being a contingent racer for a lot of the top races all over America, I would like to travel outside of the country for sure. But that's also to do with financial stuff too. So we'll kind of see where that goes.

Yeah, absolutely. But in terms of half ironman, rookie year, first year as a triathlete, number eight at World championships, should see some exciting things down the road. Where can people find out more about you, Angela?

I do have a blog, it's my name. Angelanaith.blogspot.com and it's a N G E L A. The last name is Anna's. Nancy. A, E T H. And then also my coach has a good blog. He writes a lot about his athlet on there. And it's chuckyv.blogspot.com fantastic.

And we'll put a link to both those blogs in the show notes. As a matter of fact, Chucky V's blog is one that I visit from time to time and he's got some fantastic stuff on there as well. Angela, I want to thank you for coming on the show. We look forward to tracking your success over the 2009 race season. And have a great day today. You're probably, what, headed to the pool for a swim, probably out for a.

Nice warm bike ride. It's beautiful here. It's going to be high as 70 degrees, so it'll be nice.

It's about 12 here.

Yeah.

All right, well, I'll catch you, Angela. Thanks. Take care.

So that's this week's content from the BenGreenfieldFitness.com podcast podcast. Remember, you can still get $10 off a gym stick, my favorite portable exercise tool, by using the discount code holiday. That's H O L I D A Y. When you order a gym stick@bengreenfieldfitness.com just do a search for gym stick in the little search bar in the upper right hand corner. Also, remember to leave us a ranking an iTunes. That would be fantastic if you could do that. Get the word out about the podcast and I'll put a link to that in this week's show notes. I'll also put a link to everything that I mentioned in the show notes for the podcast. Remember, also, there are some great articles coming out in the newsletter from BenGreenfieldFitness.com that aren't appearing anywhere in the blog in the podcast. And so you can only get those access to those newsletters by subscribing to the newsletter on the website. Remember, if you have questions about coaching or training, I do quite a bit of that and I even do it online with people from all over the world. I run a website that you can visit called pacificfit.net and that gives you quite a bit more information about what I do as a coach and as a trainer. And remember, the 90 minute super special on my top 12 fat burning secrets for 2009 is on January 1st 4th Sunday at 5pm hey, until next week, this is Ben Greenfield signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com.