Hi there. I’m 52 years old, have an underactive thyroid and have been Keto for about 8 months. I have been sea-rowing for over 20 years, so I’m fairly fit and strong, but have almost always been overweight.
When I began Keto last June, I felt weak and hollow-legged in training, and although this did improve towards the season’s end in September, it made me question how to manage my nutrition in the World Championships this coming May, on the Isles of Scilly.
I am back training now, and beginning to feel strong again on the ergo, but I have an over 50’s World title to defend with my team, and will also row with them in the open competition; a total of 7 races over three days. There will be two races of 3.9km, and five of 2.8km.
I have always thought that the demands on the body in Rowing are fairly high and unique, so just wondering if I’ll need to incorporate some carbs into my diet over the three days, in order to manage my nutrition optimally. Does anyone have any advice? Thanks in advance.
Keto diet and rowing world champs
I found the comments more interesting on this, one rower talks about upping her protein.
Then we have the reddit rowers screaming “don’t do it?”
Then these guys: British Rowers Break Atlantic Crossing Record on a Keto Diet?
Question is about speed or endurance and how long you have been doing ketogenic diet (like 6 months or 27 weeks) are you going to get the speed rather than endurance?
The majority of runners, if they’re eating a high-carbohydrate diet, they’re harming their health in the long term. – Professor Tim Noakes
I know that when Sami Inkinen and Meredith Loring did their record row from Califonia to Hawaii, they had high fat nutrient density that included fatty meat/fish and nuts & seeds (and maybe some berries too) for carbs/snacking. As Sami is a large/muscled person, his daily energy intake was around 5000cal. Meredith’s was around 2500.
And when Sami bonked for a day, Meredith kept on rowing, and they still broke the world record.
Their food rations were LCHF formulated by Dr. Stephen Phinney - and they ate plenty of salt too. I learned about it in the documentary about them, called Run On Fat.
Definitely worth watching. It basically tells the story about how Virta Health got founded, through Inkinen’s surprise that as an elite athlete he was still pre-diabetic, and the steps he took to understand and reverse that.