The reality? It all depends on just how he lost the weight, according to Nanci Guest, a sports nutrition expert who has worked with elite level amateur and professional athletes. If it’s the result of a low-carb or no carb diet, as has been suggested by ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst, the Cavaliers star could be setting himself up for trouble, says Guest.

“It’s unhealthy for athletes,” said Guest, a Toronto-based sport dietitian and PhD candidate studying genetics and high-performance athletes at the University of Toronto.

“There are some proponents out there that feel that if you stay on a high-fat diet long enough, that you can adapt to using fat as a primary fuel. It’s extremely risky, and more often than not, we see fatigue, we see a decrease in performance, immunity issues. Carbohydrates are an athlete’s best friend,” said Guest.

The reason? While carbohydrates might turn into extra, unwanted pounds on the body of your everyday couch potato, the body of an elite level athlete needs the energy that carbs provide.

“You look at someone like (swimmer Michael) Phelps, he’s able to go through 10,000 or 12,000 calories a day and 8,000 of those calories are purely because he’s burning them up as fuel in training. And 6,000 of that 8,000 would be carbohydrates,” said Guest. “It’s the gas in the gas tank. If you have a sport that needs less gas, you can eat less carbs, but you can’t go zero gas.”

CrushAlot wrote:This is from an article about LeBron but does raise some concerns.

The reality? It all depends on just how he lost the weight, according to Nanci Guest, a sports nutrition expert who has worked with elite level amateur and professional athletes. If it’s the result of a low-carb or no carb diet, as has been suggested by ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst, the Cavaliers star could be setting himself up for trouble, says Guest.

“It’s unhealthy for athletes,” said Guest, a Toronto-based sport dietitian and PhD candidate studying genetics and high-performance athletes at the University of Toronto.

“There are some proponents out there that feel that if you stay on a high-fat diet long enough, that you can adapt to using fat as a primary fuel. It’s extremely risky, and more often than not, we see fatigue, we see a decrease in performance, immunity issues. Carbohydrates are an athlete’s best friend,” said Guest.

The reason? While carbohydrates might turn into extra, unwanted pounds on the body of your everyday couch potato, the body of an elite level athlete needs the energy that carbs provide.

“You look at someone like (swimmer Michael) Phelps, he’s able to go through 10,000 or 12,000 calories a day and 8,000 of those calories are purely because he’s burning them up as fuel in training. And 6,000 of that 8,000 would be carbohydrates,” said Guest. “It’s the gas in the gas tank. If you have a sport that needs less gas, you can eat less carbs, but you can’t go zero gas.”

http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/2014/08/13/shrinking_lebron_james_sparks_concern.html

Los Angeles Lakers nutritionist Dr. Cate Shanahan also uses James’ low-carb lifestyle approach with her team, but she puts a different spin on it.

“The term 'low-carb diet' should really be substituted with the term 'low sugar diet,'” says Shanahan, who helped Dwight Howard reduce his carbohydrate intake and cut out candy bars. “In order for carbs to absorb into the blood stream, they turn into glucose—whole grain or not it’s going to go in as sugar.”....

Despite the possible dangers, Shanahan says that if James is successful with his low-carb approach, he “will be a monster” on the court next season. After watching athletes in the NBA, she says players’ energy fluctuations between the first and second halves are obvious, “performance plummets because the sugar burners are so pumped up on adrenaline, which drops drastically after halftime.” The best thing an athlete can do is to go through the metabolic shift induced by a low-carb diet.

“Everything that an athlete wants they can get by becoming an expert fat burner,” Shanahan says. “If he can do that, he won’t rely on adrenaline and the muscles will work much more efficiently.”

yellowboy90 wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:This is from an article about LeBron but does raise some concerns.

The reality? It all depends on just how he lost the weight, according to Nanci Guest, a sports nutrition expert who has worked with elite level amateur and professional athletes. If it’s the result of a low-carb or no carb diet, as has been suggested by ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst, the Cavaliers star could be setting himself up for trouble, says Guest.

“It’s unhealthy for athletes,” said Guest, a Toronto-based sport dietitian and PhD candidate studying genetics and high-performance athletes at the University of Toronto.

“There are some proponents out there that feel that if you stay on a high-fat diet long enough, that you can adapt to using fat as a primary fuel. It’s extremely risky, and more often than not, we see fatigue, we see a decrease in performance, immunity issues. Carbohydrates are an athlete’s best friend,” said Guest.

The reason? While carbohydrates might turn into extra, unwanted pounds on the body of your everyday couch potato, the body of an elite level athlete needs the energy that carbs provide.

“You look at someone like (swimmer Michael) Phelps, he’s able to go through 10,000 or 12,000 calories a day and 8,000 of those calories are purely because he’s burning them up as fuel in training. And 6,000 of that 8,000 would be carbohydrates,” said Guest. “It’s the gas in the gas tank. If you have a sport that needs less gas, you can eat less carbs, but you can’t go zero gas.”

http://www.thestar.com/sports/basketball/2014/08/13/shrinking_lebron_james_sparks_concern.html

http://www.si.com/edge/2014/08/11/inside-lebron-james-weight-loss-and-low-carb-diet

Los Angeles Lakers nutritionist Dr. Cate Shanahan also uses James’ low-carb lifestyle approach with her team, but she puts a different spin on it.

“The term 'low-carb diet' should really be substituted with the term 'low sugar diet,'” says Shanahan, who helped Dwight Howard reduce his carbohydrate intake and cut out candy bars. “In order for carbs to absorb into the blood stream, they turn into glucose—whole grain or not it’s going to go in as sugar.”....

Despite the possible dangers, Shanahan says that if James is successful with his low-carb approach, he “will be a monster” on the court next season. After watching athletes in the NBA, she says players’ energy fluctuations between the first and second halves are obvious, “performance plummets because the sugar burners are so pumped up on adrenaline, which drops drastically after halftime.” The best thing an athlete can do is to go through the metabolic shift induced by a low-carb diet.

“Everything that an athlete wants they can get by becoming an expert fat burner,” Shanahan says. “If he can do that, he won’t rely on adrenaline and the muscles will work much more efficiently.”