00:03
Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia. This week on the podcast, I speak to Marco Altini. He's a data scientist, athlete, and founder of HRV4Training. This time, because of course I've had Marco on the podcast before talking all about HRV, we dive into his personal and professional exploration into periodised nutrition.

00:30
Marco is known for his evidence-based insights into heart variability and training readiness. He's recently turned the lens inwards, experimenting with how varying his fueling strategies around training intensity and adaptation goals can impact performance and recovery. So Marco is training for a 100k race that is taking place mid-May in Italy. And in this conversation, we dive into what led Marco to shift from a

00:58
pretty rigid data driven approach to one that embraces flexibility, intuition and physiological feedback. He's no stranger to that last one. We talk about the science behind carb periodization, the mindset shifts required to break free from high carb by default, and how this approach might offer not just better results, but a more sustainable relationship with training. Whether you're a high performing athlete or a time poor weekend warrior,

01:26
Marco shares insights that might just change the way you think about fueling. Albeit, if you're listening to this podcast, you might already be down that road anyway. So hopefully this just gives you more insights. So for those of you unfamiliar with Marco, he is a data scientist, researcher and endurance athlete, best known as a founder for HRV for training. It's a leading app for heart rate variability monitoring and training readiness.

01:52
With PhD in applied machine learning and degrees in both computer science and human movement sciences, blends cutting-edge data analytics with practical insights for athletes and coaches. His work has been published in peer-reviewed journals and he's a frequent voice in the endurance and sports science communities. Through his own training and experimentation, Marco explores the integration of physiological data

02:17
for HRV, resting heart rate, and glucose monitoring with periodised nutrition and recovery strategies. His mission is to help others train smarter, recover better, and build a more sustainable, intuitive relationship with performance. So I will pop a link to HRV for training, to Marco Alteni's sub-stack where you'll find a wealth of information on all things training, nutrition, and of course, HRV.

02:44
I'll pop them in the show notes along with that previous episode. So before we crack on into the interview though, I would like to remind you that the best way to support this podcast is to hit the subscribe button on your favourite podcast listening platform. That increases the visibility of Micopedia and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts out there. So more people get the opportunity to hear from the experts that I have on the show like Marco. Alright team, enjoy the conversation.

03:15
Thank you so much for taking the time this evening to check to me about your, I suppose, your thoughts around your nutrition approach, how you're doing things differently and what you think or what you've learned, but also what maybe others could learn just from your experience, know, N equals one, you're investigating this. I was just asking you about Dan Plews and you've known him, as you've just told me, for maybe 10 years. Was he the impetus for you to

03:45
shift your nutrition for this race or was there something else that made you think, you know what, I want, maybe want to do something different. And also actually tell the listeners what you are doing. Let's start there. Yeah, for sure. Well, what I'm doing is periodizing nutrition, I'll say quite heavily, but still that will mean that there are days that I eat higher carb and there are days that I eat lower carb and that depends.

04:12
I would say at this point, basically entirely on the demands of training. So if there is a high intensity session, I will take care of fueling with more carbon rates. If I'm doing lower intensity sessions or even longer runs that are at lower intensity, typically I try to maintain a lower carb approach. And that is with the idea that we can discuss also later in the context of.

04:39
improving metabolic flexibility and basically fat oxidation across the board. And speaking of Dan, well, Dan has been talking about this for a long time, right? So I think at the beginning, I don't know, I was maybe too culturally biased to being an Italian. That for me was unthinkable actually to do this.

05:03
Maybe because I always thought that the approach was more low carb than what I'm doing or that what periodized nutrition is. But I think there's a bit of a misconception there. And that was for me and maybe also for others that people think that these approaches are really low carb and you cannot eat carbs and things like that. But this is not a keto diet. It's not strict. There is actually no food that is going to be excluded by your diet. It's more about when you have it. I think that is really key.

05:32
And then as I was maybe solding or even going backwards with performance after improving for many years in the past six, eight months, it hasn't been going well. And then I thought, okay, let's try something different. And then, you you read more and then I read more of Dan's work and also the publications that he wrote on the topic. They're quite insightful also in terms of...

05:59
differences between training fasted or training simply with no workouts, but still eating and all sorts of things that we could talk about. But then I thought, okay, let's give this a try. And I wanted also to change a bit my body composition. And so I thought, okay, let's do this whole thing. We focused for a while also on body composition. And then later we only focused on macronutrients basically. So I'm periodizing intake and see how my body responds.

06:27
how our training goes, if I can make another breakthrough and do a bit better in the events I care about, which typically are quite long. So from the marathon to a hundred kilometers normally. Yeah. It's super interesting. Even the way that you sort of opened it up Marco by saying on days with higher intensity, I'll eat more carbs and on days with low intensity, like

06:49
It almost seems like that should just be common sense. As I'm listening to it, like, yeah, that just sort of makes sense to me. But of course, I have a bias towards this approach. Another comment also is your sort of belief that it was always low carb when you were sort of listening to the likes of Dan and maybe Dr. Paul Lawson and things like that. And I do think that, like me, they've also evolved their thinking too. So possibly when they were sort of

07:19
in the thick of it, they were also fairly low carb and probably stayed quite, or at least I know that Dr Lawson certainly sort of low carb. I think probably understanding has just changed over the last 10 years as they've done more research and other groups have as well. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So there is an evolved understanding of the topic. I also think that sometimes when you focus on something that is not

07:48
just eating iCarb all the time every minute of your life. And then the other narrative is that then you end up maybe speaking more about the lower carb side of things and then people interpret it as that is the only thing. It's happening to me also now. Like I talk about paradise nutrition and people come to me like, yeah, I'm a lower carb. Then you're not worried about your top hand and the first things I'm like.

08:14
No, that is not periodized. Periodized, you still eat carbs, it's just about the timing. it's easy to get lost, but the nuance there is really important. Yeah. How old are you, Marco? I am 41 this year. Okay. Because there are lot of athletes who probably reach a similar conclusion to what you did last year, like with your, you just mentioned that your training was going that good and you sort of wanted to improve your body composition.

08:43
And I wonder how much of you thought, is this just it now? Have I just sort of reached my peak and it's a slow decline? Yeah, well, you you always have that thought. You make progress and start to put in your stall and it's like, you know, I'm certainly not 20 anymore. So is it aging or is it something else? I think there's, especially for people that start a bit late, like myself, think there is more room to keep improving. I think while in our forties, for sure.

09:11
Yeah, yeah, nice one. with yours, you're doing a one, what is the name of the race that you're doing in May? All right, so it's called 100 Kilometers del Passatore and it's a race in Italy that goes from downtown Florence to Saenza, which is a city 100 kilometres away. It's point to point across the small mountains of Italy. yeah, quite a beautiful scenery, but you know, it's a long race, it can be hot. So there are a few challenges there.

09:40
Yeah, yeah. And what's the vert Marco? It's about 1400 meters. So it's all rolling hills, meaning, you you never really run flat, but it's, it's all runnable as well. It's not a in the mountain, it's all asphalt. So it can be also fast race if you're trained for the course. So Marco, when you sort of decided to embark on this dietary shift, were there others that you had to consider? Like people you

10:10
cook for or that you eat with or you like pretty much you're pretty like you just are able to do what you want to do. Like what was, did anyone have a response or a reaction to you making this change? Yeah, that's a great question because from a practical point of view, it has its challenges, right? So you start to think a lot more about food and those are types of food that you want.

10:37
so to speak, can or cannot eat on certain given days. And then of course, have a partner, we typically share our meals also because we work from home. So we have our business and as such, I mean, that is nice. It gives us flexibility, but also everything needs to fit in place also with nutrition and cooking and everything. So at the first week or two, I was doing my thing and she was observing.

11:07
And then after a while she thought, Oh, maybe I also want to do this because she also trains actually for the same race. So we do a lot of things together in training. So she's also an ultra runner and she's like, okay, let's, let's see if we can also prioritize my nutrition and do that. And of course that made it easier, um, at the beginning because we could cook similar things. other thing you need to align though is also training because at that point it's not like, you know, you go vegetarian and it's like, okay, you just don't.

11:36
you know, eat meat and fish and things like that. But if you go periodized nutrition, then you also need to do like your intervals on the same day and things like that. Otherwise, you know, the day that you have carbs, it should be the same for both. So from that point of view, I had adjusted my own training because she's coached by a coach while I am self-coach. So I thought, okay, I will just switch my things and then we made it work. So now it's been maybe three months that we've been doing this. So I think we have a good setup.

12:06
But it took a bit of, you know, back and forth at the beginning. Yeah. And how is she responding to it? Yeah, I would say similarly to me, we don't have the same data. So I was able to go to the lab while she wasn't basically available those days. So we don't have the actual physiological data, unfortunately. But in terms of how she feels and in terms of how she feels also during training, I think she reports similar feelings.

12:35
mind, meaning that you less fuel also during longer runs and you still feel that you have the energy to perform well. High performance is also, I would say maybe similarly to what I had before, stalling a bit in the previous months, I think like that. She's also started picking things up again and getting a bit quicker and also the longer runs are doing better. So I think we had a similar.

13:01
a similar response to the periodization. Still, we take care to eat enough calories and to eat what we think is the right fuel at the right time, as Dan would say. Yeah, nice one. So, Michael, can you sort of talk us through, because I mean, a lot of people listening will be really familiar with what periodized nutrition is. And of course, you've mentioned like, know, high days, low days. What are the benefits of this?

13:30
for you and maybe other athletes? Yeah, I would say from a metabolic perspective, strictly speaking about training and performance, the main motivation for me is to really go into this and to be also maybe quite strict. And at the beginning, I would say...

13:51
really heavily periodizing things, right? Because you can do it in many different ways. You can have, can just lower a big amount of carbs you have, or you can do different things. But I try to really go lower carb for many days per week because my previous lab data showed basically that my...

14:09
fat oxidation rates were near zero, even at very low intensities. And for someone that trains maybe 800, 900 hours per year for many years, know, with many, many of those hours are at low intensity because there is just no other way to train so many hours. And then you would expect. That's what they tell you, right? It's like, huh, as an enduraceous athlete, takes care of itself, right? It's like, worry about it, right? Just eat.

14:37
whatever you want and you spend your time outside and your fat oxidation is going to be great. Well, mine was not great. So that was quite revealing. Yeah. And it was a big motivation to get into this, see, okay, if, and you know, it's not just the data and the lab data. It's also obviously how I perform, right? So my experience in how I performed in running, being a recreational runner, but still, you know.

15:05
putting much effort and many years into it, it is very clear that there is a big drop in performance between what I can do for 10K, a half marathon, and what I can do for a marathon or even ultra 50K, 100K. I drop more than what you would expect for the average person or for the person on trains like me. So there is something metabolically that shows that, hey, this is a big limitation of yours.

15:32
what is behind it, right? And then looking at fat oxidation rates. So the fact that I was oxidizing so little fat that I was burning through everything I had in terms of carbs, right? And yes, you can do that for a 10K for a half marathon. You have enough stores and you can fuel and you know, I could race fast for my level, but then increase the distance. And then I just basically deplete my body. Like it doesn't even matter how many carbs I eat.

16:00
because the oxidation rate is so high in terms of carbs. It was basically impossible for me to sustain a decent intensity for those distances. And by using this approach, we can actually turn things around because it's not exercise, unfortunately for us that really love to exercise, but it is nutrition that drives most of the change in fat oxidation rates. And that was my motivation to go there and to make these changes. yeah, eventually

16:30
I tested again after two months of doing this. So that was eight weeks of strict prioritization and the changes were, yeah, I would say dramatic. Like I was not expecting anything like this, like especially because you you think, okay, maybe you change things a bit at the low intensity spectrum. Then at low paces, maybe you burn more fat, but then, you know, that fades quickly as soon as you pick up the pace. But as I tested, could

16:59
you know, almost at marathon pace and that's exact same very high fat oxidation rate that I had while jogging. like metabolism had changed dramatically in a way that can then transfer to, you know, those long races and help me perform better there. I think I remember from your blog, it went from something like, I mean, I'll likely get these numbers wrong, but maybe it was 136 or 176 grams of carbs an hour.

17:29
initially that you had to sort of ingest to be able to keep up with the pace across at a high intensity and it went to something like 17 grams of carbs. Was it that dramatic, Marco? Yeah, that's right. It's basically if I had to sustain the carbs that I was burning for 100k, that would require more than 100 grams per hour. you know, with

17:57
a history of gastrointestinal issues and those sort of things, like, there was no hope. And indeed, my previous 100k races, I always faded a lot in the last third of the race. I always had gastrointestinal issues, nausea, sort of problems, not able to eat for a long time, right? And I was also training, like, you know, training the gut and training the body to be able to sustain these efforts and to fuel for these efforts. So all of that was done, but simply...

18:27
It's just that the body was basically going through my carb source in a way that it was impossible to keep up. And then with the current metabolism, basically if you do the math, it comes down to what you just said. It's not even 20 grams per hour that you would need to sustain the effort because even at much higher intensity, still, fat oxidation rates are pretty high. And of course, we still need to get it done. So, you know, these are theoretical.

18:57
extrapolations. But at the same time, in training, I can see that. I ran 70K the other day also with 1,300 meters of elevation gain. So similar race simulation, let's say. That 25 grams of carb per hour. I ran the fastest pace I've ever run for that distance. So it's really working for the body. yeah, again, nutrition is so key. And maybe sometimes

19:27
Yeah, not given the right importance from endurance athletes alike. Yeah, it's so interesting because I feel like people who embark on a sport like ultra racing, they almost have it in their head that the requirements for carbohydrates now therefore become sort of front and center. And I guess this is what I do see on the likes of X and in other places, like a lot of the sports scientists are talking to us about the importance of

19:56
training the gut to be able to take on board these high numbers. And it's almost like, it's okay, guys, you can train the gut. You can get in this, you know, 100 grams of carbohydrate an hour. I'm like, I look at some of those studies, Marco, that when I, since I remember a couple of years ago, and it first became a thing that people were talking about these higher, like intakes. And they were like, you know, for this long duration, you know, you've got this possibility,

20:25
this possibility to metabolize this amount of carbohydrate. And I remember thinking, it's actually not that long. your study, I mean, it's long for science, you know, in a lab study that has a three hour bike. I mean, that's pretty long, but it's so different to someone who might be in a triathlon on a bike for like eight hours. You know, like I don't, just, I'm like, practically speaking, the gut really changes. But then sort of to flip it around, I know people who have

20:54
They're extremely good runners. And they often report that they're eating 90 to 100 grams of carbohydrate now over the course of the distances that we're discussing. And I do wonder how much of that is a really individual, I don't know, some people are just really good at eating, but it doesn't appear to be the norm. It's almost an exception like their performances. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I think there are so many things to say about all of this. One is that

21:24
Even if you look at the research that actually the very few studies, this is something you'd expect has been investigated much more given how much it is talked about, but it is not. The relationship between how much you have, so how many carbs per hour, how many grams of carbs per hour, and performance has been investigated in almost no study. And the few that looked at this actually do not show.

21:52
that increasing these amounts beyond 30, 40 grams leads to improvement. So the data is all over the place. And if anything, some of these studies show that as you get to 100 or something like that, you decrease performance. And here we are not even looking at GI issues because then for longer events, as you say, the likelihood of creating issues is so high. And this is just what people eat.

22:20
It's not really what they oxidize, right? So I was actually talking today with Sam Minkley. I hope I'm pronouncing correctly his last name. He's a previous scientist that actually did much of the work about periodized nutrition. And he has also mentioned how he himself can eat very large amounts of carbs without GI issues, up to 120 grams, for example. But then as a scientist, looked...

22:48
And actually he developed methods to look at how much of that you oxidize. So how much you're actually using because otherwise, okay, you're eating, but it's not going anywhere useful. And then he saw that he's limited to less than 60. So for him, performance wise, it doesn't matter if he stops at 60 or he has more than yes, he's eating more, but it's not being used by the body. So there are so many assumptions behind this idea that you need to have more that.

23:16
are not really backed by science in any way actually. I think we need to be a bit more critical of these approaches. And again, the individual variability is really key. I don't mean that it doesn't work for people. It can work for some people. There are people that are able to have lots, people that are able to have little, and the people that are able to have little, they can still perform exceptionally.

23:42
and even better than the other people. It doesn't matter unless you force them to have stomach calves, then they will have GI issues. You really need to work with the individual, even in terms of our ability to be metabolically flexible. So for me, this was the right call because I was not bearing any fat, basically. So that was a huge danger. But if another athlete does not have that problem and they have very high fat oxidation rates,

24:12
then they might perform the same way or better even without prioritizing their nutrition this way. So it's really about understanding what are the limiters for the individual and then using training in conjunction with nutrition to lead to better outcomes instead of taking what's trendy, which might be having 150 capsules caps, or maybe before it was being on a keto diet. The extremes are all over the place.

24:40
We are working with individuals and you need to find what works for them. And also typically you can get good insights from testing instead of just, know, some things and hoping it works and it doesn't lead to worse of the father issues. Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. So Marco, you mentioned you pretty much had shifted from a high carb delicious pasta sort of diet. I'm sure you used to eat pasta. And then you shifted into the

25:09
periodized low carb, what does that look like? And I know the details are in your blog and I'll absolutely include the blog. It's the most, you wrote about it so eloquently and so easy to read through. was so long too, which I love. What were your actual numbers? So you said initially you wanted to improve body composition. So you went into a deficit initially, Marco?

25:34
Yeah, that's right. So I've done this also in the past and other times, always, I say, in the context of running. I guess I tend to gain weight rather easily if I'm not focused. So it was the third time this one that I take like two months really focused and I lose maybe 10 kilos. that would mean, yeah, so I'm on a deficit of about a thousand kilo calories per day. And interestingly, I did this before.

26:04
Yeah. That's super dramatic. Yeah, I'm a bit of that kind of person. I prefer full focus for a short period of time and then move on. Get in, get out. Yeah, exactly. So in the past, I did this while on a high carb diet. So it was really just about cutting calories. So I would eat the same, but less. And this time, I also started that way. And then I got

26:31
maybe a few weeks in and then that's when I thought, okay, let's also change nutrition completely. And then I continued the deficit on periodized nutrition. And then once I got where I wanted to be, that was, I think, end of January, beginning of February. Then I basically stopped with a deficit and I've been in perfect balance. I would say since then I've been the same way. Maybe I don't know again.

26:59
ridiculous things, it's all the same and now it's, you it's been a while. So I think that, yeah, that was the initial phase. a bit of a weight drop and then stable in weight, but then focus on the macronutrients only. Yeah. For your macros, what are your sort of lower days? What did they look like in terms of the split between carbs?

27:29
protein and fat compared to say those higher intensity or those longer days. You also have more carbohydrate in the longer days. Is that right, Marco? It depends. For the first months, I really didn't because it was a phase of training. was in, let's call it, base training. So was doing long training that was really low intensity, maybe lots of hiking given. So, know, in nature, so a bit of hiking, a bit of running.

27:57
I don't think it was needed there. So I would have higher amounts of carbs only for intensity, so for the intervals and actual workouts. Now that we are getting closer to the race, which is in about six weeks, so the long runs are more demanding. So I have more also for those days. Eventually, I have my limits from a muscular point of view. So that means that it's still, it can be only one workout per week and maybe one long round with some quality. That means that...

28:27
two days are higher carbs and maybe three in the previous night also a few more and then the other days remain quite low. In terms of total amounts, I would say for the low days, it can be as low as 50 or something like that or maybe sometimes 100 grams. It depends a bit, you know, how I eat. I would say the types of foods in those days.

28:55
typically still include lots of vegetables and things like that. you know, and maybe legumes and so there's, there's carbs here and there. just maybe don't have more grains or, you know, any bread or pasta or the simple things that I would have done the other days when I load more. When I load more, I don't really go crazy. Like if I think about the amounts I was having before, I mean, it is.

29:19
really clear why my fat oxidation was zero. It's like, you know, having like so many hundreds of grams every day. right now, because I wasn't counting, I had no idea. Now I counted because of the block. Like I wanted to give like some actual numbers behind what I was doing. So I started counting and that was quite fascinating in person as an experience. Just to put numbers behind also what you read in papers and things like that.

29:48
So the high carb days now still, I mean, I don't think I get to 300 grams. Maybe, you know, even if I have two slices of bread and some oats in the morning and even some pasta in the evening, like it's not that much with respect to my previous history, let's say. Yeah. And when you did sort of do the math on what you were previously eating, what was the quantity of carbohydrate?

30:18
Yeah, don't try to that something, but I don't know. I think it would be very normal in a week to have many, many days in which is more than four or 500 grams. Yeah, for sure. That seems like a lot. But then of course, and I think about it, but of course you were training for an event, you know, you're an athlete and you were out there pounding the pavement or you'll have to. So you have to exactly. And what about your protein element?

30:47
Marco, was it consistent for you across the week? This actually was also a good learning for me. A great question because I thought I was eating enough protein, but I never counted it, right? I never looked at the numbers with respect to what is recommended for someone training a fair amount of time. And now there are days in which I feel like the entire day

31:16
I'm only eating protein and then I do the math and it's like, I barely get to those two grams per kilo, right? It's not really more than that. But I feel like I'm just eating protein all day because now, you know, the focus for me on the lower cut day, typically I think it is the easiest and probably best at least in my scenario to focus on protein first and then the rest, you you add a bit of fat and a bit of carbs here and there.

31:44
breakfast, know, I focus on protein and for lunch and dinner at same time. And sometimes at the end of the day, you even if I have a snack, maybe I have, you I don't know, yogurt or something, or protein powder, even with peanut butter, things like that. And I feel like really, oh, I had so many problems today. And then, you know, if you do the math, it's really not that much. Yeah, it's that's such a common experience that I have with my athletes and just people in general. And I think

32:13
Part of it is because we're often told, like the rhetoric is, we eat enough protein. Like, you know, if someone's got a view on their protein, on how much they're getting, I they might think, oh, I don't eat enough, but if I have like smoothie in the morning and like a chicken salad and then, you know, potatoes and meat at night, but I've got plenty of protein when it actually equates to, I don't know, 1.2 grams per kg body weight or something like that. Yeah, true, Give me that experience for me.

32:42
Yeah. so initially then, I suppose it's interesting because of course you were in a deficit and then you switched your macronutrient distribution, which would have sort of compounded how you might've been feeling in your deficit. any initial, did you initially take a hit in terms of your training, your mood, your headaches or anything like that? And then how did you resolve those? For sure. So,

33:11
The deficit is quite extreme and I certainly feel it. I knew exactly what was coming because I had done it before. So I know that I'm going to be hungry. especially the first, I think it really doesn't last long. It's maybe 10, 14 days in which you really feel the hunger.

33:38
But this regardless of my creatine, it's just the deficit. So regardless of what diet I'm doing, if I'm cutting that much, then I feel it. So a bit more fatigue, maybe naps later in the evening, even before dinner, sometimes late afternoon fatigue mentally, that's for sure. Training, yeah. I keep training and doing my sessions, but the overall volume is lower.

34:07
I think training is a part of it, meaning that it also helps the deficit and all of that, but it's not productive training. You're not getting better, right? Because you just cannot get better when you're losing so much weight. So you just stay there and do your things and exercise. But the focus is really not on getting better with training for a few weeks. That's for sure. basically the day I stopped the deficit, then

34:37
in a matter of days, then you see performance changing very quickly because then you're eating enough to make those gains. At the beginning, you certainly feel it. So for me, it's always the first two weeks. There's a nice side of it, I think, which is like we are so disconnected typically from cues that our body gives us like for hunger and you know, when your stomach is making a bit of noise, like those kinds of things. I think the majority of people basically never experienced them at least.

35:06
you know, the people that live the way we do is like, you're always eating something. There is, you always have too much instead of a bit less than what you should have and things like that. So at the beginning, you start feeling your body telling you something again. And I think that is great for awareness. It changes also during exercise as I stop eating so much during exercise. And sometimes I would go out four or five hours for this high crunch and then I wouldn't eat until I feel like my body is

35:36
telling me that it's time to eat something. And maybe that will be two or three hours in and then I have some dried fruit or something like that. it's very different from the idea of if you're having 100 grams per hour, 150, you can not possibly ever feel anything. You're just having a jelly for 15 minutes or something like that. I understand that for performance.

36:03
For performance, it can make sense to do that on certain occasions, but I don't think that's how we should feel or live every minute of our lives. I that is the beauty of periodisation really. Nothing is off the table. It's more about when you use certain tools. Marco, were you cognisant of your electrolyte requirements, particularly when you were super low? Did you do anything particular around that or actually you didn't need to? I think everyone's a bit different, yeah.

36:31
Yeah, I don't know, honestly, I did not look into this particularly, meaning that I would just, you know, I was in a warm place for a couple of months, so I would just integrate and have electrolytes daily, regardless, just because I was out training and sweating a lot. So I did not change this based on the deficit of the macronutrients. It was just something that was always there. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Awesome. And then

36:57
Maiko, with the way that you fuel your high intensity sessions, and of course, you mentioned that you've got you on that particular day, your total carbohydrate intake is going to be greater. What does that look like in terms of timing for you across the day? So if you're training in the morning, are you having carbs before going out? Are you recovering afterwards? Can you give us a little bit of a picture there?

37:24
Yeah. So for me in this context is really about performance. So it's more about what happens before. And this means that you can have high carb in the evening, right? Or you can have high carb in the morning for breakfast. And since, you know, through sleep still you will deplete your basically liver glycogen, right? Because it's used to maintain blood sugar as you sleep. Then typically for me, I find that

37:53
really the key meal is a high carb breakfast. that and typically two hours later, two to three hours later, I go for a session and then I can perform very well. What I did the previous evening, I don't see much of an impact honestly. So for me personally, if I eat a normal evening dinner or if I have a higher carb dinner, that doesn't change much. It's really all about what I do for that breakfast.

38:22
when I tried to do something a bit higher intensity while being very low or so in the morning, then I would see that I would struggle more. So for me, if I need to do a good workout, it's important. I think what's important also to highlight maybe there is that people often associate training fat metabolism and fat oxidation with training fasted, so not eating. And I did not do

38:51
a single training in the past four months without eating. So my fat oxidation rates have increased dramatically and you can do that while eating like a thousand calories for breakfast. Like there is absolutely no need to go faster. There's also research from Dan Plius that looked at this systematically for people having a combination of protein and fat for breakfast, like again, a smoothie with a lot of butter and protein powder is like the simplest thing you can make.

39:20
And then, you know, sometimes if I want more calories, I add some nuts and things like that. And it's pretty easy. know, chia seeds, whatever works. Then if you have this kind of breakfast, you know, you eat and you know, you've especially if I'm in energy balance and I eat my dinner bit earlier, you know, maybe I eat 7pm by the time you go training, it's really been maybe 14 hours. So for me, having breakfast is important. otherwise.

39:50
I'm just low on energy and not because of the macros, but just because I haven't eaten for a long time. So I always eat, but then I just limit the macros, in particular the carbs in those days. And then you can do your training that way. It doesn't make any difference to go faster. So if you like to go faster, good for you. If that is more practical, like there are many reasons to go that way, but it's not that you have to do that to use this approach. Yeah.

40:19
No, that's such a good call. And did you, do you focus on the recovery post training to get carbohydrate in or you, do you just allow just for your usual sort of lower carb approach across the rest of the day? How's that look? Yeah, the second one. So, so far I have not had more carbs as a recovery goal post training. So if I did a very big session, then it

40:49
It leads naturally to eating more. So I would have also more carbs, you know, without having a meal of carbs, but still, know, as a side, there might be again, more legumes or maybe a slice of bread or something like that. There can be more because maybe I've been out three, four hours and you just need more calories. It just happens to work out that way. If I do a very hard session that is however short, typically I go right away into lower carb again.

41:18
Personally, I did not notice any difference at all. I did not recover any faster before I do the same frequency of workouts. It's pretty similar. The muscle dimension and those kinds of things. I don't notice big changes depending on macronutrient distribution changes from before to now. Yeah, interesting.

41:47
Maka, you're big data guy. You like data, HIV, use CGM actually as well, resting heart rate, all of these things. What did you notice with regards to your HIV actually with this shift in nutrition? yeah, did you notice any changes?

42:11
Yeah, so a couple of things that are also consistent with literature that I think are interesting also maybe for people that go through different phases and might find certain changes in their data. Also, because the interpretation of this data goes a bit... It's not as trivial as you would expect. For example, if you are in a caloric deficit, typically your body goes into sort of energy conservation mode. It lowers the energy requirements, right? And that is...

42:40
very obvious in resting heart rate. So your resting heart rate will be lower. And as such, your HRV has also more room for variability, so to speak, so it can change in a way that it becomes slightly higher. And if you use a device, a wearable or whatever, that will tell you. Typically, it will interpret that as a great moment to go really hard and train a lot. But obviously, it's not true because there are huge caloric deficits.

43:09
It's important to be able to have this context that the device does not have and to understand that those changes do not mean that you should go harder, quite the contrary, in your body is under a lot of stress and it's triggering a response that shows extremely low resting heart rate typically with respect to your normal. Then with the macronutrient change, there was a different type of change. It was only visible in HRV data, no change in resting heart rate.

43:37
And this was also consistent with some work that nine pillows have published in which basically you could see that with the shift in macronutrients, there is a of a stress response that you also captured there with a drop in HRB. So before just cutting calories, it was still high with the low heart rate. Changing macronutrients and other stressor may be in a different way, completely different way of eating for me. Actually something, you know, 40 actually eating away and then.

44:06
one day to the other, you eat in a completely different way. it was like, okay, this is change. And then I dropped and I think in dance paper, it lasted maybe one or two weeks. And in my own data, it was actually, it's got to the same, maybe, yeah, around 10 days, something like that. And then it re-normalized. And then since then with the deficit stayed stable, stopped the deficit.

44:32
Heart rate goes back to normal. So heart rate is suppressed really only during the deficit. But they should be remained stable all throughout the following months. So then I think that is always a good signal when there is stability. means, you things, you know, you are coping well basically with the various stresses that you face, which typically are the combination of nutrition training and life, and work and those sorts of things. So those I would say are the main changes. So for people trying these kinds of things.

45:01
If you're changing body composition and losing weight, keep an eye on your resting heart rate, but also don't interpret it as a sign to go hard. And similarly for HLV, you might have a change as you change macronutrients, but give it two weeks and it should normalize. Yeah. I think it's so important, particularly because there are athletes out there are so driven by what the data says and they sort of live and die by it. So if they manage their expectations and know that

45:30
it will improve at least, or it should improve. Do you think there's room for the actual, like the wearables and the algorithms to reflect more of this sort of life stuff, Marco? Is it even possible for an algorithm to sort of, to reflect, I suppose, real life a little bit more? Or actually, is this just my ignorance of data? Because I'm actually not a data person, could be.

45:57
I think you a great point. Actually, these are some of the biggest challenges, right? Because the context is just not there. It cannot be captured. Even these kind of things that are maybe very big in our life, I mean, the device will not know. And you can only tell the device so many things and then you can only do it for so long. In some context, we'll always be missed, except for what is happening, you know, also with

46:25
know, your family or your kids or your house or all sorts of things have a role. Like to me, data is insightful, but at same time, like you always need to understand that you are the only person that has the context. And sometimes even us, we don't know. Sometimes there is something else that we still don't fully capture in terms of context and information or what is behind a certain change. I think tracking this kind of data can be informative.

46:55
but you should never trust too much the interpretation of the information, how it is turned into things to do or not to do. I think that is very simplistic, a huge oversimplification actually of our physiology. So what you should do is to have a look, go through different stresses and things, learn how you respond, and then see if these things are reproducible over time.

47:20
If it can give you some useful information. As I was going through all these changes, like I would never use the data to guide my day, but I would use it retrospectively, right? You have a look, you see things are going. It's just another piece of information. Like if I see a drop in HLV, I know, okay, maybe here there is a change where, you know, my body needs its time. Let's see how long it takes. But I don't necessarily make other changes. I pay attention.

47:47
And there are occasions in which, of course, you can make meaningful changes and adjustments, but don't let it drive all your decisions. And you are the only person that really has the context and the information. is just so sensible. And it is absolutely how I see it. And I'm just thinking, there are so many people I know who absolutely live and die by what their watch tells them and what their... Even in the numbers that they get, and they really...

48:16
are so emotionally hijacked by those numbers, whereas you're right, there's almost everything in real life. We forget that the body sort of knows and that actually, and that you yourself, you we don't rely on those internal cues as you mentioned earlier, Marco, that's such a good point. Yeah, exactly. Even if you use devices and track, I think it's always key to really try to first think.

48:42
Like we build also some of these tools like with HR different training app, but the way it works is that in the morning you intentionally measure your physiology, right? It's not measuring possibly and throwing numbers at you all the time. Like you take your time and you measure. Once you've done it, before you see anything, it is actually a questionnaire where subjectively you say, you feel, you think about it and then you see the data. And I think that can help the whole self awareness process.

49:11
While many devices today, you you wake up, you open the app and they tell you how you should feel. Like there is that process in which you become more self-aware, right? It's completely gone. You know, that is why I stopped recommending people using this device. I think at this point, there's sometimes more harm than good. Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, I'm a hundred percent with you. Marco. So obviously you've had quite a transformation in terms of the way that you eat. And I mean, it sounds to me like you're pretty

49:41
of dialed into the deficit approach when you were entering in a new race, et cetera. So that was maybe not a new thing for you. have others around you been, when you've shared your blog, have they been surprised by your results? So what has, if any, the reaction been around your peers and other researchers or people that you connect with on this space? It's been really good, actually. I was fortunate enough that

50:10
many people like yourself read it and gave me the opportunity to talk about it and learn from the expertise you have in having these conversations. And some of the scientists actually doing the work on periodized nutrition reached out so we could talk about this and see also how they employ these approaches with elite athletes and things like that. I don't know, maybe I'm sometimes in a...

50:38
high car bubble and I hear only that maybe recently that is really something people talk about a lot. So I was expecting maybe less of a positive response. I'm not the most optimistic person so that also probably explains what I was waiting for. then eventually it was actually brilliant. So I actually had a great time talking to people using these approaches and understanding that.

51:08
A lot of people put a lot of nuance into what they do with intuition and there's a lot more out there than the Morris Vetter approach that seem to hear a lot. mean, obviously there was a lot of learning along the way. there any mistakes that you initially made that you felt that you could see others falling into the same traps? Well, for me personally, it is one thing that I think maybe require, like,

51:38
It needs people to be conscious about it or maybe some people, like for example, I have a history of, let's say, bit high cholesterol, right? And, you know, so maybe you need to watch still your saturated fat and things like that. And once you go in the low carb days, you know, you might end up actually having, I don't know, a lot of cheese, a lot of meat or things that, you know, might contribute negatively to this kind of thing.

52:06
It's not math, right? It's complicated. It doesn't mean that you have certain foods. It will lead to certain things and the outcome is then also, you know, who knows what happens in many years from now. But at the same time, like, I think it's something to be aware of, right? So right now, I try to be more mindful of that. So have more fish, I more fiber, have more food that is not, you know, meat or cheese or things that might impact that.

52:34
I will do blood tests again in a few weeks. So I'm curious to see there how that goes. But yeah, that's maybe something, you know, if you have in, you know, in your family or in your history, something like that, maybe something to be mindful of. Yeah. No, that makes, that makes perfect sense. With regards to your own performance. I mean, obviously you mentioned earlier that you felt that things were going backwards. So you wanted to make a change and

53:01
You're like, what are we six weeks out from your race? think you said like, are you ahead of where you thought you might be Marco if, um, um, in light of all of these changes, like you feeling pretty fit pretty fast going into this race? Yeah, I think, uh, it's been, it's been great actually. And when I started this, I was desperate. thought, okay, this year I'm not gonna race the LRK like my long runs, extreme fatigue, muscle soreness, like I couldn't get

53:31
to 20, 30 K and feel good. It wasn't working for me anymore, right? The eating in a certain way and give it eight weeks and I was completely different person. And then from there, give it two months to actually build the fitness and energy balance and everything. I was running, know, marathon pace, the best pace I ran in many years. I will talk, but at the same time,

54:00
I'm not the most confident person when it comes to my performance and this kind of long events with so many unknowns. It's not as predictable as I like things to be, but things are going really well. So at least, you know, I can give it a chance. And I think that's really a great result. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And what is your nutrition plan coming into this event? Like we talked about

54:30
the sort of requirement for carbohydrate, how that's dramatically dropped. Are you basing your sort of nutrition schedule on that? What's it going to look like for you? Yeah, so in training, I really like to experiment to see how low I can go. But I do not think that for the race, that's the optimal requirement, right? So even for marathon pace workouts, I've been out two hours running for what is a fast pace for me. And I had 10 grams per hour and like one gel.

55:00
gel or something like that. So I really pushed it to the limit because it's training so you can try things and you want to see how it works. And I thought I was doing well and I saw I was doing well also that way. In racing, I will keep this higher, but I will not try to hit any higher amounts and I will keep it lower than the previous years.

55:26
If I have to give numbers, maybe that could be, I don't know, 40 grams per hour, something like that. I think that could be a reasonable number also logistically in terms of your chance and things. So I would stay around those. think 30 to 45, something like that, I think could be an amount that allows me to raise the limit of my abilities. Yeah. How long is it going to take Marco?

55:54
to run this 100k. Sounds like a great course by the way. 100k only 1400 you're to cruising the entire time. Yeah, so it's really long but not steep climbs and downhills. Because it's a road where normally cars go, so you just cannot get too steep. Maybe it's 60 % grade and go up even maybe 16, 17 kilometers of continuous climbing.

56:22
gets tiring, but then it's, it's all around and it can be fun. So my goal would be to stay below nine hours on an ideal day. Then it depends a lot on, on the weather. It starts in Florence and then of May, can be, you know, boiling. So in that case, it gets a bit more challenging, but if you have a few clouds there and then I'm going to try to go for sub nine hours. Yeah, nice one. And

56:50
outside of carbohydrate, do you take any other fuel with you just in case you get a bit hungry or actually you're not going to get hungry really? Yeah, so I think this is short enough in a way. Like, you know, it's just a long race, but it's not so long, right? So I do alternate some gels and energy bars at times. I tried that more in training, so I might do that as well. I will do a few more.

57:17
specific sessions in which I do the same nutrition as the race. And so I could alternate gels and let's say light bars because anything that is a bit weird than I found in the past that I just don't digest it and then it just makes the whole thing not useful. At the same time, the gels, you can get tired of it in nine hours, but I think the lower frequency of eating that I have now also helps a lot from that point of view.

57:47
Yeah, absolutely. And just a few quickfire questions Marco, I'm super interested. Will you carb load? Like what's your sort of strategy for the few days leading up? How's that going to look? So I'm going to stick to my diet until the day before and the day before I will have more carbs starting with lunch I'm thinking. So

58:10
The race is at 3 p.m. so that gives me like 24 hours, basically two lunches, one breakfast, one dinner to have more carbs than I would normally have. So I think that is sufficient. research-wise, it seems that 24 hours is really what you need. It's not that you need to load for a week like we used to think. For me, it's going to be like that. Some pasta, some oats, some whole grain bread and keep it simple like that.

58:39
That would be it. Nice one. I love it. And are you going to run the race with like AirPods and listening to podcasts or are you like just in the zone, you and nature on the mountains? Yeah, definitely in the zone. Yeah. And when I'm out there, yeah, I never listen to anything in training. If I do a double, it's on the second run, even for myself, a podcast.

59:08
Normally, otherwise, I just enjoy the race, the people around me and chatting with someone. Typically, I go without you. So, Michael, is this it for you now? In terms of your nutrition approach, do feel like you've sort of hooked into something that you feel is sustainable and a bit more of a lifestyle nutrition approach for you? And I'm interested if your partner is feeling the same as well. Yeah, we think so.

59:38
I would say I evolved into this thinking. It was not my thinking at the beginning. So at the beginning I thought, until May, you know, I have the race until May I do this and then, you know, whatever. But then, you know, now it's just how I do it. It's just how I live. Even when we eat out here, you know, I will love something else. then it's doable. And really the periodization.

01:00:06
It's really all about timing. So there is nothing we don't have if we feel like it. It's just going to be about having it on a certain day or training harder the following day or something like that. And then that works well. Sometimes you actually look forward to things a bit more, right? Because it's not the same every day. So I think we keep going after the race and everything. Well, Marco, I'm really excited to see.

01:00:33
how your race goes and you're very good at your Substack, at blogging about everything that's going on. So I'm sure you do a really great debrief for us. Where can people find you and more information? And of course, as I said, I'll put this blog in the show notes as well. Thank you, Miki. I think at this time, Substack is really the place. I've stopped being on most other social medias.

01:01:00
I use Instagram and Strava quite a lot for daily life and training. But the work and everything that I do is really on Substack. So say people are interested in these kind of things, please check that out and follow up there. Yeah, no, that's fantastic, Marco. Do you think you'll publish anything? I mean, obviously Substack, like in your, like any sort of case report to go into, I don't know, some sort of journal?

01:01:29
Yeah, so I haven't thought about this actually, yeah, as a case study because, you know, as a scientist, I've always done research on groups of people and so, yeah, I didn't think about it. But, you know, let's say if I keep things going, maybe, you know, a few years of data could be more interesting and maybe there is something we can also write up. Yeah, no, I agree. Marco, thank you so much. All the best.

01:01:56
for you and your girlfriend for May and that race, sounds fantastic. And I really appreciate your time this evening. It's been awesome. Thank you so much. Pleasure to be here.

01:02:18
Alrighty, hopefully you enjoyed that and this just really continues to build on the discussion that those high amounts of carbohydrate that are being promoted as necessary to perform at your best just aren't warranted and also when it comes to the likes of people in their middle age is it even the best approach and I you guys know I have a bias against it anyway but

01:02:42
You know, the science is there to show that it might not even be necessary and it could in fact be detrimental. only takes listening to the likes of Prince, Phil Mathitone, Paul Lawson, Dan Plews talk about just the potential pitfalls of going super high in carbs. So I'm really interested to see how Marco goes on his race. Certainly by all accounts, his most recent 50k that he was chatting about in that podcast.

01:03:10
He did really well and did a PB so really stoked to hear about that. Next week on the podcast guys I have my friend Tina from Carrots and Cake talk all about functional testing and her use case approach that she uses in her practice. So we do a bit of a deep dive into that, it's really awesome. Until then though you can catch me over on Instagram, threadsandx @mikkiwilliden, Facebook @mikkiwillidennutrition or head to my website mikkiwilliden.com

01:03:39
and book a one-on-one call with me. All right, guys, you have the best week. See you later.