High Fat, Low Carbohydrate Diet

The high fat, low carbohydrate diet has become increasingly popular over recent years. Its initial creation was designed to combat common beliefs that if a diet contained high levels of fat it would lead to weight gain. This diet revolves around the chemical activity that occurs within the body that converts the food consumed into energy and other life essential products; more commonly known as an individual’s metabolism. The main belief is that by consuming a lot of refined and processed carbohydrates the body can not break them down quick enough into energy or store it as glycogen; therefore much of it remains unused. The unused carbohydrates are then converted to and stored as fat within the body.

The second concept behind this diet revolves around the order which different nutrients are used to provide the muscles with energy. The body supplies the muscles firstly through its glycogen stores (gained from carbohydrates), then through its fat stores. If the body has no glycogen stores (through not consuming carbohydrates) then the body must immediately turn to its fat stores. However a problem arises in slim people or individuals with low body fat. As their bodies do not have the fat stores as back up, therefore when the body requires more energy it ahs nowhere to gain it from, resulting in it fatiguing quicker.

Players of any level require energy to train and play to the desired standard. Therefore they need to have a good glycogen store. This diet does not allow this option. Instead it revolves around consumption of more fat. This in turn can lead to the amount of saturated fat (bad fat) being consumed, which in the long term can lead to certain health risks, such as heart disease.

So with the potential health risks and the lack of energy provided from this type of diet is not appropriate to a footballer. It is more appropriate for those obese or severely overweight as they will not have such an active lifestyle and will have fat reserves to call upon if they do undertake a small amount of exercise.