Research

Hormonal

Fat adaptation (5 days high-fat diet) followed by carbohydrate restoration (1 day high-carb) increases resting AMPK activity and muscle triglyceride stores in trained humans, independent of muscle glycogen levels.

For trained athletes, a short period (5 days) of high-fat, low-carb dieting followed by one day of high-carb intake can increase resting AMPK activity and muscle fat stores. This strategy may enhance metabolic flexibility and fat oxidation during exercise without depleting glycogen, provided training volume is maintained.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Fat-adapt increased resting muscle triglyceride stores and resting AMPK-α1 and -α2 activity... Our results demonstrate that AMPK-α1 and AMPK-α2 activity and fuel selection in skeletal muscle in response to exercise can be manipulated by diet and/or the interactive effects of diet and exercise training.
Wee Kian Yeo et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 2008

Why this rating

Randomized crossover design with trained subjects, but small sample size (n=8).

Source

Fat adaptation followed by carbohydrate restoration increases AMPK activity in skeletal muscle from trained humans

Wee Kian Yeo et al. · Journal of Applied Physiology · 2008

DOI 10.1152/japplphysiol.90540.2008

crossover · n=8Cited 73×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

This is one finding among thousands. Every one is graded and traced to its source, so you can see what the evidence actually supports. Browse the research →