Research
Macro partitioning
High-fat diets (>46% calories from fat, <21% from carbs) do not improve exercise performance despite increasing fat oxidation.
Do not follow a high-fat, low-carb diet to improve performance. While it may help your body burn more fat, it does not make you faster and can actually hurt your performance, especially in intense or long events.
GoodRefutesHIGH confidence
the prevailing consensus discourages high-fat diets due to their adverse effects on performance. Instances of reduced carbohydrate utilization and gastrointestinal discomfort further reinforce the argument against such dietary approaches.
Why this rating
Based on narrative review.
Source
Athletes’ nutritional demands: a narrative review of nutritional requirements
Adam Tawfiq Amawi et al. · Frontiers in Nutrition · 2024
DOI 10.3389/fnut.2023.1331854
narrative_reviewCited 115×
Read the paper DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10
More from this paper
- Athletes engaged in moderate to high intensity training lasting over 12 hours per week should consume 8-10 g of carbohydrates per kg of body weight daily to maximize glycogen storage and performance.Good
- Post-exercise carbohydrate ingestion of 1.0-1.5 g/kg/hour is sufficient to maximize muscle glycogen resynthesis rates.Good
- Athletes should consume 1.4-2.8 g/kg of body weight of protein daily, depending on their specific training goals and type of exercise.Good
Related findings · Macro partitioning
- Total daily protein intake of 1.6 g/kg/day is sufficient for maximizing resistance training-induced muscle gains, with an upper confidence interval of 2.2 g/kg/day.Strong
- Resistance exercise training combined with sufficient dietary protein intake acts synergistically to maximize skeletal muscle hypertrophy, with protein intake saturating around 1.6 g/kg/day for general populations and potentially requiring 2.0-2.2 g/kg/day for resistance-trained individuals.Strong
- Trans fats should be completely eliminated from the diet, as they increase LDL cholesterol, decrease HDL cholesterol, and are directly associated with increased coronary risk.Strong
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