New study: kids as fit as adult triathletes - at what age do we lose fitness & why?
/Sorry Lady Gaga, but No, we are NOT "born this way".
Have you heard of "ketosis" and "ketogenic diets"?
Ketosis is a state of the human body where the body is burning a high level of fat for fuel.
Ketogenic diets are used in the medical field to help with some neurological conditions (such as epilepsy, cancer, Alzheimer's, and others), and are also used in the sport & fitness field to help with weight loss and endurance.
However what most people don't realise is that "babies are BORN in a ketogenic state".
Yes, babies are born with the ability to burn a high level of fat for fuel.
In fact, breast milk (the single best source of nutrition for a baby) is a high fat source of food, which helps keep the baby in that high fat burning state.
In the natural environment, as babies become children, they normally retain that high fat burning ability.
This is what this new study from the Université Clermont Auvergne in France revealed.
It revealed that children have the metabolic efficiency of adults who train and compete in endurance events (marathons, ultramarathons, and long distance triathlons).
This is not surprising given what I mentioned earlier about how human babies develop into adulthood.
But why is it that we LOOSE that metabolic efficiency as we get into our teenage years and beyond?
The answer is a complicated one: it's a combination of genetics and nutrition.
There is little we can do about the genes we have (except blame our parents maybe).
However the biggest problem humans have fallen into over the past 50 years is the switch from the natural high fat diet of most of human history to a high carb diet full of cereal, bread, pasta, soft drinks, and starches.
As the baby becomes older, it should continue on a relatively low carb diet to protect its metabolic efficiency.
But no, we don't do that. We start feeding the baby high carb baby food, then high sugar and carbs breakfast cereal, and add to that bread, soft drinks, juices, ice cream, chocolate, cakes, muffins, potatoes, rice, and so much more.
What this does is simple: do that for a few years, and that baby is now a 15 year old kid with the metabolic efficiency of a 30 year old (he/she loses the ability to burn fat efficiently).
When that baby is 30 years old, he/she is at high risk of diabetes.
This is why certain countries (especially countries like Lebanon, Saudi, the UAE, Qatar, the US, the UK, etc) have diabetes rates that are skyrocketing, in some cases reaching 40-50% of the ENTIRE population of the country.
So please PLEASE be careful what you feed your children and don't set them up for a life of struggling with blood sugar levels, weight gain, and diabetes.
