Life is Not a Race… It is a Journey.
Part One: How do we burn fat for fuel during exercise?
Now how do you rebuild and make a come back to triathlons and marathons without breaking down and reversing your healing process for the last five years??
That is the question.
What does the road to recovery include to re-build endurance at aerobic heart rate ranges as Phil Maffetone’ s MAF heart rate training?
MAF = Max Aerobic Function which is 180-AGE = MAF plus or minus 5 beats depending on health, injuries, and training. 
Learn more about MAF training in my exercise chapter in my new book The WHOLESTIC Method Manual & Workbook.
If you read my personal story I shared in LIFE IS NOT A RACE, you know my background, experiences, and journey. Since 2013, I have been healing from a major breakdown in my internal body systems because of LIVING LIFE AS A RACE for too many years! The accumulation of stressors finally caught up with me and I literally hit the wall…or the ground when cycling one day and my legs were so dead tired that I couldn’t make another pedal stroke.
Well fast forward FIVE YEARS and I am still healing and repairing my body from this total breakdown destruction I did to myself via living life as a race every day from the time I woke up (3:45AM some days!) until I went to bed finally at night (9pm). I burned the candle at both ends for many years until finally I had enough red flags that I was forced to pay attention and make some drastic changes in my life – plus I didn’t really have any choice as I had no energy or strength to do any of my workouts or to race again.
I wanted to share with you that I have been trying to “make a come-back” and race again even at a fun level (as I usually would be competitive and only race if I could be top three in my age group!). I have been swimming usually three days a week and running three to four days a week the cycling more in the spring and summer months. In the winter time, I have been doing shorter workouts and more focus on strength training. If I had more time and more hours in the day, then I would love to do yoga three days a week and Pilates reformer group class but the “new me” knows I can’t try to fit everything into a week and stay healthy.
The challenge I still face in my healing and rebuilding phase the last few years is with my running pace and heart rate. For some reason, even if I continue to train by my MAF heart rate, which is 180-46 = 134 bpm or under, after 30 minutes my heart rate drifts up above my MAF heart rate goal. I have been training for 25 years by heart rate and always love to pace/train with my heart rate monitor (MYZONE and my GARMIN watch) but something is going on. MAF Heart Rate training teaches your body to utilize fat for its main fuel source for long-term energy supply (read more in my manual) instead of short-term energy supply from carbs/sugar/glucose (stored as glycogen). Think of fueling the fire with long slow burning big logs or fast burning kindling sticks. 
As a fat burner, I don’t have to eat before my run sessions in the morning as my body is trained to breakdown fat for fuel because of my years training by fat burning heart rate ranges and my nutrition plan- but there is something still missing. My heart rate won’t stay down under 134 bpm and I am not getting faster as I used to (don’t blame the aging process here!) when training strictly by heart rate. Why do I get tired after 30 minutes when my heart rate starts to drift up even if I have been doing longer runs and running consistently for years? I had an amazing aerobic engine and I used to be able to burn lots of fat (metabolic efficiency testing) at high heart rates (RQ value) as well as high anaerobic threshold. That all disappeared since the onset of my adrenal exhaustion in 2013 or rather more specifically the Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal Axis dysfunctions (HPA Axis dysregulation or dysfunction).
I have been trying to re-build my fat burning engine for the last few years by training by heart rate and nutritionally eating low-carb meals most of the time. The challenge I face, even though I don’t eat refined sugars or follow a high carb diet, I have become insulin resistant with my adrenal exhaustion. Even if I eat low-carbs and high-fat diet, I was still increasing my blood sugar levels with the constant stimulation of my adrenal glands in the response to any “stressors” (including gut bugs-parasites as a stressors) and increasing blood sugar (breaking down my proteins to make glucose) in response to the “emergency” the body was experiencing known as “fight or flight” reaction. My body would think it was in crisis mode, so it would be increasing blood sugar levels so frequently that the pancreas becomes tired of releasing insulin in response to the high blood sugar levels so eventually one become insulin resistant (as most Americans have become today!).
Now how does this impact my ability to burn fat when running at fat burning heart rates?
In Nutritional Therapy we look at the ROOT cause of a problem. So, my questions are:
- WHY I am I not able to build my endurance even with consistent training by heart rate with gradual increase in durations (most week-day runs are 5-8 miles and a long run 8-12 miles). WHY do I struggle increasing my endurance and mileage over 8 miles even if doing a long training run once a week for years?
- WHY does my heart rate drift up or rather why do I get tired and slow down as my heart rate increases after 30 minutes of training no matter how much I have been training? Including more consistency with REST and REPAIR days 1-2 days that I never did regularly in my past life.
- WHY can’t I burn fat anymore for fuel when running– and switch to carbs for fuel that are short term and create more fatigue earlier in the run.
Let’s review in the next blog how we burn fat for fuel …where do we breakdown and metabolize fat?
In Part Two we will talk about how we breakdown fat for fuel in the liver then discuss the role of the liver in fat burning BUT key part is what happens if we are not operating on full cylinders. The role of Nutritional Therapy and how a NTP can help you get your body to burn fat, optimize your health and improve performance in LIFE and SPORTS. Transform the WHOLE you with the elements of The WHOLESTIC Method but first make sure we start with specific individualized Nutritional Therapy plan to help you start on the right road towards success.
The WHOLESTIC Method Coach
Debbie Potts
