MCTs from Coconut: The ideal fat
Since we’ve already gone over the idea of using Fat in your pre/intra/post shake, it makes good sense for us to talk about the most effective form of fat for fueling athletes. Regular fats are typically long chain triglycerides – that’s not ideal. Compared to long chain triglycerides (LCT), medium-chain triglycerides (MCTs) provide a far more rapid source of fatty acid fuel. MCTs , unlike traditional fats, contain saturated fatty acids with only 8-10 carbon atoms along the fatty acid chain. This makes them readily available as a fatty acid energy source.
But they also have another advantage over long chain fats: they’re water soluble. This water solubility allows the fatty acid to move rapidly across the intestinal mucosa directly into the blood stream. Regular fats are transported much more slowly by the lymphatic system. But even in the case of regular fats, it’s a good idea to have them in your shake – a study that examined whole milk versus skim milk, taken post-workout, showed that the whole milk (yes, with the additional fat) produced an amino acid uptake for threonine (a measure of positive protein balance) that was 2.8-fold greater than it was with the skim milk. Yes, fat in your post-training shake actually produces a greater amino acid response. Makes you wonder what the “just protein and carb” crowd were thinking when they developed their low-fat post-workout “recovery” shakes, huh? However, regular fats are far slower to digest – that’s not ideal in a pre/intra/post shake, right? Think about the last time you had a fatty meal – chances are, you felt sluggish and bloated. That’s the fat working to slow gastric emptying. Fat from MCT doesn’t do this – it’s readily available as fuel.
And there are even more benefits to using MCT over LCT. A 2009 study showed that after two weeks of MCT supplementation, exercising athletes had a significantly lower blood lactate concentration, while fat oxidation rate was higher and carbohydrate oxidation rate was lower as well (exactly what you’d want). The end result, as you might suspect, was that MCT supplementation was found to extend the duration of high-intensity exercise. In the case of 3Fuel, we have opted to use natural coconut milk as our source of MCTs. We’ve found that traditional MCT use can cause stomach problems in certain people predisposed to that – while nobody we’ve come across has ever reported a problem with coconut milk.
