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Chip off the Old Bonk

For decades, we’ve been fed a single, unchallenged "truth" about exercise: to perform, you must "carb-load."

This rule is so ingrained that the modern athlete's greatest fear is "hitting the wall," or "bonking"—that catastrophic, all-systems-failure moment where the body's fuel tank runs empty. We’ve all seen marathon runners staggering, their bodies and minds shutting down at the 20-mile mark.


This fear is why people look at my lifestyle with such confusion. They ask, "How do you do 15 km of cardio both Saturday and Sunday, 16 hours into a fast? How do you do calisthenics every day with no 'fuel' in the tank?"

The answer is simple: The "carb-loader" and I are using two completely different engines, and one of them is built on a falsehood. The "bonk" is not a mandatory part of exercise; it is a symptom of a deeply flawed and metabolically inflexible fueling system.

Part 1: The "Bonk" — The Inevitable Crash of the Glucose Engine

Let's look at the "carb-adapted" marathon runner, as they are the ultimate example of the glucose engine's limits.

  1. The "Carb-Load": Before the race, the runner "carb-loads." As we discussed in "The Tale of Two Engines," this is just a strategy to super-saturate the body's "glucose engine." They are filling their small, 2,000-calorie "glycogen tank" in their liver and muscles to its absolute maximum.

  2. The Starting Gun: The race begins. Their body starts burning through that stored glycogen at a high rate.

  3. The "Wall": Around the 90-120 minute mark (or 20 miles for a runner), a predictable disaster happens: the glycogen tank runs empty.

  4. The "Bonk": This is the "crash." The body is screaming for fuel, but the fast-access glucose is gone. The brain, which was running on that glucose, is now starved. The athlete is hit with overwhelming fatigue, dizziness, and cognitive "fog."

  5. The "Inflexible" Engine: Here is the key. The athlete's body tries to switch to its "fat engine," but it can't. Because the athlete has spent their entire life as a "sugar-burner," their hormonal state (driven by years of high insulin) has left the fat-burning machinery (lipolysis and ketogenesis) slow, inefficient, and "offline." It simply cannot produce fat-fuel fast enough to meet the demand.

  6. The "Fix": This is why they are forced to suck down sugary "gels" and sports drinks every 30 minutes. They are in a desperate, constant battle to manually refill their tiny, leaky glucose tank.

This is a state of Metabolic Inflexibility. It is a complete dependency on an external source of fast-burning fuel.


Part 2: The "Bon-Fire" — The Power of the Fat-Adapted Engine

Now, let's look at my 15 km weekend cardio.

  1. The "Load": I don't "carb-load." I don't "fuel up." I wake up in a 16-hour fasted state.

  2. The Starting Line: My insulin is at rock bottom. My glycogen tanks are already long empty. My body is already in a full-blown "fat-burning" state (ketogenesis).

  3. The Walk: I begin my walk. My body's demand for energy increases. Does it panic? No.

  4. The "Bon-Fire": My body simply does what it's now an expert at doing: it turns up the "bonfire." It sends a signal to my "balloons" (my fat cells) to release more fatty acids. My liver takes those fatty acids and efficiently converts them into a steady, reliable stream of ketones.

  5. The "Flexible" Engine: My brain, heart, and muscles are happily running on this clean, high-performance ketone fuel, which is being supplied by my massive, "on-board" fuel tank of body fat.

  6. The "Fix": There is no "fix" because nothing is broken. There is no "wall." There is no "bonk." My fuel supply is not a 2,000-calorie "glycogen tank"; it's a 100,000+ calorie "body fat tank." I'm not just fasted; I am fat-adapted.

This isn't just my personal theory. This is the "secret" of keto-adapted ultramarathoners who can run 100+ miles with no sugary gels, just water, electrolytes, and clean fats. They have trained their bodies to be metabolically flexible, tapping into their own "bonfire" of fuel.


The Takeaway

The "bonk" is a symptom of an addiction to a fast, inefficient, and unreliable fuel source. It is the inevitable result of a metabolically inflexible body.

My clean keto lifestyle—by eliminating starches and sugars, embracing clean fats, and practicing intermittent fasting—was the "training program" to reteach my body how to use the engine it was always designed to have.

My 15 km fasted cardio are not a feat of endurance; they are a demonstration of efficiency. I'm not "running on empty"; I've just finally tapped into the right tank.

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Location: Halifax Regional Municipality, NS, Canada

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