Phil Maffetone is an author, health practitioner, and coach with decades of experience helping everyone from amateurs to worldclass athletes optimize their health and performance. In this episode, Phil explains the importance of developing the aerobic system, defines maximum aerobic function (MAF), and explains how to determine your MAF heart rate. He then demonstrates how to integrate that into a training protocol which is designed to help people move faster at a sub maximum heart rate and increase fat utilization as the primary source of fuel—emphasizing the importance of nutrition on one's capacity to oxidize fat. Phil also extracts training insights from the amazing feats of worldclass marathoners, explores the impact of a lowcarb diet on one’s capacity for high intensity exercise and anaerobic performance, and explains the downstream effects of being “overfat.”.

We discuss:
00:00:00 Intro
00:02:30 Phil’s background in running, and training insights from a sixday race
00:11:00 The difference between being “fit” and being “healthy”
00:18:15 Defining the aerobic and anaerobic systems, and why VO2 max doesn’t predict performance
00:24:00 Defining maximum aerobic function (MAF), determining your MAF heart rate with Phil’s 180 Formula, and why a strong aerobic system is crucial to health and performance
00:37:30 Using the MAF test to track and improve your aerobic fitness
00:40:00 How increasing your submax pace at a given heart rate can increase your maximum pace
00:43:00 The impact of nutrition on one’s ability to use fat as fuel while exercising
00:51:45 Phil’s nutritional approach with patients, the concept of “carbohydrate intolerance”
00:58:00 Assessing the impact of a lowcarb diet on high intensity exercise and anaerobic performance
01:04:45 Extracting insights from worldclass marathoners
01:13:30 How being “overfat” affects health and performance, and ways to decrease excess body fat

Show notes page: https://peterattiamd.com/philmaffetone/'>https://peterattiamd.com/philmaffetone/

About:
The Peter Attia Drive is a weekly, ultradeepdive podcast focusing on maximizing health, longevity, critical thinking…and a few other things. With over 30 million episodes downloaded, it features topics including fasting, ketosis, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, mental health, and much more.

Peter is a physician focusing on the applied science of longevity. His practice deals extensively with nutritional interventions, exercise physiology, sleep physiology, emotional and mental health, and pharmacology to increase lifespan (delay the onset of chronic disease), while simultaneously improving healthspan (quality of life).

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