L-Carnitine & Carbohydrates

[Darrell]

This is a tip for those who have found L-carnitine to be useful for their muscle pain:

About a week and a half ago, I was reading about people with carnitine deficiency and found that some of them were taking corn starch mixed in orange juice. That was odd enough to arouse my curiosity, so I went on to find out why. Here's their basis:

Carnitine is used to process fats in the muscle cells for extended energy output. If sugars are available, fats don't need to be used, so these people try to keep their blood sugar up when they are physically active. They use the corn starch to extend their high-sugar period since starches are slowly broken down into sugars. So, in effect, they consume sugars for short-term fuel, starches for long-term fuel, and save fats for the fuel of last resort. You don't have fat metabolism problems when you're not metabolizing fats!

Corn starch in orange juice has no appeal to me, so I experimented using potatoes. After a week of experimenting, I think it may actually work. I don't seem to "hit the wall" quite as bad when my L-carnitine supplement wears off.

The down side, of course, is that this is a great way to put on weight if you're not careful. You need to keep your daily calorie count normal. I don't think I want to be doing this "carbohydrate loading" regularly, but I will certainly do it on days when I plan to be unusually active.

Even small high-carb snacks during unusually active periods should help, but watch those calories!