Skiing on Ketones

Jeff Gerber, MD and Rod Tayler, MD

It was fun spending the weekend with Rod Tayler, MD, and family while on their skiing holiday in Vail, Colorado. Rod is a physician and Anesthesiologist from Melbourne who is leading the low carb down under movement throughout Australia. Listen to Dr. Tayler’s Sweet Poison Lecture from the Low Carb Down Under & Nourishing Australia conference series that he created.

Rod attended the Low Carb Cruise last year where he met Jimmy Moore and invited Jimmy to speak down under on the topic of Nutritional Ketosis. Jimmy recommended that Rod contact me and that we get together when he came out to Colorado. Thanks Jimmy, for making this connection, what a small world indeed.

Along with skiing and some great company, including his sister Georgia and her significant other Greg, Rod and I spent hours discussing nutrition, prevention, low carb high fat diets and how to incorporate nutritional programs in the doctor’s office. Rod and I hope to collaborate in the future.

Rod is a superstar in many ways. In addition to being a great doctor who is focused on prevention, he is also in amazing shape. It was all I could do to keep up with Rod, chasing him around the ski slopes. I figured that I would have a bit of an Jeffry Gerber, MD and Rod Tayler, MD advantage, being a little younger and an avid skier who is used to the thin mountain air of the Colorado Rockies, but this was hardly the case. We spent two days skiing in the bumps and powder at the Blue Sky Basin.

Rod’s only explanation for his great conditioning is that he is “Skiing on Ketones”! I must admit that I know where he is coming from. Both of us have personally appreciated how ketogenic diets improve athletic performance, especially stamina, making us feel like kids on the slopes!

I wonder how many of you ski or participate in other sports and can share your own experience with nutritional ketosis and exercise performance?