For years, carbohydrates have been one of the most misunderstood parts of nutrition.
From fad diets to social media trends, many people have spent years avoiding bread, pasta, rice and other carbohydrate-rich foods in the belief that cutting them out was the key to becoming healthier and fitter.
But according to Cork entrepreneur, endurance runner and father Conor O’Keeffe, that mindset has left many people under-fuelled, exhausted and struggling to perform at their best.
In fact, the founder of Irish sports nutrition brand ALTAR has built his entire business around a simple message.
“Legalise carbs.”
“Carbs were seen as the bad guy for so long,” Conor tells All About Cork. “They’re tucked away in the cupboard and people are afraid of them. But if you want your body to perform, if you want to train, work, look after your family and have energy throughout the day, you need fuel.”
Many people will already be familiar with Conor’s story.
Over the years, he has become known for taking on extraordinary endurance challenges, most notably Project 32.2, where he ran 32 weighted marathons in 32 days across all 32 counties of Ireland.
But while the challenge captured headlines, it also planted the seed for what would eventually become ALTAR.
Frustrated with the sports nutrition products available at the time, Conor began experimenting with his own fuelling methods while preparing for and completing endurance events.
“I started making this stuff in my kitchen about five years ago,” he says.
What started as a personal solution eventually evolved into ALTAR, the Irish sports nutrition company he runs today.
According to Conor, one of the biggest shifts he has noticed in recent years is that people are becoming more interested in performance than appearance.
“I think people are starting to realise that if they want to do a faster Hyrox, run a quicker 5K or train for a marathon, they need fuel,” he says.
“There was a time when people were dieting themselves into their best body, but now people want their bodies to actually do things.”
For Conor, the science is simple.
He compares the body to a car.
“You can service a car, maintain it and look after it perfectly. But if you don’t put fuel into it, it’s going nowhere,” he says. “Your body is exactly the same.”
He believes many people don’t realise they are under-fuelling themselves until they experience fatigue, poor recovery or a complete lack of energy after exercise.
“Have you ever finished a gym session or a run and felt completely drained? That’s often because you’ve run out of fuel.”
While endurance sport remains a huge part of his life, Conor admits his priorities have changed dramatically over the past few years.
Today, he is a father, with a second child on the way, and says becoming a parent has completely reshaped his definition of what a challenge looks like.
“The challenge for me now isn’t running marathons with weighted vests,” he says.
“The challenge is being a dad, running a business, looking after my family and still finding time to look after myself.”
It’s a very different mindset from the one that drove him to complete some of Ireland’s toughest endurance feats.
Back then, much of his motivation was about proving things to himself and to others.
Now, the focus is much closer to home.
“It’s about being who I want to be behind closed doors,” he says. “Can I be the dad I want to be? Can I be present for my family? Can I still train consistently and look after myself while doing all those other things?”
Ahead of Father’s Day, Conor shared a social media video that struck a chord with thousands of people online.
In it, he reflected on his own father and the memories he treasures most from childhood.
He recalled following his dad around the garden, asking endless questions and chatting away about whatever fascinated him at the time.
“When you’re a little boy, your dad is the strongest, biggest man in the world,” he said.
His father would listen patiently while working away, sometimes putting him in a wheelbarrow or giving him small jobs to do alongside him.
Only recently, Conor realised he is now living through those exact same moments with his own son.
“He’s into aeroplanes and vehicles at the moment,” he says. “He asks me a million questions and tells me all about them.”
The reflection became even more meaningful because of something his father once told him.
“My dad said to me in my early twenties that the times when I followed him around the garden were some of the best times of his life.”
Now, standing on the other side of that experience as a parent himself, Conor says he finally understands exactly what his father meant.
“And now I’ve realised that I’m living through that exact same time with my own son.”
The message highlights how much his priorities have evolved over the years.
Where once his focus was on completing ultra-endurance challenges, today he measures success differently.
“I have to hold onto it with both hands and savour every minute of it,” he said.
“We are in the good old days right now.”
That shift has also influenced how he talks about nutrition.
While ALTAR products were originally developed in the world of endurance sport, Conor believes the message applies just as much to busy parents and everyday gym-goers as it does to elite athletes.
“You don’t have to be running hundreds of kilometres a week to benefit from fuelling properly,” he says.
“It could be a mum or dad doing the school run, fitting in a gym class after drop-off, going to work and then coming home to make dinner. Proper fuelling gives you the energy to do all of those things.”
Like many entrepreneurs, Conor’s journey has involved taking significant risks.
One of the biggest came when he and his wife made the decision to use money they had been saving for a house deposit to launch the business instead.
“We took the money we’d saved for a mortgage and invested it into the company,” he says. “It definitely set us back in terms of buying a house, but we believed in what we were building.”
That belief has helped ALTAR grow from a kitchen experiment into a recognised Irish nutrition brand.
And despite opportunities to manufacture elsewhere, Conor says keeping production on the island of Ireland remains hugely important.
“We’re made in Ireland and we’re very proud of that,” he says.
For Conor, however, the biggest mission remains unchanged.
Whether he’s speaking to marathon runners, Hyrox athletes, busy professionals or fellow parents, he wants people to stop fearing carbohydrates and start understanding the role they play in everyday life.
“If you want your body to perform and feel its best, you have to fuel it,” he says.
“It’s really as simple as that.”
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