Im not sure here but it could be that LCHF/Keto supresses LT2 rather than raises LT1.
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I was just reading a study about low muscle glycogen training, using twice a day vs once a day with low night.
A first long session to lower glycogen, followed by the HIIT session 2h later appears to be much more efficient than a “fasted” night.
Or the opposite. If you train on low carb, your body gets used to see low carbs and save them. When you do a ride fueling, the body see ample carbs and use them first. Pure speculations here.
I’m following “bike racing without mercy” on youtube. He was doing a lot of fasted morning rides to train his fat oxydation. When he did a metabolic test his sugar usage was super high at low wattage. I never saw any explanation for that.
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While not directly related to nutrition, but the importance of aero and marginal gains, I remember Alex Dowsett mentioning several times in his videos who well and how poorly some of his past teams performed here. I don’t remember which is which, but some didn’t really take aero gains seriously, something which is the bread and butter for a TT expert. Some teams prioritized performance over sponsorships, others the other way around. If Shimano’s wheels aren’t good enough, then one team would simply use the wheels it thought performed best. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the story were the same in the area of nutrition.
I’m not an expert, but my feeling when I see this chart is that it reminds me of how many people involved in the polarized vs. sweet spot debate struggle with more basic aspects of training such as consistency. My understanding this this:
- It is much more important to make fueling a habit than to worry about exact amounts.
- “Overfueling” does not cause anywhere near the same issues that underfueling does. So even if you might only need to take in 70 g/h during lighter workouts, taking in 100 g/h (= + 30 g) has less of an impact than underfueling significantly.
- Fueling should and does become intuitive. (I noticed that I consume less on less intense workouts; in addition to having a fixed amount in bottles, I have a container with gummi bears that I munch on.)
- Many people worry too much about higher-level bits (polarized vs. sweet spot base or how much is “ideal”) rather than mastering the basics.
We need to clarify a little what danger means, but I think you are wrong that underfueling is mostly something elite athletes have to worry about. Underfueling has a significant impact on RPE no matter your abilities, which in the long run impacts consistency. Conversely, as far as I can tell the dangers of overfueling are either non-existent (if you define overfueling as taking in more calories than you expend, which for most athletes is impossible) or much less severe (if you define overfueling as fueling past the “optimal” point).
The downsides of athletes who are expected to perform are just more serious: their livelihood or even career may depend on it. The sister of a very close friend of mine was in the German youth swimming team. She got sick once and basically couldn’t keep up anymore when she came back. She quit the team. For amateur athletes, the consequences of not performing or feeling bad while training are less severe, but they are there.
IMHO you are conflating wanting to lose weight with over/underfueling. The two have little to do with one another since most of the weight loss happens off the bike.
Yeah, this is completely nuts to me. Many roadies seem quite conservative (I originally come from mountain biking, now I do both), and it takes ages for things that seem airtight (like aero benefits) to become widely adopted 
Maybe it is worthwhile to start my response with that: I have lost quite a bit of weight (87 kg —> 71.5 kg —> 74 kg). Yes, you are right, there are no easy fixes, that has been my experience, too. The only thing I had going for me was a pretty good aerobic engine, which masked my weight to a degree in everyday life. I have tried the approach you seem to advocate (not fueling certain workouts and just drink plain water or non-energy electrolyte mix), and it did not work for me.
What has worked for me is to aim for performance on the bike and slowly fixing my bad habits step-by-step off the bike. Fortunately, this can become a virtuous cycle, and when I am in it, I yearn for healthier food off the bike and want to get faster on the bike. The hard part is breaking homeostasis, it takes 2–4 weeks until my body understands and accepts the new normal.
I don’t want to assume anything about your normal diet. But if you (= now the impersonal you) are significantly overweight, then your normal diet is most likely a huge part of the problem. And you can’t exercise your way out of that hole. The adage “80 % of the dieting happens off the bike.” is rooted in truth. If you want to lose weight and keep it off, you need to fix your habits off the bike.
Losing weight is about maintaining a calorie deficit, and being able to sustain a calorie deficit has to do with satiety management. If you don’t eat on the bike, satiety management gets really, really hard. E. g. I train early in the morning on an empty stomach, and when I don’t eat on the bike (which I have done for a little over 1 year), I became ravenous during breakfast. I had to eat until I felt overfull. That’s been my experience at least.
Except it isn’t that easy. Like others have said here, not eating on the bike doesn’t come for free, e. g. a typical response is intense hunger and people then tend to overeat. It also decreases your gains, and any gain on the bike typically translates to better body composition.
I’d be cautious as it depends very much on who you ride with. In my experience, most people don’t have a clue about proper nutrition. The fast guys tend to have a better grasp, although I’d be cautious drawing any conclusions from short rides. Pay attention to the people who still produce good power after two, three hours of spirited riding.
That’s not my experience at all. The fastest guys in my team are the ones who have a good grasp on fueling. Also, the fastest guys are not necessarily the leanest, at least not on most terrain. (I live in Japan and I have a (healthy) male team mate who is in Strava’s <= 55 kg bracket. I’m likely the heaviest member of my team and I’m low-to-normal weight.) Our junior is an exception, although he often cracks or bonks on longer ride and we need to feed him. When I know he’s joining us for a ride, I typically take extra gels with me.
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When I started fueling properly, my FTP exploded (I went from 311 W to 348 W, although I gained about 2.5 kg). (At the beginning of Covid I made the conscious decision to put on about 2 kg to be more robust against diseases.) It was much easier to deal with higher volume, and I was less cranky.
That hasn’t been my experience. I was never a soda person, but I liked juice. I cut out juice and beer, and that already made a big difference. Now I typically share a bottle of beer with my wife.
The other bit I cut was snacking. I typically buy some dark chocolate once per month. Twice a month or so I have cheat days. And when I go for snacks, I usually opt for a piece of fruit rather than a pudding.
And I learnt to say no to seconds and thirds. That did the trick for me. Since I cook dinner 4 times a week, I could make some subtle changes. But those were much more gradual and subtle. It is mostly about portion sizes (relative and absolute). For example, I emphasize vegetables more in dishes, but the dishes are often still the same.
Yeah, agreed, I would also chase performance over weight any day. The weight will eventually take care of itself. Like I wrote above, when you do so much work, you will likely eventually crave healthier foods.
Yes, you are a bit overweight, but on the flip side, your aerobic fitness is way above average! That was the one asset I had, the one ace I could play: I never had the feeling to start from the bottom. I was doing quite well on the flats when riding with others and was not the last person on the climbs. I realize I had it much easier than others who weigh more than we do and start with an FTP that starts with a 1.
I think the crux here is what we mean by “over fueling” in the first place. Even when I do a mellow Z2 ride and consume 100 g/h, I am still at a caloric net deficit of at least 400 kCal per hour. In a strict sense, I (and the vast majority of TR athletes) never overfuel when doing a workout, because they physiologically can’t take in more calories than they expend.
You could also speak of overfueling when your intake is so large that you start to get GI distress.
I think what you mean with your comment is whether it is necessary to fuel at all and to fuel that much. Calling it overfueling connects it with weight gain — which you don’t if you keep your calorie intake off the bike under control, the workout leaves you in a net deficit.
Instead, I think what you are asking is what optimal fueling looks like given your goals. It may sound like semantics, but I think it is important to separate this from cutting calories off the bike.
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That hasn’t been my experience. I have tried both and when I started fueling my rides consistently, I got a significant FTP bump (311 W —> 348 W). I also feel much better on and off the bike.
On individual rides <= 1:30 I couldn’t tell a difference except for feeling completely famished afterwards. Like you correctly wrote, we have enough glycogen on board. But in the long run it did make a big difference with recovery and during harder rides. I can dig deeper, because my body has gotten consistent signals that I take in carbs while I train every time. I also no longer feel shitty after a post-workout meal, feeling as if I have overeaten.
I’d love to see your food journal for your current fueling strategy (lots of sugar on the bike) vs. when you start doing everything without fueling on the bike. Could you post the current one for reference and then the new one when you’ve made the swap?
I don’t mean your on bike diary but your entire food Jonah that covers your entire diet. The on bike changes are simple, I’m curious what else you’re eating currently and what that looks like when you drop the sugars while riding
I assume with all of this you’ve already journaled a few days with current strategy
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Your meals look similar to mine. Although my lunch is a big salad and veggies and fruit like this:
With some rice in the bowl for carbs.
And then on the bike around 5pm. Almonds and some fruit for a snack. And 1200-1500kJ rides without needing a lot of carbs, coming home and making dinner.
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I know. My training plan makes me alternate between hard and easy workouts. Fueling easy workouts and rides has significantly improved my recovery from those easy workouts, which means, I can dig deeper during the next workout — which is a hard workout. That is despite upping training volume (I train 4x90 minutes and 1 long ride whose length varies, but is at least 2 hours, typically 3–4 hours. That is up from 3x60 minutes, 1x90 minutes and 1 long ride.) The other effect, which I mentioned, is that my body knows it gets fuel during each and every workout, which is a much more consistent signal than every other workout or twice a week. The last benefit is that I have learnt to fuel intuitively, i. e. I don’t “forget” to take fuel in and I intuitively know to vary the amount based on intensity, how much I have had before the workout and other parameters.
Overall, the effect of fueling correctly in my experience has been a reduction in long-term fatigue. That’s the kind of fatigue you only notice after weeks and weeks of training, the type you can’t shed very quickly and that builds up over long time. Not fueling for me is akin to pushing through a workout that is a bit too hard to be productive: I can do that a few times, but if I tried to do that over the course of several weeks, it’d quickly destroy me.
Who said I was training 12 months a year?
Performance is my goal, but I know about periodized training and I know I cannot peak 12 months per year. So I have been riding the wave, up and down, I put in the work. At the beginning of a season, I don’t compare my numbers to my peak numbers last season, I compare them to the numbers at the same training stage last season. An easy one is my FTP at the start of the new season.
The other huge advantage of fueling the way I do now is that my off-the-bike nutrition doesn’t change much during the entire year. It does not vary (much) by training stage, by volume or intensity. In the past, I’d usually gain weight during my offseason, because my appetite was still geared for the on season. And taking in 3,500 kCal during normal meals when you only need 2,500 kCal takes some getting used to.
I think you misunderstood how I fuel. If you read my posts above, you see that I make sure I have a base and then let my body decide how much it wants to top that off with. I never force fuel into my body, nor do I feel bad for any food I eat during training. I know it is beneficial for me to hit a certain baseline and make sure that I do. But taking in a certain amount of carbs for every ride seems to be have net benefits for performance. Fasted rides do sometimes have their place in training, but as far as I understand, you are then aiming for certain adaptations (such as being able to perform well even when depleted) and not about maximizing performance. Based on what I heard on the podcast and saw/read in other places, including @timpodlogar’s work, it seems clear that most people are able to handle 90–120 g/h and there is a consensus that taking in carbs during endurance exercise is a net positive. Experts like @Dr_Alex_Harrison will tell you (and I believe them) that ideally you want to vary intake a little by intensity. But IMHO that is something you should incorporate after you have gotten used to fueling every ride. And likely you will be doing that yourself anyway.
Indoors, my carb intake varies a little depending on intensity, outdoors it varies quite a bit more depending on duration, etc. Indoors, I usually hit 100 g/h, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less. This morning I didn’t feel so hungry (I had a large dinner last night), so I only took in 73 g/h. But I felt great. My breakfast was also smaller. No biggie. I know why and it is fine. It isn’t important that you slavishly hit numbers every single time no matter how you feel. What is important in my experience is consistency and building habits.
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That looks pretty delicious. Is that a watermelon salad with cheese (mozzarella?) and basil? That’s a pretty delicious combo, especially in the summer. A friend of mine gave me a similar recipe, but she put in feta. Has all the things you want: sweet, savory, aromatics.
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I think you are doing just fine with what you are taking in around your training on the bike.
What you are experiencing is that you don’t loose weight from exercise. As long as there is an unlimited supply of food around us, if we follow our appetite to control the amount of food we eat, our weight will remain fairly stable.
To loose weight (fat) we need to eat less than our appetite is telling.
Large field tomato chopped up with some chicken. A lot of great tomatoes grown in this area, took me a long time to warm up to them.
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i can give kudos to high carb fueling guide from @Dr_Alex_Harrison
i am testing it for quite a while now- just table sugar 80-100g per hour.
yesterday i did a big ride and want to let you know about the details.
saturday high carb low fat: potatoes, fruits and porridge
sunday pre ride: 80g rice with maple syrup
during the ride 8 bottles 750ml 140g table sugar, 2g salt, bcaas, taurin and beta alanin
additional 2 bars and a gel to hit 1000g of carbs.
11 hour ride (1h paused) → 10hours with 220w average
250km with 3400m climb, 70% gravel 30% road
25 degrees sunny
about 8000kcal burned
positive:
220w average until home ! no bonk, no hunger, no gut problems, just ride and have fun.
to note: i had to drink more water than the 8 bottles caused by feel.
@Dr_Alex_Harrison is this because of the weather? too much or to less sodium? or is this normal?
negativ: none - maybe just dental heatlh 
sunday post ride: a banana with kefir, 2 toasts with cheese and marmelade, some veggys and egg.
a porridge 100g oats, fruits and nuts.
still had a 3000kcal deficit but no hunger anymore.
now its monday and my appetite is quite higher of course.
but overall for me its a perfect example how this works and how important it is to hit 100g per hour.
in the past i was more in the eat less on the bike to eat cheat meals after a big ride, but this lead only to junk food and higher kcal than i needed.
the main positive for me is that i can go 10hours full gaz without any problems!
this was a z2 ride 80%
when i go racing or including intervalls i would go for 120-140g? also with 750ml bottle?
@Dr_Alex_Harrison
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Try mint in place of the basil - both are delicious and surprisingly different
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I believe the point he was making was not to modify fueling strategy to try to elicit higher fat ox. Instead, train appropriately and accomplish higher fat ox through training adaptations.
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I’ve been involved in debates on this front. It’s quite an arm-wrestle to convince sponsors “I need to ride a different wheel if you want me to win with your logo all over my bike and body”
Depends on body composition and blood sugar dysregulation, if any. Underfueling causes more apparent short-term deficits in performance. Overfueling tends to have longer-term deficits in health that are impossible to “feel” while you’re doing it (barring GI issues, of course). Hence: an individualized approach is handy.
Agreed on all else.
This is a fantastic point. I’ve seen more people believe that they are just not good at endurance sport, simply because of hypoglycemia or bonking, than because they’re actually not talented at endurance sport. Reason? It feels bad to get hypoglycemic!
I’d posit that this is as severe or more severe than the elite athlete who has a very bad training sessions or a botched year of training. Feeling bad while exercising has long-term health effects because people cease to exercise. The elites often fight back, return to more serious training, and extremely rarely are compelled to “not exercise anymore” because they had some bad fueling experiences.
If you interview them in detail, I’d posit that the ones with the “water + banana” folks have all been riding for many many years and have higher fitness history than those who fuel more. That’s how it works in my bike group, which sounds similar to yours. Their poor fueling strategies are masked by a lifetime of high fitness.
Sweat rates influence fluid needs. Yes, 8 bottles, even if 1-L each, might be too low for a sweaty 11-hr ride. It would be for me!
Maybe, if gut can handle it. Might need to move up to 1-liter bottles and get more sodium and fluid. I wrote an app that customizes fuel approach for you. It’s in beta. iOS instructions or Android install.
Channel on Discord for quicker responses from me if you run into questions. Join email Email list here for notifications about releases etc.
Tagging @IvyAudrain here because I’m clearly linking out to things that I may eventually make money from, but also because it’s genuinely the best way for me to disseminate information on how to customize fueling strategy, which has been a common line of questions here. @mcneese.chad feel free to modify or delete any portion of this post or request that I do so and I’ll do it immediately.
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no worries thank you!
i give you all the money if this makes me even a better rider
so for more water - 750ml with less sugar and more refill stations would be better?
1 hours 750ml with 100g of sugar instead of 140g
i will try your app
I think you could keep carb content similar on a per-hour basis and just increase fluid consumption rate. Yes, probably either need to carry more fluid or stop more often to make this happen.
There is a chance that with more fluid consumption to better match thirst and sweat loss, that you could also benefit from higher carb intake too.
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