Am I underfueling my ride?

[jlnzhrl]

On that second one you mean ?
Yeah I was pushing it a bit on that one bc I really wanted the avg. 30km/h. But for this comparison the only thing that matters is that it was the same ride (maybe even ridden harder) but I felt good afterwards. Yesterday I didn’t. So I think it’s safe to say that it was more of a fueling problem.

[Bbt67]

Maybe a combination of fueling, fatigue, impending illness???

[jlnzhrl]

I rested Friday & Saturday so fatigue I don’t think so. Illness I can’t be 100% sure but I don’t feel like I’m getting sick. Like I said, on other days with extra malto I never had this issue….

[jlnzhrl]

Do you let your power meter computer show u the immediate power output or a f.e. 3s average ?
Maybe I’m spending so much time outside of Z2 bc I have my settings set to a 3s avg of my power.

[Bbt67]

Might be a slight tanget but good question.

The screen I leave it on 99% of the time is

10 sec ave power
NP lap
Ave Power Lap
IF - Intensity Factor

On a Z2 ride I aim to keep all the power numbers as close to each other as I can.

I mainly focus on NP and AVE pwr lap as close to each other as I can, it becomes a bit of a game.
If I spiking power too much, the gap grows, its an easy way getting feedback on if you are staying smooth and controlled.
I don’t use VI as I like to see the watts.

IF is more there if doing some lapped intervals I can see I’m in the correct zone, although on Z2 you used if to check you are matching NP and AVE watts without the intensity.

My laps are setup as 5 or 10 miles, depends on how long the ride is (default 5 miles)

[OreoCookie]

@jlnzhrl

Also: what about energy from muscle degeneration due to underfueling (or even unfueled)?

Muscle degeneration may result if your protein intake is too low. Since you don’t (want to) take any protein in while riding, that’s something you need to consider for your off-the-bike nutrition.

If you are new to nutrition, I can recommend an app by @Dr_Alex_Harrison called Saturday. It will help you figure out nutrition strategy based on your goals, intensity and how much your gut can handle. It also includes a community and he is very helpful and responds directly. The 80 g/hour figure is just a baseline.

In practice, overfueling is not a thing you need to worry about (even at >150 W). Fuel intake is limited by feeling full, perhaps GI distress, especially over long durations (>3 hours). You may find it weird to “eat so much”, but it is something you need to train as well.

[PolderPhantom]

@OreoCookie

@PolderPhantom

I just looked at yesterday’s training run, 206km on mostly fat. 4220 power meter calories burned , for 500 breakfast and 1300 on route. so that was about 58% body fat. Allowing a 5% error on the powermeter woul give us 55%

That math is very flawed: you have lots of glycogen stored in your muscles. Thus, you can’t assume that the difference between total energy expenditure and the calorie-from-carb-intake comes from fat. If that were true, people who wanted to lose weight would just need to do long, un- or underfunded endurance rides.

II hear you and in isolation, that would be true, however currently i am prominently (last 3 months) in a calorie deficit at the moment successfully losing around 500 gram of body fat per week, whilst maintaining high activity levels, so the numbers cant be far from wrong. I am specifically fuelling per activity. Yes there will be some glycogen around, there has to be, but is far from a full load.

Also comparable numbers can be seen in my data on 4-7 day events. Glycogen certain does not last that long

[QuittingBikes]

@jlnzhrl

Yeah now that you mention it I did get on my bike rather quickly after eating breakfast (maybe 30 min after finishing my bowl).

30 min actually isn’t that bad.

Best to either extend that all the way to 2.5-3 hours, or perhaps even shorter, like 15 minutes.

45min-2 hours is no man’s land where you’re going to feel really sluggish.

[OreoCookie]

@PolderPhantom

II hear you and in isolation, that would be true, however currently i am prominently (last 3 months) in a calorie deficit at the moment successfully losing around 500 gram of body fat per week, whilst maintaining high activity levels, so the numbers cant be far from wrong. Also comparable numbers can be seen in my data on 4-7 day events. Glycogen certain does not last that long

You are missing one important thing: how do you think your body uses fat as energy source? It converts it into glycogen. The corollary of that is that you can convert sugar into fat. That’s why you can get fat on drinking coke (essentially water plus sugar).

Your fat utilization is usually much lower than you think and has nothing to do with a calorie deficit. During vigorous exercise your body will strongly prefer existing glycogen over fat.

[GoLongThenGoHome]

Most have quite a low maximum fat oxidation rate. In ultra endurance athletes fat ox rates of 1.64g/ min ( ~ 98g / hour) have been seen at 70% of VO2 max. That works out at - 880 calories per hour from fat stores, subject to efficiencies.

[Helvellyn]

@OreoCookie

You are missing one important thing: how do you think your body uses fat as energy source? It converts it into glycogen.

Overnight via gluconeogenesis - yes.

Acutely while exercising - no.

Is my understanding.

[PolderPhantom]

@OreoCookie

e important thing: how do you think your body uses fat as energy source? It converts it into glycogen. The corollary of that is that you can convert sugar into fat. That’s why you can get fat on drinking coke (essentially water plus sugar).

Sorry, I don’t believe that to be correct. please review the The Krebs cycle. fatty acids are broken down through a number of steps to directly produce ATP

You are perhaps thinking of gluconeogenesis when protein is broken down to produce glucose. however even this produces very little glycogen, because the hormones the convert to glycogen switch off the gluconeogenesis process.

J

[therealemm]

I don’t know. I’ve never really had a problem with this. I’ve bonked one time, the ride had sprints and attacks and sitting around and took a total of 6 hours (I bonked at 97 miles) and I had one 200 calorie bar. I burned 4100 calories on the ride. I think I bonked because the ride ended after lunch time.

I’d be more inclined to think you had a hydration (or electrolyte) problem than a fuel problem. Unless you are chronically underfed.

edit to add. I do 2.5 - 3 hour rides nearly every day that burn 2000-2500 calories total and consume a max of 200 calories an hour (mostly to keep my stomach used to it). Most training rides I consume less than 100 calories an hour.

[HLaB]

Your taking far more than I eat. I tend not to carry any food on rides exceeding 2 hours but that is mainly because whilst I they are regenerating slowly my hands were wrecked by chemotherapy and instead I take carbs in from the bottle. I’ll usually have a 39g sachet of porridge before the ride (creature of habit) and one 650 ml bottle on our regular ride 56 km (35 miles) to the cafe (56km) and circa 80-100km (50-62 miles) home with a pub stop circa 12-15km (7.5 - 9miles) from the end. For what I do I find thats more than enough though and I’ve occasionally (regularly when I was younger, lol) extended it to 160km (100miles) as its flat terrain round here.

Edit: Conversion Fail Sorted

[OreoCookie]

@PolderPhantom

You are perhaps thinking of gluconeogenesis when protein is broken down to produce glucose. however even this produces very little glycogen, because the hormones the convert to glycogen switch off the gluconeogenesis process.

Yes, I am thinking of gloconeogenesis, but as far as I understand, you can’t just produce glucose from protein, but also fats. Taken from here:

Creating New Glucose

Gluconeogenesis is a term that describes the synthesis of new glucose by other molecules. It can use amino acids, lactic acid and glycerol, which is extracted from fat. The problem with gluconeogensis is that you actually use energy. Six ATPs are required throughout the process.

Again, ask yourself why you can get fat on drinking just soda (= sugar, essentially no fat). It is because you can convert glucose into fat — and vice versa.

[lee82]

@OreoCookie

You are missing one important thing: how do you think your body uses fat as energy source? It converts it into glycogen. The corollary of that is that you can convert sugar into fat. That’s why you can get fat on drinking coke (essentially water plus sugar).

No. Fat doesn’t convert into glycogen, at least not in any appreciable amounts unless you are only eating fat and nothing else. It generally gets oxidized, broken down and used to create things like sex hormones, or stored as fat. You generally WILL NOT get fat by just eating sugary fruit, drinking juice, or otherwise eating refined sugar. Your body can convert excess sugar into fat, but it’s really a last resort, and it probably not very much of it even when it happens. It’s not an efficient operation, and your body doesn’t want to do it. It would rather store it as glycogen, so unless you are totally topped off on glycogen (which is doubtful if you train a decent amount), it’s not getting converted to fat. If you eat a diet that’s in excess of 1000 calories daily, more than 98% of the fat you store is created from the fat you ate, not the carbs. Hope this clears things up…

[therealemm]

Fat and carbohydrate overfeeding in humans: different effects on energy storage - PubMed.

Just gonna put that there. (that was literally the first study in the search results)

[daness40]

Is that you Durian Rider?? He’s been preaching this since I started watching his stuff on youtube back in 2013.

[G650]

Please god no

[Twowkg]

Not sure why anyone would support that colossal waste of good oxygen.