On training or long ride days I often struggle ti break even on calories consumed/burned. It’s not uncommon for me to either end up with a deficit or a full stomach before bed.
On “off” days, it’s the opposite. I’ve trained myself to constantly eat all day. . . but when there’s no workouts my baseline drops from like 3-5k to only 2k. So often, I’ll catch myself eating over.
For the most part, I figure this just doesn’t really matter as long as I’m getting enough macros and enough carbs during my rides and it all averages out at the end of the week.
Just curious how others view it or if there’s strategies you use. Also really curious if there’s any actual research that looks at the effects of that kind of variability on recovery.
DON’T eat ‘constantly all day’, even on training days. This keeps insulin in your system for too much of the day. Try to stick to three meals a day when not training, and then add additional calories while on the bike.
My strategy is to have a ‘baseline’ diet, which is high in protein, with a moderate amount of carbs and fat. This is how I eat on non-training, or very easy days. Then, on training days, I still eat the baseline diet, but supplement it with additional calories, largely carbs, to fuel the additional workload without spiking insulin.
There are probably a lot of different opinions out there (some more science-backed than others) but, in the end, you’ll have to find a system that works for you.
Constantly is more of “feels”. . . in practice that works out to 3 meals and 2 or 3 snacks in between.
So like…6am meal, 9am snack, 12pm meal, 2pm snack, 5pm meal, 7pm snack. . . . and if the ride is over an hour, I fuel the ride. (otherwise post ride shake).
The size of those depends on how long a ride I do and I try to “front load” or eat most of my calories earlier in the day.
You don’t have to break even every single day. On big ride days when you expend 5000-6000kcal of energy, why not just have a 1000 kcal deficit, and then on the rest day do a 1000kcal surplus? I find this sort of flexibility is far easier than trying to meet calories in/out every single day, as there can be days where my calorie intake “should” be 7000kcal and eating that much food will really impair my sleep / make me feel really bloated.
I’ll definitely do my best to eat back most of my calories on a big ride day but if I do a long ride with intervals it can be more than 4k extra calories which is basically impossible to reasonably eat back.
But it gets tough if I then have a long endurance ride the next day where you’re going to burn a ton again.
So generally I just do my best to eat as much back as I can. I know that if I leave a 1000kcal deficit then I’m definitely gonna feel it the next day so I try to keep it under that. Not a huge deal if I just have an endurance ride the next day though. Then on my next rest day I just overeat. In a controlled way so I’m not ending in a massive surplus but like +500-1000 on the day to bring the average back in line.
But on big ride days, a mid ride donut or Wawa Sizzli can really make it easier to hit your calorie requirements lol
That’s totally how I do it. I put out a little extra effort/attention to close the gap on big expenditure days, but don’t sweat it if I’m within a 1k or so. And same on light days. I eat healthy, but if my appetite guides me into a surplus I roll with it.
But on big ride days, a mid ride donut or Wawa Sizzli can really make it easier to hit your calorie requirements lol
Ha! For health reasons, I eat very little of that kind of food (e.g. high saturated fats). But a bowl of nuts and dried fruit with a little chocolate can really hit the spot on dense calories.
As others have said, you don’t need to be calorie neutral on a daily basis. You want to keep glycogen stores up for upcoming rides, but you can still do a decent job of that even on a day when you are running a deficit. You are burning a mix of glycogen and fat on the bike, so it’s not as if you have to replace 3000 calories “worth of glycogen” just because you burned 3000 calories on the bike. The fat on your body is basically a buffer that allows you to run a deficit on some days and a surplus on others while still having good energy and glycogen stores.
I don’t think you said anything about your fueling habits on the bike, but that’s the time to dramatically scale the calories up and down based on activity for a given day. Trying to do that once you are off the bike is very challenging and can turn into unhealthy eating habits. Unless riding very easy, it’s hard for most people to eat enough on the bike to keep up with expenditures. But you should try. You mention “eating healthy” and that’s a great habit off the bike, but getting as many simple sugars down as possible while riding will leave you with a much smaller deficit when you get off the bike. Shoot for at least 300 calories an hour, 400+ if you can handle it. And then eat some additional simple carbs and protein immediately after the ride. If you are hitting it hard on the bike, eating when off the bike should look pretty normal and shouldn’t have to change much on a daily basis regardless of how you trained on a given day. I often hear people say they don’t need to fuel much on an easy ride (or they don’t need to fuel during the last hour of a ride) and that may be true in the context of performance during that ride. But fueling on the bike is about fueling the work you’ll be doing tomorrow and the next day, not just for the current ride. There are some unique physiological advantages to fueling during exercise that fall away pretty quick once you stop. Use the time on the bike to fuel as much as possible.
I work on fueling on the bike. I don’t usually eat during the ride if it’s just an hour. But anything over that I fuel the whole time. Usually around 30g/hr. Maybe a little less/little more.
Better than nothing, but far from ideal. That’s like 120 calories an hour, I’d aim to at least triple that, and do more as you can. And consider fueling those 1 hour rides, particularly if they have any intensity. Again, it’s the best time to replenish glycogen for future work even if you don’t need it during the one hour ride. As much as you can pound sugar on the bike, it allows you to eat normal and healthy off the bike rather than playing catch up.
I also follow this approach. It works for me because I’m not burning 4k calories at a time or multiple days in a row. I’m also not biking late in the day.
On the bike, I aim to fuel half of my calories with sugar. I eat back most of the calories soon after the ride with high quality food.