I cringe every time those skinny dudes give diet and weight loss advice. They just have no clue what it’s like to be over 50 and not be able to lose that last 15 pounds no matter what you do!
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Responding specifically to the OP, I’m not aware of any long term study offering any such assurance that there will not be long term consequences for athletes consuming such large quantities of simple carbs such as maltodextrin, fructose, cluster dextrin, “super starch”, or dextrose. The bottom line is that we do not know with any certainty one way or the other at this point in time. There are clearly varying opinions on the matter. Generally speaking, the old saying “everything in moderation” has always been a sound principle to rely on when it comes to long term health related issues. Getting as many of our calories from real whole foods and then supplementing with calories from simple carbs when whole foods are not available or feasible is probably a good strategy. Cheers.
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the book “Peak” addresses this subject in depth. It’s a compilation of recent studies dealing w/ high level performance outcomes. The author has a running theme of “fitness/performance” versus “being healthy”.
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This again is my point: that the carbo intake advice may need to be stratified according to age ( as a broad category)
Don’t blame the fuel.
Or contact Tim Podlogar.
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I do have an issue with pushing the high carb food in general. While I completely agree that in exercise you have to fuel, and sugars are the best way to get fuel in, I have a major issue with encouraging the high carb food outside of exercise.
In that Fast Talk podcast, they ended up talking about nutrient density as a much better metric than pure high/low anything (carb or fat).
I know what works for my body, and it is not high carb, even on the bike I am not consuming huge volumes of sugar, but I do use as it is the easiest to keep food coming in. Distilling this to a sound bite for a podcast is crazy, and I cringe at the older trainerroad podcasts talking of how much low nutrient food was being consumed off the bike to hit some mythical number.
I’m pretty sure they absolutely push a high nutrient/natural/organic diet off the bike. And only advise carb fuelling during workouts.
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Chad mentioned this on one of the podcasts last year, but after watching hours of the TR podcasts I can’t for the life of me find it. I’ve searched elsewhere to no avail. Does anyone know if there is a name for this (what seems to be distinct) form of metabolism?
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From about 12 minutes
As an avid podcast listener already, I did indulge you to refresh my memory…that’s race specific, not just every day training, and its 3 years ago. Nate’s really cleaned up his nutrition since too.
I dont know where it is in the podcast but the relevant terms are “GLUT1 transporter” and “non-insulin-mediated glucose transport.” The GLUT4 transporter is the “normal” insulin controlled one. Prepare yourself for a rabbit hole, but an interesting one. The peter attia podcasts on the topic is a good gateway drug to the papers themselves.
@Bob_Builder I had to adjust all of this since my last Dr. Visit and blood draw. It is definitely individual. I ended up with high triglycerides etc…blah…I have since reduced my sugar intake in all parts of my life, but do not try for 80-100gr per hour on the bike. I eat what works with real food and some smaller carb dosage from Scratch (27g over SIS 36g). Plus use UCAN with great success. I can get the calories I need with the carbs I need when I plan on the lower side and can maintain some good pacing over 2-5 hours. I am much happier and when I see the Dr in October for another draw I am hoping to be far better for it. It’s our health that we need to take care of rather than winning masters races. I just finished a local hilly TT and did well Mercx style, at 21.9 mph average over 17.4 miles. 10th of 17 everyone (1-9 )on TT setups that would make Pogocar jealous… were half my age but I also blew away the young ones as well 11-17 places. Better to fuel with what works and stay up on blood work and nutrition ON and OFF the bike. I am 51, 5 11, and my ftp is rather low 268. Fast because I want to be. :-). I do wish the coaches would re-asses this mess on the podcast. But pretty sure that will not happen. I am also starting to meet with a nutritionist…I am riding a big European Sportive in 2022 and need to dial everything in. Be sure to read the responses witch caution, including mine. Some here think they are helpful, while not, boasting about their situation. It is individual.
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Good question and thought line. I wondered similarly. Turns out, when you slam sugar during training, you don’t get massive insulin spikes. Hardly any at all, actually. Epinephrine is released in training. Epinephrine blunts any upregulation of insulin production by the pancreas.
The muscles still uptake glucose because they become a couple orders of magnitude more sensitive to presence of insulin during exercise.
TLDR: you’re good to go.
Get your a1c checked every couple years and pay attention if it starts moving over 5.4. 4.8-5.4 is probably optimal. Depends on who you ask. If a1c is good, you don’t have any inflammatory issues that are being caused by sugar.
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I’ve been lurking in this thread for a while, but wanted to chime in a bit here with a bit of perspective.
Carb intake can and should be matched for not just racing, but also training, in the context of workload.
If you have a 200w FTP, and are doing endurance work around 130-150w, you are burning roughly 450-500kj per hour, at a reasonable fat percentage and you don’t need to necessarily be putting down 60g of carbs per hour unless the ride is going to be long.
In my case, when I’m doing long endurance work around 230-270w or a long sweetspot workout, I’m burning between 800-1000kj per hour. 60g per hour is the minimum I need to take in in order to not end up in an absolutely massive energy deficit.
I’ve listened to the podcast for many years and I’m not sure where folks are getting this misconception that the hosts are advocating for consuming lots of simple carbs outside of the context of training.
Several people have also mentioned the fact that during exercise and in a relatively wide window afterwards, your muscles are able to uptake massive amount of glucose without much or any insulin at all.
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I guess it depends on what you mean by “outside the context of training.” We’re all “athletes” here, so average-joe-on-the-couch is a whole other context. Would you say eating a box of cereal because you had a workout this morning (or a workout tomorrow) is in or out? I would say it’s out while fueling the ride you currently doing and/or just finished is in. While the podcast pretty frequently touches on consuming carbs during a ride, they just as often are telling you to eat as many carbs as possible the rest of the day to recover-from or prepare-for a ride – ie, all the time.
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That seems to be more Nate but, of course, he’s a tall skinny guy. Jonathan seems to be more in the middle. And Chad said recently that he tends to be more of a protein/fat eater naturally.
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Good ear, I was definitely channeling Nate for the box of cereal 
I considered adding an offhand remark to my post but thought it would detract too much.
Putting aside the jokes about Popeyes, most of the carb suggestions outside of the training window have been high quality carbs like black beans, salads, etc at least to my memory.
Nate is honestly just such a large human who needs so much food and the podcast doesn’t make it quite clear how big he is since everyone has the same size box on screen 
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Nate has about an inch on me, so I understand his stature pretty well. We do need pretty absurd amounts of calories.
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I think where people misinterpret the podcast is in assuming that all high carb diets are inherently equal. An off-the-bike diet centered around nutrient dense, minimally processed carbs such as grains, legumes and produce, in addition to some simple sugars on the bike, is still a high carb diet- but it has very different implications to a diet based around highly processed carbohydrate 24/7. The former is what I have heard the TR podcast recommend extensively, while I understand the box of cereal was in the context of carb-loading for an event which has very different demands and isn’t intended to be a long-term thing.
Also worth noting that endurance athletes have significantly greater calorie needs than the general population, and while carbohydrate requirements vary by activity level protein and fat remain relatively fixed- so a diet may be “high carb” by percentage while still being in line with an individual’s energy demands. Again, context is important, and whether or not a food is ‘bad’ is entirely relative to overall intake and expenditure.
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