Off the bike, start by eating veggies, fruit, beans, lentils, whole grains as well as smaller amounts of nuts and seeds. Start by eating to satiety. This type of food is not extremely calorie dense(excluding the nuts and seeds) and is high in fiber. The actual volume of food you have to consume if you’re training at a reasonable level is quite high.
Alright, I just had my cup of oats about 45 mins before getting on the trainer. It’s a de load week so don’t need too much, riding petit today. Lets see how we go! I’m trying to do the hardest thing, train and lose weight at the same time.
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Nate’s training calendar is public: - TrainerRoad
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The timing of your pre- exercise meal is important. It’s suggested to complete your meal no less than 3 hours before your workout or race, regardless of the duration. Generally, about 3 hours allows your body to fully process the meal and avoid intestinal distress. You should
feel “better” as your body devotes all blood and oxygen to your physical
efforts rather than digesting your meal.
Additionally, eating within three hours of exercise can seriously hamper performance. It can raise blood sugar and reduce the body’s ability to burn fat as fuel. Also, a meal during this time could lead your body to burn through its limited reserves of stored carbohydrates (muscle glycogen) more quickly.
The combination of rapid glycogen depletion and decreased fat burning reduces endurance and performance. It’s said, for optimal performance, abstain from eating for at least 3 hours prior to your start time (5-10 mins before is ok for a gel/drink).
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Stop doing this. In 60 mins you’re not going to feel great. Unfortunately with slow complex carbs the wait time is around 2-3 hours before they are in your system giving you energy vs your body spending energy on digestion.
Also, Pettit isn’t necessarily a workout which requires a high level of carb loading, if any at all. You should have enough junk in your muscles to get through that one without eating anything. Don’t eat before, don’t eat during, only eat after. See if it helps with the weight loss.
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I think there’s an important caveat here (tangentially related to your point) - three hours is the limit for some folks. For others it is less, for still others it is more. Three hours is a good starting point. However, you should try adjusting that in both directions if you really want to optimize and find your sweet spot for pre-ride meals.
Definitely agree that 45 minutes is too little time for everyone I know - lowest I hear people go with success is 1.5 or 2 hours - but I wouldn’t want to guide anyone towards three hours being a universal barrier
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Well - the wording used was around ‘meal’ - which I took to mean regular food, not sports focused nutrition
If you’re expanding it to more exercise focused food like gels, sports drinks, or anything else that’s super fast carb focused - you should try to eat those immediately before starting (<15 minutes) or after you’re on the bike.
Definitely. That’s why the caveat — slow complex carbs. You could totally slam some sugar and hop on the bike for a 1hr w/o.
arg.
You guys have thoroughly confused me now.
Bearing in mind that my ftp is quite low (179 these days) hence my calorific expenditure is low, too.
Bearing in mind, too, that I’m currently trying to lose weight (went from 92kg down to 85 in the last 4 months, but still 5 or 6 kg off my target weight)
So far, what I’ve been doing (and, which has worked)
I workout quite early (5.45 am pre-covid, 7 am these days)
I carb-up the night before, to my “allowed” calorific intake.
Workouts under 1h are done fully fasted, no matter the intensity.
Workouts over 1h (mainly 90mins) I would take a gel or some home-made flapjack or date bites after the hour mark.
It seemed all fine when my ftp was 130ish, and my calories output was around the 300 mark.
However, with the increase in FTP, by definition, the output is higher, and, reading you, I am now wondering if I’m short-changing myself.
Did Mary Austin -1 last week on water, and I can say I didn’t like it much!
2 date bites today for Leconte helped a bit, but I’ve been a zombie all day.
What do you guys think?
Only water = fail.
You aren’t watering your daffodils, you’re trying to conquer the killer queen! Load up on ammo!
2 date bites = helped a bit. Imagine what 20 date bites could do! Leconte is the killer queen’s personal assassin that you can only defeat by becoming a carb warrior!
Carry on.
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I don’t feel like I need it for VO2 max, or sweetspot. Threshold however kills me.
And I still wanted to get some benefit from the fasted, fast burning effect.
Recovery week is coming, so I’m going to stick to fasted, and I’ll start carb munching as soon as the sustained power build phase starts.
I went LCHF last January to help lose a bunch of weight. It worked well and I kept on it until summer. I mainly mountain bike and would do a lot of fasted rides. I eventually hit an absolute wall with my riding, just literally smoked on even easy stuff. I started to add in carb refeeds at the end of the day (dinner) in the form of mostly veggies. I started feeling better and better. Now I would say my meals are more carb central, in the form of veggies, oats and brown rice. With mountain biking there is nothing but mixed efforts, its all about what the trail demands and the rides are a lot better, more sustained energy the entire time. This year I have been trying to really dial in fueling my rides and meal timing. One of the biggest things I have notice moving to a more carb central diet is the recovery is insane. I am literally ready to go later in the day if I wanted too on most days.
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First thing in the morning I need a bit of a top up otherwise I just feel a bit drained. I’m pretty lucky that although I couldn’t get a bunch of carbs processed and stored away quickly a small meal 45 mins before causes me no gastric distress and makes me feel better on the bike so long as I’m not racing etc. Although I don’t need anything to get through Petit, I’m more thinking of tommorows workout and how I’ll feel off the bike for the rest of the day. I am generally on the lower carb side so I do often have to think about carbs around my rides. i.e. I can’t rely on a massive plate of pasta I ate last night because I didn’t unless I have a really long/hard ride the next day.
There’s no benefit to be gained doing anything based around keto if you’re an endurance athlete! Eat carbs.
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So - first - this is my n=1, but our situations are similar. I workout in the morning (4:30 AM starts pre-COVID, 5 AM starts currently). My FTP is higher than yours (my endurance rides burn around 800 calories/hour, more intense rides are more like 900-1000 calories/hour) so I have a larger caloric burn and intake problem than you
My current workouts are comprised of 3 days of intensity and 3 days of endurance. On the endurance rides I always do fasted for the first 90 minutes and then start eating. This is purely to train and improve my fat ox, this is NOT recommended until you’re very comfortable with your fitness and are chasing marginal gains. It makes the rides, yes even endurance or lower, harder. The RPE is significantly higher fasted
On intensity days I have some caffeine and get on the bike. I have a gel during the warm-up and then another one after the warm-up. I will continue to consume calories throughout the workout - maybe stopping before the final set, maybe even eating right into the start of the final set.
I can detail out the specifics of what I’m eating if you want but honestly I’d recommend you eat for all of your rides until you’ve maxed out your easy gains and not attempt even the endurance rides fasted until you’re really pushing the edges of your fitness capabilities.
Your weight loss will come in the kitchen, don’t short change the workouts!
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How many carbs per day do you guys take or are you supposed to take at a minimum as a Cycling athlete?
Personally, when I take 7-9gr/kgbodyweight, I feel amazing.
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Veggies, fruit, whole grains. I have a highlight story of some of the stuff I eat on my instagram. https://www.instagram.com/tr.nate/?hl=en
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Have you tried white rice ? Wheat, oats, starches mess my sleep hard too (insomnia, night sweat and stuff) but white rice is ok for me.
I know there is a trend for whole food these days, but gluten isn’t the only anti-nutrient that can mess you up badly. Oxalate toxicity is a thing too. And most of whole grains are full of oxalate.
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I just want to second this wholeheartedly.
While many diets have great theory behind them and explanations why they work, let’s not forget the big picture. The recommendation above has a large, measurable effect on fitness and, over long term, body composition.
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