I’ve never been good about adding fats, for whatever reason.
The idea of using regular peanut butter instead of pb2 (to me) seems like a waste of calories that could be used on more satiating foods. Or four scrambled eggs instead of 2 and 2 whites. I’d rather be able to have an extra apple or banana and still be in line calorie wise on the day.
I guess we’re just all different, which certainly makes all of this so interesting.
I have read many responses to the replies. But none of my thoughts qualify until we know his training program. How many hours and miles are you on the bike each week? What levels is he riding at? What percent is indoors and outdoors? Why did you leave out the training portion of you input? “You can’t manage what you don’t measure”. And in this case, we do not know what we are measuring [actual riding the bike time]. How can we come to a conclusion when we are only collecting some of the available data. Is there a reason why you did not give us the “on the bike” data making any conclusion incomplete. We are here to help. You need to help us first by filling in the blanks. Sounds like you are putting gas in the car but where did you drive it?
It’s in one of the responses. Think it’s like 3.5 hrs of structured plus 30min of commuting per work day and lots of walking, if memory serves.
ETA: yeah, in post #33. But, 20 mins of commute.
thanks
It’s on the comment above, and also it had been added to the original post.
I’m doing 3.5 hours of structured indoors sessions. This is low volume masters, so 1h vo2max, 1h endurance, 1.5h threshold.
I take the city bike to and from the train station 3 times per week avg. 20min round trip.
I walk most days for at least 20min, but usually more.
Is that 3.5 hours 7 days a week?
Definitely not. He specifies the different sessions and the split.
Edit - Low Volume Masters is 3.5 Hours of Structured Intensity Spread across the week. He adds in commuting and walking.
Many excellent points have been made already.
The story of the OP resonates partly with my own experience, and I would like to add two potential issues that haven’t been addressed yet, I think.
First, especially in a rather unfit state or when ramping up training after a period with less volume, high intensity workouts (VO2 or threshold) have a much, much stronger effect on subsequent hunger/cravings for me than endurance work. Maybe due to glycogen depletion or whatever issue with substrate metabolism. In any case, my eating behavior is always much more compulsive in the day(s) after.
Second, I find that my general stress level, completely independent of exercise, has a similarly (!) strong effect on hunger/cravings.
On the behavior side, there are two big killers for me, both around dinner time. The first is the urge to finish whatever is on the table for dinner, and my wife hates it when there is “too little food” on the table… The second is that especially when I am stressed I start snacking before dinner, end up eating almost a dinner worth of peanuts, dairy or chocolate, and top that up nicely with the real dinner, overeating a second time. Being compulsive is clearly the issue for me.
If you find yourself in some of all this, relax and be careful with high intensity workouts, maybe it helps
I’m glad you have a clear way forward.
For what it’s worth I think @BCM is on the money. And that your regular days intake is enough for your hard days too.
It can be difficult to know why we are hungry, sometimes it can be because we are worrying about food a lot, and simply thinking frequently about eating is making us want to eat. For me, this is why I want to track only one week in four - whatever diet I end up with has to be one I can do without a lot of cognitive effort. There are other tips like having a glass of water if you feel hungry after dinner time.
It’s been now about a week, and just focusing on protein and fat did not fix the issue. Tho I have to say maybe it was a bit easier to manage then usual exept at specfic points.
So what’s not going well: Rest days.
I feel like every single rest day I’m just starving, specifially Friday (after thursday Threshold), and weirdly today.
I’m trying to think what I should try next this week, but I’m confused because on one hand I feel like it’s when I have more carbs that it starts spiralling real bad, so I could see the argument eating too much.
That would aslo explain why it’s mainly on rest days that I feel so much hunger.
But at the same time, on wednesday for example, when I didn’t have that much food in the afternoon I really started feeling my legs getting tired even if they previously were fine, (I wonder if my body is just using the muscle glycogen storage from my legs to fuel me).
So yeah, here is some macros of this week, (ignore Saturday, it’s only half day).
For now I’m just going to keep following what I saw on this thread everytime I have one of theese hypoglycima events.
But I guess maybe the question is, how do you fuel after workouts, do you aim to recover 100% what was burned (trainerroad calorie amount)?
EDIT: Sorry for the rumbly post, I’m having quite a lot of hunger today and just adds a bit of frustration.
I am usually the most hungry on rest days too. I put it down to my body working hard to repair all the damage I do while training, and don’t really worry if I’m over or under on any given day, as long as the weekly trend is flat or moving in the right direction.
I don’t have much to add beyond what everyone has already said, but eating more usually makes me eat more.
If I was consistently putting 3,000 calories in every day, I’d gain a lot of weight. Even if I was doing 10 hours a week on the bike (that is with an FTP around 300).
With your FTP and training load + commuting and whatever, you are burning an additional 410 calories per day (averaged over 7 days).
My 2 cents, you are eating too much fat, and too many carbs. I’d dial those back, get to around 2400 cals per day. Your training is mostly above fat max and relying on carbs for the fuel. Add a 60g of carbs on each ride and see where that takes you after 2 weeks. You should be able to do a 1 hour Z2 ride unfueled, easily. Let alone a sandwich, banana and the post workout meal. I would also skip the nanner before the ride and halve the post ride meal.
Drink more water is the other one I would say. A water bottle should be within arms reach all day… And not sure if I saw it, any alcohol or other drinks mixed into this? Counting calories only works if you are brutally honest about everything that goes into your facehole.
My wife just hired a nutritionist so I am now on the game defacto. I’ve dialed my eating back to close to what she eats with maybe an extra snack per day. Week 1, hungry, also the week I started my 2x per week lifting and back on the bike consistently. But I survived.
Week 2 (now, far less hungry), you just get used to eating less. My goal everyday is to eat around what it takes for me to live (around 2,000Cals) add sugar on the bike to survive workouts.
I’m seriously considering giving a little cut in calories per day, however it scares me a bit because last time I tried cutting I was almost crying from how bad I was hungry.
However I have the feeling it could be somewhat of solution, since some days I fuel less I don’t feel that bad.
Just not sure how much to cut and where. But yeah, going to try to keep fat and protein the same for the most part, not sure were to reduce the carbs.
One thing you can try is taking a mild antacid like pepcid, it’s possible what you are thinking is hunger is actual raised stomach conditions.
Just eat more veg and, to a lesser extent, fruit. High volume, low calorie. Frozen fruit is good as it takes ages to eat as well lol.
I eat raw carrots and go through bags of frozen veg as it fills me up for not much £.
Powdered peanut butter is lower calorie too.
I just want to step in here and remind anyone on this thread that we recommend speaking with a professional when looking for nutritional advice.
Each of our situations is completely unique and it’s impossible for anyone to know what’s really going on with another’s body through an online forum.
In general, I recommend that when athletes are hungry, they should eat. There is way more harm to be done from underfueling vs. overfueling relative to the endocrine/nervous systems etc.
If you’re struggling with your diet and/or feeling hungry all the time, please seek professional help. 
I think this is probably the best way. Probably listening to internet advice is not the best and can get confusing. Last night it felt pretty rough managing the hunger and having to make the decisions myself when it’s this bad is probably contributing with the added anxiety.
I still want to document some of my findings on this thread, but probably should do it with some professional help. Just sucks to search for a 3rd nutricionist.
Reach out to Dr. Nick Harden. He’s someone I mentored extensively. Works for RP Strength. Google and you’ll find him. I’m not formally affiliated with him and will not financially gain from you hiring him. (I used to consult extensively for RP but now run Saturday Inc. Nick is a consultant for RP and is my former employee in a couple different capacities). Super smart guy. Will enjoy teaching and discussing nuanced tradeoffs and analytical questions, while still seeing the bigger picture and guiding well.
Best of luck. Weight loss is hard. Find someone expert (PhD or MS, RD) who has extensive experience working with endurance athletes.
Thank you.
I will consider him, however probably going to try someone in Europe as I find that it can be rather expensive to hire an US based nutritionist.
Also, side not, I’m not trying to lose weight the constant hunger is just related to training.
I am still wondering, is there anyone who is not “constantly” hungry while training with progressive overload? I definitly am, there are days I’d kill for carbs every hour. If that’s such a problem for you that you consider seeking professional help, maybe first just try to train less?
If I don’t train, after 2…3d, I could almost forget about food.
