Factory made bread you find at the grocery store contains sugar and highly pulverized flour that has a very high glycemic index. It may be fine for a healthy athlete under certain conditions but it’s the kind of food that leads to diabetes in the general population when it’s eaten every day as a diet staple.
Often “whole wheat” bread is bread made with white flour and then they add back some bran to turn it a little brown and call it “whole wheat”. And it still usually has added sugar.
I’m not saying I don’t eat bread. I used to eat 2-4 slices a day but I’ve cut it down to maybe 4 slices a week. I also more often eat Ezekial flourless bread which is a true whole grain bread.
OK, thanks for the response on that! I totally get that, keep us posted as you continue this experiment. Super curious to see how it goes for you.
This also makes sense - thanks! I’m lucky in that I’ve pretty much always lived near a good bakery (and now I make bread regularly) so I have good stuff to eat - cheap store-bought bread just doesn’t taste right to me anymore.
Today was a ‘normal’ two hour interval session during which I burned around 1750 calories
The only off the bike ‘non-natural’ food I’ll eat is a small serving of Enlightened Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Ice cream for dessert (133 calories). Everything else will be fruits, vegetables (some raw, some cooked), yogurt, pork tenderloin, and tuna. I eat pretty much all day and spread the protein out. FWIW I’ll be around 409g carbs, 109g fat, and 248g protein
The non-natural stuff I had on the bike today was two SiS gels, 15 chocolate covered espresso beans, and a small bowl of cereal all of which totaled around 680 of the 3800 calories I will have today
Do you think it’s sustainable though? (I never feel that full after my meals) I agree with @cartsman and @anon67840561 that more high quality carbs might be better. But nothing wrong with experimenting, curious to see if it works for you
My impression is research is gonna tell you whatever the hell you wanna hear in this area, depending on what you search for you’ll find something. Carbs are 4cal/gram and fats are 9. So if the issue is just plain being able to go through enough food to replenish, looks logical to me to go for higher concentration of easily digestible fat, like olive oil.
I am trying to follow a similar path in dropping processed food - it is hard. My reasons are a bit different, need to lose a bit of weight, so it helps, but mainly health wise - I run very high triglycerides, which ta da grains and sugar are the direct offenders, no matter how much im training or not. I did VO2 max yesterday for first time since dropping the grains and sugars - (eating lots of veggies, so carbs coming in) and felt really good.
In my experience, when eating alot of carbs for 24 solo training, I had to make sure I ate enough good fat as well. I didn’t do this at first and my weight on the scales was dropping considerably. My nutritionist told me I was loosing muscle and to increase good fats. I increased the he fat and my weight stabilized.
I’m not sure if that was personal to me or the training, but I make sure I get a healthy dose of good fats, whatever my training now.
Just stumbled upon this. I think its important to distinguish between fueling and nutrition.
For fueling, eg. getting the calories back, I would highly recommend self made rice cake already on the bike. Any way you like, simple, savory, sweet. More or less fat (cream cheese). At least for me much easier than wheat based carbs such as bread or pasta. I can eat and digest rice cakes like gels under full load. Also you can pre-fuel before the workouts.
Once you have the fueling right, you don’t have to eat so much of the stuff you were trying. Personally, I get nutrition mostly by “normal” intake fruits and my meals.
I only buy Dave’s killer bread, or Ezekiel bread since I don’t have access to a bake shop like some cities. Both of them use no bullshit ingredients and no added corn syrup
When I eat bread in Europe vs US, I feel a massive difference. I don’t feel like I’m eating something I shouldn’t. I don’t just eat endless amounts of it either. I actually feel like bread and cheese and fruit is a healthy snack, whereas I feel like bread and cheese in the states is a special occasion.
Good bread is…good. There’s plenty of good bread here…just have to make a point to avoid the bad stuff.
In the winter…I like to have some very simple dinners after I work late of good crusty bread, great olive oil, some cheese, olives, pickles, and maybe a bit of salami or prosciutto.
