As there’s a shed load of nutrition advice on the internet and even this forum that espouses ever higher levels of carbohydrate intake per hour whilst riding. I’m just curious as to how much this is tied to the massive power outputs of the pro/athlete scene.
For example I’m an avg joe in terms of w/kg 225w/62kg. A chilled base ride of .6IF would be about 140w ish. That simply doesn’t require 90-120g carb per hour in my estimation.
What would the learned community recommend for me as an example. (180cm/6ft and 31 aged male) I’m conscious im likely too skinny to be truly fast. But the physiological difficulties surrounding body image and fat are something I’m trying to overcome with varying degrees of success.
It’s all well and good hearing that matt beers chugs 5000g per hour but his ftp is about 3x higher than mine hehe
There’s nobody that would suggest you need 90-120g per hour for a “base” or endurance ride. As you said, it depends on your power output and your IF. For me, for endurance rides on TR I do around 60g per hour, usually slightly less. For hard rides, I do roughly 90 per hour. If I were actually doing a race, I would do more. But for trainer rides that is enough to fuel the rides well so I can get the work done without ever feeling empty. I’m a 4.2 w/kg guy for reference.
I’d reckon if you threw 50-60g a bottle you’re doin more than fine on a chill base ride. 120/hr is really a ton and very few people can actually do that without the GI repercussions
I can’t help but feel like in 10 years, this forums gonna be full of people asking which denture paste they use when training from drinking this much sugar water every day
I’m no also likely chronic under fuelled. Been greying some brilliant guidance from @eddie
It’s tough when training at what is a largely solitary pursuit with a high social media presence comprised of multiple different viewpoints and no end of opportunities to compare yourself to others and feel inadequate.
Are you sure about that? Bonking is largely a function of glycogen stores, not fat. Everyone (even <10% people) are not fat constrained as far as I understand. Not saying you are wrong, but it goes against most of what I’ve read.
I only fuel rides that are longer than 90 minutes, at least when I get my pre ride fueling right. Other than that, I aim to replace around 60% of the burned kcal. So if my Garmin says I have burned 500 kcal, I will try to roughly consume 300 kcal. At the end of the ride, this means that I usually fueled around half of the needed kcal, sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less.
The percentage number comes from ChatGPT, because I was never really able to find a concrete number on how much used kcal I should eat during the ride. For me the charm here is that my fueling is dependent on the amount burned, it is easy to keep track of the fueling and I always know when I should eat something.
I do not race and I’m also not very fast, so take this with a grain of salt.
Don’t over think it.
I started feeling way better post-workout, if I eat more calories on the bike. For me, it’s the perfect time to indulge in cookies, rice krispie squares, etc. It won’t be stored as fat.
I maybe remembering it incorrectly, but I believe this was addressed in a pre-COVID era AACC podcast about durability vs FTP, though I’m not sure what works were cited. Anecdotally I’ve felt similar being at the same power outputs but at vastly different BF percentages (12% vs 28%), but I never have tried to empirically test by purposefully bonking under controlled circumstances.
I think for an endurance ride you are probably safe with 0-60g of carbs an hour. If it’s a recovery ride you likely don’t need anything. Pushing high z2 or longer duration ride you probably want to be closer to 60. 90 maybe if you are doing a really long high z2 ride, but I can’t handle that regularly and don’t think the demand is there physically.
A useable rule of thumb for calories consumed on the ride is average power for the ride, x length of ride (in decimal hours) x 3.6. Eg: I did Bounty yesterday -2.0 hrs, with a total average power of 189. So 189x2.0x3.6=1,360.8. TR says I burned 1358. Close enough.
Carbs are 4 Cal/g so if that ride were 100% fueled by carbs, it would have burned 1360/4=340 g = 170g/hr. I had about 200g total.
Obviously no ride is 100% carb fueled, but there’s no harm in consuming as many carbs as your gut can handle. It’s unlikely you’ll over-consume in calories, and as long as your off-bike nutrition is sensible, your body will know what to do with any excess you may have consumed on the bike.
I think there are some studies that show if you consume carbs at lower intensity your body won’t burn as much fat as it would otherwise, favoring the carb fuel, but I don’t know how reliable that data is.
I think it’s sensible to vary your intake based on intensity and duration, favoring higher consumption for harder and/or longer efforts. I wouldn’t get too wrapped up in it the absolute g/hr.
Experiment in training and see what makes you feel better and/or improves performance over a reasonable number of consecutive rides without causing gut issues on, or after the bike. Ramp up until you go a little too far, then back off. But give your body time to adjust. One bad or no-difference ride is not the decision point.
They’ve also discussed this at length on the podcast. A little searching there will yield a few hours of listening on the topic.
Since I tend to ride before I eat, I do maybe 30-45g/hr for Z2/3. For SS/TH I’ll do more like 60-90g/hr.
For VO2, I usually have a single bottle with 90g and one bottle with plain water. Sometimes when I get into the heat of battle with VO2, my stomach revolts against sugar, so I drink some sugar at the start of the recovery interval, but drink plain water during the sets and drink the rest of the sugar during the cooldown.
Honestly, I use the Saturday app (saturdaymorning.fit), which customizes my fueling depending on the intensity and duration of my workouts, and also takes into account my preferred total max/hr fuel rate (user setting). It just works. And I don’t have to think about it other than to remember to enter the info into the app. Give it a try - they have a free trial - and see what you think. It has made an enormous difference in my riding.
As a 57 kg female the “all rides burn 10,000 calories” (I jest) I hear on the podcast make me a little crazy. You know what I burn in 90 minutes if I’m lucky - 750? As others have said fueling the work is good. But at 140W you don’t need what Matt Beers does.
I do endurance at about 140-145 too. I’m on the trainer only now so rides are shorter, but I do maybe 30g per hr for that power. Outside if I were doing 3 hrs I’d probably do 40-50/hr.
SST and threshold probably 50-60 an hour. Same for VO2.
BUT if you’re super lean maybe you burn through fuel really fast and could use more. Just test it out. Fuel 50% expected KJ for a week. Feel good? Try 60% the next. Weight stable? Try 70%. There is more and more data showing that showing energy “flux” (fueling when energy needs are high) is really good for mitochondria - so try it. Maybe you can eat what Matt Beers does.
That’s news to me, but just another great reason to hit those carbs when riding. My approach is to fuel aggressively on hard rides because I know I’ll be in a deficit at the end regardless of what I eat. And for long&hard rides, I really push it because my target events are long and it’s good race prep. On endurance rides, I’m all over the place and adjust based on the circumstances. If it’s an endurance ride in the middle of a big week with a hard ride the next day, I’m more likely to fuel aggressively. If it’s an endurance ride during an easy/recovery week, I’m more likely to just get by on hydration mix with some carbs and maybe stopping for some cookies/treat along the way. I try to eat decent off the bike, so cycling is when I get my sweet fix.
A good mindset for me is that I’m not that focused on fueling the ride I’m on, much more concerned about fueling during that ride for future rides/workouts coming up in the next few days. For me, nothing drives poor eating habits off the bike more than underfueling on the bike.
Feel like people are missing the part of your question that touches on “body image and fat” and being “too skinny to be truly fast”.
I’m no expert, but you might want to think about what your cycling goals are and think about talking to a therapist that can talk with you about how you look at food and your body?
As far as I know, most people can drink 0-90g/h of sugar during workouts and manage their weight by modulating what they eat off the bike. Again super not a nutritionist or psychologist or anything more than a racing newbie, but I’d wonder about your protein consumption and if you’d be up for strength training. But those all seem downstream of how you view gaining mass (muscle and fat) and how you view consuming calories, carbs, and fat in general.
Good luck to you, it’s really tough to grapple with this stuff!
but his ftp is about 3x higher than mine hehe
