Hi all, as the fall season arrives and it’s colder outside (I live in Canada), I reduce the training workload, but at the same time I feel that my appetite just increases. My weight goes up, but I struggle to keep it in check.
One of the issue is due to my training schedule. As I work from home, I do train at lunch time starting at noon or up to 1 pm. By that time my breakfast is quite far away, so I would eat something one hour before and a full meal after. Since I am too hungry, the snack before ends up often being a full meal and I would then have two lunches.
Do you have any idea that could help manage pre-training snack? Sometimes the end of my meetings are a bit unpredictable, so it justs make thing worst as I will eat everything I see before going on the bike.
There are some good tips in the following article how to breakdown meals for different workout times of the day. Also don’t be afraid to eat more than three meals a day they don’t have to all be massive meals you could have a big breakfast, two smaller lunches and food for your workout and then a big dinner. Just as an example but It all comes down to Calories being balanced.
How hungry are you when you first get up in the morning? For me, I’m not that hungry and can go till 10am-12pm before eating. If you could push your breakfast out a few hours that might help hold you over till after your ride.
Drink lots of water. LOTS. Start as soon as you wake up.
Get an insulated coffee mug that really keeps coffee hot. I can make a cup of coffee last an hour and it’s still warm when I get to the bottom.
Between water and 2 cups of coffee, I can delay breakfast 4 hours without too much hunger.
If you’re looking for low calorie foods to fill you up for that hour before the ride, I really like peanut butter filled pretzels. Just a few with a big glass of water seem to go a long way for me and the fat in the peanut butter keeps glycogen from spiking and crashing. Other things I use as low cal fillers that don’t impact rides less than 2 hours away include rice cakes, apples, and carrots and celery.
Thanks for your response. In my view this is not due to what I eat but more on the timing. To answer your question:
At 7:15 am I usually eat for breakfast 3 slices of whole grains bread with peanut butter and jam with a glass of orange juice and coffee.
I have back to back meetings all morning with almost no time for a break.
I get on the trainer at around 1:00 pm (almost 6h later)
After the workout I would eat a “normal” lunch. As an example it could be chicken with rice and a large portion of vegetables.
Ideally I should probably lunch before the training but I don’t have enough time to digest. I would usually grab a banana with some nuts or a granola bar, but I still feel the hunger and sometimes at noon I just lost control in front of the fridge
I am looking for a strategy to for example have a good snack at say 11:00 am that would fuel the training without over eating in combination with the lunch later.
There is a second elements that my appetite seems to increase when winter is coming. I usually eat less during the summer while at the same time training load do the opposite i.e. more in summer and less in winter.
