What does long fasting do for cyclists?

Since the benefits you’re seeking are weight loss AND performance, I’d recommend trying intermittent fasting. If you’re doing TR plans then that means you’re only going to be doing 1 fast every 6 weeks, unless you start having a knock-on effect on your training.

The key thing about this and other eating habits is they need to become a regular routine rather a diet. It needs to be a lifestyle. For me personally, I found that intermittent fasting, since I did it every day, was a lifestyle that was easy to adopt, whereas doing something once a week is much harder to maintain consistently over months and years.

The one thing I’ve learnt through experimentation is that general good, healthy habits that create a small but consistent calorie defecit are much easier to stick to and therefore more likely to be successful than other more faddy approaches such as fasting or strict diets.

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