want to elaborate on “dial in” your on-bike nutrition? I’m (in desperate need of) looking for inspiration.
I’m not interested in the performance aspect of the study (which is actually the only aspect why the study gets cited by others). I’m interested in the effect of pre-exercise meal composition on fat ox since I want to train the latter.
High protein = mixed, they use both terms in the text. “Mixed” seems more appropriate when looking at the carb content. I find this quite significant. Despite this (relatively) high carb content and a subsequent rise in insulin fat ox does not get shot down (that much). Almost seems as one could have the best of both worlds.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the only study looking into this. And even with trainied subjects.
no
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I was 4th a couple of times this year. So please allow me to be obsessive.
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Spent all day Saturday workout in the backyard, listening to Sebastian Weber and Dan Lorang interviews on Scientific Triathlon podcast. Just parroting what I heard, no dog in this fight. Here ya go:
Probably a misunderstanding on my part.
Agree with @Tanner1280 that there is likely a big genetic factor in fueling. I’d add another factor, whatever you are used to eating, your body will adapt to it, by finding the right gut bacteria. I would even guess that both influence each other, your genetics play a role in the bacteria you have, as does your diet and emvironmental factors. Thus personal experimentation is important. (The other side of this is, maybe thats why there are so many conflicting studies, the underlying factors like genetics and gut biome are not controlled.)
And I can’t get on board with this idea that even a spoonful of sugar or half a banana or a slice of bread will inhibit fat ox. It might send a confusing signal, but most things in nature don’t just switch on or off like that.
That’s my controversial, unsupported post of the day!
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Thanks for the explanation. Mixed fuel would allow to train your fat oxidation without the negative impact on bone density.
I’m with ya, but I keep seeing smart coaches saying the same thing over and over… So my takeaway from everything I’ve read - going to experiment with starting long weekend aerobic endurance rides in fasted state and then start eating after 90 to 120 minutes. This nutrition strategy seems to strike a balance between competing objectives:
- wanting to send a stronger signal to body to use fat as fuel, at least for beginning of ride and I realize this is chasing optimizations
- eating after 90-120 minutes should avoid getting “hangry” on a 4 hour ride, otherwise I risk arriving home grouchy and irritable (happy wife, happy life, and all that)
- after a long week at work, I hate getting up at 5am on Saturday morning to fuel a ride starting at 7:30-8:00am (happy life again)
This 
Do the first hour or two of a long slow endurance ride fasted and on water alone. Then, eat and/or drink the rest of the ride which still should be relatively minimal since you’re doing a low intensity endurance ride.
If you’re going out to do a hammerfest group ride or long day of sustained efforts in the mtns, the above is a recipe for disaster.
Hammerfest if it’s a local weekend group ride, luckily we don’t have too many of those as it requires the 5am feeding. Moo.
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I agree as well. It’s seems to me similar to the old mantra that any intensity during base would destroy your base preparations.
I started doing this a couple of years ago with no detrimental effects and found I could go longer and longer if I wanted to just by keeping well hydrated… My mistake was doing the same thing for my Friday fast group rides (i’m retired). I felt tired and wasted for days after them. I now fuel them properly and they go a lot better.
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Yes, I used to get up and ride 2.5 hours to work (usually no food), then have breakfast. I never thought anything about it, it was before I learned about proper training and ‘fueling your ride’. I just struggled to eat in the morning. Sometimes I was a bit hungry for the last half hour, but otherwise I felt absolutely fine. I was on my own so would just ride as easy or as hard as I felt like.
I’ve been doing Z1/Z2 fasted rides all year on Sundays for like 3-5h. No issue at all for me. But I really don’t know if it’s helped with fat ox though. I guess it’s helped in some regard but lately I’ve started eating on the rides and the only thing that’s changed is that the fatigue isn’t that harsh. Having come from a year of intermittent fasting to loose 36kg I guess I’m pretty fat-adapted though.
I’ve added 2-3 fasted endurance rides to my week for the past few months. Working great for me so far - can get through things as long as Gibbs with nothing beyond water and tea. No clue if it is actually making a difference though
I am fueling immediately with fast sugars when I do intensity first thing in the morning
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I’m keen to move away from my love of gels. Don’t get me wrong, I think they work and I believe that they work for me but, I’d like to try and find real food alternatives, other than the trusty banana.
Might try and make a few of those energy balls I keep seeing as they look pocketable and sound really tasty. Other than that, I haven’t really though or experimented too much so I’d be keen to know what you’ve tried thus far as well.
Two things: i) I do believe they are heavily fat-based — peanut butter, coconut oil, etc., and ii) because of the first point, they may just melt in your pocket.
Composition and/or packaging experiments probably required to nail down a usable product. Let us know what you come up with. 
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My mouth 
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Why? Make them yourself, and you decide what goes in them.
wow, surprised I made it through this thread so quickly…
I bought a lactate meter back in August, so will be taking a second lactate profile on Monday after doing a mostly endurance week this past week post-Ireland vacation and little structure since my HIM in mid-Sep. Early lactate measurements show that my past athletic history of doing a lot of weight training and basically still carrying around the muscle means I’m pre-disposed to being a high carb utlizer (as sebastian weber states, a muscular type phenotype to have more fast twitch. I can do almost all of chad’s level 3 strength standards on just a week or two of coordination/neuromuscular adaption to getting used to doing those particular lifts). I focused too much on short power work this year after being a bit mislead that I was not a high lactate producer (I don’t have anything on Jonathan though!) but for longer endurance events, I did have a lot of trouble maintaining power and my fatigue rate is quite steep.
My goals for this winter are to work in some work that is supposed to try and improve my fractional utilization at the sacrifice of my anaerobic abilities. I’ll do SSB1, then do an 8 week block of 105%ish VO2 work, then SSB2 and a shorter race build of 3 hard 1 ez, 2 hard 2 taper. No specialty plan for me this year, maybe a few of the workouts after my first race, but will try to do only a few weeks of really hard work for my pure race prep, closer to a lydiard style prep or German track team prep for the Sydney Olympics.
Other goals will be trying to work in extra volume along the way from where I was last year. Eventually getting to 4 bikes, 4 runs and 4 swims per week, peaking in volume just prior to the race prep phase (currently doing 4 bike, 3 run, 3 swim) as high volume also has a way of lowering VLamax.
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I seem to recall Weber saying do SweetSpot with a low cadence to avoid/reduce the activation of the more lactate producing fast twitch fibres.
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