Women's Nutrition

yeah probably ought to one of two things:

  1. bump the max carb slider up to 110g/hr
    or
  2. choose a higher option on the Satiety vs. Performance balancer. (more performance oriented)
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Gotcha, will bump up my performance balancer a notch. Thanks :slight_smile:

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YAY! I’m so glad you also like it! I found that the sodium intake recommendations were totally eye-opening for me, and I’m surprised at how much better I feel on big rides, PLUS I’m able to recover better.

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Maybe someone here can help me disentangle things? I have a climby 200 km sportive coming up in June that I want to be ready for. In late July I’m doing Northcape 4000 so my training is geared towards that as my “A race”. I’ve been doing polarised MV, one or two long rides at weekends, and, since January, two weights sessions per week. My FTP is creeping up very slowly. In this time my weight has gone up and it’s now 70 kg (I’m 170 cm tall). My preferred weight would be 65 kg. I’m also 47 and I can’t tell if my weight gain is muscle mass or due to peri-menopausal hormone changes. My clothes fit the same, more or less. I think I’ll have a better time climbing weighing less, but if my weight gain is muscle gain, then maybe I shouldn’t worry? I’m not interested in ruining my training with a diet, but I guess I could cut out sweet snacks here and there. Basically, my question is: how can I tell if I’ve gained fat or muscle? I have no access to fancy scales. And is this actually worth worrying about?

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5kg is quite a big change (?), So it might be a bit of both. I have lots of empathy after loosing 14 lbs recently, at the age of 56. I have found it really hard work. The thing which worked the best has been limiting fat intake. I have done my usual trick of starting to see some foods as “safe”/unsafe and am gently undoing that again.
Too be honest, I think it’s soooooo individual, you are best to carefully try reducing a couple of things. I had a complete lack of understanding of what a portion of nut butter is :rofl:
Go slow and steady. Don’t mess up your training and your happiness :muscle:

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Unless you knew your body fat % before and had access to measuring (like a dexa) then there’s really no way to know for sure. Weight gain could be inflammation or water retention. If you are happy with your training and ftp is trending up, then I’d just focus on quality training and recovery. The way I look at it: climby rides also have descents so a few extra kgs help on the down hills :slight_smile:

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I like it! Hadn’t thought of it like that! :laughing:

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It helps on the flats too!

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Thanks! I think I’ll just keep calm and carry on :laughing:. I got a bit freaked because I put on a kg after a 260 km ride on Saturday even though I know this is a common phenomenon.

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Yeah, I put on a out the same after a 5 hour ride last week, then it just disappeared. I didn’t realise it is a known phenomenon. Thanks for that :slightly_smiling_face:

It’s weird. No idea what causes it. Seems to be more common in women though.

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Hmmm…maybe a question for the podcast?

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Good idea! I will. I did the London-Edinburgh-London Brevet last summer, and definitely had a calorie deficit over the course of the ride. Weighed myself when I got home and I’d put on 500 g :laughing:! Took about 5 days to drop.

I never weigh myself in the evening. Far too depressing! :rofl:

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OMG, why weigh yourself when you get home?? And yes, it’s a known phenomenon that people retain water/swell up after really long/hard rides. I don’t know the physiology behind this, but probably a good podcast content question. BUT, personally, my weight varies drastically day-to-day. I can be up 3 lbs just one day to the next, without doing anything different than usual - I weigh myself at almost the same time every day, and it can be kind of frustrating but also pretty interesting to see. I have had to come to acceptance that I’ll just have these wiggles in my weight and just try to pay attention to overall trends. These wiggles have become more drastic since my hormones started going a bit wacky thanks to perimenopause, which is all the more reason to track them along with my cycle to get a better understanding of how it all fits into place. I’ve been trying to take Amber’s “curiosity” approach to it, rather than beating myself up about something I have no control over, and it’s actually been working.

As for whether you gained fat or muscle, I agree with @whatsername that unless you’ve been tracking it somehow, it’s probably pretty hard to tell. You may not have gained 5kg completely, depending on what you’re counting as the low and high. Personally, I go based off how I look, how I feel, whether clothes fit, and some other things I know about my body. (This is weird, but when I have gained weight, there are certain veins that no longer are visible.)

Anyway, hope this is somewhat helpful.

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I’m 51 and had a similar experience to the OP following a cycling vacation in Mallorca. It was my 4th trip there (always same time of yr), but last trip to was 2019.

===

Before I go into the body comp stuff, I will say that my aerobic fitness clearly benefitted from the trip. Since I’m committed €€€ for a mountainous sportive in the Alps in July, this is what counts most at this point.

===

So after a big jump in volume and elevation in Mallorca, my weight increased - it was visible quite early on in the trip- and confirmed by my withings ‘smart’ scale:

  • body fat absolutely ballooned since previous reading 10 days before. It hit an all-time high in the 6 years I’ve had this scale.

  • my muscle mass tanked, hitting an near-record low.

This has not happened on previous trips.

Before, BF might have gone up a tad but muscle mass would skyrocket (probably water weight from swelling) then come back to a more realistic level but higher than before trip.

2 differences I can think of from previous trips:

  • now in late peri-meno, but symptoms mild, sleeping well. On HRT since 2020.

  • fuelled entirely through my hydration, using simple formulas from the Saturday app.

I loved fuelling this way, felt really good during my rides, but I did have gut issues after, which I don’t normally have.

Using some maltodextrin instead of just sugar helped, but didn’t eradicate bloating.

I am now wondering if I was in fact overfueled for my easy rides, so the excess carbs became fat.

My other thought was perhaps I wasn’t eating enough protein after rides and during meals, creating stress and slowing muscle recovery. I hope this is the issue cuz I really love the Saturday app!

Mallorca also taught me I need a bigger aerobic base before adding longer climbs.

After a few days of recovery upon return I ignored my TR calendar of VO2 max and thresholds and just ròde easy outdoors as much as I could, along with easier than usual strength session.

Also tried quick cold showers in the morning, as I’ve used them before to help calm inflammation. At any rate, it sure jump starts my day!

This seems to have helped: 2 weeks later my muscle mass is back to normal range, and BF has startex trending down but still high - 1kg more than before trip!

OK this is way longer than I intended, but hope it’s useful for other ladies.

(btw, my husband for same period only saw a tiny uptick in BF and muscle mass stayed constant. Comparing our scale data over the years, he clearly loses fat quickly as soon as he starts riding more. Me not so much).

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Hi @shosking! Thank you for sharing this. Sounds like an amazing trip. Awesome that fitness felt really strong too!

I would love to hear about the gut issues you experienced after some of your rides. I’m refining our methods of intaking post-activity feedback in a new feature that will help folks fine-tune their settings. (You can vote which thing the engineering team prioritizes first, here.)

Were you using salt or sodium citrate as your primary sodium source, or something else?

Sometimes making the move to sodium citrate for at least half (or all) of your sodium can make a world of difference in gut comfort.

It is possible that you’d benefit from choosing a lower rating for the “Satiety” setting in your Personalize page. If you’re not sure what that setting is all about, you can always read more by tapping the info-stars icon at top right.

The effect of choosing a lower setting there is that it will scale back on the carb intake for your shorter rides and easier rides, and specifically scale most on your shortest and easiest rides.

I wrote a piece about scaling back carbs for SlowTwitch because it’s an important consideration for people who are experimenting with higher carb intake rates for the first time. The “mostly whole food” refers to getting to eat more off the bike. We found that lots of newer-to-nutrition folks didn’t know what “satiety” was, but I think we still need a bit of a re-wording on this screen.

Ignore the link meta description comment about “It can be a dangerous game…!” That was not the point of the article. lol.
Should You Scale Carb Intake Down on Easy Days? - Slowtwitch.com

Do you mind me asking how much more fuel you consumed hourly than you typically have in the past for similar rides? What did sodium and carb intake look like in the past, compared to this trip?

Most of all, I’m glad you loved fueling the way you did. I bet we can get the other issues sorted out in a jiffy. Of course if you ever prefer not to do it in public forum you can direct message me on our Saturday Member Hub or email me at alex at saturdaymorning.fit.

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My parents have this kind of scale and I got some really weird (high) body fat readings from it when I stayed with them, so I looked into it. It actually measures electrical impedance through your legs and extrapolates body fat from that. But actually it considers body water and body fat the same. So when it says that we athletes have high body fat, I think it could be measuring blood volume and/or water retention. So it really might not be fat at all in your case.

I guess that brings us back to the question: what is the extra weight?

Thanks for the detailed reply. I will contact you directly either today or tomorrow. We are going to Nice next week so wie have another chance to really test your app for harder and/or longer rides.

(FYI, I also thank you for your contributions on the fast-twitch threads on the forum. Natural born 100-400m sprinter who likes riding mountains even though I suck at them. Since I’m training for a very long event (9-10hrs), I do wonder if there is a way to encourage my body become less glycioliric…)

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If anything, water retention could be misinterpreted as muscle, not fat, increase. Fat contains no water, muscle does. The scale tracks water % too and there’s a clear correlation between muscle and water mass.

So my crap muscle mass after the trip might be due to dehydration, but it wouldn’t explain the big fat mass jump and overall weight gain.

I know these scales have questionnable accuracy, but having data going back to Jan 2017 the trends do reflect what’s going on in my training. Also in my life.

From 2018-2020, each winter my avg fat mass would be a bit higher than yr before. Winter 20/21 I was inactive while awaiting surgery plus also late-stage peri, and I put on 3kg in 3 months - more than what I’d put on over previous 3 yrs. Ive been on the couch before, but had never gained weight this quickly.

All to say, women’s bodies respond differently to training when our hormone production slows dramatically, so personally I’m not too surprised by my unusual scale readings.

I follow a FB group aimed at middle aged female athletes and there are many, many posts about how long endurance training actually made them gain weight, even if they got fitter.

Im not saying it’s the necessarily the case for you - when I was 47-49 big endurance blocks would still improve my body comp.

If you’re training for a big endurance event, I’d focus on improving your aerobic engine or dealing with other limiters like niggles/injuries, rather than stress about weight. It’s tough at our age. Give yourself a break!

Incidentally my avg speeds for Mallorca climbs were same as 2019, despite carrying at least 3kg more, as I can better recruit my hip and glute muscles nowadays. I was fitter and lighter and therefore faster in 2018, but in a lot of pain which was mentally exhausting.