Diet

aiwa_yamaha

Should a diet be balanced in cycling or should you be eating more carbohydrates? I used to have a toned athletic body and ever since i started riding i have been eating alot of pasta and notice my stomach for instance isn't as toned as it used to be. Should i eat alot of protein as well before the ride or just in general for a diet?

57% Carbohydrates (sugar, sweets, bread, cakes)
30% Fats (dairy products, oil)
13% Protein (eggs, milk, meat, poultry, fish)

AidanR

I think a good general rule for macronutrients and exercise is as follows:

Intense metabolic (sprints, intervals) - more carbs
Intense resistance (weights) - more protein
Endurance (long rides, distance running) - more fat

However, I wouldn't get too hung up on macronutrients. The main point is if you're putting on fat you're eating too much. If your previous diet worked better then go back to it.

LegendLust

aiwa_yamaha wrote:

Should a diet be balanced in cycling or should you be eating more carbohydrates? I used to have a toned athletic body and ever since i started riding i have been eating alot of pasta and notice my stomach for instance isn't as toned as it used to be. Should i eat alot of protein as well before the ride or just in general for a diet?

57% Carbohydrates (sugar, sweets, bread, cakes)
30% Fats (dairy products, oil)
13% Protein (eggs, milk, meat, poultry, fish)

You've fallen into that trap that most cycling newcomers do. Thinking that because your doing an endurance sport that you need to be shovelling carbs down you all day.

Cut the carbs down and make sure the vast majority are low GI carbs, and ideally from starchy veg (sweet potatoes, butternut squash, celeriac etc)

Gabbo

Protein

0.83 g per kg of body mass represents the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for protein intake. A person weighing 77 kg (170 lb) requires about 64 g of protein daily. Even if relatively little protein catabolism occurs through energy metabolism during physical activity (an assumption not entirely correct), this protein recommendation remains adequate for most physically active individuals. Also, the protein intake of the typical North American considerably exceeds protein's RDA. For athletes who train intensely, a protein intake between 1.2 and 1.8 g per kg body mass should meet any added protein-related nutrient demands. This does not necessarily require protein supplementation because an athlete's diet typically exceeds the protein RDA by two to four times.

Low-Fat Diets

Restricting dietary fat below recommended levels can impair exercise performance. For example, a diet of 20% lipid produced poorer endurance performance scores than a diet of identical caloric value containing about 40% lipid. A low-fat diet also blunts the normal rise in plasma testosterone following an acute bout of resistance exercise. If additional research verifies these findings, and if changes in the hormonal milieu actually diminish training responsiveness and tissue synthesis, a low-fat intake may be contraindicated for optimal resistance training responses. Consuming low-fat diets during strenuous training creates difficulty in increasing carbohydrate and protein intake enough to furnish energy to maintain body weight and muscle mass.

Carbohydrate Needs in Intense Training

Athletes training for endurance running, ocean swimming, cross-country skiing, or cycling frequently experience a state of chronic fatigue when successive days of hard training become progressively more difficult. This condition of staleness often relates to the gradual depletion of the body's glycogen reserves, even though the diet contains the typical percentage of carbohydrate. Figure 3.3 (not available) shows that three successive days of running 16.2 km (10 miles) nearly depletes the glycogen in the thigh muscle, This occurred even though the runners' diet contained 40 to 60% carbohydrates. By the third day, the quantity of glycogen used during the run averaged considerably lower than on the first day. Presumably, the body's fat reserves supplied the predominant energy for exercise on day 3. Unmistakably, a personal who performs unduly strenuous exercise on a regular basis must adjust daily carbohydrate intake upward to permit optimal glycogen resynthesis to maintain high-quality training. The need for optimal replenishment of depleted glycogen reserves provides nutritional justification to gradually reduce or taper exercise intensity several days prior to competition.
Carbohydrate intake recommendations for physically active individuals assume that daily energy intake balances daily energy expenditure. Unless this condition exists, even consuming a relatively large percentage of carbohydrate calories will not adequately replenish this important energy macronutrient. General recommendations for carbohydrate intake range between 6 and 10 g per kg of body mass per day. This amount varies with an individual's daily energy expenditure and type of exercise performed. Glycogen synthesis depends on carbohydrate intake. This means individuals who train intensely should consume 10 g of carbohydrate per kg of body mass each day to induce protein sparing and ensure adequate glycogen reserves. The daily carbohydrate intake for a small 46-kg (100-lb) athlete who expends about 2800 kCal per day should average 450 g or 1800 kCal. A 68-kg (150-lb) athlete should consume 675 g of carbohydrate (2700 kCal) daily to sustain an energy requirement averaging 4200 kCal. In both examples, carbohydrates exceed the minimum recommendation of 55 to 60% to represent 65% of total energy intake. This relatively high level of carbohydrate intake better maintains physical performance and mood state over the course of training. Even with a high-carbohydrate diet, complete glycogen replenishment does not occur rapidly following prolonged effort, particularly in type I (slow-twitch) muscle fibres.

Reference

McArdle, W., Katch, F., Katch, V. (2010) Exercise Physiology. 7th ed. New York: Wolters Kluwer. p83-87.

jgsi

Gabbo.. if you are simply going to quote, please reference.

Gabbo

JGSI wrote:

Gabbo.. if you are simply going to quote, please reference.

What people on here tend to do is claim what they say is fact, so effectively they've got their source of information from elsewhere and therefore require referencing it. Would be pain referencing nearly everything.

In future, any form of science that is discussed on these boards needs referencing.


McArdle, W., Katch, F., Katch, V. (2010) Exercise Physiology. 7th ed. New York: Wolters Kluwer. p83-87.

Gabbo

AidanR wrote:

I think a good general rule for macronutrients and exercise is as follows:

Intense metabolic (sprints, intervals) - more carbs
Intense resistance (weights) - more protein
Endurance (long rides, distance running) - more fat

However, I wouldn't get too hung up on macronutrients. The main point is if you're putting on fat you're eating too much. If your previous diet worked better then go back to it.

How do you know this? Please reference your source of information


P.S.. you are not a credible source so you cannot reference yourself

team47b

aiwa_yamaha wrote:

i have been eating a lot

the balance should be based on your calculated calorie requirement based on your exercise and your portion size a division of this, it is really easy to over eat because you cycle.

(source: common sense)

Gabbo

team47b wrote:

aiwa_yamaha wrote:

i have been eating a lot

the balance should be based on your calculated calorie requirement based on your exercise and your portion size a division of this, it is really easy to over eat because you cycle.

(source: common sense)

Not a credible source unfortunately.

team47b

Gabbo wrote:

team47b wrote:

aiwa_yamaha wrote:

i have been eating a lot

the balance should be based on your calculated calorie requirement based on your exercise and your portion size a division of this, it is really easy to over eat because you cycle.

(source: common sense)

Not a credible source unfortunately.

I agree.

I was being ironic, sorry I will use smilies in future

SBezza

I love all these sources, the body is a wonderful thing and it will quite happyily function on minimal carbs, the body will just become more efficient at using a energy source it has plenty of - FAT. You can find a study on any diet that will make it look good and the gold standard.

You don't need a diet heavy on carbs to do an endurance sport, especially man made foods with a big component of a food we don't really need - grains. You can get adequate carbohydrate intake to carry out fairly intensive training through a diet of eating fruit and veg as your main source of carbohydrate.

To the OP, I would perhaps get more protien in the diet as this is required to repair the damage training does, I would aim for about 1.5 to 1.8 gms per kg of body weight as referenced by Gabbo above. If you feel like you are putting on fat, cut back on the starchy carbs or even better go back to how you previously ate, I bet you can still cycle just as good. You certainly don't need to go as high as 65% of your diet as carbs, and cut out the sugar, cakes and sweets, these are just empty calories and provide no beneficial nutrients to your diet.

Gabbo

team47b wrote:

Gabbo wrote:

team47b wrote:

aiwa_yamaha wrote:

i have been eating a lot

the balance should be based on your calculated calorie requirement based on your exercise and your portion size a division of this, it is really easy to over eat because you cycle.

(source: common sense)

Not a credible source unfortunately.

I agree.

I was being ironic, sorry I will use smilies in future

Yep, realised that.

And I was being a pedant

jgsi

Gabbo wrote:

JGSI wrote:

Gabbo.. if you are simply going to quote, please reference.

What people on here tend to do is claim what they say is fact, so effectively they've got their source of information from elsewhere and therefore require referencing it. Would be pain referencing nearly everything.

In future, any form of science that is discussed on these boards needs referencing.


McArdle, W., Katch, F., Katch, V. (2010) Exercise Physiology. 7th ed. New York: Wolters Kluwer. p83-87.

Cheers ..
to the OP, anecdotally, cycling and toned athletic body do not necessarily go hand in hand..

team47b

Gabbo wrote:

team47b wrote:

Gabbo wrote:

team47b wrote:

aiwa_yamaha wrote:

i have been eating a lot

the balance should be based on your calculated calorie requirement based on your exercise and your portion size a division of this, it is really easy to over eat because you cycle.

(source: common sense)

Not a credible source unfortunately.

I agree.

I was being ironic, sorry I will use smilies in future

Yep, realised that.

And I was being a pedant

You were not being pedantic, you were being punctilious, I am now being a pedant

We could have our own thread?

Gabbo

team47b wrote:

Gabbo wrote:

team47b wrote:

Gabbo wrote:

team47b wrote:

aiwa_yamaha wrote:

i have been eating a lot

the balance should be based on your calculated calorie requirement based on your exercise and your portion size a division of this, it is really easy to over eat because you cycle.

(source: common sense)

Not a credible source unfortunately.

I agree.

I was being ironic, sorry I will use smilies in future

Yep, realised that.

And I was being a pedant

You were not being pedantic, you were being punctilious, I am now being a pedant

We could have our own thread?

There are many threads we could hijack here. Soni's thread, for example 8)

AidanR

Gabbo wrote:

AidanR wrote:

I think a good general rule for macronutrients and exercise is as follows:

Intense metabolic (sprints, intervals) - more carbs
Intense resistance (weights) - more protein
Endurance (long rides, distance running) - more fat

However, I wouldn't get too hung up on macronutrients. The main point is if you're putting on fat you're eating too much. If your previous diet worked better then go back to it.

How do you know this? Please reference your source of information


P.S.. you are not a credible source so you cannot reference yourself

A lot of reading over an extended period of time. Not one particular source, and I referred to it as an opinion ("I think..."). I'm not going to track down sources - I'm afraid that's far too time consuming for a brief forum post on a cycling website.

Herbsman

What an interesting thread.