Doing road miles fasted

kajjal

Big_Ring_Rider wrote:

What ever happened to "fuel in the tank" method of exercise? Training fasted, couldn't think of a more miserable way to spend a session, especially being aware of the fact there is nothing in the tank. Plenty of fore and against arguements (as this thread suggests), but if you aren't in control of your general calorie intake and diet, I fail to see any benefit.

I would agree and worry why people would want to take it so far. I sometimes do a hours biking before breakfast but just so I am not exercising just after eating.

Pownie

Ive heard that drinking green tea regularly is not only good for increasing stamina levels by quite a large percentage, but it targets fat burning instead of muscle burn. So its a good way to lose the fat quicker when spinning in the low gear, at about 65% effort. Ive been doing this and im losing the off season belly quite quickly. And like the other guy said going out before breakfast when you can helps too.

Team4Luke

This would not be a safe thing to do, your concentration levels will be very low, your blood sugar low as well.
On turbo perhaps but not out on the road.

diamonddog

OP Smaller portions and healthier food, no booze and cycle a lot = weight loss. IMO riding fasted will not make you lose weight any quicker and could be detrimental.

bahzob

diamonddog wrote:

OP Smaller portions and healthier food, no booze and cycle a lot = weight loss. IMO riding fasted will not make you lose weight any quicker and could be detrimental.

Yup just about spot on. You can still have the occasional beer or three but just factor in that a pint requires you to have done 15-25 extra minutes of really hard riding to earn it.

BenderRodriguez

Team4Luke wrote:

This would not be a safe thing to do, your concentration levels will be very low, your blood sugar low as well. On turbo perhaps but not out on the road.

But no one is suggesting that you train to the level of 'bonking', and you should have ample glycogen stores for a couple of hours fairly hard exercise without your blood sugar levels becoming low, let alone this affecting your concentration.

BenderRodriguez

diamonddog wrote:

...riding fasted will not make you lose weight any quicker and could be detrimental.

It will if the alternative is 'fuelling up' with unnecessary additional food before every ride because you are afraid that you might blow up.

This tendency to eat more than you actually need to when exercising is effectively an extension of what you see in gyms, where people often run off a couple of hundred calories whilst at the same time drinking a sports drink with more calories in it then they have expended, followed by a beer and packet of nuts in the bar because they have 'earned' them!

Team4Luke

BenderRodriguez wrote:

Team4Luke wrote:

This would not be a safe thing to do, your concentration levels will be very low, your blood sugar low as well. On turbo perhaps but not out on the road.

But no one is suggesting that you train to the level of 'bonking', and you should have ample glycogen stores for a couple of hours fairly hard exercise without your blood sugar levels becoming low, let alone this affecting your concentration.

every experienced cyclists knows exactly when they have dropped to fat burning mode out on a ride, the OP wishes to start off already fasted, these two levels may not meet quite in the middle but they soon will part company and thus will follow being less in control cycling on a highway.

keef66

I can't do any form of exercise without breakfast first. I feel like crap if I try. Maybe my legs don't know about glycogen stores?

I remember once having a 1 tonne bag of hardcore delivered early one morning and trying to shovel it out before eating anything. Passed out on the lawn!

diamonddog

BenderRodriguez wrote:

diamonddog wrote:

...riding fasted will not make you lose weight any quicker and could be detrimental.

It will if the alternative is 'fuelling up' with unnecessary additional food before every ride because you are afraid that you might blow up.

This tendency to eat more than you actually need to when exercising is effectively an extension of what you see in gyms, where people often run off a couple of hundred calories whilst at the same time drinking a sports drink with more calories in it then they have expended, followed by a beer and packet of nuts in the bar because they have 'earned' them!

The idea is to ride or excercise about a couple of hours after a light meal as pro sportsmen do. Riding fasted might make you eat far more than you really need after the exercise and therefore negate the benefits of the excercise.
The most important part of weight loss is willpower.

dw300

keef66 wrote:

I can't do any form of exercise without breakfast first. I feel like crap if I try. Maybe my legs don't know about glycogen stores?

I remember once having a 1 tonne bag of hardcore delivered early one morning and trying to shovel it out before eating anything. Passed out on the lawn!

Lol, that's ehhhh .. hardcore.

topcattim

I tried riding fasted three mornings this week. Previously I've had a bowl of porridge before riding to work. Its a fairly gentle commute: 13 miles, first bit country roads, then last 4 miles through traffic, which is slow. I found it not too bad (although the mental effort to get out of bed and going on my bike was harder). What was interesting was that my pace dropped off unless I really told myself to put some effort in.
I can't tell yet whether it has made a difference to weight or performance, but it was sustainable for those three days. Working at home today...

poynedexter

ive done 2 sun morn training runs of about 50miles each, fasted. sat night is chinese night in our house, and i've been fine on both occasions. no energy problem, tho i realise alot ofthe chinese is still in my gut, and weight loss is happening as planned. i've also done a few fasted turbo sessions and i'm coming round to the idea that it may be helping

previous to this i would have pre ride porridge and food on the way, and after. now i take food in case it is required. also i realise i have been over eating generally.

napoleond

madasahattersley wrote:

I've been experimenting with this lately and seem to have benefited from it. To start off with I'd do 2 hours then have a banana every 30 minutes for the rest of the ride. After doing a fasted ride about twice a week I can happily wake up in the morning after a 12 hour fast and do 4-5 hours at 250-270w.

By the end you get consumed by thoughts of 'I just want to get home and do some serious eating' but after a few months I'm hoping it will help endurance.

Just my £0.02

I do the same but with 262-282 watts.

apreading

I have lost give or take 5 stones over the last two years, using a Garmin to measure activity and their online tool to track weight changes (with an electronic scales that also measures bodyfat) and looking at calories in stuff closely. Without a doubt the best weight loss has been when doing relatively short rides in a fasted state - it doesnt need to push endurance.

For example, if I eat nothing after a medium sized meal at around 6:30pm and then cycle to work next morning (5 miles), nothing other than milk in tea all day and less than 500cals for lunch (soup and a couple of unbuttered rolls) then cycle 5 miles home - I can measure the weight coming off over the space of a couple of days - it is that effective. Sometimes the route home is extended up to 10-15 miles without extra intake although at the top end of that or longer I will probably have a snackbar with maybe 150 cals. I feel no ill effects (other than a hungry tummy!) at all - and I tend to do these like a mini time trial at full speed.

I would happily ride up to an hour or maybe a bit more in a fasted state. More than that I would either take fuel before or at least take fuel to have on the ride if feeling like I need it.

Only thing I wouldnt do in a fasted state is a spin session - always have a bowl of porridge on a sunday morning before Spin if I am doing it (winter only) as proper spin can be vicious and anything less than full on is not proper spin!

LegendLust

Training fasted isn't rocket science.

1. Go out for a ride before breakfast. (I can do a hard tempo ride of an hour and a half without food).

2. Straight after ride consume a banana and recovery drink. This replaces the glycogen lost on the ride.

3. Have a very nutritious breakfast within half an hour of the ride - this should include carbs, protein, good fats and fresh fruit.

4. A few hours later have a carb/protein/fats snack - oat cakes and peanut butter for instance.

5. Eat normally but nutriously for the rest of the day, reducing the amount of carbs.

By doing the steps above, you will be ensuring that your muscles are fully loaded up with glycogen for the next days session, without worrying and binging before your ride.

By eating after exercise and not before, you are utilising the bodies natural 'window' after a ride where the carbs will be converted to glycogen and not stored as fat. This method will also ensure you are fully recovered. I've been doing this for over a year now and my legs are always fresh the next morning for doing my sessions.

bahzob

madasahattersley wrote:

I've been experimenting with this lately and seem to have benefited from it. To start off with I'd do 2 hours then have a banana every 30 minutes for the rest of the ride. After doing a fasted ride about twice a week I can happily wake up in the morning after a 12 hour fast and do 4-5 hours at 250-270w.

By the end you get consumed by thoughts of 'I just want to get home and do some serious eating' but after a few months I'm hoping it will help endurance.

Just my £0.02

Not casting any aspersions but do you have the power files for these rides?

5 hours at 270W equates to around 4800kcal.

Total glycogen storage is typically a max of 2000kcal and not all of this is available for exercise, even less so if, as you say, you exercise after sleep without feeding.

So you are fuelling 2800kcal i.e. well over 50% from fat at high power intensities.

Even top riders hit the 50-50 mark in terms of carb;fat usage in the endurance zone. Far more typical is that at endurance level you will be deriving 2kcal from carb for every 1kcal from fat.

So if your figures are true you are one hell of a remarkable rider.

bahzob

LegendLust wrote:

Training fasted isn't rocket science.

1. Go out for a ride before breakfast. (I can do a hard tempo ride of an hour and a half without food).

This is a far more credible claim. Full glycogen stores are enough to sustain around 500W for a full hour (which is why you don't need to do any feeding for short sessions) or 2 hours at 260-270W.

260W will be at or above the tempo mark for most here so yes you will be able to do this comfortably.

This does not however imply that doing a session like this fasted or otherwise will have any effect on substrate utilisation.

In both cases the vast majority of energy will be derived from carbs. So,even training after sleeping with no brekkies, you are not putting your substrate utilisation mechanisms under any stress.

So this breaks the first rule of training: specificity. Nothing about this routine stresses the fat metabolism so you would not expect it to adapt as a result.