Cycling on Gluten free diet

Lone pine

Good afternoon
Having recently become gluten intolerant,can anyone recommend what type of carb rich diet I can turn to.
I have received so much info, I am now confused by it all,can any of you guys give me some pointer.
Many thanks

Doris Day

Depends if you need a carb rich diet. You can still get the same type of food as everyone else but with no gluten.

ugo.santalucia

RIce, quinoa, potatoes and pulses are rich of carbs and gluten free. You can also buy oats that have been milled separately from wheat and are therefore marketed as gluten free

JayKosta

Also various beans, rice 'pasta' (Tinkyama brand in USA and CA), dried and fresh fruits, corn, and corn chip snacks.
Jay Kosta
Endwell NY USA

Lone pine

Thank you all fop your posts

team47b

Potato, yams, banana, dried apricot, prunes, beans, there are a lot of fruit and veg that are high carb and gluten free, you can also get 'special' foods like gluten free pasta etc

crankycrank

Many gluten free products are also showing up in major food stores which is a fairly recent thing. I also read that some of the Pro racers are finding that they perform better on a gluten free diet so possibly a search as to what they eat may help.

rafletcher

Lone pine wrote:

Good afternoon
Having recently become gluten intolerant,can anyone recommend what type of carb rich diet I can turn to.
I have received so much info, I am now confused by it all,can any of you guys give me some pointer.
Many thanks

If this is a medical diagnosis, I would speak to your dietician,

rudivoller22

I would agree with this. My 4 year old son was diagnosed with Coeliac disease last year and now has to have a strict gluten free diet. The dietician was extremely helpful so would def recommend seeing one. For breads etc we have started making our own, most of the supermarkets have a good range of GF free food but we wary of the fact a lot of it is full of sugar and other crap so check the labels properly. We have on the whole just gone GF at home to make it easier and actually feel a lot healthier for it. Probably because we now cool everything fresh.

If it is a medical diagnosis check out Coeliac UK website they are very good and have an online directory that basically tells you every food product you can/can't eat.

Sprool

I went low carb, low gluten last September and feel great on it, lost 1.5 stone, have more energy, less blood sugar spikes, more sustainable energy on long rides, body burning fat more efficiently now so its done me the world of good. Gluten-free bread is very expensive and the few brands I tried tasted awful so I'd rather just skip the carbs on the bread side altogether. Gluten-free pasta I find is fine with a decent sauce, its made of rice flour and potato flakes, so it all counts as carbs which is ok since my overall intake is far lower than it used to be. the golden rules for me are:
1) No bread - no wheat, no cornflake type cereals, all highly processed stuff.
2) No grain in drinks, switched off beer and lager to cider and red wine
3) No potatoes, esp chips and crisps - we eat sweet potatoes every now and then
4) Plenty of good protein - meat, fish, eggs, pulses, chicken, no more guilt eating animal fat stuff since as long as the carb intake is reduced, your insulin response level is lower and the fat is not stored away in your cells, it is there to be burnt for energy.
5) No marg - back to butter.
6) Lots of veg and salad
7) The occasional tub of dairy ice cream.
Cut down on the carbs where you can, avoid the grain products and you will feel miles better. I'm told it takes a good 4 weeks for your body to stop craving carbs though, stick at it, its worth it in the long run.

bigaac

In my experience (had coeliac about 6 years) the dietician i saw was useless. weighed me, told me i was slightly overweight and then gave me a list of gluten free alternatives (mostly bread and pasta) available from my GP. But GF awareness has improved greatly over the last 5 years.

Since being diagnosed i've grown much more aware of food generally and how i feel when i eat different things. Its honestly been great for me. I've lost 50 pounds since diagnosis and i've now cut all bread (GF) out of my diet.

It becomes easier to stick to the diet over time. But it also means that your stomach properly heals when you stick to a GF diet so any unexpected gluten (eating out can be a pain) can affect me worse now than it did when i was first diagnosed.

The paleo diet is probably one of the closest matches to a GF diet, i loosely follow the paleo principles.

The only downside to a GF diet is the cost, prepare to spend 10-25% more on your weekly shop.

bigaac

also, just to add, Sprool's advice is spot on, pretty much summed up my entire diet.

k-dog

Yes, Sprool is spot on. You don't want to just swap for GF alternatives - then you would just be eating different processed sugary crap - you want to adjust what you eat. (That's part of the reason the NHS doesn't provide prescriptions so much now - you should only do substitutions occasionally - the other factor is that gf alternatives are easier to get).

I eat a lot more rice and potatoes than I ever used to. Bread is just to keep your hands clean at lunch so only eat that if I feel like something on toast. The gf pasta is okay - best in something like lasagna where there is more other stuff - rather than a plate of pasta with some sauce on top.

Garmin were gf during last years Tour so it's not hard to get enough carbs for cycling.

I don't find meals a problem - just lunch when I'm busy. It's easy to have a bag of crisps and a bar of chocolate - but not a good diet obviously. You have to think a bit ahead and prepare something.

There were some good gf energy bar recipes on one if the cycling mag websites recently. Saved them but haven't tried any yet. I saw some good pre-made ones but they were about £4 each.

Smirf

I've basically had a gluten green diet as my wife was diagnosed coeliac, so easier to eat the same (generally)

There are some decent GF pastas now, but i prefer brown rice or Quinoa anyway

Make some GF energy bars for the ride - fairly easy - 15 mins max, then bang some in the freezer (also means they are out of the way of the thieving kids!). Use Apricots, Dates, Nuts etc with some GF oats, bit of agave syrup and peanut butter and cold set in the fridge! much nicer than the packaged ones (and most aren't GF anyway)

Sprool

I'd lay off the Agave - its more highly processed sugar, no health benefit from normal processed sugar. You can find any story you like amongst different nutritionists regarding Agave but if you have dates, apricots in your snack there's more than enough sugar there already.

bigaac

Lunch when at work can be a pain sometimes, doesn't matter how big the sandwich aisle gets at Tesco they NEVER contain anything without gluten.

So i've been preparing a weeks worth of food on a sunday (monday this week) evening. Chicken (sometimes cooked with Chipotle paste) some sweet potatoes chips and some broccoli, cook 3-4 days worth, and separate into containers when just grab them from the fridge as i head out the door each morning. Cheaper, healthier and actually fills me up more than a crappy supermarket sandwich ever used to.