Commuting Diet - What to eat?

commuterlegs

Happy new year folks.

As it is the new year, the inevitable 'oh sh*t i had too many mince pies and need to eat nothing but broccoli' time has arrived.

Normally i revert to a low carb diet in the new year to drop the unnecessary pounds but this year will be commuting 10 miles each way to work 2-3 times a week. Is there a trick to fueling these days and still aiming to lose weight.

Currently when biking in I do so before breakfast, having a bagel or porridge when I arrive. Lunch varies between a sandwich and leftovers (pasta/ chilli and rice etc) and a decent dinner when i get home. I tend to snack on nuts/fruit and then have a granola bar or jaffa cakes before i ride home in the evening.

How can i improve this without feeling awful on the commute?

Cheers

rick_chasey

Probs not the answer you want, but I find if you just go through a week or two's worth of commutes feeling like you could have had a bigger lunch, you'll eventually adjust and it'll be fine again.....

Usual caveats apply, namely that you do actually have some kind of nutritious lunch, but you get the idea.

fat daddy

yeah I don't eat anything special or different - get up 4am/5am hit the weights and zwift depending on how much time I have .. then cycle to work and eat a normal breakfast at about 9:30

the first week felt a bit weak .. and I over ate for about a month as I adjusted to exercise but after that you get used to it and revert to normal eating

commuterlegs

Thanks, you're right, not what I wanted to hear!

Is it best to try to find a middle ground or just top up as and well you feel sh*t? When i did this during the summer as soon as i got up to 4-5 commutes a week I really began to suffer, is it just a case of HTFU?

rick_chasey

CommuterLegs wrote:

Thanks, you're right, not what I wanted to hear!

Is it best to try to find a middle ground or just top up as and well you feel sh*t? When i did this during the summer as soon as i got up to 4-5 commutes a week I really began to suffer, is it just a case of HTFU?

In my own experience, MTFU is the order of the day.

But then I don’t quite know how bad you are feeling when you don’t up the food intake.

Do an experiment. Keep food intake the same, keep cycling. Try it for 2 weeks. See how you feel on week 3. If it’s worse, you know you need to eat more. Either way, you’ll have lost some weight.

FatLassOnaBike

fat daddy wrote:

yeah I don't eat anything special or different - get up 4am/5am hit the weights and zwift depending on how much time I have .. then cycle to work and eat a normal breakfast at about 9:30

the first week felt a bit weak .. and I over ate for about a month as I adjusted to exercise but after that you get used to it and revert to normal eating

Nice for people who have jobs with 'normal' working hours. Goes out of the window for his shift workers

commuterlegs

What's the typical 'go to' commuting breakfast then assuming you eat at work when you arrive.

I'm beginning to get bored of Oat So Simple or bagels. I did go through a stage of sausage and eggs warmed in the micro but they're not as satisfying heated up.

Do we have a commuting Masterchef thread? Could do with more variety in my diet!?

rick_chasey

I have no idea how people can regularly commute on an empty stomach...

ugo.santalucia

How much alcohol do you drink, in units?

Carbs have less than half the calories of fat, but whilst I can easily eat 200 g of dry pasta, I would struggle to eat 100 g of butter.
Moral: eat more fat and fewer carbs... as a guideline you can go 33% each of carbs, fat and protein. Avoid sugar and sugary foods... they are addictive and give you empty calories.

This is an example of a good balanced diet:

breakfast: buttered brown toast with 2-3 scrambled eggs... better if rye bread... do you have a bread machine?

11ses: apple or pear or other fruit... or a couple of carrots or a small bag of nuts or a small porridge (3 spoons of dry oats, no sugar)

Lunch: a smaller portion of what you ate the night before in a a packed lunch

Pre-ride (4 Pm or so) same as 11ses

Dinner: meat or fish with vegetables and smal portion of potatoes or brown rice, maybe some cheese

Things to avoid: alcohol, processed meat*, any form of cake or biscuits, sweets, chocolate < 85% cacao, packaged cereals, cheap nasty sliced bread full of preservatives, margerine, snack bars of all sorts, fizzy drinks except sparkling water, fruit juices including the posh ones sold as 1 of your 5 a day. DIETS, avoid fashionable diets.

The smaller the window of time between breakfast and dinner, the better... if you can kep it within 10 hours that would be awesome (say 8AM to 6 PM or 7-5)

* Processed meat includes: fresh sausages, but most importantly cured meats, which are the double whammy for cancer, as they ALL have sodium nitrite: ham (both cheap and nasty and premium expensive one), gammon, salami and cured sausages, chorizo, pastrami, sliced turkey or chicken breast, bacon (yes, even bacon, sorry!) and so on...

If you really have to have processed meat, at least make it black pudding, which is full of iron and good stuff

commuterlegs

Replies below:

ugo.santalucia wrote:

How much alcohol do you drink, in units?

Not much, maybe a couple of beers or glasses of wine a week. I can quite easily go a few weeks without drinking anything alcoholic.

Carbs have less than half the calories of fat, but whilst I can easily eat 200 g of dry pasta, I would struggle to eat 100 g of butter.
Moral: eat more fat and fewer carbs... as a guideline you can go 33% each of carbs, fat and protein. Avoid sugar and sugary foods... they are addictive and give you empty calories.

This is an example of a good balanced diet:

breakfast: buttered brown toast with 2-3 scrambled eggs... better if rye bread... do you have a bread machine?

No bread machine and no toaster at work, guess i could reheat toast maybe? If not, could just take the scrambled eggs and have a carb on the side? Or could i just have the carbs later in the day and settle for an omelette for breakfast? Would i need carbs in this meal to help recover from cycling in?

11ses: apple or pear or other fruit... or a couple of carrots or a small bag of nuts or a small porridge (3 spoons of dry oats, no sugar) - I tend to snack on almonds, rice cakes with nutella or breakfast bars (assume i should cut these out)!

Lunch: a smaller portion of what you ate the night before in a a packed lunch

This is normally what i do, so easy and takes little preparation. Mostly cos the wife does the evening meal :x

Pre-ride (4 Pm or so) same as 11ses - Usually where the breakfast bar comes in, or a banana.

Dinner: meat or fish with vegetables and smal portion of potatoes or brown rice, maybe some cheese - I probably go overly heavily on carbs with this meal as I'm starving when i get in. Will try to cut down.

Things to avoid: alcohol, processed meat*, any form of cake or biscuits, sweets, chocolate < 85% cacao, packaged cereals, cheap nasty sliced bread full of preservatives, margerine, snack bars of all sorts, fizzy drinks except sparkling water, fruit juices including the posh ones sold as 1 of your 5 a day. DIETS, avoid fashionable diets. - Damn, all the good things then....

The smaller the window of time between breakfast and dinner, the better... if you can kep it within 10 hours that would be awesome (say 8AM to 6 PM or 7-5) - Normally eat brekkie at 8.30 and then dinner at 6 so all good on that one.

* Processed meat includes: fresh sausages, but most importantly cured meats, which are the double whammy for cancer, as they ALL have sodium nitrite: ham (both cheap and nasty and premium expensive one), gammon, salami and cured sausages, chorizo, pastrami, sliced turkey or chicken breast, bacon (yes, even bacon, sorry!) and so on... - Noooo, not gammon and chorizo.....

If you really have to have processed meat, at least make it black pudding, which is full of iron and good stuff

Thanks for the input, will try to keep control along those lines. Really need to take the first step and dispose of all the leftover mince pies!

rick_chasey

Have to say, this does amuse me Ugo.

I eat a decent amount of processed meat, eat cereal every morning and chow down aggressively on cakes, and I keep my weight around the 9 stone mark without any fuss.

I even take down a chicken escaloppe ciabatta with extra mayo & melted cheese fairly regularly.

commuterlegs

Rick Chasey wrote:

I even take down a chicken escaloppe ciabatta with extra mayo & melted cheese fairly regularly.

That sounds amazing....... I just had a greek salad for lunch

I guess that's the difference between being 9st and maintaining vs being 13st and trying to cut down.

ugo.santalucia

Rick Chasey wrote:

Have to say, this does amuse me Ugo.

I eat a decent amount of processed meat, eat cereal every morning and chow down aggressively on cakes, and I keep my weight around the 9 stone mark without any fuss.

I even take down a chicken escaloppe ciabatta with extra mayo & melted cheese fairly regularly.

You don't have a weight problem, you can eat what you want... besides, you are young... give it 10 years and we'll update on what you can and cannot eat

voodooman

Trying not to be the "i did this etc" but...

2016 I made a conscious effort to get fitter and loose my increasing weight (late 40s, ex cricketer, usual family and job constraints etc) from just over 17st.

I tried loads of cycling and spin classes plus parkrun and ate as I did before - and got slightly heavier.

From March I combined the commute (11 miles exactly) with a proper diet plan such as:

Breakfast - bowl of cereal (no added sugar from lidl) with some blueberries or raspberries

Lunch - one pitta bread with tuna and salad (no mayo)

Snack - plain nuts / piece of fruit

once home

Snack - a glass of that godawful whey protein drink (to stop me feeling ravenous)

Dinner - A standard meal, but one sensible portion only (eaten slowly) and no filling up on bread etc. Recently I've been adding a small bowl of that Skyr stuff as a pudding.

and loads of green tea as for me it takes away hunger.

It's boring to a degree, but weight gone from 17+ to about 15 1/4. Basically though there are huge amounts of calories in much of our food and we (as a nation) tend to eat far more than we need. I'm sure with a real conscious effort I could probably shift down to 15 or lower but it starts to make me look haggard and ill even if I feel much fitter.

geomickb

I have an omelette when I get to work.

Almost cook it the night before, then 1:30 in the microwave.

neilr4

FatLassOnaBike wrote:

fat daddy wrote:

yeah I don't eat anything special or different - get up 4am/5am hit the weights and zwift depending on how much time I have .. then cycle to work and eat a normal breakfast at about 9:30

the first week felt a bit weak .. and I over ate for about a month as I adjusted to exercise but after that you get used to it and revert to normal eating

Nice for people who have jobs with 'normal' working hours. Goes out of the window for his shift workers

I work shift week on early 05.30-14.00 and week late 14.00-22.30.

I get up at 03.30 get dressed drink a pint of water and on the bike at 4am. 1 hour commute in zones 1& 2, shower and eat two slices of bread with peanutbutter and jam, a banana and a glass of milk.

07.30 coffee.

09.30 soup, glass of milk, salad, bagel with butter and cheese and an orange.

11.45 Salad, bagel, glass of milk, fruit.

15.30 low fat yoghurt with nuts, dates and honey.

18.00 whatever dinner gets put in front of me.

The rest of the evening tea only!!

Can be done just needs planning. I can easliy cycle for two hours on an empty stomach but keep the intensity low.

I work shift week on early 05.30-14.00 and week late 14.00-22.30.