Trying to lose weight - Sports drink and food during ride
I’m rather overweight but I started cycling again last week. First time since 2012! I did run a few marathons since then but since Covid I’ve put on over 3 stone in weight and done zero running, cycling or anything else.
I’m really enjoying slipping in to my XXL bibshorts and going out for a ride.
What should I do about on the bike nutrition though? My research tells me it’s important for me to take on calories but that’s completely counter to me losing weight.
How many carbs/sugar should I look to take on during the following ride lengths, if any?
- 45m-1h 15m mid week rides
- 2h-3h weekend rides
2012 Bianchi Infinito
Comments
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You shouldn’t need anything extra during your short rides unless you are pushing constantly TT-style.
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I'm no expert but I'm going to suggest that anything less than an hour* doesn't need any extra fuel past hydration.
*I'd extend that up to 2 hours if taking it easy.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.2 -
humans typically have glycogen reserve c. 2000kcal, and umpteen times that in fat reserves
glycogen is easier to burn when using a lot of energy
your body can't burn fat nearly as fast, so even though there's loads of energy there, it doesn't help much once intensity increases (though this can improve with training)
so you do burn a bit of fat, but it's mostly glycogen and fresh carbs as fast as you can digest them, hence the need to eat in races/hard training
but unless you are riding really hard, you don't need anything extra for 2-3 hours - think how many hours you can walk around without needing food
just stay hydrated (water, not sports drinks), ride at a pace you can sustain (zone 2 is typically suggested for improving fat burning), if you do feel energy levels dropping, ease off for a while, worst case you can stop for a can of coke
to lose weight you need a calorie deficit, avoid needless food on rides
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny2 -
I would agree, 3-4 hour rides upwards you might need something if you're cycling quite hard.
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As above with extra emphasis on leaving sports drinks and similar alone. Plain old council pop or weakish squash. I only take on board any nutrition if I'm doing an endurance event or all day ride at a decent pace. Well done on getting back into it and good luck on losing the weight.
Too many bikes according to Mrs O.1 -
Thanks - that’s all very helpful :)
2010 Specialized Rockhopper
2012 Bianchi Infinito0 -
How hard are you short and long rides? The harder you ride the more glycogen your burn. The human body is a self-regulating biological machine that likes to maintain homeostasis, so it doesn't matter if you have 2000kcal of glycogen stores, because any you use during a ride your body will compensate by ramping up your appetite to replenish them, it will also depress your base metabolic rate to preserve the remaining stores. This is why we want to eat the entire contents of the fridge after a 3hr fasted ride and want to spend the rest of the day collapsed on the sofa and engage in activities that require in very little brain activity because the brain is the most carb hungry organ in the body.
TLDR I found that fuelling with 50-100g of sugar per hour while riding reduces my post ride appetite and actually helped with weight loss
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I don't think I'm riding that hard. My legs get fatigued before my lungs it feels like so I'm not HARD breathing through the ride.
2010 Specialized Rockhopper
2012 Bianchi Infinito0 -
Try riding with a lower gear/higher cadence.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1 -
on your 2-3 hr rides you should be aiming at Z2, a good way to check you're in zone is the talk test. Casically if you can talk out loud in complete sentences while you are riding the pace is low enough.
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I would say anything less than an hour you don't even need to worry about hydration during the ride provided you are properly hydrated at the start. Fuel wise depends upon how hard you're riding, but again nothing needed for an hour ride no matter how hard, if you mostly stick to zone 2 then a 3 hour ride should be achievable without fueling.
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if this were correct it obviously would be impossible to lose weight
clearly it isn't
my bike - faster than god's and twice as shiny0 -
I'll put the hydration point down to people coping differently in summer heat. Totally concur in winter.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.0 -
As a general rule of thumb, if you are starving at the end of a 3hr ride then you have got your calorie intake badly wrong on and off the bike.
I ride 13-15hrs per week with 3 x 4hr rides. At the end of a long ride I have some chocolate milk or a yoghurt and maybe a small handful of salted peanuts. That is all I need before having a proper meal about an hour or so after the ride.
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Clearly it explains why many people find it so difficult to lose weight.
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Whether you should fuel your rides by taking calories intra workout or not will depend largely on when those rides take place during the day, what your eating habits are throughout the day, and how long you have already been in a state of caloric deficit. To lose 3 stones should take you at least a year to a year and a half of a sensible (300-500 kcal per day), but strictly everyday calorie restriction. That's a long time, and once your body fat tissue starts disappearing your body will kick off all sorts of adaptations to prevent any further loss. One of those adaptations is reducing your spontaneous physical activity such as gesturing throughout the day and also reducing the willingness to undertake planned physical activity as being in a prolonged caloric deficit affects negatively muscle recovery and central nervous system so we feel less keen to do things which cost us energy. This can be amplified further by doing sport especially endurance type sports such as running, cycling, swimming are known to cause that.
Fuelling simple carbs intra-workout have been found to help prevent that to a degree, especially during workouts taking longer than 2 hours. No need to take in much, 40g per hour is enough. Just keep in mind to include those calories in your daily calorie in\out balance. Just monitor your vitality levels throughout the day and if you find it drops, you can try fuelling intra-workout and see if it lifts your energy levels up. I do this by measuring the cadence when I walk. When I am eating well this will be 124-126 steps per minute, but after 6-8 weeks of dieting for weight loss I observe this to spontaneously drop to 115-118. This tells me it is time to do a 3-4 weeks diet break to come out of the calorie deficit.
Now, if your rides take place in the afternoon and you tend to eat regular, equally spaced meals throughout the day, you don't need to fuel intra-workout, but if you ride very early in the morning with no time to eat breakfast at least 2 hours before the ride, it is worth eating some source of simple carbs including fructose just before the ride or on the bike to top up liver glycogen stores which can be depleted after the night, especially if your last meal the previous day was at the most desirable time - 6-7pm. Liver glycogen is a source of fuel for the brain, and if the levels are already low and you deplete them further, your brain will likely make you crave simple sugars post ride, which may lead to overeating. If you ride your longer ride also very early in the morning, fuelling on the bike will be even more important, because otherwise you will be finishing your ride with a large caloric deficit which will make you find curbing appetite later in the day much harder.
Lastly, it would be beneficial to include some resistance type training in your training plan. Either doing weights, or a simple home workout with your own body weight, or kettlebells, or else calisthenics. Best a mix of all. Short, twice a week, to muscle failure. It will help to minimise skeletal muscle loss from your entire body during the weight reduction period. You don't mention your age, but this is especially important if you are past your 40 years, and paramount past 50 when sarcopenia starts accelerating.
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There's a ton of good advice and suggestions on here already, so I will just give my anecdotal details of my own approach.
Personally, if I am just riding for an hour, I would either go out without eating anything, but take some drink out with me, and or I would have a strong coffee maybe 45 minutes prior.
For a longer ride of 3-4 hours, I would likely have a largish portion of food an hour before, so if it was the morning, a big bowl of porridge with fruit in it and a strong coffee, if it's an afternoon or evening ride, I'd have a strong coffee, and probably a couple of poached eggs on toast.
If I thought I would be working hard, I'll take some caffeine clif bloks with me, and start popping them after the first hour has gone by, and would also have 2 water bottles with an electrolytes/caffeine tablet mix thing in them, High 5 zero caffeine tropical is my weapon of choice, never grow bored of it.
Again this is anecdotal, and may be specific to me, but when I carry out a turbo session early in the morning, I have a flavoured whey protein shake afterwards, usually just made up with water, and I find this fuels me well through until lunchtime.
I should look to bring in some resistance training, I keep trying over the past few years, but have not managed to stick to anything regular.
Felt F70 05 (Turbo)
Marin Palisades Trail 91 and 06
Scott CR1 SL 12
Cannondale Synapse Adventure 15 & 16 Di2
Scott Foil 181 -
You are right and those compensations take place, but can be minimised by eating a high quality, dietary fibre and nutrient rich, high carb / low fat diet with a sensible caloric deficit on one hand and managing daily stress levels by ensuring good quality sleep, post workout recovery and avoiding overtraining and excessive use of stimulants such as caffeine. People are struggling to lose weight not because those compensations make it impossible, but because they listen to the advice of people unqualified to give it and live in a highly obesogenic environment at the same time. The human body evolved to be very efficient at gaining fat tissue and preventing losing it because it was once crucial for survival, and has powerful tools to succeed at it, but modern food industry is exploiting every one of those primal mechanisms to ensure we keep eating mostly their junk food.
Feeling an irresistible urge to eat the whole contents of the fridge post ride is typical to those aiming at very rapid weight loss and who starve themselves throughout the entire day eating very little, then workout later in the afternoon with either no or very little fuelling on the bike, possibly also only drinking plain water, so not hydrating properly. When they return home they are indeed starved, dehydrated (thirst causes cravings for sugary foods), and that at the time of the day when ghrelin are naturally highest - late in the afternoon / into the evening, so they end up bogging in.. then feeling guilty in the morning, so restrict eating again throughout the day to try to balance the excess calories out, then can't resist hunger again and overeat again and keep on bouncing between one extreme and the other.
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The OP sounds like a beginner having not trained anything for 4-5 years. What works for a trained athlete won't work for a beginner.
If you've been training for a number of years you are far more efficient at using body fat stores to fuel your workout all the while having far more capacity to store muscle glycogen in your muscles, which explains why you don't feel hungry at the end of a 3 hour long ride without fuelling intra-workout. You are also much likely to be well dialled in to knowing what power/hr zone you are riding in and maintaining it throughout the entire ride. But beginners rely far more on glycolytic pathways for fuelling and have a tendency to ride harder than they should. It is not uncommon for a novice to feel fierce hunger a short while after finishing a workout, even after a 10 min. long HIIT intervals session.
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I try to hang around 80 on my cadence meter
2010 Specialized Rockhopper
2012 Bianchi Infinito0 -
Try higher. I only say that as you stated your legs burn out before your cardio-vascular system is working hard. This would indicate using too big gears. The rule of thumb (but obviously not for everyone) is 90 rpm.
The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
I am not sure. You have no chance.Veronese68 wrote:PB is the most sensible person on here.1
