Food/Diet XC Nutrition

Pete W

Likes Dirt
Hey Dreggsy, your on the mark 1grm carbs/kg of body weight per hour for events over 3 hrs. and thats included carbs so either or.
I've found in 100km events, bananas and banana cake are priceless good carbs with some simple sugars and small fat content and it tastes like food so the psyc factor as well.
The fat content of a food is often overlooked or bauked at, when some material i"ve read say that for endurance events your body needs it to keep the right balance for glycogen absorbsion to be optimal.
I'm using Hammer nutrition products now for mtb and other sports it seems to be the best for me as I've tried most others.
The hammer website has some good info and links without being to marketing based.
 
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DaGonz

Eats Squid
My favourites are Two fruits in syrup eaten with some moist banana bread every lap with 1/3 Cherry ripe mid lap for long events. Gus etc can taste too chemical and bitey after a few hours. Real food is the go.

Corn chips gave me a boost at the last 8hr and I finally discovered how well flat coke goes down and carbs you up! In between laps.
I managed to leave a tub of two fruits beside the track at the solo nats last year. Then again I left everything in my stomach beside the track at the same time... but interestingly, it was like it was only the two fruits that didn't get digested properly. *shrug*

Your race food has a very high GI an it wouldn't surprise me if you go really well then bonk heavily every 30mins... you might want to search out something a little less sugary ie ditch the bit of cherry & coke every lap till the end of the 8hr.

A tip so you don't have to stop every lap, put your food in bite size peices in either a wee zip lock bag or plastic cup. you can then just grab a bag or a plastic cup and whack it in your back pocket. I started using the plastic cup idea after seeing Eatough use them and they work a treat. surprisingly they just sit well inside your jersey pocket with minimal to no spillage, and save getting pocket lint or whatever allover your apple/museli bar/half eaten bannan bread.... The small zip lock bags work well too but as you get tired and your dexterity goes they can be harder to open.

A note on brown rice mentioned before. Brown rice is in many ways better for you than pasta and has quite a low GI. In fact, accroding to Monique Ryan[1] Wholemeal foods in general have much better GI's for endurance athletes. I tried the wholemeal pasta though, that is just to eat it, and I some things I think I'll stick to the plain old boring varieties ;)

Actualy, Monique has a book I bought "Sports Nutrition for Endurance Athletes" which is worth a bit of a read. Alot of it is obvious stuff but there's been a few little things I've picked up.

Cheers
Gonz

[1] writes books, and articles for velo news among other things
 

krizbike

Likes Dirt
rice is nice

Your race food has a very high GI an it wouldn't surprise me if you go really well then bonk heavily every 30mins... you might want to search out something a little less sugary ie ditch the bit of cherry & coke every lap till the end of the 8hr.

A note on brown rice mentioned before. Brown rice is in many ways better for you than pasta and has quite a low GI. In fact, accroding to Monique Ryan[1] Wholemeal foods in general have much better GI's for endurance athletes. I tried the wholemeal pasta though, that is just to eat it, and I some things I think I'll stick to the plain old boring varieties ;)
wholemeal fruit cake is great to eat along the way.
Gu bars can cause gut pain, but the best way to fix this is to drink a pile of water with it (400mL or so). That seems to stop it happening for me.
oh and DON'T DROP YOUR WRAPPERS ON THE F#$KING TRACK! Sorry, just had to get that out. :)

As for the rice, take a look at basmati rice. It is white, cooks quickly, tastes great and is low GI (some sources list it as lower GI than brown rice). I usually have a veg curry with a pile of rice the night before a race.
Brown rice is great too of course (I use both depending on what it's with and how much time I have).

Chris
 

jham66

Likes Dirt
You could try looking through the AIS site. They are Govt owned so that means we own them.....no secrets fellas! Except the Govt is always out to decieve us of the truth so they may be out to sabotage us... Either way worth a look. Also can find all the AIS cooking books so you can impress the Mrs (or Mr, but that isn't hard) with some low fat goodies. Link below:

http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition
 

DaGonz

Eats Squid
Suppliments

Someone started a recent discussion on another mailing list with this piece from the New York times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/05/health/nutrition/05Best.html

Which for me at least, wasn't exactly ground breakingly new, but I think helps fill in some of the info people were asking about protein drinks recently? If not, this doozy from the AIS certainly seems to have plenty of detail about all things err... suplimental :)

http://www.ausport.gov.au/ais/nutrition/supplements/resources/supplements_and_sports_foods

Thought others might be interested!

Cheers
Gonz
 

red gum

Likes Dirt
endura

can anyone tell me how many carbs are in a dose of endura rehydration formula it says on dose is 90 cal but dose not say about carbs l am only new to riding enduros and learnt after the nemmins 30km race could not stop my legs shakes for one hpur after race my error for not eating anything from start to finish can anyone give me an some info thanks
 

drasnian

Likes Dirt
can anyone tell me how many carbs are in a dose of endura rehydration formula it says on dose is 90 cal but dose not say about carbs l am only new to riding enduros and learnt after the nemmins 30km race could not stop my legs shakes for one hpur after race my error for not eating anything from start to finish can anyone give me an some info thanks
Nope. Would be interested to know myself.

Maltodextrin and fructose are the two leading ingredients. So in a 20g scoop I'm guessing a good 15g or so are carbs. But 1 gram of carbs contains 17kJ (4 kcal) of energy. But 90kcal/4kcal = 22.5 grams. Hmmm?

Simple answer, the vast majority is carbs (15-20g)
 

jmcavoy

Likes Dirt
Nope. Would be interested to know myself.

Maltodextrin and fructose are the two leading ingredients. So in a 20g scoop I'm guessing a good 15g or so are carbs. But 1 gram of carbs contains 17kJ (4 kcal) of energy. But 90kcal/4kcal = 22.5 grams. Hmmm?

Simple answer, the vast majority is carbs (15-20g)
It's got 30g of carbs per 35g serve. A scoop is around 25g of powder, so there is 20g of carbs per scoop (nice guess work!).

You'd need that plus 2 gels per hour to race an enduro if you are around 70kg...
 
Can someone tell me why you shouldn't run pure coke in your camelpack? Surely a regular supply of simple sugars is what the body is looking for when your racing at a high heart rate. You wouldn't bonk as long as you keep pumping it in. Doesn't it just skip the digestion process?
 

jmcavoy

Likes Dirt
Can someone tell me why you shouldn't run pure coke in your camelpack? Surely a regular supply of simple sugars is what the body is looking for when your racing at a high heart rate. You wouldn't bonk as long as you keep pumping it in. Doesn't it just skip the digestion process?
Coke doesn't have the electrolytes your body needs when sweating and it's much better to have a mix of sugars to avoid spiking too much, not just pure glucose which has a crazy high GI.
Also worth considering is the high carb dilution rate in coke, which is 11%, well above the 8% that will cause stomach distress if you use it for too long.
I'd also wager if you used it for too long, at the required hydration rate of 1L per hour you would be taking in too many carbs/hr and too much caffiene, 112mg per hour is going to add up, and with a half life of 5hrs you will get the shakes before you finish a 100ker for example, and if you ran on it for a longer race, the effects of that rate of consumption could get dangerous.

That said, using it for a short XCO race would probably be fine (my races are more toward the endurance end of the spectrum), and plenty of ultra racers use if for the final lap (I wouldn't be on it for more than 2 hours though) of races when a bit of fizz can sooth the stomach and caffiene helps a tired head, it's great for that, but it's easy to spike and bonk, so keep sucking it down all lap.

For an XCO race I find them so short I don't drink anything at all though unless it's super hot, just drink some fluids before the race and keep yours hands on the bike and pedals cranking that way :)
 

Pizzaz

Likes Dirt
Can someone tell me why you shouldn't run pure coke in your camelpack? Surely a regular supply of simple sugars is what the body is looking for when your racing at a high heart rate. You wouldn't bonk as long as you keep pumping it in. Doesn't it just skip the digestion process?
JMac pretty much covered it... But the US track team used flat coke as an energy drink at the atlanata olympics and there is stuff on the web about using it... As jase said, lots of carbs but no electrolyte and it's all simple sugars so once you start you need to keep it up or you sugar crash...
 
I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to add electrolytes to coke. As for too much caffeine, any stimulant has less effect on the body as it gets used to it.

I go through around 800 calories an hour according to my HR monitor, so I don't think I can get enough calories. A GU would have to be around the same GI as coke, no? A lot of people here seem to run just GU for anything up to 8hr races.

The other thing I suppose is, has anyone tested how well coke hydrates you? That would be interesting.

And no, I don't work for coke. I hardly drink it, but it feels that coke is so much better at picking you up than any other sugary drink, redbull included.
 

Pizzaz

Likes Dirt
I go through around 800 calories an hour according to my HR monitor, so I don't think I can get enough calories. A GU would have to be around the same GI as coke, no? A lot of people here seem to run just GU for anything up to 8hr races.
Its pretty much impossible to replace the calories you're burning - just focus on replacing the carbs... about 1g/kg/hr.

Gu etc tend to be lower GI (can't find the science to back up that statement though) but you do get a quicker energy hit from gels than you do from bars etc which in turn are quicker than 'real' food...
 
OK, so coke has a low GI of 61? wow. I read that it has a low GI because it is highly acidic (ph 2.5). It has a Glycemic load of 16 though.

Coke, natures superfood? Should we believe the hippies who say it's bad for us? lol..
 
Interesting article here:


"High GI carbohydrates are actually preferable for athletes before, during, and immediately after exercise. During exercise, the muscles burn carbohydrate faster than the body can possibly absorb carbohydrates consumed in food. Consuming carbs immediately before and during prolonged exercise has been shown to enhance performance by providing an extra fuel source to the muscles. But this benefit can only be realized if those carbs are absorbed quickly. They don’t do the muscles any good if they’re just sitting around in the stomach being processed. This is why sports drinks and energy gels contain sugars such as dextrose that are rapidly absorbed.

High GI carbs are also beneficial in the first hour after exercise, because they result in faster replenishment of the muscles’ depleted carbohydrate fuel stores. Also, when high GI carbs are consumed along with protein after exercise, the muscles are able to repair and rebuild themselves faster."

Also mentions that everybody has a different GI reaction to a certain food. White bread may be low GI for some people, but really high for others.
 
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