Food/Diet Carb loading

John U said:
I was pretty surprised by the fact that the impact lasted for 2 days for a mid distance ride. Was always under the impression that that length of ride would be accounted for by the carbs intake on the night of the ride.
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Same, I eat gels on the ride and then have carbs after, but eating a lot of carbs over a few days prior to the race really improved my recovery.
 
Makes sense. Filling an empty tank must be easier than increasing the tanks capacity by overfilling it.
 
Well I've just done 30 day low carb diet . It involves high protein intake and no grain based food .
Given the reason for this is an intolerance to wheat based food
The interesting result is I've more ride endurance / fitness as a result of no carbs in my food intake .
I don't get the glycogen crash feeling and have more sustained power
Although of late I have been having protein powder as a drink with water on my ride as it tastes sweet .
A normal ride is 3-4 hours
And have also done some local Enduro ends
Which I'll have a few sesame nut bars for

Some more food for thought
 
Foregoing carbs for a protein centred diet will force the body to use fat stores and you will be able to operate closer to your threshold power for longer. Great for ultra endurance athletes.

The only issue I see is in this theoretical situation. Say you have two athletes training for a race that's 7-8 months away, which leaves enough time for a proper training phase to lead to a peak. Both athletes start with a functional threshold power (FTP) of 200w. Athlete A is working on none to low carbs to become ketogenically adapted and trains hard enough to be able to work at 95% of FTP for a very long time. Not taking in carbs means the muscles just don't work well over threshold but you can work very close to that ceiling using only fat. Athlete B is on a carb centred diet. He can do anaerobic and v02 threshold interval work and over that time period he's built his FTP to 250-260w and can maintain that at 80% for a long period plus he's able to recover better from attacks above threshold.

Scientifically, if you're an ultra endurance runner then becoming keto adapted makes a ton of sense. But cycling in general, and especially MTBing we do a lot more punchier work that utilises the glycogen in the muscles.

This obviously is more racing centred advice. If you're just crusing about and crawling to the top just to smash the downs with mates and climbs and Strava are of no interest, then doing a low carb approach will definitely work as long as you don't mind the downsides.

Then there's doing it for the weight loss, which is fine too. Just know you've gotta be really strict to hit that keto adaption but as a diet to loose weight, it's pretty good. The "eat less calories than you use" in a day still applies.
 
single-pivot said:
Well I've just done 30 day low carb diet . It involves high protein intake and no grain based food .
Given the reason for this is an intolerance to wheat based food
The interesting result is I've more ride endurance / fitness as a result of no carbs in my food intake .
I don't get the glycogen crash feeling and have more sustained power
Although of late I have been having protein powder as a drink with water on my ride as it tastes sweet .
A normal ride is 3-4 hours
And have also done some local Enduro ends
Which I'll have a few sesame nut bars for

Some more food for thought
Click to expand...
Well done sticking to.the high protein diet and giving it a chance.
It works well.with alsorts of sport and fitness, fly's in the face of conventional ideas though.
 
Interesting write up / reply slider_phil .
Makes sense ,
I think that may be why during a Enduro race I'll snack on a bit of nut sesame bar for glucose sugar hit . found it added that axtra energy during high intensity outputs .

Sure does Safreek . Made me question the food humans eat and how healthy that bowl of cereal really is ? For food or is it a bowl of sugar .
 
single-pivot said:
Interesting write up / reply slider_phil .
Makes sense ,
I think that may be why during a Enduro race I'll snack on a bit of nut sesame bar for glucose sugar hit . found it added that axtra energy during high intensity outputs .

Sure does Safreek . Made me question the food humans eat and how healthy that bowl of cereal really is ? For food or is it a bowl of sugar .
Click to expand...
Definitely! Eating healthy to loose weight and eating to race are two very different things. When you want to race or ride at your best most of us under fuel. That's why I always end up at a bakery or pub following a ride because I haven't kept up my calorie intake during a ride haha.

Another thing most of us forget is that doing the ride isn't making us fitter, it's the recovery afterwards. So train for what you want to improve, then rest and eat properly and those adaptions will happen. Our bodies are good at doing what we do to them. So if you train for long low intensity rides all the time. You're going to be good at that. But once you start having to put short aerobic bursts in for punchy climbs it's going to be a weakness.

And remember, experiment and see what works best for you. Everyone responds a bit differently but there's some hard science you can't work around in regards with how your muscles use energy. Fats for work under threshold, and the closer you get to that lactate threshold (the point of effort where you're only just able to clear lactic acid but it's hurting bad) the more glycogen those muscles need to work. Think of that glycogen use as a fader switch. The harder your working, the more glycogen your muscles need.

That's where being keto adapted helps as you can run much closer to your threshold using fat for fuel. But if you build that threshold doing strength intervals (and eating carbs to fuel that exercise) then you will be faster overall and be better trained at efforts above threshold. MTBing is a punchy sport and every single one of us is doing pinch climbs that are pushing us way past our threshold. So what I think should be the goal for all mountain bikers? Build that FTP and put the hurt on your friends on that next climb
 
I still can't believe you didn't want to eat a life size tofu elephant post race.
 
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