Originally Posted by
AzTallRider
As CommuteCommando said, it's really hard to get enough protein, but you get carbs practically by breathing - they are in everything.
(Over)simplifying things: Carbs convert to sugar, with excess sugar converting to fat. Protein converts to muscle. Which do you want? If you want to lose weight, staying carb heavy just doesn't do it. If you put in lots of base time, you not only improve aerobically, you also train your body to burn fat, since those levels of effort are in the "fat burning zone". If you combine that training with eating fat-rich protein, giving your body fat as its primary fuel source, you increase that adaptation. You want to be a fat burning machine, pushing up the point of exertion where you cross over from burning mostly fat to burning mostly carbs. That's called the "metabolic equivalency point". You want to hit it at as high an HR as possible. You do that by laying off the carbs (depriving your body of that fuel source), and eating fatty protein. Think Avocado; peanut butter; hummus; yogurt; steak; chicken. Also by not eating before a base ride. But all that's for training. When actually racing, you want to load up the carbs to maximize your glycogen stores, and you want to consume quickly digested carbs (like honey) during the race.
The risk of a high protein, fatty, diet is that, if you aren't really putting in the hours, you risk the effects of higher cholesterol and such. But then, the risk of eating a carb-rich diet when you aren't really cranking out the high intensity, is that you increase the fat content of your body, with all the health risks inherent with that. If you aren't racing, chances are you aren't up in the levels of exertion where you are burning up your glycogen stores, which means all those carbs will get converted to fat.
Anyway, this is all just my opinion, based on input from the Phd. physiologist who works with my race team, and lots of other reading. Most people eat carb-heavy diets. But then, most people are fatter than they want to be.
Thatks for the dissertation. I'll need to re-read it to develop a full understanding.
As I mentioned - I do know about protein diets. When you're in the gym doing a BB program, you cram down all the protein you can get, and you learn to count calories and macros. But the objective there is very different from cycling, so I'm interested to learn...
Originally Posted by
qcpmsame
Looks like I have a lot of reading ahead of me.
Originally Posted by
sparrish
Long-term goal: is it do-able?
Good thread. I plan to follow it closely.