Training & Nutrition - Balancing calories in and out

How do you balance having enough energy to ride, but not eating more that you need? I've been riding a lot lately - about 150 a week. I bonked on an early ride, so now I'm trying to make sure that I eat enough, but I think that I've actually been gaining weight since I started riding. How do you become a better rider without getting bigger thighs? Spinning versus mashing? I want thinner thighs, not big, muscular thighs. Help!

Spinning might help, but most of your muscles' response to exercise is genetically determined.

Of course, if you're gaining fat, it just means you're eating too much (a common problem when you ride a lot, because exercise increases appetite).

To avoid bonk, just make sure you're ingesting 250-350 calories per hour when you ride. A bottle of Gatorade, and a power bar or gel, each hour or so is about right.

First you have to figure out how many calories you're burning each day.

Here's a caculator to use as a starting point:

http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.html

It can be a pain to not over-et in response to the hunger caused by the increased exercise. Eat a *little* more in the morning before you ride to stave off an energy crisis.

If I just eat a peach, for example, before a 20 mile morning ride than I'm sure to feel pooped 3/4 of the way through.

You want to bike, but not get bigger thighs?? Hmmm - doesn't sound possible. How about it if you only use the granny gear the entire ride? :eek:

I have a similar issue in that I want to lose weight, but don't won't to lose energy. Does anyone know a website or where you can find information about how to balance calories/carbs with your training routine?

3 years ago I lost 50lbs doing low carbs, but I also about tripled the amount of training I do and don't want to trade the low energy you get from low carbs with the performance gains I've gotten. I'm paying attention to calories, but don't know how to balance them out. Help!

I have a similar issue in that I want to lose weight, but don't won't to lose energy. Does anyone know a website or where you can find information about how to balance calories/carbs with your training routine?

3 years ago I lost 50lbs doing low carbs, but I also about tripled the amount of training I do and don't want to trade the low energy you get from low carbs with the performance gains I've gotten. I'm paying attention to calories, but don't know how to balance them out. Help!

Trying to lose a lot of weight, and train at very high levels, are somewhat mutually exclusive goals. If you have significant weight to lose, you should probably focus on that first.

But, if you don't have much weight to lose, or you're not training at the highest levels, then it's fairly straightforward - just make sure you're adequately fueled for each ride (i.e., nothing for rides under 90 minutes unless you haven't eaten in the previous 3 hours, otherwise about 250-350 calories per hour via sport drinks, gels, energy bars, etc.). During the rest of the day, try to achieve a calorie deficit - a daily deficit of about 500 calories will result in about 1 lb per week of weight loss, and is considered a safe and healthy rate of loss.

Your weight and your performance on the bike will tell you if you're successful. If you're losing around 1 lb per week and feeling good on the bike, you're OK. If you're losing less, you'll need to eat less or ride more. If you're losing more than 1 lb per week, or you feel tired and sluggish on the bike, you probably need to eat a bit more.

Try fitday.com. Just beware that the activities seem a little high, in terms of calories burned. I'm not sure if you can do it online, but I bought the program, and entered custom activities, which are musch more accurate.