Training & Nutrition - How do you fight the hunger after a ride?

i used to weigh 320 lbs 2 years ago and then i went on a diet and some exercises (gym, p90x, jogging, ect...) to bring my weight down to 205 lbs. i have been stuck at this weight for couple of months.

last month is when i started to commute to work on my hybrid bike. total miles commuting is 29 miles a day. then on sundays i go on 50+ mile rides on my road bike. the problem is i get super hungry after a ride. like i can't take it. when i was working out at the gym or the other workout programs, the hunger was manageable. but after a bike ride i have to eat. i mean EAT. lol.

one good thing is even though i see myself eating a lot, i haven't gained any weight. actually i have lost 2 lbs in the past 3 weeks. but that's not enough. i want to be able to lose at least 2 lbs a week if not a bit more. i know i have to eat less calories but its really hard after a ride.

so my question is, is there any type of supplements that will help with the hunger? like some protein or whey powder? will those help? i tried eating vegetables and fruits after a ride but it makes me more hungry for some reason.

Eventually you'll not lose 2 pounds a week anymore. That's life. Also, you need to have an extended rest and recovery period every couple of weeks. You saw this doing p90x. As far as hunger after a ride goes: you're in a calorie deficit. The sooner you eat after a ride, the better you'll recover. Your body is several hundred times more able to breakdown and process carbohydrates immediately after a ride than even an hour after your ride. What this boils down to is: eat and do it after your ride. Know how much you're eating and burning with several of the calculators that are around.

Here:

Take rest and recovery periods that last days (or up to a week) about once a month.
Eat during a ride to ride longer.
Eat immediately after a ride.
Control your urge to binge (think of how the food will make you feel after eating it).
Eat again an hour after you eat.
Forget about supplements. Period.

Try eating a good breakfast about one hour before you ride.

Eventually you'll not lose 2 pounds a week anymore. That's life. Also, you need to have an extended rest and recovery period every couple of weeks. You saw this doing p90x. As far as hunger after a ride goes: you're in a calorie deficit. The sooner you eat after a ride, the better you'll recover. Your body is several hundred times more able to breakdown and process carbohydrates immediately after a ride than even an hour after your ride. What this boils down to is: eat and do it after your ride. Know how much you're eating and burning with several of the calculators that are around.

Here:

Take rest and recovery periods that last days (or up to a week) about once a month.
Eat during a ride to ride longer.
Eat immediately after a ride.
Control your urge to binge (think of how the food will make you feel after eating it).
Eat again an hour after you eat.
Forget about supplements. Period.

i will try that. eating and eating again an hour later. also no supplements. got it.


Try eating a good breakfast about one hour before you ride.

i do eat a good breakfast but its not an hour before. more like 10 minutes before. maybe i should try eating earlier.

How do you fight hunger after a ride?


http://www.nesplayer.com/features/8bitartist/Little_Mac_Vs_King_Hippo_by_8_bit_Painter.jpg

And yeah, plants will not give you what you need. Your body is looking for carbohydrates, lots of them. You need them to regenerate the ATP in your mitochondria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion

Your muscles have thousands of mitochondria. They produce tons and tons of ATP. Your muscles fill with the stuff. Then you bike ride, and you deplete all that. It is imperative that you replenish this supply! Now, not later! And that takes glucose!

You're looking for rice, makizushi, bread, cupcakes, anything starchy. Why would vegetables do anything but make you even more hungry? They actually take energy to digest!

Oatmeal will do it. Cereal. A dinner roll. A double-order of sushi (10-12 pieces). You don't need to eat everything; you only need to eat the right thing.

Eating works pretty well for dealing with post-ride hunger. Pre, post and during rides are not the time to skimp on calories- you need to have enough glycogen to ride, and you need to replenish some of what you have burned during the ride.

To avoid over eating after a ride, eat something and wait 10-15 minutes. Then if you are still hungry, eat a little more.
Real food is preferable to recovery drinks, snacks and shakes. Save the space food for on the bike.

I was always starving after a longer workout, to the point where my stomach growled about every 2-3 hours in the evening and most of the next day. Increasing my protein intake has solved the problem for me.

I love carbs and would usually eat a sandwich and fruit or pasta after a long workout. Cutting back on the carbs a bit and upping the protein took care of my hunger pangs.

I eat before a ride and after a ride. Normal 1 hr long rides do not require any food.
I think protein may have helped but I think I may have fixed that issue before I started increasing my protein intake.

I've noticed that sometimes if I ride through my normal lunch time and finish riding in the evening I can have my lunch "on the bike" so to speak. This helps me keep my meal schedule sorta sane. I can just have a snack and drink after riding and wait a bit until dinner.

But sometimes I'm still just hungry. Eating while riding helps me tremendously though.

http://www.nesplayer.com/features/8bitartist/Little_Mac_Vs_King_Hippo_by_8_bit_Painter.jpg

And yeah, plants will not give you what you need. Your body is looking for carbohydrates, lots of them. You need them to regenerate the ATP in your mitochondria.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitochondrion

Your muscles have thousands of mitochondria. They produce tons and tons of ATP. Your muscles fill with the stuff. Then you bike ride, and you deplete all that. It is imperative that you replenish this supply! Now, not later! And that takes glucose!

You're looking for rice, makizushi, bread, cupcakes, anything starchy. Why would vegetables do anything but make you even more hungry? They actually take energy to digest!

Oatmeal will do it. Cereal. A dinner roll. A double-order of sushi (10-12 pieces). You don't need to eat everything; you only need to eat the right thing.

um. what? vegetables have a fair bit of cellulose in them. it's what the cell walls are made of. and taking more energy to digest than they give you and making you more hungry???

um. what? vegetables have a fair bit of cellulose in them. it's what the cell walls are made of. and taking more energy to digest than they give you and making you more hungry???

Yes it's called "insoluble fiber" and it comes out the other end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insoluble_fiber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose

Note that soluble fiber also increases food content without increasing calorie count, i.e. it's digested by bacteria in the intestine but you don't get to eat the glucose result. None of this is calorific.

I've noticed that sometimes if I ride through my normal lunch time and finish riding in the evening I can have my lunch "on the bike" so to speak. This helps me keep my meal schedule sorta sane. I can just have a snack and drink after riding and wait a bit until dinner.

But sometimes I'm still just hungry. Eating while riding helps me tremendously though.

This

Yes it's called "insoluble fiber" and it comes out the other end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insoluble_fiber

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose

Note that soluble fiber also increases food content without increasing calorie count, i.e. it's digested by bacteria in the intestine but you don't get to eat the glucose result. None of this is calorific.

Not really sure how you think vegetables as a whole don't provide calories. While we may not be able to break down the starches ourselves they do have lots of sugars and proteins that we can absorb and our gut bacteria are able to break down some of those starches to use as energy sources. They then provide us with things our bodies can take up, some of which provide calories and some don't. Examples of this include vitamins and essential amino acids. Sure we get some of them from our foods but others are made by the bacteria living in our gut digesting the things we can't.

And the starches that nothing in our gut can digest and just pass right through? Those are great too. They cause your stomach to expand as if there was food in there leading your body to give off the fullness hormones. Dampens the hunger while providing some calories but much less than things with refined carbs.

Heck, some edamame sounds like a good snack shortly after a ride. Add in a banana and you've got some carbs, some good protein, some vitamins and minerals, some fiber to fill you up. For the OP who wants to quench the hunger that comes immediately after a ride so he can continue losing weight, that sounds pretty good. Myself I just go with a small handful of a fruit and nut mix, but that should work just fine.

The idea that it costs more calories to digest vegetables than you get from them is just silly.

Not really sure how you think vegetables as a whole don't provide calories.



I said they didn't provide enough readily available glucose; and your argument was (essentially) that we can digest cellulose. No dietary fiber provides caloric content.

In addition, much of what is stored in vegetable matter is difficult to access. Familiar fruits are effectively a soluble fiber, as pectin is a sugar matrix (the entire white part of an apple is pectin); while the mass of broccoli, carrots, and the like is an insoluble fiber built around the nutrient content therein. These things take energy to break through.

The cell walls are not easy for your body to tear down, since they don't come apart under normal exposure to gastric juices; all effort is made, the stomach churns and lurches to break what it can (i.e. it mechanically juices the veggies), and then the food is passed on. This takes energy. Soluble fibers and passed sugars then provide energy to intestinal flora, which complete the task of tearing down any remaining indigestible cellular material as best it can (mostly soluble fibers). This frees up nutrients, which your body absorbs.

That is a lot of energy. Some foods are called "negative calorie" foods because they supposedly take more energy to digest and derive essential nutrients from than their total caloric content; all digestion takes energy, but most digestion takes less energy than derived caloric content. The truth is that these foods are just low in calories and high in mass; and although they do take more energy to digest than regular food, they still offer up more derived energy.

Well, that's half of the truth.

The other half is that you're eating something 10 times as big to get 1/10 of the calories.

A slice of bread the size of a plate of celery has a lot more dietary energy value than the celery. 10% of the energy derived from celery is used to actually digest it; it is not a negative calorie food (it is frequently claimed to be), but it sure as hell doesn't offer up a lot in that 90% that you get to keep.



While we may not be able to break down the starches ourselves they do have lots of sugars and proteins that we can absorb and our gut bacteria are able to break down some of those starches to use as energy sources.


Fibers, not starches. Starches are broken down by enzymes in the saliva (amylase) and in the stomach (amylase functions best at lower pH).


They then provide us with things our bodies can take up, some of which provide calories and some don't.


Bacteria break down and consume soluble fiber, producing farts (CO2 from sucrose, hydrogen from fructose, along with some other stuff, somehow H2S and sulfur dioxide get in there...). They leave behind liberated nutrients of no energetic value: minerals, vitamins. Proteins and fats are already digested and ready for absorption upon entering the intestine.



And the starches that nothing in our gut can digest and just pass right through? Those are great too. They cause your stomach to expand as if there was food in there leading your body to give off the fullness hormones. Dampens the hunger while providing some calories but much less than things with refined carbs.


Except in this case, hunger is caused by, oh I don't know, your body dying as it tears itself apart trying to find fuel?

You have thousands of mitochondria in your muscle cells. They convert glucose to ATP. This ATP is later activated by burning either glucose or fatty acids, releasing a little heat energy that exceeds the activation energy of ATP, breaking the triple phosphate bond and releasing more heat energy (a lot more), which is used to provide the input energy to a lot of thermal systems. Your body moves fatty acids into muscle cells directly to supply additional fuel when there's spikes in demand, supplementing the glucagon release and subsequent glucose spike caused when glucose drains out of your blood (by uptake into muscles under stress).

Both the fat and glucose are completely useless in, however, without ATP to burn.

That's why you're hungry after blasting the hell out of your muscles: there is no ATP left. You are dying. If you keep it up, you will hit a wall... you ever hit the wall? It's like, wow, I'm sore, I'm tired, I could keep going but it hurts... then you hit the wall. You know you're okay, you know the muscles don't hurt that bad.. you can do it ... you can push through the pain...

... the muscles simply won't move.

They won't move because they are physically incapable of moving. They have depleted so much ATP that they are close to complete catastrophic failure. If you could physically burn the rest of that ATP, you'd probably leave the muscles with no energy to even facilitate the uptake of glucose for further ATP synthesis in one more push-up, at which point the cell is effectively dead.

Let me put that in simpler terms: the only thing working right now is life support.

So of course, when you've burned off a ton of ATP, your body goes, "HOLY ****! GET MORE FUEL DOWN HERE! NOOOOOOOOOOW!"

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/8573/arnold747438sa0.jpg

Because the wall is right there, it's coming, and your body really does not want to hit the wall. Your body goes for homeostasis, it tries to keep things nice and level. The more you drain your muscles, the more it'll try to bulk up muscle mass to keep up with the load, the more fat it'll store in the muscles to save precious glucose for ATP regeneration under stress. When, despite preparation, your body finds that you've somehow still drained the muscles, it demands food to replenish ATP stores. The closer you get to hitting the wall, the more your body screams for simple carbohydrates.

And then you eat something.

Something sugary. Bread is sugary, it's basically starch and immediately turns into a big pile of sugary syrup when you eat it. Or rice. Protein is a nice idea, too, because you've definitely done some serious damage and your body needs to expend a lot of proteins to make RNA transmitters and trigger things like lipolysis (the conversion of stored fat into something useful for energy elsewhere in the body) or sodium-potassium pumping (the use of potassium to regulate sodium). When those systems are under load, you actually start depleting your protein content. Not to mention ligaments and tendons and muscle cells that have died under the strain, or at least taken some damage, due to being stretched and pulled and tugged at.

All of this takes energy. Lots of it.



Heck, some edamame sounds like a good snack shortly after a ride. Add in a banana and you've got some carbs, some good protein, some vitamins and minerals, some fiber to fill you up.

The banana is a staple starch in many tropical populations. Rice is a staple starch in Asia, and bread in the western world where we have wheat. Banana has a lot of useful vitamins, almost no dietary fiber (7 inch banana has like 3 grams, same as a SMALL apple), and generally function as a lunk of complex but readily digested carbohydrates. It is essentially gooey white bread. Two slices of bread have the same carbohydrate content as one small banana; a 7 inch long banana has more; and bananas I've seen are always around 8 inches or so, quite large and fat.

Eating a bread roll or some rice will satisfy you quick, too. I wonder why....

I think bluefoxicy just beat all challengers into submission with that last post.

I think bluefoxicy just beat all challengers into submission with that last post.

Yup. Pretty good for a n00b. ;)

great debate and great read guys.

i am trying everything to fight the hunger but its so hard. i'm even chewing gum. i eat before i leave for work on my bike. then its a 14 mile ride so when i get to my work i am hungry so i eat. then when i get home i eat a lot. my weight hasn't dropped in few weeks but i am riding like a mad man these days. going on 50-80 mile rides on sunday and 28 miles a day on weekdays from commuting. well not really like a mad man but its a lot for me. i feel like i should be dropping some weight here. its so frustrating because in order for me to be faster, i need to be lighter.

great debate and great read guys.

i am trying everything to fight the hunger but its so hard. i'm even chewing gum. i eat before i leave for work on my bike. then its a 14 mile ride so when i get to my work i am hungry so i eat. then when i get home i eat a lot. my weight hasn't dropped in few weeks but i am riding like a mad man these days. going on 50-80 mile rides on sunday and 28 miles a day on weekdays from commuting. well not really like a mad man but its a lot for me. i feel like i should be dropping some weight here. its so frustrating because in order for me to be faster, i need to be lighter.Number one thing: in order to be faster climbing, you have to be able to put out more watts per pound. To get faster on the flats, more power is all you need. You'll pick up strength and power very quickly with this routine, especially if you have the energy to really go hard on the those Sunday rides. Worry about losing weight after you have your conditioning. Use a bike speed calculator like this: http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm.

You'll see that losing 10 lbs. will decrease your time for a 1 mile, 6% climb by about 19 seconds, the same as if you had increased your power by 13 watts, much easier to achieve IMO. On the flat, those same 13 watts will increase your speed by .5 mph. You'd have to lose over 25 lbs. to achieve the same result. Of course these exact numbers will depend on your inputs. Worth playing with, anyway, and fits my experience.

I said they didn't provide enough readily available glucose; and your argument was (essentially) that we can digest cellulose. No dietary fiber provides caloric content.

In addition, much of what is stored in vegetable matter is difficult to access. Familiar fruits are effectively a soluble fiber, as pectin is a sugar matrix (the entire white part of an apple is pectin); while the mass of broccoli, carrots, and the like is an insoluble fiber built around the nutrient content therein. These things take energy to break through.

The cell walls are not easy for your body to tear down, since they don't come apart under normal exposure to gastric juices; all effort is made, the stomach churns and lurches to break what it can (i.e. it mechanically juices the veggies), and then the food is passed on. This takes energy. Soluble fibers and passed sugars then provide energy to intestinal flora, which complete the task of tearing down any remaining indigestible cellular material as best it can (mostly soluble fibers). This frees up nutrients, which your body absorbs.

...


That's their advantage though. Hunger is the enemy in this scenario. If you are overweight riding 60+ miles a week and hardly losing weight then you have a hunger management problem not a lack of digestible carbs. :)

If your goal is losing weight rapidly then getting as full as you can for the least amount of calories is in your best interest. For example, a big old chicken breast and a healthy serving of green beans can get you pretty full 'on the cheap'. Getting some simple carbs after a glucose-munching workout is a good idea but it's not hard to eat 1000 calories of carbohydrates if you just eat until you are full.

yes i am over weight a lot still. 5'10" and 205 lbs. i need to be around 165 lbs. i guess i have to live with the hunger. i just need to train my mind that hunger isn't that bad.

yes i am over weight a lot still. 5'10" and 205 lbs. i need to be around 165 lbs. i guess i have to live with the hunger. i just need to train my mind that hunger isn't that bad.

You probably know this but there are certain times of the day when the hunger is easier to deal with. For me it's in the mornings. I drink a bunch of coffee. Evening and night time hunger is the worst. I'm already tired and it's real easy to just eat a tub of ice cream.

You probably know this but there are certain times of the day when the hunger is easier to deal with. For me it's in the mornings. I drink a bunch of coffee. Evening and night time hunger is the worst. I'm already tired and it's real easy to just eat a tub of ice cream.

before i started to commute to work, i would eat a good breakfast at home then come to work (driving my car of course). then i would just drink coffee and even though i get hungry before lunch time (which is noon), i would wait. yes coffee does help a bit. i drink it black. then mid afternoon i try to grab a light snack or bag of chips and when i get home i try to not eat dinner. now all that was possible when i wasn't biking to work.

now that i am commuting here's what i eat.

----good breakfast. home cooked korean food. (same style and portions as before i started biking to work).
----roughly an hour ride (14 miles) to work. when i get here i drink coffee and grab a couple of bread at the bakery.
----lunch is same as before.
----around 3 - 4 pm i get hungry so sometimes i would grab a hot dog or some more bread from the bakery.
----when i get home, i eat a hearty dinner. consisting of rice and chicken korean style.

i think it boils down to dinner for me. before i would either eat very little or nothing. now i am eating a hearty dinner. but since i exercising i am not gaining weight. but i am not losing either. I NEED TO LOSE. lol.

btw the money i am saving on gas from commuting on my bike i am spending on food. so it evens out i guess lol.

My worst time is after a late night nap. Good god I crave sugar like mad.

Drink a whole lot of fluids during the time between meals as well as with a meal. It's helps a little with the hunger pangs. Also try to delay your dinner if you can. It's easier to put up with the hunger if you know a meal is coming soon rather than eating and being hungry later. Overall though you just gotta eat less. It sucks but that's how it is. It's worst in the beginning but give it a week or two and you will get more used to it.

I try to eat someting before a ride. If you ride fairly hard, try a 200 cal energy bar. If you are hungry after the ride, hit a piece of fruit. Apples and oranges work best for me.

Getting some simple carbs after a glucose-munching workout is a good idea but it's not hard to eat 1000 calories of carbohydrates if you just eat until you are full.

Well yeah but the OP and some follow-ups were talking about JUST eating vegetables and trying to stay away from starchy things like bread or sugary things. My point was that you absolutely need those starchy things. I mean you don't need to munch down 3 baguettes but really, your body has immediate needs that you must tend to.

Of course you can go to excess. Starch is really friggin' energy dense. But trying to avoid all sugars and starches and just eat minimal-calorie fibrous vegetables is the wrong way to approach the problem as well.

There must be balance. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7c/Yin_and_Yang.svg/75px-Yin_and_Yang.svg.png http://leisureguy.files.wordpress.com/2006/08/japanese-go-stones.jpg?w=235&h=131

I hope this is not thread necromancy, but the body responds very differently to carb intake depending on the state of the body. As bluefoxicy pointed out, the muscles are SCREAMIN' for carbs immediately post-workout. This is the time to indulge your carbohydrate fantasies, within reason. The carbs will kick off an insulin response, but your muscle cells will grab up those insulin molecules and all of the sugars from your bloodstream, meaning that very little, if any, sugar is routed into long-term storage (aka fat). This post-workout response is highest immediately after your ride, and drops sharply over the next hour, so the eat-then-eat advice was good!

For the remainder of the day, avoid the simple carbs, because the body's response to insulin during these times will be to shuttle more of the excess sugars in your blood into the fat cells, which is the opposite of what you want.

Finally, I have to give you major points for how much you've already lost. Keep up the good work!

Bacteria break down and consume soluble fiber, producing farts (CO2 from sucrose, hydrogen from fructose, along with some other stuff, somehow H2S and sulfur dioxide get in there...).




I'm going to remember that in anticipation of having to pull in the next group ride. Gives new meaning to "breaking wind".

I've simply found that I needed to eat AND drink a whole lot more on the bike than I was doing. On the bike was not the time to be hungry. I've found that if I came back starving, I'd not only eat 2x as much, but I'd also feel terrible for the hours after the ride (tired, moody, etc.). Now I usually come back, drink some milk or eat something else to recover, then eat about an hour later after a shower, etc. At that point I wouldn't be starving & want to eat the refrigerator, so my total calorie intake for the day wound up being less though I was eating more often. Also, I didn't drink as much water as I should have afterwards which contributes to overall hunger. Finally, I don't know how much weight lifting you do in addition to the cycling, but I've found that it really helps speed up the metabolism. 4 hour rides on the weekends help too...

Best supplement I found to fight hunger is a glass of water and phentermine!

eat during the ride

A PB&J immediately after getting off the bike, prepared pre-ride if necessary, chased with a small glass of chocolate milk staves off the post ride munchies for me.

I read that tip on this very forum years ago, and have been doing it after just about every ride over 40 miles.

I've been eating these during longer rides: http://www.amazon.com/Chewy-Granola-Quaker-Granola-Variety-48ct/dp/B000LTLJU0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311554093&sr=8-1

~100 calories a pop. When I first started I took 1 every 10 miles, but on a 57 mile ride I bonked hard around mile 40, which made me try to adjust how much I ate. So I started taking 2 every 10 miles, but that made me sick to my stomach, and I still bonked. Back down to 1/10, but only on rides longer than 30 miles, but I still feel like something's not right. I'm beginning to wonder if these are not an appropriate food for biking.

Really the only reason I eat them is because they're cheap and they have carbs and they taste good... didn't do much research beyond that. Every time I look at energy bars they cost easily 4-5x as much... I can't afford that!

So uh... what are everyone's thoughts on these granola bars? Good? Bad?