Training & Nutrition - Do you take supplements?....When do you carb load?

Hi everyone,

I appreciate this might be really annoying, having someone use a chat forum to request time to answer a questionnaire, but this is the one way I can reach out to the people whos views I need the most.....

The questionnaire is about nutrition and supplement use during your exercising routine, will take no longer than 5 minutes to complete and of course you and all your answers will remain anonymous.

Here's the link https://users.bathspa.ac.uk/191424/nutritional_knowledge.htm just click the link, answer the questions and click submit.

Your time to answer the questionnaire would be greatly appreciated and assist me with my dissertation. Any questions please don't hesitate to contact me using the email address provided on the questionnaire (or here!).

Thank you :)

Do you take supplements? - No. Not unless you count the vitamins I take now and then, the electrolyte tablets I take on long rides, and the real food I eat regularly throughout the day.

When do you carb load? - I don't.

Well .. that took less than 5 minutes! :)

Your survey is a little odd, in that it doesn't seem to reflect the latest nutritional knowledge. For one thing, no one (or practically no one) carb loads anymore. Many of your radio button questions demand a "it depends" answer. Pushing any single button is automatically incorrect. Your whole carb loading question makes little sense, since "carb loading" is understood by athletes to be a very particular sort of regimen, very seldom done anymore, and certainly not part of common practice. So this whole thing doesn't set particularly well, since most of the people who post on this forum could devise a better questionnaire.

I agree with Carbonfiberboy ... many of the questions were a little odd and difficult to answer with the choices given. I wasn't quite sure where you were going with some of the questions ... why were they included? What was the point of the survey?

It didn't seem to be particularly about "nutrition and supplement use during your exercising routine", as you state in your first post ... but more about, as the title of the survey says, "A Questionnaire on Nutritional Knowledge". Those are two different things. What exactly is it that you want to discover/determine/confirm?


A few suggestions to improve the questionnaire ...


The age groups aren't particularly well divided ... 4 categories for people who are between 18 and 54, and then 1 category for people over 55. There are a lot of people here who are over 55.


And for education, you might want to include technical colleges. A lot of nutritionists gain their qualifications at technical colleges.


Question 5. What is your main source of nutritional information? (select as many as appropriate)




How about ... Health and Nutrition courses throughout Primary and Secondary School, Kinesiology, Fitness, Health and Nutrition courses at University.

You're missing the answer above in your list. Considering that some of us have actually taken courses on nutrition or with a nutritional element to them, you might want to include that option.



Question 6. Have you ever had your food intake measured/monitored?




What about using online programs such as FitDay, Daily Plate, etc.? Is that what you're thinking of?



How about a few more exercise choices?




Where would I put canoeing? Or my regular 3 km walk to and from work?

I take a protein supplement and a multi vitamin. During rides I may take an electrolyte tablet if I am sweating quite a bit.
Carbo loading = I don't

Yup, I cycle on and off supplements, depending on the time of year.

Summer - just White Flood as a preworkout for energy, low carb protein shakes, MultiV, fish oil
Winter - Creatine, White flood for preWO, high carb, high protein weight gainer shakes, Multi V, fish oil

Cycling - I always ride with an electrolyte drink. The powder gatorate is awesome because you get a lot of usage out of an $8 tub vs. buying the premade ones.

Carb load? Only if there is an event coming up (i.e., century, duathlon, marathon, etc.)