Trucker Dan

There have been a lot of Tour de Frances won on a nightly giant plate of spaghetti. Just saying

ChucklesKY

Can you eat Salt & Vinegar potato chips chased with a big ol' bowl of M&Ms on this new fangled thing? If so, I'm in!!

RUOkie

I could not agree more.

pallen

haha, no. Its basically the cave man diet - hunter gatherer kind of stuff.

Bob Dopolina 

Again, I can never tell when you guys are talking about beer...

If you are serious why would a tennis player want to carbo load (and by 'carbo load' do they think it just means eating a bunch of pasta the night before competition or do they understand that the process actually requires a depletion cycle and then a loading cycling that takes several days to do correctly)?

The problem with real loading is that it takes water to store carbs and if you really are loaded it also means you are bloated. For a sport that requires quickness and agility this doesn't make any sense.

Also, the depletion cycle is not beneficial to training as it messes up your recover so that, in the end, you enter competition tired and bloated.

Big thumbs up to carbo loading (sarcasm smilie).

Machka 

A ride? 2 km around the block?

jdon

Sounds like the OP went on a lower fat, low salt, reduced sugar and reduced portion size diet. Good plan for losing weight thus the 17 lb loss. No different than any of the infomercials for exercise equipment... "Get off your fat ass, exercise, watch your calorie intake and you too can lose weight! But to do so, you first have to buy this special device."

Magnificent777

Wow!! I read all the threads and basically no one real useful information to my question.



I was just wondering if anyone was on Primal and a cyclist and maintaining balance of carbs for performance while not having an adverse affect to health.



So just you know I wasn't selling primal. I was in Army and as a soldier they basically told me since 19yrs old eat what you want and run it off. Wrong. 11yrs later I was bigger and playing the balancing act of size vs Fat% ratio.



The american standard food pyramid is incorrect too. 300 to 400 carbs a day from grains will get you fat if you aren't burning it off.



I'm not professional cyclist, but I do cycle and tried to put in a 1000 miles from Feb to July. I failed by 300 miles.

I do have a full time job, college and other responsibilities. I'm not a couch potato. Wow you are a tough crowd!



But anyway my goal is 170lb I'm at 185 and dropped 17ln from 202 at 5ft 11. All my

carbs and fiber is from fruit and vegetable and I take a multi-vitamin. I just changed

my eating habbits and drink plenty of water. I'm not a fraid to train or suffer in

training.


I'm just a guy that loves cycling and MMA wanting opinion of anyone that is a cyclist on primal.

RUOkie

OK Magnificent777: Real answer. If you want to lose weight, keep track of every single thing that crosses your lips. Keep a rigid exercise log. A power meter will make this much easier, since you will know exactly how many KJ you burn. Then take in less than you burn.

tanguy frame

Yeah - what ever.
I eat sort of like you do - I could care less about my weight and I eat whatever I want. I get fat in the winter and skinny in the summer. I like cheese too. I'm gluten free.

For cycling, I ride an ywhere from 20 - 100 miles in a day. anything less than 30 miles, nothing special, no food along, water or Vitalite if it's really hot. If 40-60 miles, then I bring a snack which I eat before I start dreaming about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Almonds and raisins or figs work great for me.
anything over 60 miles, I bring a more substantial set of meals - qiuinoa with curry, nuts, seeds and dried fruit, apples, Lara bars, what ever I want to stick in my trunk bag.

lazerzxr

Eat a healthy ballanced diet. I have no idea what primal is / means. I have no idea what sugars and fats do to me and I dont care. I eat healthy and ride a lot. I take carbs on rides so I can refuel and feel good. I'm 160# and 6'2" and most likely will ride you off my wheel.

Ditch all this silly "no grain" stupidity and analysing all you eat and get real, get ballanced and get fit. Stop the sillyness.

It's hard to find healthy foods these days becasue everything good has been sucked out of most of it to cater for all the fat people who cant stop eating.
Fat is an essential part of your diet, as is grain, as is sugar.

Oh and 700 miles in 6 months is not training, dont kid yourself

Debusama

Answer: No, none of us are on the "primal" diet, and even if you weren't on that diet plan, you don't ride enough to justify eating extra carbs anyway.

DXchulo

If you're not against eating fruit, then that should be your answer for on-bike fuel. You have a lot of options. You can keep it simple and take fruit with you, either fresh or dried. Lots of people take bananas on rides. I prefer dates or figs, personally. You could also make your own sports drinks. There are tons of recipes out there. If you're not riding very long you may not need any fuel at all, but it's always good to have a banana or something with you just in case.

As for off-bike food, you should be fine. As others have pointed out, carb loading isn't something you need to worry about. There's also evidence that you may not need to eat carbs (or anything at all, actually) during that magical 30-minute post-exercise window in order to replenish your glycogen stores. That could turn out to be an exercise myth.

JustinHorne

I'm not going to spend a long time typing this since we're on page 3 and most people aren't even going to read it, but:

My cycling team just had an alum come talk to us about nutrition. He currently is a talent scout for USAT, is working on his PHd, and has used his athletes (Now up to 400 Ironman finishers) as test athletes, and his advice really does nearly match up with what the OP posted. He also is working with the 2012 and 2016 Olympic teams, and is heavily involved as a nutritionist. He also personally had his Pro cycling liscence for one race (suffered a major crash) and competed in 24 hour endurance rides.

Essentially his discussion was that new-school nutrition, such as that being coached to our Olympic teams, is ALL being focused on teaching the body to be metabolically efficient so it can draw nearly all fuel from burning fat instead of carbs. He gave the example of Ryan Hall (US marathoner) who is capable of burning exclusively fat for fuel while at his 5:05 marathon pace. I don't know what the OP is trying to sell, if anything, but it definitely seems valid. We were even told regarding carboloading that it's essentially not needed, since the body can only hold ~~ 2000 callories in carbs anyway, which you will burn through quickly when at race pace. The body holds 80-120k calories in fat, though, so that's where the fuel should come from.

We only had this meeting about a week and a half ago, so funny coincidence.

As for what to eat, apparently it's all about ratios now: Basically your plate should be about half fresh fruits, 1/4 whole grains, 1/4 lean proteins.

Juan Foote

You do know that there are carbs that fit into the Paleo (etc) diet, such as Sweet Potatoe, among others.

lazerzxr

I ride a lot and I eat food.

I ignore the stupid "only eat this" or "dont eat that" comments and do just fine.

for what its worth, I sit next to a 69 year old colleague at work who completes a full iron man every year. so far his slowest time is 12 hrs 20 minutes.

I just watched him eat a bar of chocolate without a care in the world. He does this most days as a morning snack.

I eat lots of snacks and carbs and can ride 100 miles in a little over 5 hrs without bonking. So what.

EAT FOOD, RIDE YOUR BIKE

Machka 

700 miles between February and July ... 116 miles a month. No, that's not a couch potato, but not even remotely close to "profesional". It's also not even remotely close to training or suffering in training. Are you new to cycling this year because that sounds like a 1st year of cycling quantity? Or are you coming back into cycling after a serious injury? And what have you done since July?

Try going out and riding 116 miles in a day, and then see how your primal diet fares. I'm not saying it won't work ... but that's a better test than a short ride around the block. Most of us, eating normally throughout the day, can ride up to 2 hours without having to consume anything other than water. It's only when rides get long that you need to manage the nutritional aspect of riding (i.e. eat something during the ride).


Incidentally, regarding energy drinks, I quit using that sort of thing on my long rides a year ago, and I'm riding quite comfortably with water these days. You don't need energy drinks ... but you should still consume electrolytes, especially if the rides are long or hot.


Oh, and most of the rest of us have busy lives too.

southern rider

hey Mag777 good for you, however, I don't think you needed any goos anyway they are way over used and rated. But you are going to need carbs if you want to really ride not 700 miles form Feb - July, I mean really ride. Dense carbs/ complex carbs pre race/ride will be where you need to pick up the slack.

JustinHorne

That's totally fine / awesome, but to say there are no performance gains / losses to be had based on the type of nutrition you take in (and we're talking regardless of any of the debate in this thread) is really quite silly.

lazerzxr

Yes it is. And i didnt say that. what gains do you think the OP will get in performance on his 100 miles a month? And what will those gains do for him? I'm simply saying that at my (and the OP) level, a simple varied, clean and normal diet will do just fine.

Maybe I could improve my performance with changing my diet but that is not what this thread is about. the thread is about (laughably) how to manage your diet for 700 miles in 6 months.

Seriously, it wont matter what he eats so long as it is generally healthy.

Magnificent777

Wow!


Sure 700 mile is not alot to cyclist from Feb to July, especially calculating in 5 month spand.

But I failed to mention that I did other stuff besides cycling. I didn't say this was training for me.

I know what training is. I've done every weather training and waterborn in the Army and JOTC.
I have been in more stress situations than I care to redo. But I'm not here to recount war stories.

I do see where this whole thread is going. And nay sayers are nay saying for no reason.

Seriously is losing 17lb anything special. I don't think so.

I was more impress in learning the affects of life style of the standard "healthy diet" for everyday living and standard health workout plan still made you fat and give way to serious health problems. It made me angry the lie the health industry is promoting.

You can be skinny and still be unhealthy even if you are a pro rider. Weightloss is not the point nor the point of my initial question. I was just giving info background to lead up to my question.

But anyway I will continue in my quest for real answers and find someone who is a cyclist and who is on the Primal Blue Print life style.

As far as my health and weight I got the formula down. I just want to get geared up for training in the two passion I have and that is everything cycling: Track, Road, Mountain, Cyclocross and MMA.

Peace. Have a great Christmas and Happy New Year!

DXchulo

Sounds like you're not letting people bring you down, which is a good thing. Keep doing what you're doing if it's making you happy.

Fiery

Since the author of the "Primal Blueprint" diet is a (former?) triathlete, why don't you simply ask him about this stuff? He would seem to be the top authority on the subject.

jdon

I have never read "Primal Blueprint" but do follow a Paleo style diet. Started it about a year ago when injured and did a lot of upper body resistance training. I netted out with almost no weight loss, have considerably more muscle mass and am overall pretty lean. Energy has not suffered but endurance has so I adjusted things by adding small amounts of complex carbs. I try to snack whole foods on longer rides rather than gels but every now and then find I just need a gel.

I have a friend that is very strict in his paleo diet and is very lean. He is an MMA fighter and claims his biggest problem is endurance as well.

Take it for what it is worth.

FLFlyer

I'm paleo also and have no issue with energy levels during rides. Get a copy of Friel's book, Paleo Diet for Athletes. Yes, all you high carb folks, Friel believes in Paleo eating for cyclists and runners. Also, do a google search for "train low, race high" which entails training low carb and then racing high carb. There are a lot of serious endurance athletes that eat paleo without issues that use that formula for training and racing. It just takes a while for your body to adapt to burn fat and not carbs, so stick with it and it will get better. Expect at least a month to get acclimated - that is with cycling, not just eating paleo.