donrhummy

I know this should probably be in the nutrition section but there are MANY more people in this forum.

I've looked at a million sports drinks and they all have at least one thing I don't want: too much sugar, white/processed stevia, sucrolose or other fake sugar, etc. I want to make my own drink that's pretty much 90-100% complex carbs. I've heard suggestions of barley malt syrup, and that's fine for a partial additive (to give some sweet taste) but it's 70% simple sugars. I want more complex carbs. Does anyone know what ingredients I can add to water to make a good carb drink?

Thanks!

slowandsteady

Pasta? How about some wheat bread? Yum

That's a tough one. limited quantities of fruit nectar maybe, metamucil, bananas, tomato juice...

donrhummy

Fruit nectar has too much fructose - not a good long lasting energy source.
Metamucil is almost entirely simple sugars.
Tomato juice is also suprisingly almost entirely simple sugars too.

edzo

if you want complex carbs I guess you'll haveta blend oats in water

Mothra

Or liquidifed whole-wheat pasta and dirty-rice eh? Why would you want complex carbs? Just takes longer to digest and become available to your muscles... Highest-GI and fastest digesting is a straight glucose solution. This is used as the standard basis of 100 for GI measurements and everything else is a lower percentage of glucose. Glucose would come across the intestines into your bloodstream at about 250-300 cal/hr, which is still not fast enough to replenish the rate you use on a brisk ride, making the bonk inevitable unless you slow down. More complex carbs would digest at 100-150 cal/hr, having you bonk even faster.

You can use the simplest sugars for fastest digestion rate and regulate how much goes through by controlling your rate of intake from the bottle, a couple sips every 10-15 minutes would maintain a steady blood-sugar level. But at some level of exertion, 16mph+ average, you simply cannot digest and absorb the carbs fast enough, even the most simple sugars. Your blood-sugar steadily declines as you ride and there's nothing you can do to keep up with your burn-rate. Best would be an IV drip of glucose directly into the bloodstream and bypass stomach digestion altogether...

Jet-man

you can buy maltodextrin (complex carb) from www.proteinfactory for $2.50 per lb. This is the main ingredient in a lot of energy & recovery drinks (and GU/powergel).

I make my own energy drinks w/ malto and cyto or gatorade & protein powder - use it extensively when doing long alpine climbing (rock & ice) days (often 12+ hrs car to car) in CO & can almost forgo solid food during those efforts - which is a good thing, 'cause often up high (above 12,000') one's appitite frequently wains.

If you're interested in buying 50lbs of maltodextrin, send me a PM & I'll hook you up w/ a wholesaler out of IA.

Granny

25g maltodextrin, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, suger-free flavoring. Totally complex carbs, waaaay cheaper than anything commercial.

terrymorse 

Maltodextrin, salt, a little fructose and/or citric acid to taste.

Then mix in some flavors from this place:

https://www.naturesflavors.com/

Banana, rasberry, green tea. Yum. Better tasting than any commercial mix.

Granny

Try using "Lite salt" it's half potassium chloride - you need potassium in there, too.

Mothra

I'm still not sure what the OP meant by "complex carbs" and why he wants them; as in what kind of effects and results. Maltodextrin may be considered a complex-carb as it comes out of the can. But it's behavior is exactly like simple-sugars of sucrose or glucose. It's just a chain of glucose molecules with very, very weak hydrogen bonds holding them together, kinda like belt-fed ammo to allow dense transport yet have rapid feeding.

The idea is to get the carbs into and out of the stomach/intestines quickly without hindering the digestion-rate. A simple-sugar(sucrose) or glucose solution in high-enough concentrations to get the maximum 200-300 cal/hr digestion rate would slow down gastric-emptying rate. By stacking glucose molecules in small chains of 5-30 pieces, you can get them transported through the stomach and into the intestines faster. By that point, they're mostly broken up into pure glucose anyway and goes through the intestines at the fastest rate possible with a GI of 100 (they actually start breaking down in the mouth). This gives you quick supply of energy and the larger molecules don't taste as sweet as simple-sugars. Here's a good article on maltodextrin: ABC bodybuilding - Dextrose & Maltodextrin an in-depth analysis.

Granny

You are getting into a hotly debated and complicated area (Hammer/HEED vs. the world). There are studies going both ways, and several new studies showing that a mix of complex/simple carbs may be best.

Mothra

Comes down to what your definition of "best" is? Personally for me, I don't care about nomenclature and terms like "simple" or "complex", it's way too black & white, all-or-nothing, yes/no type of qualitative statements. It's the shades-of-grey of quantitative effects and results I'm after.

So yes, a mix of maltodextrin and other stuff appears to have the highest rates of absorption with GI=100 just like pure-glucose, yet it doesn't hinder water-absorption at the high-concentrations needed for 250-300 cal/hr digestion rates I desire. That's what I consider "best" .

I'm gonna experiment with adding some fructose to the mix too. It's absorbed passively through diffusion at 5-7x faster than glucose through the intestinal walls. I think I can push the total absorption-rate up to 300-350 cal/hr this way...

farrellcollie

try searching for homemade sports drinks - there are some on this forum and the web

RNS

i dont know if there's such thing as a powdered low GI carb. Your best bet would be a new'ish product called Supercarb made by Avant Labs. For a pre-ride meal low GI is preferred, IMO, but during I'd stick with high GI.

And calling malto a complex carb is ignoring it's structure, it's almost no different than dextrose.

saintboy8

Or buy Ultra Fuel from Twin Lab and dilute it with water. It's a good combination of complex and simple carbs. I use it in the bottled form but it's getting harder to find so I may start ordering it in the powder form. Nice thing about powders is you can put it in ziplocs and add it to water you pick up at a convenient store if you're on a long ride.

https://www.twinlab.com/spn-product.c...tegory_ID=ENER

or https://www.allstarhealth.com/de_p/42...uel_Powder.htm which includes the nutritional info.

donrhummy

Where can I buy Maltodextrin?

bccycleguy

What about cold coffee? Use some honey to sweeten it while it's still warm, thicken with what ever sports supplement/powder/blenderized fruit(?) you prefer and off you go. The taste is strong enough to cover most things you might add.

terrymorse 

Lots of places, I buy it in 7-lb containers under the Carbo Gain brand:

https://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=...22&btnG=Search

terrymorse 

If you're interested in maximizing carb intake while riding, this research suggests a 2:1 ratio of maltodextrin and fructose shows promise:

1: Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2005 Mar;37(3):426-32.

Oxidation of combined ingestion of maltodextrins and fructose during exercise.

Wallis GA, Rowlands DS, Shaw C, Jentjens RL, Jeukendrup AE.

School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston,
Birmingham, UNITED KINGDOM.

PURPOSE: To determine whether combined ingestion of maltodextrin and fructose
during 150 min of cycling exercise would lead to exogenous carbohydrate
oxidation rates higher than 1.1 g.min. METHODS: Eight trained cyclists VO2max:
64.1 +/- 3.1 mL.kg.min) performed three exercise trials in a random order. Each
trial consisted of 150 min cycling at 55% maximum power output (64.2+/-3.5%
VO2max) while subjects received a solution providing either 1.8 g.min of
maltodextrin (MD), 1.2 g.min of maltodextrin + 0.6 g.min of fructose (MD+F), or
plain water. To quantify exogenous carbohydrate oxidation, corn-derived MD and F
were used, which have a high natural abundance of C. RESULTS: Peak exogenous
carbohydrate oxidation (last 30 min of exercise) rates were approximately 40%
higher with combined MD+F ingestion compared with MD only ingestion (1.50+/-0.07
and 1.06+/-0.08 g.min, respectively, P<0.05). Furthermore, the average exogenous
carbohydrate oxidation rate during the last 90 min of exercise was higher with
combined MD+F ingestion compared with MD alone (1.38+/-0.06 and 0.96+/-0.07
g.min, respectively, P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: The present study demonstrates that
with ingestion of large amounts of maltodextrin and fructose during cycling
exercise, exogenous carbohydrate oxidation can reach peak values of
approximately 1.5 g.min, and this is markedly higher than oxidation rates from
ingesting maltodextrin alone.

(I've been putting fructose in my mixes for flavor, but it looks like there's a functional benefit as well.)

saintboy8

I hear bass is a good supplement. There was a special appliance for it at one time. I think Ronco made one.
"Mmmmm......good bass".

donrhummy

Thanks again for more great info! I'll definitely check out Carbo Gain as well. Have you tried other mixes and noticed if there's a difference in your energy on a 4hr+ ride with Carbo Gain vs. the others?

Thanks again!

Mothra

Thanks for the info Terry! That's just along the lines of what I'm mixing up. Looks like with a 66/33% maltodextrin/fructose mix, they can squeeze up to 360 cal/hr through, about 100 more than glucose alone. That's awesome!

terrymorse 

Frankly, I haven't noticed much of a difference in energy levels. I don't think I use up that many carbs on a ride. I'll barely consume 150-200 calories per hour.

Mothra

I'm not sure if it'll make that much of a difference once you're getting in the maximum 200-300 cal/hr that your body is capable of digesting and absorbing. ALL these drink-mixes has to break down to glucose & fructose in order to be absorbed through the intestines anyway.

What makes a bigger difference is your fitness level, efficiency and how fast you're riding. At what percentage of your LT are you doing these 4hr+ rides? If you're riding them as fast as you can like a time-trial, you're gonna be burning through mostly carbs and will end up bonking regardless of how much you eat/drink in carbs due to the limited 200-300 cal/hr absorption rate. Let's say you're doing a 4hr+ ride at close to LT/TT pace and burning primarily carbs:

2000 calories stored glycogen
1000 calories from drink mixes (250cal/hr)
-2800 calories burnt (700cal/hr X 4hr)
------------------
+200 calories excess

So you've got barely enough from reserves to finish the ride. Someone who's really fit like Terry can do that same speed with greater efficiency because he's got a higher LT in addition to generating more power at LT. So his ride would look like:

2000 calories stored glycogen
1000 calories from drink mixes (250cal/hr)
1000 calories from fat metabolism (250cal/hr)
-2800 calories burnt (700cal/hr X 4hr)
-------------------
+1200 calories excess

At the same speed, due to his higher fitness and riding at a lower percentage of his LT, with the same sports-drink intake, he's got enough for close about 5 hours more of riding at that pace before bonking (9 hours total).

So the required carb-intake requirements has to do with your pace relative to LT and how efficient your body is.

slowandsteady

Metamucil has 12 carbs, 9 of which is sugar
V-8 has 10 carbs, 8 of which is sugar
Tomato Juice has 10 carbs, 7 of which is sugar
Banana has 28.8 carbs, 15.5 of which is sugar

Not really sure why you think sugar is so evil. You don't need long lasting energy sources if you drink short lasting energy sources frequently. Fat is a long lasting energy source. Long lasting isn't nearly as important as readily useable. Sugar is easily digested and used for energy.