Originally Posted by
Coachtj Cormier
I think the point that most seem to be missing is that if you're just going the bread & water route, you won't replenish those stores.
So when you try to repeat the ride/workout you're under fueled.
If you're riding/training with high volume/intensity you have to think about what you're doing to be able for it to be repeatable.
If you plan to just ride along at 12mph then yes you may not need to fuel during your ride but you also wont drop as much weight
or burn many Kcals. Fat burns in CHO fueled fire!
Yes, but...
In my experience, if I burn 800 kcal in a 2hour ride at easy pace I will be less hungry at the end of it than if I burned 800 kcal in a hard hour. My theory (it's no more than that) is that the former ride leaves my glycogen stores relatively intact, so my system doesn't demand that I eat to replenish them. So in my view, if weight loss is the aim, extensive rather than intensive workouts are superior - if you have the time.
Of course you're right about recovery. As I said earlier, when training intensively it's impossible to sustain the training load unless one fuels properly.