Originally Posted by
Smokehouse
My point here? Don't listen to me...or anyone else here. If you're "bonking", or "crashing" or whatever...you know how you feel, not me, not anyone else. If someone here can ride a century on only a peanut shell and 6 droplets of dew from a banana leaf...good for them, I can't. I have to eat or else I pay for it. Listen to your body, do what you need to do for you.
Yes, our own biology is going to vary slightly from person to person, trying things yourself and finding what works for you is a good method. However many people just jump on the bandwagaon. Oooh I need a fancy bike that will make me faster, cool looking team jerseys, expensive sunglasses, and super duper energy food. Many are influenced by media and there peers, and just like most other modern things they certainly aren't needed for most people, but I'm sure they help some. It is so bad with some things that people now-a-days just assume it is the default, like they couldn't do the sport without getting the sport-specific manufactured
food substitute products.
Originally Posted by
Smokehouse
I'd like to add this...the whole "well...you have xxxx calories stored in fat" nonsense is just plain silliness. First off, fat is a horrible source of energy. The body is horribly slow to begin burning it and when it does, it's not even a good source of energy. Telling an overweight person that they should rely on body fat for an extended ride is just plain absurd. I came from 300lbs...I know all too well how long it takes to really burn fat and how horrible it is to rely on such a thing for energy.
Sorry if this all comes across as rude...there's just so much garbage on the web about nutrition, it irritates me.
It is not nonsense or silly. Fat is well known to be the bodies
ideal source of sustained energy. No you couldn't utilize 100% of your body fat for fuel, but you can tap into it a little. Saturated fat especially. Most ultra-runners (sorry I much more fimiliar with running than cycling so I use that for example) cannot possible consume enough carbs to fuel a 100 mile race, and some do crash at some point, but most pull through, burning way more than they consume. I know several ultra-runners who eat the biggest greasiest hamburger and fries the night before a race. Most distance runners in general eat several eggs for breakfast too, I usually 3 on a typical day or 4 if I'm having a high mileage week, to get protein and fat in my system (and always the whole egg!). You are correct though telling an overweight person to rely on body fat is absurd. No one should rely purely on body fat anyhow, but an overweight person probably has a very poor fat-burning mechanism. It also doesn't take nearly as much effort to push an overweight and out of shape person past their aerobic threshold were they are then burning a much higher percentage of sugars as opposed to fat anyhow. But for someone very fit with a well trained system, dietary fats are an excellent source of energy.
A good primer on fat-burning:
Rethinking roles of carbohydrates and fat for performance - Dr. Phil Maffetone
And check out his other articles. He writes book on training, but has many good articles for free on his website. For an excellent book if you'd like to have a real book to sit down and read especially if you have interest in being a competitive racer I suggest "The Big Book of Endurance Training and Racing".