Commuting & Eating
 

Two things that I enjoy :)


I have a 20-24 mile roundtrip commute that I do 2-3 times a week and I still for some reason can't eat enough to not bonk on my way home. I have been a roadie for a few years now and 20-30 mile rides on their own are not a problem for but for some reason when I add a workday in the middle I can never eat enough to stay full. I try to eat as much protein as I can during the day, mostly nuts/peanut butter. What's in your lunchbox on commute days?

i ride 30 miles a day 5 days a week.

i have the metabolism of a geriatric tortoise.

i can do a century without eating and not bonk.

when the global food shortage arrives, i'll be the last one standing to bury the rest of you.

Bean, cheese, and rice burrito.

You need carbs for energy, not protein. (If I am reading your post correctly)

Yeah, I think eating that protein during the day will be helpful, but I wouldn't use that as bonk-prevention. I use energy gels and/or those honey waffle things for longer rides and they really seem to help. I just snack on them now and then during my ride.

Lunch: cheeseburger & fries, or a couple of pizza slices. Later in the afternoon pop-tarts or trail mix, but not lately, it's the over-eating season you know. I probably load up extra carbs, too many, in the evening.

This may sound picky, but you can't really bonk in 10-12 miles. Feeling low on energy may still be influenced by diet but I'd be broadening my investigation to include conditioning, environmental factors, or other possibilities.

I agree. Maybe if you were fasting all day and then doing anaerobic intervals on the way home, maybe. But a normal lunch is going to replenish your glycogen and a normal (even hard but steady) commute home isn't going to deplete it. Feeling hungry and sluggish isn't bonking.

part of the problem is that i'm a teacher and eat lunch pretty early (10:30 or 11) and don't bike home until around 3pm. i try to keep a snack for close to then but sometimes i can't wait that long

I think I've read somewhere that consuming protein is best done during the evening meal when the body is best able to relax and restore itself during sleep. Is this true?

There might be a grain of truth to it, but it doesn't matter.

true, it was an exaggeration

Not exactly because the body can convert protein into glucose (gluconeogenesis).

Lentils, wheat, avocados, smoothies and fruit leathers

http://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes...fruit_leather/

I think of it as slopes running in the opposite direction. The morning should consist of the most amount of carbs so that in can be burned off during the day and should taper down by the evening. Your evening meal should have the most amount of protein with lowest amount of carbs (think green veggies or a salad). The idea behing this is that if you don't burn of your carbs quick enough, they will be stored as fat.

http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/
The link above can be used to calculate the types of calories you should be eating each day. It's something fun to play with. I use it when I'm trying to dial in my diet and exercise. It's the holiday season so I'm happily fattening up! It is called an Ittermittent Fasting Calculator but by no means do you have to any wierd diet stuff for the principals of the calculator to work. If you ride that much, you get to do some serious eating!
Also, consider a good multivitamin with iron. I have found that when I don't get enough iron i get really sluggish. Fish oil, CoQ10 is all good stuff too!

Reason it could make a difference, bonking is running out of glycogen, impeding the conversion of lipid fat to energy. In that case some fast carbohydrates from sugar or something but if not, something else is dragging you down.

My commute is roughly twice what yours is. I eat a banana at about the halfway point, coming and going. If I'm hungry before I leave, I eat a yogurt first and then still have a banana at about halfway.

22 miles round trip. If I have a too-light lunch, I'll try to eat an apple about a half hour before the ride home. I usually have one or a banana sitting around on my desk to stave off the Afternoon Peanut M&M monster.

I recommend a large piece of Pizza with meat,veggies,cheese almost everything you can throw on it. Homemade smoothies/protein shakes made with real milk ( not soy garbage) are also good, throw some almond /peanut butter, bannanas ,oatmeal, fruits into the shake.

Trying to get grain out of my diet here. I usually carry dried fruits like prunes and cranberries in my hip pouch. At work I have lots of walnuts and almonds to munch on.

12mi round trip for work.

glass of water when i get up. get to work and it's usually sardines in olive oil, multigrain bread and an apple. a banana and some almonds during the day, then a beer when i get home.

All a man needs to fuel himself for long commutes are alternating cycles of bean, cheese, rice burritos, and a ton of pizza and fruit smoothies.

I used to have the same problem with approximately the same distance commute. now I'll have a snack a half hour before I leave, and that pretty much takes care of it.

Maybe slow down your ride home... 20-something miles isn't enough to bonk, but you can get trashed if you always try to ride it hard...

I have a 26 mile round trip commute 2 to 3 times a week. Usually i have a bowl of Wheaties with skim milk for breakfast. A "cup-o-noodles" for lunch and a piece of fruit or a candy bar for a snack before the ride home. Haven't bonked yet!

Are you eating breakfast? If not, then you're starting on empty and always trying to catch up.

My commute is 29 miles RT. I always eat something at home and like to eat again after arriving at work. I believe this helps me through the day and the ride home.

In the morning, hot cereal and/or fruit. In the first 30 minutes at work; yogurt or fruit, even peanut butter and jam. I prefer to eat real food on commute days, no bars or gels.

you really need to healthy.

you also need to eat a large volume of kcals ... i would say that 30 miles daily would equate to roughly 1.75-2 hrs of cycling per day ... and roughly 1100 kcals. my gf and I commute together about 1.25h/day each (so we need to come up with an extra 1200kcal/day for both of us)

personally, i would avoid anything processed like frozen pizzas, prepacked salad dressings, pop-tarts, etc ...

i find it useful to cook two large meals on the weekend ... one on Sat and one on Sun and freeze extra food away for during the week.

this weekend we made pumpkin curry with basmati rice (roughly 5L/1.5gal of curry) and about 5L/1.5gal of rice on Sat and a really nice rice/chicken/peach/peanut dish (again about 5L) on Sunday. this way we can eat really well on Sat/Sun and have roughly 8-12 high-density meals left for the week. those 8-12 meals are great for work (we work at the same place and can eat together.)

personally, i think getting enough kcals is really expensive, so i avoid powerbars/prepackaged stuff because it's too expensive and usually buy fresh produce because it's relatively inexpensive by comparison.

for example, a 5kg (11 lbs) bag of really nice Pakistani rice can be had for €15-20. 5kg of rice provides 15000 kcal and the freshly imported stuff tastes great compared to the supermarket crap!