Stucky

Most of the commonly accepted ideas and mantras about cycling are BS! If people would stop reading cycling magazines and listening to salesmen, the cycling world would be much better-off.

I'm beginning to think that a 10 year-old on a banana seat bike has more common sense about riding than many grown men!

Instead of "the information age", I often think we are living in "the BS age".

We should start a separate thread on The Common Myths Of Cycling- if no one else does, i will, later!

PepeM

Just because something does not apply to/benefit you does not make is BS.

Carbonfiberboy 

As one can assume from the above comments, it's complicated. If you intend to lose weight by riding, what you do for food depends on how long you're out and how intensely you ride. There's not one answer, like recovery drinks are BS.

It's pretty easy to know if you need to eat on the bike. For one thing, you'll get hungry. For another, if you use a HRM, you'll notice that your HR is falling off when you try to push a little. If either of these things happens, you're not helping your weight loss program because you'll just eat more after you get back. Better to keep the calorie burn higher and stay strong by eating on the bike as necessary. If you're using these guidelines, you won't eat more than half your on-bike calorie burn. If you are trying not to eat on a moderate ride, you may notice that you feel all weak and hungry after ~45 minutes. Try to ignore that and ride through it. It'll usually go away. That's not real hunger, just a temporary blood sugar drop. If it doesn't go away, well that's why you brought the sports drink or other calories.

Weight loss scenarios:
Moderate means staying mostly at or below VT1. Hard means including a good bit of work near LT.
Short moderate ride, like 2 hours, go out with black coffee before, don't eat, but take a bottle of sports drink or other carbs along just in case. After the ride, have 15g whey protein in water. Done.
Longer moderate ride, like 4 hours, go out with black coffee, eat to hunger.
Hard or long rides, eat ~400 calories 2-3 hours before. Eat to hunger during the ride.

Recovery drinks:
If you don't eat during a ride, you'll burn fat. When you finish the ride, you'll continue to burn fat for a while. You'll also burn protein, which you cannot afford to lose, unlike fat. So always have protein after a ride. I prefer flavored whey in water, 15g-25g.
If you eat a good bit of carbs during a hard ride, you'll shut down your fat burning to some extent, which is fine as long as you hold the calories in to ~1/2 calories out. But when you finish, even though your fat burning has been shut down during the ride, it will come back with a vengeance after the ride. So if you don't plan on riding hard the next day, don't eat carbs, only protein and a little fat if you want. That'll allow the fat burning to continue while keeping hunger at bay. But if you will ride or workout the next day, for sure have carbs after a hard ride to restore glycogen or you'll have a crummy workout.

GuitarBob

OP conflates two issues: caloric intake and timing/composition of said calories.

As others have said, if you want to lose weight, lower your caloric intake. And there is good evidence that a balanced shot of protein/carbohydrates shortly after intense exercise aids muscle recovery. If your workout isn't intense, then it's pretty much just calories.

Stucky

Trouble is, most of the cycling axioms only benefit/are intended for a small percentage of people- like elite athletes and racers. Many of the ideas might benefit them, but are irrelevant to, or offer no real benefit to the average recreational rider. So while some of the mantras may technically be true, they may not be true for most people.

joshnc

If there are triathletes here it matters for 2 a day training sessions. It matters what you take in before and during the ride if you are trying to keep muscle.

rousseau

I really appreciate this handy synopsis, thanks. One thing about having just protein after a moderate ride to prevent muscle burn while letting the fat burn continue, though: I get gout if I eat too much protein (or red meat). Is your 15 to 25 g of protein a moderate amount that might not be gout-inducing? Does anybody know?

RShantz

You hit the nail on the head. I think a lot of recreational cyclists act as if they are elite athletes. In their mind, if it's good for the pros it has to be good for me. Problem is they aren't burning anything close to the same amount of calories for 2 reasons: less time in the saddle and less calories burned per hour due to less effort.

I fell into this thought process when I first started cycling, then wised up and cut calories significantly. Now that I'm putting in much longer, harder efforts I have adjusted my calorie intake (before, during and after) accordingly but still do not try to mimic the pros.

Just as an example, a buddy of mine recently told me that he had to do a recovery ride on Friday due to his hard effort on Thursday. I don't think anyone with real cycling experience would have categorized his 1 hr effort as needing a recovery ride the following day. I just think he (like many others) like to have recovery rides/drink recovery drinks/etc. as it makes them be like the pros.

Bah Humbug

There are.

Shuffleman

Finally some logic.
I don't binge when I get home. In fact I rarely eat lunch on weekends. I usually get home from a sat ride, 40-80 miles, and go ride with my son or cut the lawn. I ride hard when I ride as I hate lolly gagging. I am primarily a runner and I don't binge After running either. I simply control myself. I like food and I eat as much of a portion as I like. I never snack or eat after 7pm. I feel like if I over eat, I can just run a little more.
I may try the beer suggestion though. The more is always the merrier.

Carbonfiberboy 

Here's another synopsis:
Protein Shakes for Muscle Building That Don't Flare Up Gout | LIVESTRONG.COM

Whey protein isolate would be the lowest calorie choice - skim milk contains lactose. This one:
NOW Whey Protein Isolate at Bodybuilding.com: Lowest Prices for Whey Protein Isolate
seems a good value and low in cholesterol.

StanSeven

Definately.

There are at least two top triathletes that post here. Neither discloses that though.

I'm not close to their capabilities do I'm not one

kbarch

Well, some people's diets are more marginal than others' - some people really do need to replenish themselves after a ride.
I thought about that, too. That's one of the reasons I like cycling. And by the way, they're not food stops, they're "aid stations."

One thing I've noticed about folks who run a marathon occasionally vs folks who ride centuries is that a lot of folks will ride 100 miles more or less just because they keep going - they are often largely recreational. But I don't know anyone, and hear of very few, who will run for more than a couple of hours unless it's a competitive event or they're training for one. Who ever runs for a while, stops for lunch, then runs some more? Who goes running with friends? Some people, sure, but that's hardly the typical approach.

kbarch

rousseau

So can you physically tell when your body switches from burning fat to burning glycogen? Let's say you do a two-hour ride with ten 1 to 2-minute climbs that you purposely do at a higher intensity, to the point where you're breathing heavily and your heart rate is elevated. Do you burn more glycogen just on the climbs, and then revert back to fat burning for the remainder of the ride when you're spinning at a lower intensity?

The reason I ask is that at present my concern is with losing fat. Am I sabotaging the low intensity fat-burning by racing up the climbs? Or is it alright to do those "intervals" in an otherwise low intensity ride?

f4rrest

If you're below VT1, then you're primarily burning fat. You can approximate VT1 to be the point where your breathing becomes noticeable. For me, it's around 135 bpm or 250 watts when in shape.

Going above for a bit won't hurt your goal of training your body to burn fat.

Note that building base actually increases the amount of power you put out under VT1, so the fitter you get the faster you can burn fat.

This is why top endurance athletes spend so much training at low intensity.

Stucky

If this is true, that would 'splain why, after getting down to within 2 lbs of my goal weight of 165, I went back up to 175 and can't seem to lose it, no matter how little I eat- 'cause I live in very hilly terrain, and there is no such thing as an "easy ride" for me; and this seems to have started (after maintaining in the high 160's) right when I started riding more frequently and/or longer distances. And why I seem to do better with weight loss if I take walks instead of rides. Interesting.

Thoughts?

Bunyanderman

This is from personal experience; I find that my body benefits from special nutrition after hard rides, when the rides are very hard. If I am not sore the next day, or the ride wasn't that hard I didn't notice a difference with or with out special attention to food after the ride.

The benefits I experienced weren't even that major, just faster recovery and less general fatigue. That was only with extremely hard finds, or rides of a good distance.

loimpact

We need to all "Caaaaab the @$%! up, man!! Caaab the %!$% up!!"

gregf83 

You'll lose weight if you burn more calories than you take in. I wouldn't get too caught up in whether you're burning fat or carbs, it doesn't really matter as long as you don't alter how much you eat.

Riding at a higher intensity seems to trigger more of a hunger reflex but if you can control your intake you'll lose burn just as much fat but it will be after the ride rather than during.

Willbird

People vary a lot in their vocational activities too, I have had work days go to 20,000 steps and 200 flights of stairs. I have operated on a calorie deficit for over 400 days, I agree the issue is NOT recovery food or drink, it is overall caloric intake. I do try to alternate hard and easy days. A hard day for me is where I spend two hours with a lot of time at or over my LTHR, the next day I try to stay 125-130. I measure growth as a cyclist by my predominate speed at that lower HR. Usually I'm riding in the two hours between getting home from work and supper time, so supper is my recovery fuel. But if I ride after supper I just eat a little something after. It was a lot easier on second shift on weekdays because nothing else interfered with meal times. In some ways the pros may have it easier than a person who has to do a day job too for 8-10-12 hours that involves actual physical labor :-)....and ride 700+ miles a month on top of that. Guy I work with does "Spartan challanges" which seem to include obstacles courses, he is an inspector which is on your feet for 8 hours but not tough work, he "has" to take Monday off following the weekend of any challanges he enters. I don't know many cyclists who have to take Monday off for a century they rode Saturday :-)

therhodeo

I know plenty of rec riders who will take off 3 or 4 days after a t-shirt ride.

For me recovery drinks are needed because #1 I'm already pretty lean and #2 I do my workouts at 5am on a cup of coffee and #3 I just get a recovery drink, not a recovery drink and recovery muffin and recovery banana.

Fiery

But doesn't this have less to do with the actual caloric needs of the activity, and more to do with it simply being far harder for the body to digest food while running than it is while cycling? Do triathletes eat during the bike leg? What about the run leg?

merlinextraligh

This is really pretty simple. If you did a long hard day today, and you're going to do a hard day again tomorrow, you need to consume a moderate serving of carbs, with protein (hence chocalate milk) with 30 minutes of riding.

Otherwise, if you're trying to lose weight, try to avoid eating much off the bike. If you're not trying to lose weight eat what makes you happy.

gregf83 

Correct. And it's not uncommon for marathon runners, particularly those taking four hours, to run out of glycogen around mile 20 when they hit the proverbial "wall".