Calories on tour
 

Just about to leave for my first tour and I'm really worried about eating enough. From what I've read I should eat at lead 3,500 or so. But from what I've calculated I'll only eat around 2,200... Not sure what else tour friendly I can eat!!! Any suggestions or daily menus?

Camping and cooking, right?
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See food , eat food ! I'm not fussy.. as they say, "I'll eat anything, and I'm very fond of children" :lol:

When we rode 95 mi per day for six week, we ate a LOT of food. I have no way to quantify.

Well now, on a good day riding 100+ miles:

Breakfast #1 , in camp, oatmeal and 3-in-1 coffee

Breakfast #2 , at a diner or, in a pinch, McDonalds, Pancakes, eggs, bacon, toast, more coffee

Lunch #1 , summer sausage, cheese, and bread from my bags

Lunch #2 , 12" sub sandwich at subway or similar, 2 beers (usually consumed in a parking lot or park)

Dinner #1 , Bacon cheeseburger, more beer (no fries, big meals make me want to sleep, not ride)

Dinner #2 , Instant noodles in camp.

In between (I try to eat something every hour): bags of potato chips for salt, cookies or crackers, Dots, Twislers, or other candy which is easy to metabolize if/when my digestive track starts to slow down from exertion. Oh, and I drink Gatorade at full strength in the morning and cut with water in the afternoon.

Don't know how many calories that is, but it's more than 3500.

Your body is really good at telling you what it wants. Unless you're purposely limiting calorie intake (any why would you on a tour?), just eat when you're hungry and the problem will take care of itself.

Someone has heard of "second breakfast".
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No. 1. Heck you can pretty much eat what you want on tour.

I have never lost weight on a biking trip. I think it's the snacks rather than the meals. Lots of snacks.

Add three bagels to whatever else you planned on eating? ;)

It's hard to say what your caloric needs will be. I'm not sure what the basis is for 3,500 calories, because it will vary a lot depending on total weight, riding speed and total time, and your base metabolism. There are online calculators for base metabolism and calories burned while cycling. This should give you a ballpark of what you need, but I think once you get on tour you'll end up adjusting on the fly.

Eat for energy to pedal the bike....Forget about calories.

Just eat double (or even triple) size portions (e.g. two bagels, two ramen, three oatmeals). Add a handful of couscous to to any thing you cook.

Love this

Not trying to limit just trying to see where I stand in regards to how much I'm estimating(with the help of online calculators) just to make sure I can stay fueled and not crash. I'm used to restricting in normal life so I want to make sure my body can keep up! I have a stove and would like to prepare food as much as I can and refrain from eating out( mostly for money and food quality reason- I prefer to know what I am eating!)

i can't imagine riding after McDonald's!!! I'd be sick!!

Yes the whole deal! So excited, we i took a short trip last week I bonked out around 35 miles. I do not want to feel like that again and still have to make it to camp (and not a car)!

There's no doubt I could upgrade the quality of food going in on tour, but I've never bonked, even on the rare days pushing 75+ miles in the heat. I guess you have to pick your poison, so to speak.

I choose to avoid McDonald's as much as possible on a tour only because I can get that anywhere. I love the local diners and cafes. The serendipity of the daily special and the usually friendly small town customers make for many good touring memories.

It's not like you're riding hard or fast, right?


Slow down ... smell the roses.

Eat a pastry or chocolate chip cookie.

Just eat what you want to eat, when you want to eat it.

At lunch, stop by a grocery store and pick up whatever you want for lunch, plus what you want for dinner, plus what you want for breakfast the next morning, plus a few extra snacks.

If you're hungry, stop by an ice cream shop or a convenience store that sells ice cream, potato chips, etc. :)


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Pay attention to your body. It will take a week or two, but you'll find out what makes you run best. I can't handle simple sugars very well, for instance, but many folks obviously do (see photos and smiling faces above). I do better with whole cereal grains and the fats in nuts and cheese (I'm vegetarian). I carry over 4000 calories per day in two pounds of food weight and supplement that with a town meal every couple of days. That supports an 80 mile average day without losing body weight. If you start losing too much weight, slow down or figure out a way to eat more. If your goal is to lose weight, you'll do things differently. Remember that fats have twice the caloric density of carbs. And dietary needs, tastes, and goals are so different, you can pretty much ignore all the advice you'll get here.

In a way us low carb types have an advantage since we eat mostly fat. I only short tour and don't cook....last one was 500 miles in 7 days. I ate 2 pounds of nuts, 3 of cheese, and a ton of pork when I finally hooked up for part of RAGBRAI.

It took me a couple of years of convincing self to eat to live, not live to eat.

YMMV

Throw a couple Gu packs in the bottom of a bag, save them in case you get stuck like that again. If through error or circumstance you find your self "bonked" and wanting to die, you will be amazed how far you can go on Gu and not be in a funk. Also useful if you get caught cold/wet/stuck as emergency calories. I keep a Mt House meal in with mine as a emergency supply of calories in case Im stuck overnight.

I try to eat a light to medium breakfast. Then wait for an hour and a half to two hours of riding before I eat anything again. Then, every hour to hour and a half I try to eat about 200 to 250 calories. Might be energy food (gel, powdered drink mix, energy bar), might be grocery store food (banana, granola bar, potato chips, half of a sandwich, etc.) or it might be prepared foods that I stop and buy (ice cream bar, french fries, etc.) These stops are usually 5 to 10 minutes, no more. I try to avoid the really big sit down lunches, I am really bogged down after those. But, sometimes I stop and have a light to medium lunch at a restaurant, maybe do this every other day or so.

If I tried to eat a breakfast, ride long ways, stop and eat a big lunch, then ride a long ways, I would not have a very good day. I really need to keep the caloric intake smaller and more frequent.