dim

I listen to my body .... if i need sugar or if i need rice and fish, or if i need chocolate, or peanut butter, i will eat it

there's nothing worse than exerting energy and trying to starve yourself

Jarrett2

This guy is giving you solid info.

I'll go one farther. If you want to ride longer without sugar, keep your heart rate under 180 - your age.

Spending much time above that number means you will burn (and need to replenish) glycogen.

Check out Mark Sission's Primal Blueprint / Primal Endurance for more info.

gregf83 

Heathpack's a gal but agree otherwise.

inspclouseau

Was reading recently that some good, natural sugar alternatives are maple syrup and unpasteurized honey. I believe it was honey that actually tastes sweeter than table sugar, but is slightly more complex. Very easy to absorb and use and with all the goodness such as antioxidants and minerals. I can't remember all the science involved but worth some research.

wolfchild

Honey and maple syrup are no more complex then regular cane sugar. They are all composed of fructose and sucrose and they all have exactly the same effect on human body. The only difference is the cost...If somebody is training hard they can get away with eating it, if they not training hard then honey and maple syrup will make them fat just like regular sugar.

Heathpack 

Agree that as far as carbohydrate type goes, maple syrup and honey are not much different from cane sugar, metabolically they are the same.

However both raw unpastuerized honey (the stuff you get at farmers markets or direct from a beekeeper) and maple syrup are more nutritive than cane sugar. Raw honey contains significant antioxidants and phytonutrients. Maple syrup contains manganese & zinc, two minerals which have anti-oxidant properties. Both are better nutritional choices than cane sugar. I eat it all, though, I have no fear of sugar or sweet things.

Lest y'all imagine that none of this is relevant to cycling, on really long race-effort endurance rides, honey is one of my fuels. I carry a hammer flask filled with honey & lemon juice (to make it flow easier) and I add that to my bottles early in the day, before I start sweating too much. (Later in the day, I switch to Skratch, I need the electrolytes.). I also eat food, but get a lot of calories from honey too.

Jarrett2

Oops, my bad. Thanks for the info, Heathpack.

inspclouseau

I thought table sugar was 50/50 sucrose/fructose, whereas honey is typically more like 30/40 sucrose/fructose. The higher fructose ratio makes honey taste sweeter, therefore lets you sweeten food/drinks with less sugar than you would table sugar. The remaining sugars or carbs in honey are more complex.

I am far from a dietician, but I do think the higher fructose ratio, albeit really no difference on glycemic scale, is interesting as you can sweeten foods with less sugar. Maybe slightly off topic but I think good to know regardless.

Heathpack 

There are no complex carbs in honey. It's all simple sugars. Metabolically equivalent to table sugar.

The thing that people get confused about is that in normal life, simple sugars are not great. When you eat simple sugars, you get an insulin spike, the insulin drives the sugar into the cells, which is a good thing. However in the long run this is bad because it seems like your pancreas only has so many sugar spikes it can deliver in a lifetime, which is different for different people. Some people eventually develop type 2 diabetes, which is when the pancreas starts to lose its ability to make insulin any more. If it gets bad enough, you'll need to take insulin exogenously, and you will be never as good as dosing your own insulin as your hormonal system was before you ruined it. (This is an oversimplification and the disease is actually way more complex, this is a BF level explaination. Also: type 1 diabetes is a different disease with different causes).

Back to the cyclist's confusion though: As bad as the insulin spikes are in real life, they are *exactly* what you want sometimes on the bike. Not uniformly, for every single cyclist, some people may over-secrete insulin and get into trouble. But 97% of cyclists should want the insulin spike at times. That's what drives the sugar into cells and that's where you want it to go- into your muscle cells.

Great example is yesterday's ride for me. I've mentioned that I intentionally try to eat minimally while I ride. I do this to improve race performance because I want to force my body into a state where it's very efficient at using fatty acids so that eating during a race becomes less important if I'm getting behind or having trouble digesting/absorbing food. My ride was 50 miles, around 3.5 hours. I needed to do some sustaining climbing at 93ish% FTP. I ate about 250 cal of oatmeal an hour before my ride, then got to a long climb about 2-hrs post-oatmeal. Then I climbed that hill for 40 min at my 93% threshold target.

Towards the top of the hill, I started to feel a little woozy. What to do? Eat or not eat? If I eat, what should I eat? My power is fine, my HR is fine, no signs of physiologic distress. I'm 5 minutes from the top. If I eat, I'm going to divert blood flow to my stomach for digestion/absorption purposes and potentially make my performance worse. Since I'm 5 min from the top of the hill and I'm at the front of the group, I know that I will be stopping at the top for the regroup and will have 5-10 minutes of waiting. So I don't eat, easily hold my power target and then stop at the top of the hill.

Now I have two things with me that I can eat: Clif shot blocks (all simple sugar) and a homemade granola bar (oats, dried fruit, almonds, pumpkin seeds, almond butter, honey). I have 5-10 minutes, then we'll be moving again and another 93% threshold climb for me, this time around 15 minutes. Then a descent to a store for the main regroup spot of the day.

Clear choice is to eat some Clif Bloks, I wound up having 3 or 100ish cal of sugar. Why? Because those Bloks are going to be digested and absorbed and the insulin will have moved them into my cells by the time I get to the next hill. Then eat the more slowly digested granola bar at the store when I'll have more stopped time and then a long descent where I'm expending less energy and can spare some blood flow to my GI tract.

Maybe beyond the scope of this BF thread, but mostly I am just trying to make the point that sugar is your BFF on the bike.

Chaco

I have blood sugar problems, and I'm trying to avoid meds. Instead I limit my carb intake to < 40 grams per day, and often it's around 20. Since I'm insulin resistant, eating foods that cause blood sugar spikes (i.e. blood glucose levels > 140) are not an option for me. So some of what I write below probably has to do with my being "keto-adapted", i.e. able to use fat as a fuel.

Please note that I do NOT want to get into an argument about keto or LCHF diets. I do LCHF for health reasons, and it has worked amazingly well for me -- 42 lbs. lost, blood sugar under control, no glucose spikes, and the lipid profile of someone half my age. I'm not advocating this for anyone but me!

With all that out of the way, here's what I do for longer rides (50+ miles). Note that I generally do not go longer than 65 miles, so this may not apply.

First, I eat a fairly large breakfast about 1.5 hours before -- quite high in fat, medium protein, around 10 carbs.
On the ride, I drink 1 water bottle per hour with Hammer's Endurolytes. These have 0 carbs, but most of the electrolytes you need.
When I reach hour 3 on the bike, I eat a bag of mixed nuts. These do have some carbs -- around 12 net grams. But they give me a pickup when I need it.

Here is how this way of eating affects my performance. Keep in mind that I'm almost 68, my max bpm is around 169, my resting bpm is 51, and I weigh 215.
As for intensity, I'll be the first to admit I won't win any bike races. My ride this weekend, for example, was 53.5 miles with 2,320 feet of climbing at an average of 13.8 mph. The profile of my typical ride is this: 30% in peak zone (>135 bpm), 48% in cardio zone (135 bpm to 151), and the rest in fat-burning (<135 bpm).

If you severely limit your intake of carbs, you really need to keep a close eye on your electrolytes and hydration, especially in the beginning. Many people on LCHF don't get enough salt, resulting in severe cramping.

I found that during the first month, I had difficulty with general strength and stamina. But now I'm doing better and better, at least according to the friends I ride with.

Carbonfiberboy 

That's very interesting. Link? I always thought that Type 2 was due to insulin resistance at the intake end, not to insulin lack at the output end. Or are there two types of Type 2?

Be that as it may, I avoid insulin spikes on the bike by carefully titrating my sugar intake. On long rides, I take just 1-2 swallows of my home-made high-octane sports drink every 15 minutes. That keeps my effort and blood sugar levels steady. However on shorter rides, like the one HP described above, I do about like she did. So I get one insulin spike where I stopped fueling with fat and pre-ride nutrition and shifted over to some fresh carb intake. But from then on, I'd use my swallow at 15 minutes method. At "lunch stops," I only drink coffee, no carb bolus, unless it's a really long ride, when I add extra carbs about every 50-100 miles just to cut down on what I have to carry.

Heathpack 

Google it, there's abundant info on type 2 diabetes. Here's an easy link: Overview - Type 2 diabetes - Mayo Clinic

To quote this page: "With type 2 diabetes, your body either resists the effects of insulin — a hormone that regulates the movement of sugar into your cells — or doesn't produce enough insulin to maintain a normal glucose level." Typically, I understand it, type 2 diabetes starts with insulin resistance and if it can't be controlled, progresses to insulin deficiency.

Mostly the point that I was trying to make is that people think they should avoid the insulin spike because after that, your blood sugar might "crash". But becoming hypoglycemic is not the norm with insulin secretion- of course if you are prone to hypoglycemia (which you'd be unable to detect without testing blood sugar), maybe you'd want to avoid an insulin spike. But most people respond normally to insulin, and it drives sugar into cells, which is exactly what you want when you're riding intensely- you want sugar because its absorbed way faster than protein or fat or anything bundled with fiber. Whereas if you're riding less intensely you might actually want the more slowly digested food and the good nutrients (antioxidants, minerals, etc) that comes bundled along with it. I know that I'm preaching to the converted to tell you this, but just a big concept vis a vis cycling nutrition that some people don't get- sugar is your friend on a bike, provided you metabolize it normally (ie you're not diabetic).

Carbonfiberboy 

Thanks! Here's a very good discussion of the progression of insulin resistance to pre-diabetes to Type 2 diabetes:
What is Type 2 Diabetes? :: Diabetes Education Online

I am a bit hypoglycemic, meaning that my insulin tends to be "spiky" and I'll crash if I eat too much pure carbs at one time. Off the bike, I'm careful to balance carbs with fat and protein. On the bike, I'm careful not to overdo the carb thing at any one time. On the bike, though I can't balance with fat and not feel like barfing, I can balance with simple lactose-free proteins like whey, so that's what I do. Works great.

I developed hypoglycemia long before I started riding seriously, by trying to eat a very low fat vegetarian diet for several months while working hard. Wasn't good for me. That was about 25 years ago, and my hypoglycemia has very slowly gotten better. Now I put lots of butter on my pancakes and have a glass of whey protein with them.

Samuraidog

Thanks to all for your advice. Per your suggestions, I decided to avoid sugar while off the bike, but allow for some natural sugars from fruit while on the bike. Tonight I rode 45 miles. I ate two Larabars and a handful of dates. Seems to have worked out well.

Flinstone

Maybe I missed it, but isn't there a huge factor missing in there? Human efficiency? 200watts on the pedals is NOT 200 watts of food energy. There's about a factor of 4 (if you're well tuned) between the two. Again, maybe I missed where this explicitly or implicitly fit into the calculation. If I'm right, that brings your 4.3 to 6 hours down to more like 1 to 1.5 hours, not far out of line with common wisdom on the issue.

Drew Eckhardt 

No. I gave ranges for metabolic efficiencies between 20 and 25% which is the range cyclists measure within using a power meter / ergometer and exhaling into a metabolic cart.

It's generally between 800 and 1000 Watts of food energy which is between 190 and 238 kcal.

For Calorie counting purposes 1 kcal = 1 kj is a rule of thumb that in practice won't over-estimate your energy consumption.

1.0 kcal = 4.2 kj, but measured efficiency is somewhere between 20 and 25% so 1 kcal is 0.84 to 1.05 kj.

I included that in my calculation:
932 / (.2 to .25 glycogen fraction) / (1 kcal / 4.2 kj / (.2 to .25 efficiency))

Common wisdom is that trained cyclists don't need to eat on rides under 4 hours. I don't. Carlos Sastre takes an energy bar on five hour training rides and eats half if necessary.

Whether that's prudent is a separate issue. For weight management it's good - you can hunger for fewer Calories than you burn.

For recovery before the next day it may not be.

It'll shift your energy substrate utilization towards fat which is great for long distances but doesn't matter otherwise.

Flinstone

Ok.. I missed it then, thanks for clarifying.