tenniscyclist

Thanks. Understood about the need to avoid the feeling of sluggishness.

jaxgtr

This is an interesting thread. As someone that can't generally eat food and drink at the same time, I have to be creative with my distance riding fuel. My pre ride regiment is to have 2 eggs over easy on some toast and some fruit. Then during the ride, I pretty much have to get my calorie intake via my water bottles and I use Hammer Perpetum with electrolytes added in, at 2 scoops per bottle at 20-24oz an hour. While this is not optimum in general for most people, I have found it works well for me. I will supplement with an occasional gel if I feel I need it, and sometimes if they are not too dry, I can have a homemade rice cake on the bike. I have used this formula for many years an have multiple century rides completed using it. Although these days, I generally and not doing many century rides, but will maintain 19-20 mph avg solo for 50-60 miles without issues.

elcruxio

The only downside I'd see with maltodextrin is the fact that on its own it tastes disgusting. Even in gel form it's typically just bearable.

On the physiological side of things, during exercise if one is not a diabetic then it really doesn't matter much health wise whether a carb eaten has a high or low glycemic index. Though for efficiency purposes it's generally a good idea to pick fast carbs, ie. high glycemic index carbs.

For healthy people it is essentially impossible to cause blood glucose and insulin spikes with food or drink during exercise, excluding very low effort stuff. But as soon as the body starts to ramp up carb use, all the carbs eaten go straight to use. It's a pretty complex system so I won't start laying it out here.

Carbonfiberboy 

I think it tastes something like rice water, not disgusting, just not a "nice" flavor. OTOH because it has so little flavor, it's easy to flavor it with small amounts of other stuff, like flavored whey protein or Hammer Gel, both much used for that purpose. Main thing is not to flavor it too much, because strong flavors wear on the palate on long rides.

Iride01 

We eat and drink so many things that taste disgusting if it weren't for all the flavorings added to them. Not sure why that's a downside to maltodextrin.

My kids wouldn't eat broccoli till I smothered it with cheese and butter. Took a while to ween them from all the cheese and butter. But they now eat broccoli just steamed or sautéed slightly. Or is broccoli bad too because it tastes disgusting to some?

rubiksoval

Why would you have it on its own, then?

That's an extremely easy fix...

elcruxio

I don't. You misunderstood the comment. I aimed to convey that maltodextrin doesn't have health issues when used during exercise. It just tastes bad, which is a minor inconvenience and can be remedied easily.

Also since I am a diabetic I don't actually use maltodextrin as exercise fuel. I use it for emergencies but in the form of pre made gel packets.
Since I have a dysfuntional glucose metabolism maltodextrin can cause blood glucose spikes for me even during exercise. Therefore for me it is more sensible to eat something with a bit less oomph.

rubiksoval

Taste is a total non-issue. The sky-high glycemic index can be, exercise or not. Judging by many comments I see on here and other groups regarding caloric needs, dumping a few hundred calories of malto in a bottle is massive overkill for the 500 kJ rides many are actually doing.

elcruxio

Like I mentioned before, glycemic index doesn't matter when exercising. You could drink straight up glucose syrup and it would not matter.

I don't understand what your second point is referring to. If you eat too much on a too short a ride that's bad? I'd say that's obvious. Are you perhaps trying exaggerate a bit? A 500 kj ride is something like three kilometers riding fairly slowly.

On the other hand above two hours starts to be a time period where additional carbs may start becoming beneficial depending on exertion levels. It's certainly possible to blow through all the stored glycogen in two hours.

grizzly59

Baked potato, 50/50 or so water-Pedialite

rubiksoval

Maltodextrin has a higher glycemic index than glucose syrup.

And yeah, it certainly can matter.

The 4k world record was completed using approximately 150 kJ. Try again. Or don't, since your response perfectly illustrates how little most people know about their calorie expenditure during exercise. You made my point precisely.

hubcyclist

Lol at the comment about 500kj for only 3km. My 60min endurance rides are 650kj and I’d consider myself in the higher end of what amateurs do. I’ve said it around here many times before but I think a lot of average cyclists are more like in the 300kj range in an hour of riding.

elcruxio

How does it matter? Sugar during exercise doesn't raise insulin levels or blood glucose levels.

also do you guys have the wrong unit?
If all the stated numbers were in kcal, they'd make sense but in kj they're just confusing.

I mean, plain sugar has 400kcal per 100 grams. But it has 1700 kilojoules (kj) per 100 grams.
It just doesn't work with kilojoules. A can of coke has around 33 grams of sugar so 561 kilojoules and it does not take long to burn through that when cycling. But with the 650kj/hour it'd take almost an hour to manage just that.

It would also mean that the 4k world record was achieved with the energy of a third of a banana.

elcruxio

Actually perhaps my point is easier to convey like this:

My average daily energy expenditure is probably around 2500kcal. In kj that's over 10 000

rubiksoval

Your point is wrong. 2500 kcal is roughly 2500 kJ.

elcruxio

It's not.

1 kilojoule (kJ) is 239 calories (cal) and therefore
1 kilojoule (kJ) is 0,239 kilocalories (kcal).
Conversely 1 kilocalorie is 4,184 kilojoule
And so 2500 kcal is precisely 10 460 kJ

Here's a wikipedia article about Joule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joule
It helpfully lists conversions with other energy units, one of which is the calorie.

hubcyclist

https://www.trainerroad.com/blog/calories-and-power/

elcruxio

So, you guys were actually discussing energy output instead of energy consumption? Now the earlier comments make more sense but it's still a weird way of looking at it. Though if you have a power meter then it's an accurate number on actual output. Going ahead you should probably clarify what you mean by a 500kJ ride. As in the energy output of the ride was 500kj and the assumed energy expenditure was then 2000 kJ.

So the 4km world record was achieved with 150kj. That is energy output. The actual energy consumption would then have been 600kJ. And if we assume an efficiency of 25 % that then converts back to roughly 150kcal energy consumption, which is quite a lot for four minutes of effort. An hour at that effort (impossible obviously) would then be 2250 kcal or 9414kJ.

I also have to emphasize that saying that 2500kcal is 2500kJ seems like the peak of idiocy if you have not clearly outlined the context in which that statement is uttered. Even on a cycling forum, without the context of output/consumption outlined beforehand it's just pure nonsense.

hubcyclist

I'm a bit confused by the above, so I'll clarify the best way I can. I won't speak for rubik, but when I referred to my 60min endurance ride being 650kj, that was meant to be the work I put in to average 185w, so the 650kj are a function of the watts I put in, but in turn that 650 is also the energy expended in calories so 650kj of work=650 calories burned. I tend to believe a lot of amateur cyclists eat too much for the energy that actually use up on rides, people think they burn more calories than they actually do.

rubiksoval

That you come on a cycling forum, and specifically a subforum about training and nutrition, and then try to argue about something you clearly don't understand, and THEN blame everyone else for you not understanding, is true comedy.

You seem to have a fascination with digging a massive hole and seeing how deep you can get. You're pretty adept at it, and you still don't seem to realize you don't know what you're talking about.

Ah, bikeforums.

rubiksoval

It's only confusing because he's rambling and doesn't know what he's talking about. Which again, perfectly illustrates my initial comment that people don't understand how few calories they burn. But, you know, that's all over this guy's head. I mean, if he seriously thinks you have to consume 20,000 calories for a 5MJ ride, then I don't even know what the point of continuing this thread is.

You've pretty much nailed it, in any case.

Bearhawker

Of course there is always the opposite direction...

I do all my riding fasted. Bonk-proof endurance riding is awesome.

It might not be the best solution here but if there isn't enough fun discussing power output & consumption, it might be fun to throw a ketogenic diet with an OMAD approach into the mix. It's arguably "healthier" so it does tie in with the OP...

Carbonfiberboy 

Maybe the issue is that you don't ride with a power meter, upload your rides to a training diary and then examine your power output. Even if you don't have a power meter, if you use an uploadable GPS device like a Garmin, you can upload to Strava for instance, and it will calculate your estimated average power output and give you a total in kJ.

If you had been doing that, like everyone else discussing power output here, you'd know that 500kJ output is about an hour at 140w, which would get me about 19 miles down a flat road - and would be the result of burning about 500 calories. There's a very good explanation of kJ and Calories (kcal) here: https://www.trainerroad.com/blog/calories-and-power/ Which I think has already been posted, but you obviously didn't read it. Try reading it now.

elcruxio

Obviously for someone who uses a powermeter (or apparently nowdays trains with Strava) getting the data from a ride as kJ seems to be the norm. If you own a powermeter, you may have trouble looking at this whole thing from the perspective of someone who doesn't.
However if someone doesn't use a powermeter and is thus unfamiliar with the concept of measuring rides via kilojoules, getting a kilojoule number thrown around with absolutely no context is really confusing. The more typical ways of measuring rides I've seen in the past are time, distance or in rarer cases calories burned so obviously I'll latch on to the context that's familiar for me.

I'd like to point out that owning and using a powermeter isn't exactly a entry requirement for these discussions. And since I don't use one I don't frequent the threads where power is discussed. I'm more of a nutrition guy myself so I frequent nutrition discussions like this. So now when in a nutrition thread that has not had any earlier mentions of power or actually even energy consumption, someone mentions a 500kJ ride, how exactly should I know they're discussing energy output and not energy consumption.

I don't know with what tone you meant to write your post but to me it seems a derisive, which is strange as I've typically held you to be constructive. But you need to realize that the context of power wasn't made clear until way after the first mention of 500kj rides. I mean it's obvious, if you know the context. It's not if you don't.

You need to realize that up until that trainerroad article (which wasn't posted by you btw), you really seemed like someone who struggles with energy units. If you go out and mention that 1 kcal roughly equals 1kJ with no context then what do you actually expect to happen?
After that trainerroad article which explained the context the whole thing is obvious. If only you had had the foresight to somehow in even a small manner clarify the context in which you state that 1 kcal = 1kJ and you would have had much easier time of it.

You might want to consider how you contribute towards the discussion. These two replies of yours are really nothing but low class dirt and they're not helplful to Op or anyone else in this thread. You kinda seem like the pidgeon on a chess board (if the context of that is unfamiliar, I'm more than happy to explain it to you)
Also that last reply is just one big strawman.

Perhaps we should get back on the actual topic, which was about nutrition. I'm still curious on how the high glycemic index of maltodextrin has an effect during exercise. You mentioned it makes a difference but you haven't elaborated in any way. Could you perhaps do that?

jpescatore

Back to the original poster's topic, healthy and portable food to carry on longer rides. I've long been a Fig Newton fan, which someone else mentioned. For longer rides (or longer distance between refueling possibilities) where I want more than the 200 calories or so in a Fig Newton 2 pack, I've become a fan of SANS Meal bars. They are about 400 calories, focus on quality/natural ingredients, taste good and the company seems to do good things. To me, they taste fine - way better than the Powerbar/Cliff bar kinda things.

Downside, they are expensive - but they are always having 20-30% off and frequent buy 1 box get one free kinda deals - brings the cost back into line with alternatives.