Just a friendly heads up on Dr. Lustig:

Much of what he says is pure BS that doesn't stand up to the science. Faced with having to fact check everything he says, I choose to simply ignore him. I suggest doing the same.

There are far more reliable sources of dietary information.

I've had the opposite experience actually, to the point that it doesn't feel like I'm doing much of a workout, but if I come along a group I might ride with them for the chance to get a PR on a flat-ish section and/or recover a bit and/or get some protection from a headwind, I'm simply getting sucked forwards. However, my longest group-ride, a small group of 4 cyclists, has been just about 50 km long, and with the low effort that I felt I put in I would have done that loop at around 27 km/h avg solo, so I was surprised to see 30 km/h in the end, 31 km/h avg during the section between introductions and goodbyes, I mean, OK the speed was nothing wild but I ended fresher than how I started, which is what was wild to me. (During the small climb from Assas to Saint-Vincent-de-Barbeyrargues my speed is all over the place because two of the guys had been dropped and we were waiting for them.)

There is a GCN video with Conor Dunne, an ex racer and a giant, who maxed out at around 45 grams of exogenous glucose per hour, and he basically runs on carbs all the time. I suspect though that in the future there will be another video about how he managed to increase his uptake of glucose as a means for GCN to advertise some personalized training service and sell yet another product. What you say about the carbs on the bike relates to insulin resistance for instance, but it doesn't solve the glycation issue for example, because the blood will carry the sugar and the hemoglobin in it will have more chances to get glycated, sugar is metabolically very active and has to be dealt with as fast as possible.

A probably better way: We let our body cover its whatever requirement in glucose from lactate, triglycerides, even-chain fatty acids, amino acids like alanine, and so on. If we are determined to punish our body by digging it into a hole for whatever reason, we supplement with 2 dates per hour.

Everyone is different, I like to compare Inuits, Eskimos, who used to eat only fat and meat for thousands of years (no fruits, no agriculture in the arctic), vs Jains in India, a cult who are totally vegan, probably also since thousands of years...


So it's obviously possible to thrive on any of these diets, although some of these people might have issues if they had to suddenly switch to the opposite diet! I guess some of their genes have adapted to their ancient way of life.


Anyway this thread was about proteins, and personally I didn't notice much difference at this level when exercising more, but I'm not into HIIT and big muscles, in fact I lost weight so probably some muscles too, since I was already skinny! Of course I need more calories, so more carbs since I'm mostly vegetarian! Maybe higher needs in iron and calcium... but for those who eat red meat these should not be an issue.

HIIT isn't what you do for big muscles.

Arctic populations evolved to survive on a high fat marine animal diet. They had mutations in a couple of genes, and maybe more. They still got heart disease, but they often died long before the heart disease could kill them. They also had low bone density from calcium deficiency, and they suffered from bone fractures. I wouldn't say they were actually thriving. They were surviving.

Once they changed to eating a Western diet, their cardiovascular disease rose dramatically.

I'm not sure about that... multiple reps with heavy weights are the definition of HIIT.

I know it's not the same think, that's why I said "HIIT and big muscles" because the goal might not be the same.

Of course doing HIIT on the bike or running is not bodybuilding, but it WILL grow your muscles (at least if you don't starve your body) more than strict endurance at lower effort.

I remember reading a book by an ethnologue who lived for years with them before they had to change their way of life starting in the 1950's I think, and he described a perfectly healthy population. As an anecdote, most of them who had not been mixed with European visitors had perfectly black hair well into their 60's...

That said many kids didn't survive, so "natural" selection was clearly at work in these conditions.

From what I understand (again, I'm vegetarian mostly!), eating fresh, raw meat, liver in particular, should get you anything your body needs, all the elements are present in the body of these animals. I'm not saying this is a healthy diet for most people (and as discussed before, probably too much proteins, that need to be eliminated) Inuits also ate eggs, fish, aged/rotten meat that they placed under large rocks so that polar bears and arctic foxes could not get it, and "fermentation" by bacteria could produce different vitamins (B, etc)... and lots of fat that arctic animals have in thick layers under the skin (seals, whales, etc), which was their main energy source!

The main issues after they became resident and abandoned their traditional way of life are mostly alcoholism, mental issues, and ... as you mention, bad diet!

Very few of them keep hunting and moving around (and of course with rifles, motorboats, skidoos, not bone harpoons, dog sleds, and leather kayaks, if any left, these are for the tourists)

HIIT is not just multiple reps with heavy weight. That is actually just a small part of it and not entirely necessary. And multiple reps are just more than one. So lifting a few times, 1 - 5 reps of a very heavy weight will build strength. Lifting more than a few times of a lighter weight that one can manage for 6 to 12 reps or more, is when muscle mass is built.

HIIT is a structured workout with quite a few different exercises and movements being performed that focus on getting the heart rate elevated to the upper zone multiple times. HIIT itself is not about building muscle. Though one could put the resistance movements necessary to build big muscles in the sequence of their HIIT program.

I know what HIIT means.

There are multiple definitions and methods of HIIT.

It's like diet, everyone his own truths obviously!

From food to fuel: How leucine enhances mitochondrial energy production

In short, it had been known for years that the leucine amino acid enhanced mitochondrial energy production, but it was not exactly understood how, and now a novel pathway was identified.

That leucine amino acid sure sounds dope, I wish there was some food for it, well it appears that meat, fish, cheese, and eggs should do it. As a bonus, we will also get good amounts of animal fat and therefore stearic acid, which should further improve mitochondrial health!

Leucine containing foods are probably part of any diet. Bad and good. Even the SAD. So it's probably a moot point you make.

We don't really have personal experience of what works and what doesn't until we've ridden say, 150 miles and 10,000' in the mountains and finished in say 10 hours saddle time, feeling just fine except for needing a shower, a Coke, and some ice cream. Experience is the best teacher or as the Germans put it, practice makes the master. Believe me, 2 dates/hour won't be enough. For 50k neither water nor food is necessary unless it's really hot. It all depends on total kJ expended. On long hard rides, I try to take in half my kJ in calories, mostly fast carbs.

I try to follow the recs for daily protein, getting a lot of it from protein powder. The trick is to recover quickly enough that one can ride some every day if desired. Averaging 100 miles/week year 'round is a good goal and requires decent nutrition.

True, I could only manage 130 miles and 10k ft in 8 1/2 hours saddle time on walnuts, but it was endurance pace throughout, I can pace like that until I get really sleepy I suppose.

Having done the above ride, I cannot claim that it has been my hardest feat, I have found looping 100 km with 1 km of elevation gain at 29 km/h avg at tempo (so, a bit less than 3 1/2 hours of elapsed time, no pauses) much more challenging.

I never really got the appeal of protein powders, protein is not that hard to get in and not so much is needed anyway. My protein snack is either 2 boiled eggs or 1 can of sardines (or both).

A couple of rides are hardly enough evidence to support a whole diet, there are way too many variables to draw conclusions from just 2 rides. Furthermore, if we just want to look at fast rides, I'd guess that the overwhelming majority of riders were fueled by carbs. If I look at best results on long gravel races or marathon XC events, there is no way I could've replicated those efforts on walnuts.

As far as the protein intake and supplementation, it really depends on your activity levels. With a low enough training load, you're probably fine with the .8-1.1g/kg of body mass or whatever's recommended nowadays for the average adult. In my case, I'm doing 15+ hour training weeks, 1-2 gym sessions, 1-2 intensity/interval rides a week, etc...I just wouldn't be able to recover this on 70ish grams of protein a day.

In actuality, zero number of rides are needed to support the diet, as it is supported by human physiology and metabolism. But what the diet does is make the rides easier to manage, fueling logistics are trivial. You can see more activities in my profile: https://ridewithgps.com/users/7153554 (I always thought that anybody could access all of them, but it doesn't seem to be the case I think :/ the recent ones are largely representative though.)

Wow, I think 70 grams per day would be pretty low for anybody, I meant I can eat a couple of extra eggs and/or a can of sardines to supplement a little bit (if that is where that number is coming from). I hit 100 grams minimum, and it can scale up to 170 grams.

I've seen some weird stuff on rides, but never seen anyone pull out a can of sardines.

Don't knock it until you've tried it! But I think it is better to meet protein goals outside of rides. During rides walnuts with their ω3s and polyphenols are perfect.

From the top of the Plateau de Beille:

Walnuts.... 4g of protein and probably 3.8 to 4grams of carbohydrate in each serving.

Dumb questions:
- What are the signs of not enough protein in your diet (as a cyclist)?
- The study makes recommendations for the optimal protein amounts and timing. How far off from these recommendations does one need to be before there is a sharp performance decline?
- What about older cyclists or less serious athletes? Same rules apply?
- If I am putting on muscle is that proof enough of adequate protein?

This might be a good read for you...

https://www.uclahealth.org/news/arti...ns-if-you-dont

If you get regular physicals, then your CMP blood test should have that information in it. If it was low, then your doctor probably will have mentioned it. You can always ask your doctor about it.

Do you need more protein? Probably shouldn't go over the high range on the CMP. Then you are at risk for things you don't want.

https://medicine.missouri.edu/news/t...ad-your-health

https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/power-protein

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-l...s/faq-20058207

Thanks for the info. I appreciate the succinct articles you linked. I will need to ask my doc about the CMP since it is not currently in my bloodwork.

Did an audit of my protein intake and it is about 150g per day for my 90kg body. I'll need to spread that out a bit better since lunch is half of my daily intake.I am not experiencing symptoms of low protein.

I DL today and we'll see how it goes.

Yesterday for example, my suggested protein was 102g, which is 1.6 gm/Kg and the app says it is 88%. My first thoughts was that it was a pretty low protein day, but I guess not as bad as I thought. The app seems pretty easy to use (free version) so I plan to track for a week and see how that tracks before I buy any suppliments.

When I "did the work", ie meticulously logging everything, sometimes saving new foods by entering the data from the label, or my own usual recipes (makes it shorter to just enter 200ml of soup, instead of typing the same list of ingredients every day), I was impressed by the results, how deep you can go to monitor so many aspects of your diet...

Of course you don't need to meet 100% of every need/nutriment every day, you can compensate a few days later, but if you notice some lacks you can then select foods that provide more of the elements you need for the next day (even if you need to search on the web "food rich in iron/selenium/vit. B" whatever), and that also helps to eat with more variety, which apparently is often the key to health.

Only been my second day, but I can see how the simple act of documentation would effect my intake. I really don't want to memorialize my handful of chips during a TV commercial!

You do need to memorialize your handful of chips during a commercial. If you don't want to memorialize them, then stop eating them. I don't track food intake all the time. But doing it periodically for a few weeks every so often helps one keep check on what they are really filling themselves with.