Sports Drinks and Dieting
 

I recently started riding and have been doing about 3-4 20 mile rides a week. I got into the sport mainly to lose weight but also wanted a hobby that kept me active. So far, I'm happy and have been dropping weight fast. Anyways...my question....

To hydrate during my rides, I just carry the normal 2 waterbottles filled with drinking water and usually don't end up drinking all of the water. I have been reading on BF that people use sport drinks to hydrate during a ride and they are supposed to help out quite a bit. I want to use the sport drinks, but they are loaded w/ sugar and calories and I don't want the exercise I'm getting from cycling to be negated by drinking sport drinks.

Are the sport drinks really that effective and if so, should I replace my water with them? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

For 20 miles I would just stick with water. On hot days you can add calorie free electrolyte tablets if you feel like you need them. Sport drinks, gels, bars are not these magical things that will make you go fast. They make sure that you continue to turn those pedals. All they do is replenish your tanks. It's like a car. For short drives you can go and come back with gas left. The longer you drive the less gas you have in a tank, until it's all gone. At that point car stops, or to put it another way you bonk (crash). So to prevent that you need to add fuel to the tank.

General rule of thumb (emphasis on general), 1-2 hour rides usually don't require anything if your diet is not completely fubar. For longer rides the recommendation is around 250 calories an hour. Some people need more, some people need less. Also depends on the intensity/ For example for three hour ride I usually bring two water bottles with Gu2O, and a cliff bar. Thats plenty for me. For three hour race last time I brought three bottles with gu2o, cliff bar, and two shots of gels (well I brought more, but that's what I consumed).

P.S. Nice nickname. ;) Also check out SoCal sub forum, bunch of crazy cyclists from OC hang out there.

When I first started, I drank Sprite as my recovery drink (ick!!!!!)

Then I moved up and drank water and VitaminWater (still kind of ick!)

Now, I have two cages, one with just water and another with diluted Poweraide. The Poweraide is good because it has electrolytes to help balance your saline levels, sugars to feed energy and a taste that's better than the other recovery drinks I've had.

I've tried to go the non-sugar route by using Nuun tablets. HORRIBLE!!!! They did the trick, but they taste pretty terrible.

gatorade G2 is low calorie drink. I think powerade came out with something similar. I like to drink a G2 after my ride.

Take a look at Camelbak Elixir or NUUN. Both are electrolyte replacement drinks with almost no calories or carbs. I'm diabetic and watch sugar and carb intake and these work well for me during rides.

If you're trying to lose weight, you want to burn fat.

During exercise, you burn a mixture of fat and carbs. If you finish depleted in carbs (aka "low blood sugar"), you will be hungry, and it will be hard not to overeat. If, on the other hand, you take in a small amount of carbs while you exercise (200-300 cal/hour), you will replace the carbs you burn, keep your blood sugar up, and not be hungry afterward. That means all the fat you burn is just that, burnt.

My experience is that switching from water to a good sports drink made a significant difference both in my after-ride hunger and how hard I could work out.

So, I'd experiment with it. You may need to try several drinks to find one that tastes good enough to drink and sits well in your stomach.

Drinks with electrolytes are absorbed considerably faster than plain water, so I would at least go there even if you decide you don't want the carbs.

can't remember where i found this, but what do you guys think?

Electrolytes are the most important thing you need, but for rides over an hour it does help to already take in carbs during the ride. Reason being that most of the time when you don't , it can happen that you fall face forwards into the wrong type of foods after a ride.

I've noticed that in this case 'an ounce of prevention' really works best.. viz. take a smallish amount of carbs during a workout (I'm now mostly lifting weights, not cycling as much) , will prevent overeating later on.
Plus.. carbs can help to suppress cortisol, which is a stress hormone that can limit your progress.
Speaking of cortisol, in case you're really having a problem here, there's apparently some supps that can limit them. Not just the more expensive phospatidyl-serine but also the quite popular 'brain herb' ginkgo.

Duh.. Eric just said the exact same what I wrote but then in different words. Great minds think alike.

An addendum though. On reallllly long rides, appetite can be TOTALLY suppressed, even for several days. This is caused by both deep ketosis (not eating food will do this) as well as excess stress (adrenaline, cortisol!) . However... beware what happens later. I'd always dub this as DOH! Delayed Onset of Hunger. Man the amounts of food eaten after the appetite suppression wears of was insane.

Yep. Recovery drinks can help a bit with this.

Note that if you are down on sodium after a long ride it can take a while before you can stomach anything. I finished a double century a few years ago seriously down on sodium (didn't know that I'm a salty sweater them) and couldn't eat anything for about 12 hours.