aurora12087

I have some questions about nutrition. I have started cycling pretty rigorously for a year but still have not figured out a good eating plan and am struggling to make something work well for me. I am vegeterian and don't eat that much protein in general and weigh about 125 pounds, 5'6.

What is a good carbs: protein ratio to maintain in the diet? Is it ok to continue eating sugar related foods (such as chocolate, brownies, cookies). What are good pre-workout snacks? What are good post-workout / recovery foods? I usually have a pretty intense daily workout that ranges from 2 to 5 hours of activity with one to two rest days (usually one) a week. What is a good estimate / where to seek information of the calories I need to consume? I know that some hrms estimate calories used - how accurate is this information?

How many meals is it recommended to consume? I can't eat a lot of calories per meal...so sometimes end up going on snack-o-thons through the night instead but that's a bit annoying.

poxpower

======== What is a good carbs: protein ratio to maintain in the diet?

The ratio doesn't matter. What matters is total grams of protein. At your weight, that's 100-150g per day. Try to also have 10-30% of your calories coming from good fats.

======== Is it ok to continue eating sugar related foods (such as chocolate, brownies, cookies).

Yes, they are crap but if you burn the calories it doesn't rally matter. Just make sure you have enough protein and micronutrients ( vitamins, minerals ) and then you can spend the rest of your calories on whatever you want.

=== What are good pre-workout snacks?

Depending on your metabolism, before you work out on the bike, if it'll be over 60-90 minutes and INTENSE, eat slow carbs. Low-glycemic index carbs basically, here's a list: https://www.the-gi-diet.org/lowgifoods/
Don't eat big meals right before intense workouts, it'll just make you tired. For most people, wating 2-3 hours after having eaten is probably optimal.
If you're riding for more than 60-90mins, start eating / drinking calories at the rate of 250-300 per hour in fast carbs. So cookies, protein bars, sports drinks, fruit juice... that sort of stuff.

For weight training, doesn't matter much.

==== What are good post-workout / recovery foods?

Right after working out on the bike, eat more carbs and protein. Stuff like pasta, bread, brown rice, lentils, beans, nuts... that sort of stuff. Do that 20-60mins after you're done.
For a weight workout, doesn't much matter. The rest of the day, just eat lower amounts of carbs and focus more on protein and fats.

For weight training, doesn't matter much despite the claims of "post-workout shakes" and all that. If you want to be on the same side, just down a glass of milk with some protein powder or just eat whatever protein source you want. Your body's not so ****ty that it can't rebuild muscle unless you drink protein shakes RIGHT AFTER workouts, it takes days to repair muscles.

===== I usually have a pretty intense daily workout that ranges from 2 to 5 hours of activity with one to two rest days (usually one) a week. What is a good estimate / where to seek information of the calories I need to consume? I know that some hrms estimate calories used - how accurate is this information?

You can use this as a baseline: https://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist.htm
The only way you can really know for sure is to monitor your weight and caloric intake from week to week as well as your body fat%. If you're very lean you can probably tell easily if you've gained fat or muscle so you'd know to cut back on food. Just eat until you notice you're gaining fat and then cut back a bit from that amount. If you don't eat enough you're stunting your progress.

==== How many meals is it recommended to consume?

However many you want above.. like... 2...

==== I can't eat a lot of calories per meal...so sometimes end up going on snack-o-thons through the night instead but that's a bit annoying.

Doesn't matter unless it interferes with your sleep. If hunger is your problem, time to eat more vegetables. If calories is your problem, time to eat more nuts and cookies or to drink more of your calories through milk / juice.

chasm54

OP, you're going to get some conflicting advice in this thread. For a start, I disagree with poxpower about how much protein you need. Unless you are bodybuilding you don't need two grams of protein per kilo of bodyweight per day. As a cyclist, even in hard training, somewhere between half a gram and a gram per kilo is almost certainly enough. At your weight that would mean that 50 grams of protein would be ample. And don't underestimate how much protein there is in vegetables. You can google for the nutritional content of various foods, you'll be surprised. David Zabriskie, a top pro cyclist, is a vegan and has no difficulty getting the protein he needs. Nuts are great, they have protein, good fats, loads of calories. Pulses -peas, beans, lentils- are also terrific and useful, because you can eat a lotof them, satisfy your appetite, boost your protein intake and not get fat. Sugars are fine, as long as you don't overdo it, but complex carbs like oatmeal or other whole grains are better because they are more nutritionally dense. they have lots of protein, for example.

Don't rely on HRMs for calorie counting, all of them are inaccurate and some are ridiculously so, usually on the high side. Poxpower has recommended a calculator, it's probably as good as any.

When you finish a workout, get some protein inside you quick - it speeds recovery - whey protein is ideal if you eat dairy. Then try to have a post-ride meal including some carbs within about an hour.

Personally I'd recommend eating several small meals rather than two or three big ones, it helps manage your appetite. But YMMV, everyone's different.

ericm979

You want roughly 10-20% protein. Being vegetarian you need to make sure you get enough complementary proteins because many vegetarian proteins are incomplete. 30% fat, and the rest carbs.

I try to avoid sugars except when riding and for a post-ride recovery drink. Some chocolate, brownies etc are ok as a treat, but don't eat a whole bag of cookies or you'll feel terrible on the next day's ride. Well I will anyhow. Experiment to see what works for you. Some people notice significant performance drops if they eat anything 'wrong', others are human garbage disposals and can ride on nearly anything.

HRMs do a lousy job of guessing calorie burn. Most are high and I have seen some that are almost double the real value. I personally hate calorie counting so I just adjust my intake based on what I see on the scale. You don't have to get within 100 calories every day, its what you do on average over a long period of time that's important. If you want an accurate count of calories burned, you need a power meter. That's still not exact but it's pretty close.

If you're waking up and eating at night, you may not be getting enough calories, or you may be missing something in your diet. Or you may have other issues (i.e. stress) that are causing you to over eat. But it should be pretty obvious from the scale. If you have been doing it for a while and you're not gaining weight, then you need to figure out what's missing from your diet, or just eat more.

Pre work out (breakfast), I like a meal with mostly complex carbs and a bit of protein. Post ride, if it was a long ride and I have another ride the next day, I consume some protein, sugar (fruit juice) and complex carbs. After recovery rides I don't bother, unless I'm hungry.

poxpower

Meh there's lots of debate on that.
Just to be safe I'd stay on the high side. There's not really a downside to it anyway, especially if you exercise a lot and you burn a ton of calories.

chasm54

There is, actually. Cycling isn't great for bone density and there is some evidence that high protein diets can leach calcium out of the bones. Not a good idea. Though, to be fair, I think the association was with animal proteins, and the OP is vegetarian.

poxpower

As far as I know, it's not related specifically to protein but your overall nutrition.
https://drbenkim.com/ph-body-blood-fo...d-alkaline.htm

Nothing to worry about if you have a decent diet and even then it would take decades to cause problems.
You can find a list of foods to avoid / eat more of in that link.

aurora12087

How about soda? Does it detriment cycling abilities a ton or its ok?

SurlyLaika

keep the info coming. I've been wondering about this same subject, altho I have the opposite of a low weight problem--not that I'm a clydesdale. I just want to know what foods to eat to become a stronger rider. That GI link was useful. Thanks.

poxpower

It's pretty much just crap. Not helping you at all in any way, shape or form.

jmX

Soda is great as a fuel while you're on the bike, especially if you're doing regular 2-5 hour workouts as you say you are.

For endurance nutrition, I'd recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Racing-Weight-...8573146&sr=8-1

From your description of your issues, it sounds like you're way short on carbs. You should consume carbs immediately before/during/immediately after a workout assuming you're trying to maintain your body weight. Keep in mind this advice applies to somebody doing "intense daily workout that ranges from 2 to 5 hours of activity". Your glycogen stores will be depleted, and it's best to restore them immediately after the workout.

The New Garmin HRM's use a pretty accurate calorie estimation algorithm which is supposedly somewhat reliable, if you're wanting to get a guess as to how many calories you burned during the workout. The old HRM's are pretty useless at calories, and anything that tells you calories without taking your HR is junk.

chasm54

Not really. My new Edge 500 is certainly much better than the old 305 it replaced, but it is still well off. I'd say in the region of 20% overstated.

ericm979

Consuming a lot of sugar when you're not riding is not healthy.

Get your calories from real food, not processed junk.

ericm979

You have that backwards- anything that tells you calories using your HR is junk.

The standard for measuring calorie consumption accurately in the lab is indirect calorimetry. HR is not an input. See https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article...aloricexp.html

A power meter is the best way to measure calorie consumption on the road, and HR is not used there either. There is no direct correlation of HR to calorie consumption.

jmX

chasm: maybe so, altho I also suspect your 20% figure is totally made up. The whitepapers that described the results of the firstbeat algorithm seemed compelling to me, but of course they are trying to sell a product. Either way, if it was within 20% of being accurate that sounds good to me, I doubt most people are within 20% of estimating their caloric input too.

ericm: Even with a powermeter, Garmin considers Firstbeat more accurate for calorie consumption than the Kj output from the meter. As for data in a labs, thats fine, but we're talking about bike computers here. I didn't realize I needed to be so specific. Power output is simply what your body put into the bike. It has no idea of your age, the body mass you're supporting, or how hard your body is working, which affect the caloric burn rate.


I'm sure we could have long semi-uninformed conversation about it, but really my point was that strides have been made in HR based caloric calculations in consumer devices over the last year or two. It's not nearly as useless as it used to be.

poxpower

In my experience, the online calculator things are decently accurate for biking. It's always the power meter people who think it isn't because they think the only calories spent on the bike come in the form of force applied to pedals and that's just not true, although I do not own a power meter and I do not know what it factors in.

The HR monitor may overestimate but due to the afterburn effect: https://alwyncosgrove.com/2011/03/new...erburn-effect/ it probably comes very close in the end.

Note that this is probably only true if you're in good shape already as a person who's extremely out of shape will have a very high heart rate from doing very little. I think the longer you work out, the more accurate the values become too.

Anyway, none of that matters, the true way to monitor calories burned is with a scale. If you're losing weight, you're burning more than you eat and that's all you need to know.

gregf83 

The study for cyclists tested untrained cyclists. They measured an extra 190 Cals burned in the 14 hrs following 45 min of 'vigorous' (150W) exercise burning 520 Cals. I very much doubt those figures scale if you go out for a 2000-3000 Cal ride.

The problem with HR is that it can be significantly increased by factors (temperature, dehydration, stress etc) that have no effect on actual calorie consumption. Powermeters don't have these issues.

It's not clear how much of an effect exists for trained athletes.

chasm54

The 20% figure is a guess, but an educated guess based on comparing the edge 500 figures with those derived from some of the on-line calculators. As for a 20% error being OK, it doesn't bother me, but then I am not trying to count calories to lose weight or manage my training diet. On a 3-hour ride, if the Garmin tells me I've used 800kcal per hour but the true figure was 650, that's a 450kcal difference. It's not insignificant.

Anyway, this is a digression. If the OP is working out as he describes, eating a vegetarian diet that keeps refined carbohydrates to a minimum, and staying off the booze, he'll be doing fine.