Best (& cheapest) Calories While Riding
 

There have been thousands of similar threads, but I'm too dense to grasp. So this is my take:

1. You can digest about 500 calories an hour at best
   • You should pace your eating
   • Some nutrients are easier for your system to process (this is the crux of my questions)
     • I assume carbs are going to be best to supply energy - And I assume some are better than others - But what's best? Glucose, sucrose, dextrose, maltodextrin, etc.?
     • I find confusing answers when I chase down the ingredients that the professional companies (e.g., Hammer) use
2. You should also drink about 1 bottle of water per hour (more if you're pouring sweat). This is usually discussed to replace water lost, but it would seem it's helpful (essential?) for disgestion.

Is this too simplistic? What's the best carb?

I prefer something that's readily available in convenience stores.

• My cycling mentor (how lucky I am to have one) suggests Skittles
  • Sugar, Corn Syrup, Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil; less than 2% of: Citric Acid, Tapioca Dextrin, Modified Corn Starch, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Colors (Red 40 Lake, Titanium Dioxide, Blue 2 Lake, Red 40, Blue 1, Blue 1 Lake, Yellow 5 Lake, Yellow 5, Yellow 6, Yellow 6 Lake), Sodium Citrate, Carnauba ...
• My son, a botanist, suggest Airheads
  • Sugar, Corn Syrup, Maltodextrin, Dextrose, Modified Food Starch (Corn), Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Contains less than 2% of: Citric Acid, Water, Artificial Flavors, Artificial Colors, Red 40, Blue 1, Yellow 6, Yellow 5

I also happen to have a 3# jar of Maltodextrin (but I have not found a way to use it) AND 30# of excess body fat!

• I use riding to help me lose weight (20 miles before breakfast, 25 miles w/ no eating) but I think I need food for my longer rides

My riding - I am recovering from a new hip (cycling accident) last Fall, so I'm not riding as much as prior years. July was 13 rides, 323 miles, so 25 mile average, long ride 40. I'm ramping up, both in speed and distance (47 yesterday). Food isn't an issue for the first about 90 minutes but then I start to flag. Yesterday I at 5-10 Skittles every so often and I think it helped, but I was also keeping my heart rate slightly lower than normal, so that may have been the main cause. AND (it's a BIG "and"), I ride with a handlebar bag. I have carried bananas, PB&J sandwiches, oranges (in wedges), etc. I've even carried a large cup of iced lemonade once - they had free refills!

Thanks

25 mile average, 40 mile long? Drink water, don't bother with food. Simple.

this.
But if you start riding longer rider (3 + hours) a banana is about as good as it gets. 120 or so Kcals, mostly carbs and a good source of potassium.

Hydration: one 750 ml bottle every 1 to 1.5 hours, depending on environmental conditions and effort (i.e. on a hot day, you might need more water).

Electrolytes: make sure you're getting some (tablets, food, drinks), especially if it is a hot day and you're drinking more water

Fuel:

On a ride less than 2 hours ... you probably don't need anything at all, if you've been eating regularly throughout the day. Most of us have ample fuel in storage. If you're going out after work, and you haven't eaten since lunch, you might have a banana before you go.

But you might put a couple granola bars in your handlebar bag ... just in case. Chances are you won't need them, but there might be the occasional ride where you do.


On a ride between about 2 and 4 hours ... eat something before you go out and bring 2 or 3 granola bars with you. At some point after the 1-hour mark, you might assess the situation and decide whether you need to eat a bit.


On a ride over 4 hours, it's not a bad idea to think about fuel a little more seriously. Eat something before you go out, bring some granola bars and maybe a banana or two, and starting about the 1 hour mark, aim to consume 200-300 calories per hour. The fitter you are, the less you need to consume (maybe only 100-200 calories per hour). The longer the ride (i.e. double centuries, 400K randonnees, etc.), the more you might want to try to consume (aiming for around the 300 calorie mark) for as long as you can stomach food.

I have read in many many places that an >average< man can only absorb 200-300 calories per hour from food/drink, the balance of the energy comes from existing energy stores in the body. To access those stores takes practice, and with limited time your food-less morning rides are a practical way to get that practice. However, I have found that a couple of salted runny eggs for breakfast supplies a lot of nutrients (e.g., amino acids and proteins) with not too many calories, and help to retain muscle tone while practicing calorie deficit riding.

DCRainmaiker had a write up on how calories are measured:
How calorie measurement works on Garmin fitness devices | DC Rainmaker

There was also info somewhere that latest firmware for most of the older Garmin devices updated them to 2nd gen Firstbeat Algorithm (ie if in the charts in the above link your device is listed as 1st gen Firstbeat Algorithm, it's safe to assume you got upgraded with 2ng gen algorithm in one of the firmwares).

As for accuracy, I would say it is reasonably accurate. For the last month or so I've been trying to shed a bit of extra weight and I'm using combination of Garmin (used to calculate calories burned) and MyFitnessPal (calorie intake). Set myself for 1lb loss per week (ie daily intake is around 500 calories less then would normally be suggested by MyFirnessPal) and I do see weight coming off at approximately the set rate. I also use TrainingPeaks and when I plug my training schedule in it, it calculates the calories spent very close to what Garmin gives me (TP for the most is a bit higher, but still I think within around 100 calories or so).

Little Debbie Oatmeal Cream Pies, one of the least expensive kcal/$.

Fig newtons for me.

If you're trying to lose weight, then I'd skip eating on the bike except when doing serious endurance cycling. Which I don't think would be safe for you, given what you say.

50 lbs sack of maltodextrin for $60.

Choking down 500 cals per hour on a long ride is not easy; it can be done. Digesting it is possible but only if the temperatures are cool and if you ride slower. Truth be told, you don't need much or any supplementary food on a 47 mile spin. Maybe several hundred cals total (hundred an hour) depending on how hard you ride and how much you can rely upon fat for fuel. 47 miles on the rivet will consume all of your glycogen but how many of us can ride that hard for nearly two hours?

I ride about 230 miles/wk and rarely eat anything while riding. I'm not doing many rides over 3 hrs and at most I'll eat a few dates. If you're trying to lose weight I wouldn't plan on eating anything on your rides. Like Machka suggested, take something with you just in case but you should be able to ride for a couple of hours without food unless you're starting from a depleted state.

I second the fig newtons:

They're cheap, easy to eat on the bike and you can adjust your calories in small increments (the ones that I buy are 70 calories a piece).

OP Here -

I am embarrassed that I posted my question so lamely. And also that I haven't worked this out. I've been riding for 4 years.

After a lifetime of being mostly healthy (i.e., one overnight in a hospital for bone spur removal, two nights for motorcycle accidents), in the last 3 years I was hit with aggressive prostate cancer (removed), breast cancer (removed), and a broken hip (replaced) that occurred when I was leading 70 cyclists on my annual "Bonsai Ride." I had lost 47# total before the breast cancer altered my mindset. So I've relapsed up to 230#. My hip recovery has been slow because of issues with my wife.

So I am fighting two problems:

1. fat
2. lost cycling conditioning (no riding except a few hours on a trainer from October through March, 320 miles in April & May combined, 570 in June & July)

This thread was started because I decided I needed to put more emphasis on #2 - that feeling better about cycling might help me deal better with losing weight. In June and July I did 23 rides, slower (even though less hills), and shorter than past years. And I ran out of juice on longer rides - anything over about 2 hours, about 28 miles. Not full-scale bonking, but close to it. Mixing 40% OJ with my water helped, so my first bottle would be mixed, water afterward.

That helped on 3+ hour rides - 40 miles up - my average speed was under 14 mph! But I was still very weary afterwards.

I have cranked up my cycling this month. My first 16.0 mph average ride of the year, a 47 mile ride a week later, a very hilly 38 mile ride 4 days after that. 8 rides in 15 days, 224 miles, 14.3 mph average. Slow, but better. Slightly longer and more frequent rides. All these medical issues and age (68) cause me to make a conscious effort to ramp up slowly.

Fig Newtons and fresh bananas have been staples in previous years. My mentor has been pushing Skittles, which I find convenient to grab but somewhat awkward to chew thoroughly. His proposition is that I need energy that metabolizes fast. See how it all comes together?

So the problem, IMO, is mostly:

• I need to HTFU on the cycling. Which I am doing.
• And hope that it triggers my getting back on my diet.

Thank you all for your input. And I wish Fig Newtons didn't cost so much! They are my desert of choice, one of my few healthy eating habits.

That doesn't mean you should eat 500 cal while riding...
The cheapest calorie source is your onboard supply of 30 pounds excess body fat. Fat is 9cal per gram, so that's about 123,000 calories.
That is on top of the glycogen in your muscles and liver, usually a 2 hour supply there. Just bring water, you are already fueled up.

Do not eat, so your body will burn the fat (make it into ketones to fuel muscle actually). If you eat sugar etc your body will stop burning the fat.


If you are riding fast (like over 17 with hills or over 20 on flats) you will find it very helpful to keep the tank topped off with simple carbs. Yesterday I ate a banana and a clif shot gel (Maltodextrin), and about 33% gatorade in the water. A total of ~250 calories, over 45 miles and 2700 feet at 19+ mph. I eat everything slowly, takes me 10 miles to eat a banana. You don't need a lot of calories to prevent bonking, just keep something coming in.

Ben Stone from Sigma Coaching recommends honey as a great ride fuel:
What to Eat » Sigma Human Performance - Nutrition+Endurance+Performance

Seems to work well when I eat it, so I'll go for it, among others. I'm also a fan of things like Clif Blocks, but those are obviously way up in price over something like honey.

Generic fig newtons are relatively inexpensive.

One of my favourites on longer rides are oatmeal raisin or oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. You get both quick energy and complex carbs + fat for longer-lasting energy. And if you get some or make some with nuts, you'll get a little bit of protein in there too.


But going back to your first post ...



500 calories per hour is what you burn, not what you need to consume. Aim for 200-300 calories per hour, starting in the first hour of riding, on rides over 2 hours.

If you are aiming for weight loss, try to do your shorter rides (less than 2 hours) with fewer calories.

And it is your choice ... you can stop once an hour and eat a granola bar or oatmeal raisin cookie ... or you can place the granola bar or oatmeal raisin cookie into a bento bag and nibble throughout the hour. Whatever your digestive system likes better.

Maltodextrin is probably the best of the bunch, and several of us make our own sports drinks for longer rides by putting maltodextrin + a dash of half salt (light salt) into a bottle of water.

And yes ... drink water. I think I said above that one 750 ml bottle of water and/or sports drink per 1 to 1.5 hours is good ... more if it is hot or you're working hard and sweating lots.

I roll my own with maltodextrin: ~250 Kcal in one bottle + teaspoon of Nestle Quick + 1/2 cup coffee = performance sports drink for next to nothing. One bottle of this brew for a 50 to 60 miler.

This is just from my experience: I actually began to lose weight when I consumed some carbs while cycling. I think it enabled me to keep a faster pace (not "bonking") and ride faster, farther and for a longer duration; which therefore enabled me to burn more calories overall. The eating while cycling thing is a bit of a learning curve. It is a balancing act to consume just enough to keep you fueled while not overdoing it and thwarting weight loss. I am still continuing to experiment, but one thing that I have noticed is that less seems to be more. Eating just enough seems to be the key, at least for me.

Thank you for this.

This is my mentor's advice. He's the reason I started this post. And I am coming around. There's cycling and losing weight, they don't need to be done together, one is not necessarily the reason for the other.

• Riding better is an end in itself.
• Riding better improves my mind and body.
• So riding better encourages feeling fit, which encourages diet.

So far my booster has been 40% OJ in my water. The honey suggestion above merits investigation.

True. But I happen to seriously prefer real Fig Newtons! I have not found any generic versions that please me, nor do I enjoy any of the various Nabisco variations. They've been one of my favorite foods for over 40 years. I guess I've become a freaking Fig Newton connoisseur!

My "good" grocery store is Market Basket (who happen to have the best generic fig bars I've tasted - but I only buy them if the Nabisco is sold out). They are on strike, so I'm forced to shop at more expensive stores. Yesterday my local Stop & Shop price was $4.69.

Furthermore, complaining about $4.69 for 24 Newtons? 80 cents for 4 cookies? Am I really that cheap? (Well, actually, yes - but let's skip that.) It just irritates me that they charge that much money for a box of any regular (i.e., nothing exotic or special) cookie!

bags of bite-size snickers, reese cups, kit-kat. get them at the Dollar General, or Dollar Tree stores. most fat for the florin around. they've got more candy in that kind of store than you can shake a stick :fred::50: at.

The article addressed my specific concern which is: what gets into the bloodstream most quickly. Good osmility (I think that's the correct word). 17 g cars per tablespoon, 3 TBS / hour, about 1/2 TBS every 10 minutes. That seems plausible.

How do you eat the honey?

Be careful with honey.

If you eat honey before a ride, be sure to bring granola bars with you.

I find that honey spikes my blood sugar ... and then drops it like a ton of bricks. If I eat it before a ride (i.e. on toast), I can make it about 20 km before I'm well into the really shaky stage of a bonk.

YMMV

This works for me as I practice a lower carb diet which lets me hop on the bike and ride for a few hours a day at moderate intensity (25-30kmh) with no need for anything except water and there is no bonking as I am not relying on carbs to get me from A to B.

I also have enough gas in the tank to up the intensity for hill climbs and sprints and again, there is no bonking.

I like bananas for their carbs and potassium, dates and almonds are great, and I avoid any processed / artificial foods or grains save for the oats I put in homemade power bars... commercial granola bars tend to be loaded with way more sugar than I can tolerate and I can regulate the sugar content in my own bars by tweaking my recipe which uses a little honey, oats, peanut butter, and nuts.

On their own almonds are great as they are nutrient dense and 100 grams of almonds is almost 600 calories with a 50/22/22 breakdown of fat, protein, and carbohydrate... they are a staple in my diet.

If I'm going to be eating honey on a ride, I bring on of those small ~100G honey containers with me. At least here they're about the size of a flask and have a pop top so I can just squeeze a mouthful, followed by water.