I dont feel like Im eating loads of sugar though currently. Im trying to fill my extra calorie needs before the ride, and a little after the ride with my more non processed veggies and protiens. Im not really restricting how much of that I eat, but rather monitoring it to see how much it ends up being to see if its enough. I feel like historically I have been low. The first week of tracking it I was only eating 1500 calories, so I have been upping that to 1800ish plus a few extra for my indoor workouts whatever that ends up being. I kind of estimate what it will be as I plan the day. So should I cut back on my fruits that I have been snacking on and try and get my meals down to lower calories?
Im 5ā 5.5". I am probably pretty low muscle mass would be my guess, but dont really know how to compare that.
You should see a nutritionist / sports nutritionist and listen to them, youāre gonna get a lot of bad dietary advice even from this forum. Seriously.
No offense but youāre flailing here and need help.
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Know of any good ones to check out? I agree 100% that I dont know what Im doing in this area. I found one, and talked to them, but then they wanted to put me on a plan that cost more than I make per month.
You might want to start by going through your health insurance and see what options, if any, you have there.
FYI thereās also a risk of getting a ābadā nutritionist that promises all kinds of things and tries to get you to do fad diets or other unscientific things.
If there are universities or sports teams nearby Iād try to reach out to people that are working with real life athletes and teams that are competing. Iād be extremely wary of anyone or anything that comes from the internet personally.
If you have nowhere to start and want free information, Iād recommend starting off by checking out some Andrew Huberman podcasts. At least he has a pretty good idea what heās talking about, and tends to provide links and other information that is generally trustworthy.
In the meanwhile my free advice is to eat plenty and eat clean (mainly plant based whole food). I donāt think fueling on the bike is necessary unless youāre doing a hard ride thatās over an hour.
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Properly fuel every ride you do and then eat nothing but chicken and broccoli for a month. As much chicken and broccoli as you want. Then see if youāve gained fat.
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Chicken and broccoli alone is a terrible diet thatās lacking in nutrition.
Iām out of here before I get mad and start offending people lol!
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Its not just chicken and brocolli. Im mixing it up. A pretty common week worth of lunch is chicken, salmon, turkey, asparagus, green beans, mushrooms, sweet potatoes, black beans, and usually some carrots. I actually hate broccoli and it gives me horrible gas:) Breakfast is usually oatmeal, or a banana with peanut butter and a protien shake, and dinner is often whatever the wife makes, but usually has a mix of protein and carbs. Snacks, are usually apples, bananas, grapefruit, almonds, a build bar from time to time. Not all of that at one time, but just an example of a weeks worth of variety.
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can it be other things besides broccoli? I hate the stuff. It gives me bad gas too:) I prefer green beans, asparagus, sweet potatoes, and carrots. When you say properly fuel the ride, what is your favorite fuel for an hour ride vs a 4 hour ride?
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I totally agree. Iām simply using an overly simplistic example to point out that the statement of āfueling your rides means you have to restrict intake of healthy foods off the bike or you will gain weightā is overly simplistic.
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I was not being serious about just chicken and broccoli. I was just pushing back on the idea that fueling your workouts means you then have to further restrict the calories in a healthy diet off the bike.
I agree with the statement above that you need to work with a professional to nail down a healthy diet for cycling.
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Im historically the same way, but I feel like Im always at a calorie deficit, and that is having negative affects. It isnt uncommon historically for me to do 4 hours on the bike without any fuel. I did White Rim in Moab in the fall and I only ate a PB&J and a sleeve of blocks in the 9 hours. Maybe I just need to find some middle ground.
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Maybe youāve screwed your hormones and metabolism. Get a blood test to look at thyroid, testosterone etc. Or maybe you are overthinking it.
Do you enjoy riding, yes? Donāt worry crack on. Weight means sod all!
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It sounds like your diet is good, if youāre hungry, you should be able to eat more and maintain a healthy body composition (assuming youāre not drinking etcā¦). Assuming youāre otherwise healthy.
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This topic is so complex, but I would invite you to consider the idea that there is nothing wrong with this weight gain, and that maybe for the first time in a long while you are giving your body the nourishment that it actually needs.
All of these positive effects are pretty much the holy grail. That sounds like good health, which is the foundation for anything and everything you could possibly want out of life. You should feel really good about that.
The rest is mere aesthetics, which is optional, but something that can be aided by a shift in body composition - incorporating more lifting and high intensity into your plan, also by skewing towards more protein in the daily diet (but keep calories the same).
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Agreed on the Huberman podcast! The series with Andy Galpin is exceptional - and this one is particularly appropriate for this question:
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Totally rigid and totally flexible? Iām surprised that you misread what I wrote to this degree.
@gibsonval wrote he eats healthily (he mentioned he read the endurance diet), and all I wrote that he should be more flexible with portion size and not simply follow the portion size suggested in the recipe. I find it surprising you think this is ātotally flexibleā 
Replace that feeling with facts. Weight itself is not bad, you might be gaining muscle as a result of your training and then starving yourself believing you have gained fat.
Changes in appearance are extremely subtle. Iāve lost 3 kg since 1 January, and I donāt think I can see it. My scale (which also measure body fat) definitely can.
Yes, definitely. Your body expends energy to repair the damage you did while training ā when you clean your home, that takes energy even though you didnāt exercise, right?
Get a scale that wirelessly transmits your data to an app. I have a Withings scale, and Tanita also makes some. I get on the scale pretty much every morning after I went to the bathroom. This way it is consistent. I realized that after I ate certain dishes (e. g. ramen) my weight will increase a bit, but this is completely temporary. Conversely, after I ate soup, my weight is lower. I reckon this is all about the stomach content.
Also, if your body fat percentage is in a good range (which I assume it is given the weight you gave in your post), donāt be obsessed by hitting a number here either. Do everything to maximize performance. In 2019 I was at my lightest, 71.5 kg (320 W FTP, 4.4ā4.5 W/kg) at my season peak. Last season I weighed about 74 kg at my peak (348 W FTP, 4.7 W/kg), so I was faster even though I had a higher body fat percentage.
Everybody (including and especially me!) is tempted to think āWhat if I reached x W at that lower weight?ā Indeed, I try to reach 73ish kg this year and hopefully the same FTP as last season. But overall, I am tracking and trying to maximize performance.
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Sure. We could also convert that into sacks of potatoes, sacks of rice or packets of pasta. Me thinks the only reason why you single out sugar is that you attach a stigma to sugar and not the others.
That stigma is undeserved if we are talking about sugar consumed during training.
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ā¦ which is exactly the reason why you want simple sugars during training.
And it isnāt just the lack of fiber either, it is that simple sugars need less digesting compared to longer-chain polysaccharides such as starch. Your body needs to expend more energy and time to break them down into simple sugars. With disaccharides that process already starts in the mouth and consists only of a single step. With longer chain polysaccharides that is a multistep process that takes longer.
Boiled potatoes contain starch, polysaccharides, and they are absorbed much more slowly than mono- and disaccharides. (E. g. sucrose is a disaccharide.) So boiled potatoes would not be a replacement for simple sugars even if you could bottle it.
Triathletes are now eating potatoes while on the bike?!? Triathletes are weird. What do I know, Iām just a cyclist.
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