Aside from mental preparation, training fatigue, etc. There is a huge difference in rides that have water only or scratch (or your beverage of choice). Listen to the podcasts a lot about this. I suppose I have to change my mindset towards the fueling because the efforts can go down without optimal fuel. Personally that is hard to adjust to because I don’t feel like fueling with those variety of carbs/sugars helps with creating an environment of extra fat loss. However, it may be the EPOC and/or post workout recovery (not just fuel recovery) would be more valuable.
So maybe a question I have is, do I fuel during the hard day rides and water only the easy noodle rides? Does it make sense to eat and hydrate with something like scratch for 2 hr easy rides? Or should that be used when longer duration rides are in order?Nutrition/preparation and on the bike fueling is something I’m trying to dial in. Workload, family, placing training in morning/night around the schedules is certainly something that is tougher to navigate vs younger/single. I’m not suggesting that somehow I’m busier than anyone else, it’s just that I’m trying to be intentional about planning, preparing and fueling appropriately for exercise.
If training, you fuel the rides to be able to complete the goal of that ride. I literally eat every 30 minutes and roughly 250 cal/hour. So for me what works is 1 SIS gel and 1 Honey Stinger waffle thingy and every third bottle has something in it.
If your worried about weight loss/fat loss just worry about that off the bike. And my n=1 losing weight/fat is that it’s much easier to restrict calories off the bike if you fuel on the bike.
As far as my SIS/Honey stinger combo that’s just me. It works. Some guys take a bag of gummies or rice cakes or bannanas and xxx. Just have to find what you can tolerate or like.
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It really depends on your goals. Are you going for weight loss or are you preparing for an event? Bike nutrition is really something that needs to be trained as well. If I have a big event on the horizon I start training my body to accept that ride nutrition as early as possible. I also only ride with the same nutrition I’ve trained with. For endurance type events, nutrition is likely as important as the pedaling. I’ve had seasons where I worked really hard to be fast for race day only to bonk hard because I didn’t train my gut as much as I trained my legs/lungs/heart.
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I will do fasted endurance rides only if they are shorter than 75 minutes. Otherwise I fuel. Just my n=1 and YMMV.
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Fuel needs are dependent on volume and duration, as well as what your plan itself looks like- if you’re doing a HV plan or two-a-days, nutrition during workouts becomes even more important IMO. If you’re not sure, I’d start with general recommendations and then make personal adjustments from there- these vary a little according to the source, but most I’ve seen are in the range of 40-90g of carbs per hour for intense rides >1 hour and endurance rides >90 minutes, getting more towards the higher end if you’re riding longer or harder.
Energy demands are quite different during exercise and fat loss is dependent on total energy balance, so IMO the best approach is to fuel appropriately for your ride and then focus on overall dietary quality and a modest caloric deficit outside of training.
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