Wow, me and most women just do not have the digestive capacity to take in these ginormous meals that you guys can put down! (My husband is super lean and his meals are like twice the size of mine! And he goes a LONG time without eating, such that I would start to feel woozy if I did the same). Luckily women generally have lower caloric requirements. Even so, I know that I need slightly more frequent and slightly smaller amounts of food at one time. The leading voice in women’s performance nutrition has advised the same for us. So that means - eat before the ride. Eat during the ride. Eat after the ride.
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Yeah I usually eat 6 times a day and spread it out, but yesterday was hectic at work. My wife is lean and been at the same weight her entire adult life, the rest of the ‘parents’ in our extended family (myself included) all mourn our lack of discipline! FWIW my basal metabolic rate at sixty is something like 1750-1825 calories based on the last time I counted calories a year ago. Pulling out the MyFitnessPal calculator, hers is 1140 calories/day!
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Yeah, but good luck maintaining a higher level of blood glucose than you can use on, basically, ANY ride. So many systems in your body use glucose, the purpose of exogenous glucose becomes glycogen sparing. Glycogen is a more readily available fuel in your muscle cells, too. But the longer you go at lower duration, the less your body will draw on glucose as it mobilizes fatty acids - the way it’s designed to.
On any short ride, you’re going to burn a lot of carbohydrate because it takes a while for your body to mobilize fats anyway. So again, if you want to be better at using fat, give your body more opportunity and more signaling to burn it by riding longer. That’s going to be way more effective than fasted riding or trying to be keto.
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which from the recent Tim Podlogar study, for a fully load athletes, is somewhere north of 3 hours. Or thereabouts, because we all have different leg sizes (amount of stored carbs) and burn rates (FTP and more). But as a rule of thumb, do more 3-5 hour endurance rides.
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No I am not, but the two are probably pretty closely related!
Sure, if performance is not a consideration, we have no disagreement on that. If you’re taking in more calories than you burn, you’re going to gain weight. My contention is that the adjustment should be made OFF THE BIKE if performance is any kind of consideration.
You’re talking about long-term because you didn’t maintain weight. I’m talking about within the individual ride.
Not sure why this is a discussion point you keep bringing up. Keto is not performance-enhancing. There are a lot of things that could work if time, performance, and other real-world considerations like gravity and friction and aerodynamics weren’t considerations, too.
This is a misconception and you keep repeating it. You do not “inhibit fat oxidation with exogenous carbs” over enough duration at an appropriate intensity. In a one or two hour ride, you’re probably going to burn a lot more carbs relative to a 4 or 6 hour ride, simply because it takes time for your body to mobilize and utilize fatty acids, and you burn more fat more readily the longer you send that signal, regardless of the presence of carbohydrate.
It’s not in vogue, it’s just not a primary consideration for a lot of people.
The problem with this holy trinity is it should be “Fuel the work ADEQUATELY”. Not over-fueling, and I agree that the podcast guys sometimes oversell it (e.g. 100g of carbs for a 1hr sweet spot workout as Nate and Jon have espoused before). Body composition is going to be driven by how you eat and how you live off the bike first and foremost. If weight loss is your primary goal, fasted riding can be a consideration, but you would be far better off doing longer rides at low intensity, kind of like you can generate fitness by riding sweet spot four times per week in lieu of higher volume, but it’s not nearly as effective.
You’re not gaining weight because you take in 400 calories on the bike when you burn 800. You’re gaining weight because your net caloric intake is positive over a long period of time. My contention is that you should make the adjustments to your caloric intake OFF the bike, not on it, and chasing improvements in fat oxidation by doing short, fasted rides is a suboptimal strategy for performance (and probably weight loss as well).
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Winning in the kitchen! Last year between Sept and Feb I lost 20lbs, and this year have more modest goals but already on track.
Win in the kitchen. Fuel the work adequately. Words to live by.
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All of my posts in this thread summed up in 10 words:
Ride longer.
Fuel the work adequately.
Win in the kitchen.
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Absolutely and 100%.
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The study isn’t flawed. It looked at performance, which was also inhibited by being carb depleted.
Again: Fat oxidation in and of itself is not a performance enhancement. If you think that it’s going to help you lose weight, go for it, but as I’ve mentioned ad nauseum there are probably better ways to do that. If all you can do is ride two hours fasted, have at it.
People have been chasing improved fat oxidation for years, and there has never been a demonstrated performance benefit from it.
Let’s just agree that we’re talking about different things and let this thing die?
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This is bad advice without context.
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Again, that’s bad advice free from context, and the assumption that cycling performance is primarily based on W/kg is another misconception.
I have at least two examples of local athletes who dropped weight to become better climbers and became much worse because of it.
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Ride longer.
Fuel the work adequately.
Win in the kitchen.
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A dusty 6+ year old podcast vs what I’ve heard him say in the last year or so on the cast are two very different things. I am pretty sure he’d offer a different view if confronted with that very info as of today.
People grow and learn, and I think most of us recognize that much of that info from back then is at least partly flawed or was applied badly (as stated by Chad himself), so I’d take a hard look at more recent info from him before taking that old cast as gospel.
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For myself I’d never eat the 500 cals on a bike if that was my model : 2500 per/day - 500 deficit. If it were a high intensity ride I’d take in about 200-250 during workout and keep that other 250 for a recovery shake or a snack during the day. If I’m aiming for that same deficit and it’s a Z2 ride then I’ll just do it fasted the whole way through and have a nice recovery meal afterwards.
I think when it comes to fueling workouts and trying to maintain or lose weight a lot will depend on how much weight you have to lose (not how much you want to lose) - where you are in your timeline of weight (you’ve lost a lot recently or you’ve gained a lot recently or you’ve been stable for a period of time) and where you are in your training plan, if you have one.
Like many have mentioned - there is no one size fits all when it comes to this topic. I think the best approach is to experiment and be mindful of how you feel during and after your workouts and trianing and make adjustments along the way.
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Cancellara wasn’t on epo?
So anyway, I like to have a little snack and then ride. It’s nice.
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Since this thread has turned into a losing weight thread I’m just gonna leave this here. If you’re fueling your zone 2 rides and your gaining (unwanted) weight, the problem isn’t the carbs you take on the bike. Especially if you’re not just riding your bike to lose weight, but riding your bike to get faster in the bike.
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Both extremely misguided and unfair.
Fuel your workouts better and improving compliance isn’t a “hack” its a tool for optimising training.
Even going in at the high end of 100g/h carbs…400 cals, you’re burning more than that on a Z2 ride…so you’re still in a deficit when you get off the bike 
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You do you, many people are absolutely fine with that 
What is “normal”? Again, thats N=1
As I mentioned above, drastically reducing your onboard stores, for many, can lead to a huge number of negative repercussions; a bit of in-ride fuelling counteracts and enhances their “normal” life
This is a really confusing way to look at it. Its backwards. Fuel the work, don’t work to the fuel.
I actually agree here, just not quite so religiously as yourself
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I’m not sure what “normal” means to you. But I’m beginning to think it’s a bit skewed. When doing a 3 hour zone 2 ride around 200w, consuming about 1100 calories during that ride. I’m already having a really hard time eating enough during the rest of the day to just meet my calories needed for the day.
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