N = 1 [1], I’m absolutely not faster when not fueling with carbs.
Not sure what point of this rant is, but the tone is way off to be taken seriously.
[1] j/k, N is a lot more than 1.
Why
2 Likes
Which is what all of the academic guidelines suggest:
<1 hr: <30 g CHO/hr
1-2.5 hr: 30-60 g CHO/hr
2.5+ hr: >60 g CHO/hr, more may be better
The argument for doing more at shorter durations is for gut training so you can tolerate high levels of CHO intake for 5+ hour events/training rides.
6 Likes
It’s a veritable miracle, what efforts can be done without carbs. Defies everything we know to be true.
OP, it seems like your LTHR may be a little off, based on how much time you were able to spend above that LTHR. Especially based on your 3.5 hrs/ week of training. Based on my experience with trying to ride on a keto diet, you might see a reduction in your HR readings (effort for the same performance) if you use some carbs.
1 Like
Yes, agree. Over the past year or two on the forum, I feel like there is a narrative that 90-120g of carbs/hour is needed to complete 60-120 minute workouts. And again without looking, it seems the source identified is the podcast. Not sure if that is actually being promoted on the podcast, or a misunderstanding.
A lot of people appear to have missed the memo on off-the-bike carb consumption. Using a website calculator from a endurance fueling/hydration company that Dr Podlogar is associated with, I wrote up a long post in this thread: How long does it take for fructose to "do something"? - #18 by WindWarrior and the summary table from that post, with a few more details, repeated below…
Some enterprising company has probably already done this, but this is how I think about it after bonking on my first century a couple months after buying a road bike:
| Day | Monday | Tuesday | Wed | Thur | Fri | Sat | Sun |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intensity | High | Easy | Med | - | High | Easy | - |
| Duration | 1.5 hours | 2 hours | 2 hours | - | 2 hours | 4 hours | - |
| Food Carbs 24 hours before | 450-540g | 270-450g | 270-450g | 450-540g | 270-450g | 450-540g | 270-450g |
| Bike Carbs 1st Hour | 45g | 0g | 45g | - | 45g | 45g | - |
| Bike Carbs 2nd Hour | 68g | 28g | 68g | - | 68g | 45g | - |
| Bike Carbs 3rd Hour | - | - | - | - | - | 68g | - |
| Bike Carbs 4th Hour | - | - | - | - | - | 90g | - |
Kinda shocking given my vague recollection of TR’s interview with Dr Podlogar, as I believe he was encouraging a lot higher consumption. I tried going higher, gained weight, and didn’t improve performance.
On the other hand some forum peeps swear by high carb consumption for workouts, but invariably leave out their off-the-bike carb story.
2 Likes
Watts doc 32
1 Like
I’m genuinely glad you’ve found what works for you but there is no need to denigrate what works for others.
11 Likes
I’m very happy that you were able to achieve the results that you wanted, but I don’t think any of this is making the point that you think it does.
1 Like
I sincerely appreciate all the open discussion and comments, by all.
I do again want to apologize for any ‘confrontationality’ I mistakenly put out. Again; being emotionally frustrated by a [ ubiquitous, cancerous, can’t-get-away-from it… ] idea is different from being angry at any person, or wanting an argument. Also, I’m ASD, so I’m often extremely direct, and accurate, and it comes off as rude instead of just doing what I intended; getting my point down.
Thanks for your question, @G650
It gets me heated because sugar is absolutely terrible for your health. Data isn’t super new, but it’s recent enough that it will still take a few years before it filters through to society, and practice. Kinda like how in the 40s and 50s doctors were on TV telling us what cigarettes were smoother, and now nobody in their right mind would tell you cigarettes are OK for your health. Or how in the 60 - 80s we were told trans fat laden margarine was better than butter, and then they pulled the “LOL, woops.” , and now everyone knows trans fats are terrible.
In 5 - 10 years, sugar will be seen in the same light as cigarettes, alcohol, etc: Dirt-terrible. And fats will be completely fine. Because they are.
The reason it gets me so heated is because I suffered with terrible symptoms, as desc. above, for years, because of sugar, and avoiding fats.
The other reason it gets me so heated is because of how dead-simple this stuff is, and how strongly people will lock in opinions, when they really have zero clue what they’re talking about. Most people just know “sugar” and “fat” are things they have heard of.
They can’t draw glucose, they don’t know that fructose, in ‘high fructose corn syrup’, which they “know is terrible” is in pretty much all fruit. They don’t know that a protein, titin, is twenty one thousand times the size of glucose, what it takes our bodies to break down proteins & fats and actually get energy from them. Glucose is so small, it goes directly across our cell membranes and into our bloodstream, and then into our cells for energy. None of that happens with fats and protein. But they have no clue about any of this. They just “know” sugar is fine, and fat is “bad”. They don’t know that 60% of our brain mass is fat. Etc, etc, ad nauseum. Again; this is not a slight against anyone, and nobody should feel sad or mad or bad about it. It’s the failing of our education system.
But I am not about to tell NASA what type of ceramic is best for the plating on the outside of a re-entry capsule. Because I don’t know anything about that; I never learned about it.
But people, many people, including many ‘nutrition professionals’, who couldn’t draw glucose if their lives depended on it, will tell people how to eat, what is good, what is bad. And that advice is taken, by people who mean to do well, and live healthy, myself included, but we continue to suffer, feel terrible, be dependant on sugar, etc. And we avoid fats like cigarettes, because they will ‘kill us’… the very thing that we actually need to eat, to have energy, and not constantly feel like trash.
When we have these problems, all anyone tells us is “Avoid fats, you’ll die, instantly” , and " If you want to cycle fast, you must eat sugar. No choice. "
Again… if anyone wants to eat sugar, go for it. I’m no human with any authority to tell anyone what they should or should not do.
But that’s the point: We really gotta kill the obsession with telling people that if they don’t eat sugar, both off the bike and on, they will not be able to perform well, go long, push hard, etc.
At best, it is dead false. And at worst, that advice may be shortening people’s lives… the constantly growing body of research shows that sugar is killing us.
@All: Watts vs. HR. Agreed, of course, they aren’t directly linked. Yes, temp, race, etc, etc all factor in.
But repeatability, and consistency, can make them somewhat predictable.
If a rider does 100 rides, and does 300 w for 60 minutes 100 times, at 155 BPM, and then goes out and does a race, and pushes 165 BPM for 60 mins, I am not going to agree w anyone that that rider’s power is likely below 280 w or something like that.
I am not saying that I know my power was ____. What I am saying is that I know darn well I was way above End - Tempo, definitely in Threshold - Upper Threshold, for this time. And what is constantly said is that HFLC & IF is ok, but you won’t be able to perform at high output for long periods.
At the end of the day, I am a rider who was suffering light headedness, confusion, dizziness, etc, and desperately needed sugar-shocks every couple hours. I switched to this, and just absolutely crushed this race, and myself, for 2.5 hrs straight, w barely a drop in HR the entire time.
I do find… not ‘this community’ , as in this forum… but in larger context, our sport, and endurance athletics in general… 's desperate clinging obsession to sugar, and not changing course, a little funny. It sort of seems like no matter what info is presented, we just will not accept it.
I’m a baby cyclist and triathlete. Zach Bitter, and others, are not. HFLC all the way. Surely we’re not going to say his record is “not yet good enough to mean anything” , or similar ???
Like it, dislike it, doesn’t matter: This is a data point that shows that “you can’t perform if you don’t take sugar regularly on the bike” is dead false.
If the notion then becomes “Ok, yes, you performed hard for 2.5 hrs, but you could have performed stronger & better with sugar.” , well, sure. I could have done even better with crystal meth or PEDs or something like that. I’m not being flippant or silly; I am being serious: What are we willing to put in our bodies to do better ?
Again & sincerely, my apologies if my tone is anything but friendly and discussing something emotionally frustrating and upsetting, that has caused me great medical distress for years, at the advice of doctors, nutritionists, etc, with friends. 
At the end of the day, I suffered for years, have now had incredible success, and just want to help anyone else who is open to it to cast off this inescapable lie that fat is bad, and you need to eat sugar. Because I stayed on it for years, because nobody else said it might even possibly be OK. All the info, everywhere, said / says that eating fat is terrible. I was totally alone on this journey, all my friends pretty much thought / still think I will die young and won’t stop telling me that, my doctor(s) tell me I’m killing myself… despite my blood chemistry, resting HR, everything, being the best it’s ever been in my life.
I don’t want anyone else to walk this road alone, being told they are stupid and borderline suicidal, again.
As others have said, if it works for you (by whatever definition you have for “works”), then great. have at it.
But I don’t see much room for discussion here. You found a path that you are happy with and don’t seem interested in the science and data that contradicts your anecdotal experience. Fair enough - go do it and be happy…but then don’t expect a lot of response since there doesn’t seem to be an openness to the discussion (and arguably a hostility towards it).
9 Likes
I think these comments contradict each other.
6 Likes
Seems waaaay too broad and general. I think trans-fats and saturated fats are pretty clearly considered not “completely fine” (current mainstream consensus), and I don’t think that is likely to change.
4 Likes
And “good” fats have been in the mainstream knowledge for a while now.
1 Like
@toyman @bmarum I can’t help but feel that some are reading only part of my post, and skipping others.
Again: The people who are now telling us there are ‘bad fats’ and ‘good fats’ are the exact same people that told us not to eat butter, and to eat margarine instead, that was laden w trans fats. Only to then, just a few years later, tell us those trans fats cause heart disease and cancer.
We did not know in 1950 what we know now. We now know that a lot of what we thought to be true, was dead wrong.
Why would we then assume that what current nutritionists, doctors, etc, are telling us is unquestionably right ?
Honestly I did read the entire post, and I don’t know who these “people” are you speak of. Its pretty easy to overreact to news reports, if you only read the clickbait headlines.
8 Likes
Amazing that the “exact same people” making dietary recommendations in the 50’s are still alive, let alone updating their recommendations some 70 years later. 
Again, there seems to be lack of “good faith” discussion on your part.
8 Likes
You are doing your level best to come across as righteously tiresome, but I might wonder; how could you possibly think you need exogenous carbohydrates to support an output of c.170w for a couple of hours in the first place?
What is that, 400 cals/hr? Even adhering to a low carbohydrate diet, day-to-day homeostasis will mean your muscles have sufficient endogenous glycogen and ketone bodies to support that. I have faith my liver could comfortably push that out from an occasional handful of nuts.
I do find… not ‘this community’ , as in this forum… but in larger context, our sport, and endurance athletics in general… 's desperate clinging obsession to sugar, and not changing course, a little funny. It sort of seems like no matter what info is presented, we just will not accept it.
Unfortunately, the maths doesn’t quite work out quite the same when you have a 3–400-watt threshold. Maybe keep at it for a bit though, and let us know what happens when you start training consistently?
6 Likes
I’ve read the whole thread and all of your posts. The fact that you’re not distinguishing between unsaturated and saturated fats suggest to me that you believe consuming large quantities of saturated fat is fine for overall health. If that is what you’re saying and you’ve got a study that supports that notion, I’d love to read it.
4 Likes
Or try to hold even 200W for a few hours 
But hey, why trust what almost everyone else is doing when you can trust emphasized rants.
6 Likes
There is so much wrong with this, I don’t even know where to start. Try a little less ranting and no more posts that come close to that length.
Some nuggets:
Heart Rate is not a reliable predictor of performance. Your heart rate could have been elevated because it was hot, you were tired, dehydrated, under-fueled, stressed, didn’t sleep well, it was a tuesday, among other things. You need power, or a timed segment to show performance improvement. You coming in and saying “I held a high heart rate” could literally be proving the opposite you think it is. Also - Finishing 4th, 5th, or whatever place doesn’t tell us anything. You could just be racing lots of old slow people.
Sugar is not the devil. Other than your teeth, not only is it NOT unhealthy during exercise, it helps you perform better, and is burned on the spot, not stored. There are literally reams of data showing this, so for you to just scream and rant that sugar is basically evil is 100% bad faith and mis-informed. That doesn’t mean you fuel every ride you do at 120g an hour (you shouldn’t), but It’s also not unhealthy for you in moderation as a normal healthy human being outside of exercise. It is unhealthy for you if you eat too much of it outside of exercise, and there are problems with the “typical” western diet and many people would benefit from less sugar in their diet, more protein, healthy fats, whole-food carbs.
Healthy fats are good in moderation, saturated fats are also fine in moderation. But, both are also bad for you in excess, especially saturated fats. There are plenty of studies that show that the best long-term diet for overall health and longevity are more plant and carb based despite what all the carnivore and keto influencers are selling you. And I say that as a meat eater, a hunter, and someone where you’ll have to pry my steak and burgers from my cold dead hands.
This is a great forum with a lot of great knowledgeable people. I’d encourage you to really challenge what you think you know and do a little research as opposed to coming in with your mind made up.
20 Likes