Hello TR Hive Mind! When tracking macros (trying to trim some body fat before the season), should I be figuring in the carbs I drink on the bike or leave them out?
For example, during today’s threshold workout, I took in 180g carbs, which if applied to my daily quota, would mean that I have only 120 left for the rest of the day (according to the macros plan I’m on). Also, the “rest of the day” starts at 6am for me.
So to summarize, do I: A.) count the carbs in my bottle and eat almost all protein and veggies for the day, or B.) Ignore the workout fuel in my counting and eat normally the rest of the day?
That depends on how/whether “the macros plan” is accounting for the workout you did that you were specifically trying to fuel. Right? You need to understand what “the macros plan” is accounting for, and go from there. If your plan gives you macro goals for a base metabolic day of burning, for example, 2400 calories, and then subtracts off 500 calories that will hopefully add up to a 1lb weight loss per week, and that base calorie amount doesn’t already account for you to burn 600 calories per day due to pedaling (another example number), then your on-the-bike carbs wouldn’t count toward your daily macros.
BUT, if that’s the case, you need to account for them somehow, because you went beyond “the macros plan” and burned extra calories and then you ate extra carbs to try to offset the extra burned calories.
But you also include the calories from the workout.
180g of carbs in a workout would suggest to me your workout was 2-3 hours…that would also be ~1000-2000kj so you need to adjust the macro ratio of C:P:F to accomodate.
If it was only 1 hour and you were training at 5am like I gather from your post, you need to rejig your fueling as that is a lot of carbs to be drinking during your ride that early.
One thing that helps - don’t think of macros as percentages.
1.6 g/kg of protein per day (minimum, every day)
.8-1 g/kg of fat per day (healthy fats, don’t go overboard)
Then modulate carbs to get to your total calorie needs for the day. Agree with the above, yes you include intra-workout carbs and adjust total calorie needs based on your workouts for that day.
Haha, no…I start my workouts before 4am (work schedule). I know we’re all trending towards more and more carbs/hr, but 180 would definitely be a bit much
My brother recently had the idea to do a set calorie amount (1800 per day) + 50% of what he burned during exercise. I think that’s a good approach for an average sized male trying to lose weight, and for exercise that’s around 2 hrs or less. More than 2 hrs and you may want to consider 75% addition to cover fueling during the workout and recovery.
During my lower intensity endurance rides I burn around 600/hr, with high intensity being closer to 800/hr. Weight lifting around 300/hr. The 50% seems logical in those cases (for shorter durations).
Not for everyone, but I thought it was a thoughtful approach to incorporate the exercise aspect into it.
That can be way, way more of a calorie deficit than most coaches and nutritionists would recommend and wouldn’t be nearly enough for me and I’m ~175# ish so not real big. Basically, I’d be real careful with that approach. (Just looked at a recent ~2 hour day and it’d have me taking in 2500 kCal when I probably need closer to 4000 that day to fully replace what I burn)
It’s a lot easier to Get Your Protein, Get Your Fat, then add carbs until you’re at roughly a 500 kCal Deficit if you’re trying to lose weight. And even that can be playing with fire if you’re training hard.
Yeah for super hard sessions, probably not. For a 2 hour endurance ride, pretty reasonable.
Let’s say 1800 calories is a 500 calorie deficit under baseline. That’d be a 3500 calorie/wk deficit, or 1 lbs loss per week.
If someone works out 1.5 hrs/day, 5 days/wk, and burns 600 calories per hr, that puts them at another 2250 calorie deficit per week, which is still less than 2 lbs loss per week, which isn’t unreasonable for someone that might have a good amount of weight to lose (I.e. 15+ lbs, not 3 lbs., and not some high level endurance athlete)
There’s obviously about 284958372 scenarios I could outline for specific use cases where it might not be feasible, but for certain uses, it is reasonably practical.
That was using a 2 hour endurance ride and a normal day as an example. Nothing hard about it.
My daily net zero carb intake is ~2500 at 175# without any additional activity (1800 may be a good BMR for some, but that doesn’t take into account any activity whatsoever, it literally assumes you’re sitting on the couch all day). 2 hours at Z2 was 1400-1500 Kcal. Total Calorie burn that day is almost 4000. You would have me at almost a 1500 kCal deficit per day. Even using 75% would be too much.
Honestly, I think it’s probably bad more than it’s good. I’ll stand by: Get enough protein, get enough fat, then modulate carbs to be in a mild deficit. Simple, and also proven effective.
Definitely don’t count what you consumed on the bike as part of your daily macros unless you are accounting for your calories burned and adding them back to your daily goals. For example, right now my daily goal for carbs is 240g, but I have my MyFitnessPal set to account for my calories burned by adding back 90% of calories burned to my carbs goals and 5% each to my fat and protein goals. So if I burn 1000 KJs on my ride it’ll add 225g of carbs, 12g of protein, and 6g of fat to my macros to equal that extra 1000 calories burned. So my new goal for the day is 465g of carbs (240 + 225). This has been working really well for me and helps me make sure I’m fueling enough on big days. I naturally want to eat more on days with big rides so this approach works better for me than trying to spread those extra calories over my rest days.
But you assume the “excess” fat you burned while doing that z2, is calories that need to be replaced, so you overeat the carb macro? Are you really at a deficit in the fat column, if you want to burn fat and you just did exercise that predominantly burned stored fat that you have in surplus?
You want to eat more carbs than your body requires after the workout that burned predominantly fat, but if you don’t use the carbs or have room to store them intra muscularly, don’t they turn to fat? If you don’t eat all the calories back, and your body needs some energy to run your brain while you sleep, it’ll make some glycogen, and burn some stored fat. Seems like, if I’m 20lbs overweight, I’m never actually in a deficit.
Now that doesn’t mean I won’t get hungry, and if I don’t have the willpower, I’ll find something much less healthy to eat right before bed. That’s bad, and I’ve been there many times.
*I’m not trying to challenge you or anything. These are seemingly rational thoughts I’ve had many times, and don’t understand why people insist we must eat all the exercise calories back, even the burned fat calories.
The 1800 calorie example used was specifically cited as being 500 calories under someone’s base calorie rate, so that person would lose 1lb per week, excluding exercise.
For someone who is really trying to/needs to lose a not-insignificant amount of weight, I don’t believe that Z2 workouts 2 hrs or less at a low endurance intensity need to be 100% replenished and some of that calorie deficit can be used to aide in weight loss.
A calorie deficit doesn’t really matter where you “logically” take the calories “from”, be it your BMR or exercise. You don’t have that level of control, other than obviously needing to fuel around/during workouts within reason.
Someone in a 1000/day calorie deficit is only losing 2 lbs per week. Sure, 1 lb per week might be better for hardcore athletes, but most hardcore endurance athletes probably aren’t going to be in a position needing to lose 20-40 lbs, like many casual cyclists on the road.
That’s not what I’m assuming at all, but there have been plenty of well reasoned studies and recommendations that lead to this. But the short summary is being in too much of an energy deficit while training can be a really bad thing.
By making sure that you get enough protein and enough fat, and then modulating the carbs, you’re also making sure that your glycogen levels are topped off despite the energy deficit (in most cases anyways). Once intensity gets high enough, that won’t be the case.
Except that your recommendations aren’t a 500 KCal deficit a day when taking into account only replacing 50% of the exercise load on top of that. It can be double or even triple that which is a really bad idea for more than short term if you’re training. And no, I don’t think you need to replace 100% of every endurance ride either, but you have to be smart about it and can’t just arbitrarily throw numbers around.
Look, you do you, but don’t take other people down with you. Plenty of good TR podcasts on this subject with experts in the field too. The cliff notes version is they definitely don’t agree with your approach…
A 1500 calorie deficit by the example I provided would mean someone is burning 2000 calories in a low intensity 2 hour endurance ride. I’m sure there’s a lot of people out there rocking 300 watts at 55% FTP for 2 hrs, that also have a lot of weight to lose.
Using me as an example: 2500 daily calorie need before any exercise. 1800 Calories a day would be a 700 calorie deficit to start. 2 hour easy endurance ride from last week, less than 63% heart rate, 63% power, 1450 calories burned. Total calorie requirements: 3950.
You’re advocating “Just take in 1800 plus half of what you burn” - that’s a 1425 calorie deficit for me. And that’s at low to mid EASY endurance. 100% NOT SUSTAINABLE.
Look, you’re basically advising people that “your brother had a cool idea people should try it” over advice from experts. You do realize how ridiculous that sounds, right?
I’m getting confused. I said he used 1800 calories, but you seem to be insinuating that every persons baseline calorie needs are the same and thus there’s any sort of calorie target that there’s a one size fits all? Otherwise I’m not sure why you would be comparing the calorie needs of an individual you know nothing about, to yourself. Anyways, you are continually cherry picking and misconstruing data while also being generally not good at math, so no need for me to extrapolate any further. Good luck with your weight loss journey.
Like I said - you do you. But, don’t recommend an approach to other people that isn’t going to work in most scenarios, and could cause issues based on “Hey my brother had this interesting approach” while you’re turning around and ignoring advice given by a lot of experts in the field. You are quite literally cherry picking an n=1 and recommending it to a broad group.
“My brother recently had the idea to do a set calorie amount (1800 per day) + 50% of what he burned during exercise. I think that’s a good approach for an average sized male trying to lose weight, and for exercise that’s around 2 hrs or less.”
I haven’t given you anything incorrect, I stand by what I said - that advice will be bad for most people in most scenarios and it’s pretty easy to show why. My advice - listen to this, start here:
Actually, for most people and most scenarios it’s pretty good advice. Most people are not training 10+ hrs per week. Most people are not training 5+ hrs. Most people also have 20+ lbs to lose. If anything, it would encourage “most” people to work out more, as then they also have more calories.
I’ve been helping people with diets for a very very long time. Yes, I gave a broad suggestion. If there’s one thing I’ve learned is that in both diet, and fitness, is that MOST people will stick to something they easily understand and somewhat enjoy. I can eat the same breakfast 7 days a week for years. My cycling and strength training workouts are incredibly boring and religiously routine. I’ve been lifting weights regularly for over 20 years. In that time I’ve also achieved levels of muscle mass and low body fat that probably 99.9% of people will never achieve, largely through diet. My training may be optimal for my goals, and even goals of many others, but most people don’t have that discipline. Again, if you think most people want the elite level program, you haven’t been helping most people very long.
Is what I do/have done, a good suggestion for an average person who struggles to work out at all or eat healthy? No. Heck, even counting calories/macros is often a last resort for MOST people. I counted calories/macros for every meal for over a decade. The last time we moved my wife threw out several spiral wound notebooks completely filled with every meal/macro breakdown for years. I’ve worn continuous blood glucose monitors on several occasions just to see how carbs with different levels on the glycemic index affect my blood sugar, along with exercise.
I’ve listened to a few trainer road podcasts and some have been decent, while others I’ve found pretty disappointing (such as their podcast on polarized training). I enjoy some of their discussions with pro racers, but wouldn’t tune in to listen to advice on something like strength training.
For someone that really wants to learn about nutrition, I’d suggest this podcast. If you want the notes, I typed them out during my 2nd or 3rd time listening to it as well…
I’ll just say this - you’re misapplying recommendations and advice (and outside experts) that “might” work at low volume for people with a lot of weight to lose, or general fitness recommendations, to a cycling training forum who aren’t prioritizing training, and saying that would work for the average person here.
No, it wouldn’t. It’s intellectually dishonest to imply it. I’ll leave it at that and exit the thread here, there’s plenty of other discussions on this too.
