Nutrition for late evening rides

Nutrition
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First time posting here. What a community and so much information. Great job TR!

I don’t know if someone asked this question before but any nutrition tips regarding late-night workouts? I put my kids to bed between 7:30-8PM and ride about an hour. What are you night owls eat before & after the workout? Recovery rides are easier to fuel but I especially find it hard to eat real food right after a threshold or VO2max workouts. I don’t wanna eat a big dinner and go to bed an hour later.

Sometimes I drink a bottle of recovery mix sometimes a bowl of cereal and bananas with low-fat milk. When I wake up in the morning I’m super hungry and eat a big breakfast. Not sure this is how I approach fueling myself. Thanks for your feedback!

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Could you eat dinner with your kids before putting them to bed? Having an earlier meal with some extra carbs could mean you were fuelled for a workout in the evening, and would just need a recovery drink and a snack afterwards before going to bed.

Sometimes I’ve even eaten an early dinner at work, around 5:30 or 6 (we have a healthy takeaway restaurant nearby, or you could take something in) - so that when I get home I’m ready to workout by 8.

(There’s another discussion to be had about getting to sleep after a hard workout - worth looking around for podcast or forum topics on that.)

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Same here with me. You describe a typical workout week for me. Can´t train before 0800pm on weekdays. So here is what I do. Threshold / Vo2max workouts I fuel with carbs up to 90 min before I start. Most efficient for me is porridge (oatmeal) or a slice of bread with honey and curd cheese or simply a Banana. During a workout I use an endurance drink ( still try to figure out wich one is “tasty” on the long run, after a few weeks I´m really fed up of these). At the moment it is SIS endurance drink. Post workout depends on the time I´m finished. Mostly it is a recovery shake, sometimes some nuts or cookies (easy carbs). Don`t want to eat to much before I go to bed. For endurance ride I only use hydro drinks during / after the ride. I dont fuel them and try to go low carb on these rides.

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I have a similar routine at least 3, sometimes 4 times per week.

  • 5.30: wake up but try and hold off on breakfast until ca. 9.30
  • 9.30: big bowl of porridge with banana, mollasses, seeds, wheat germ
  • 12.30: decent sized lunch with loads of carbs
  • 17.00: an apple and 0.5kg of baked sweet potatoes before a go home from work
  • 20.00: start training. I always take in minimum 50g of carbs/hr on the bike
  • 22.15: post training smoothie with banana, spinach, oats, soya joghurt, mollasses, sunflower seeds, oats
  • 22.30(if I’m efficient): shower, bed, sleep
    Repeat

The carbs on the bike are key to stopping me from getting too hungry throughout the day, and if I don’t fuel on the bike I don’t get a proper nights sleep.

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I often end up doing workouts 8-9pm, for these I’ll eat a normal meal with the kids at 6pm or just after depending what time I get home from work. Kids asleep by 7:30, giving me half hour to get changed and sort drinks etc. During the ride I’ll just drink an electrolyte mix. No need for additional carbs imo.

Post ride I’ll have a glass of milk and a bowl of cereal with fruit etc, nothing too heavy that late. Works fine.

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Thank you. Will add porridge to my nutrition lineup. Failed to mention I eat a PBJ sandwich on whole wheat toast maybe 90 mins before the workout. But a steel cut oatmeal with maple syrup should be more filling and cleaner.

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Think I’ll try eating with kids and see how that goes. Thank you!

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Dude you are a machine. Good ideas here too. Thanks for taking time to post the whole routine!

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One possibility is to split your evening meals. I do it sometimes and everything seems to work.
Eat half of dinner at about 6-7. Kid and wife go to sleep at 9-10 and then its training time for me. After that, I just eat the second half, have a shower and go to bed.

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Was thinking the same thing! I cannot currently eat that late at all, I simply don’t sleep properly, unless I’m actually starving, then it’s protein. I’m envious of all of you doing the workouts at this time, kudos!

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Yes I think this is key, I have a similar routine except I don’t have to get up until 7 so I can train at 9.30pm, I eat with the family about 6.30pm and then do honey on toast/gels/cake/whatever’s around my kitchen that needs eating on the bike. I drink the SIS electrolyte tabs. Then a recovery shake afterwards, I like SIS Rego, have it mixed in the fridge and grab it to drink during cooldown, and shower and bed asap.

I think all this food really helps being able to train indoors 3/4/5 times a week, week in week out, i.e. fuels the consistency.

One other thing that seems key to the evening training approach; I used to aim for a 500ml bottle of electrolytes every hour indoors, I have now cut this in half so one bottle for a 2 hour ride, because I was having to get up in the middle of the night to go to the loo. Now, I aim to go to bed feeling a bit thirsty still, which usually means I sleep through and wake up just before the alarm :+1:

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I like your routine :ok_hand:. Realized I should also get better at managing my liquid intake before I go to bed.

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