Presumably maple syrup counts as “added sugar”.
If dates qualify as real food, they’re basically fibrous gels. I like rice cakes, but you mentioned your opinions on those. Apparently potatoes are practically as good as gels, just bulkier.
Maple syrup definitely fits into the “in case of emergencies” or the “race fuel” category. The fructose content is low relatively speaking since it’s 98% sucrose, but sucrose is 50/50 fructose/glucose. I’m not sure the absorption pathway tbh.
Sucrose is hydrolyzed by sucrase within the small intestine (brush border). The resulting glucose and fructose are absorbed via their respective pathways.
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Thanks, that’s really helpful info.
Last week I put a ziplock bag of Medjool dates next to the trainer, for fueling after I’m well into long sweet spot work. Approximately 140 calories for two, so pretty easy to fuel up on 4x15 or 3x20 or 3x30 workouts. Using dates on long SS is new for me, forgot to mention it on my earlier replies. So far so good.
2 dates provides roughly:
- 140 calories
- 280mg potassium
- 30g sugar
- 4g fiber
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I thought of them because I have a box of Medjool dates next to my trainer right now. I’ve been working through various sugars left over from Christmas. First it was Christmas candy I otherwise don’t need to eat, now it’s some spare dates.
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The biggest challenge I’ve found in minimizing added-sugar foods while on the bike is convenience / form factor I.e. easily being able carry them and then unwrap them while riding.
My “go to” food for long outdoor training rides are jam (aka jelly) sandwiches. Yes, these have added sugars - in the jam (but I don’t put much on, really just for taste), and some in the bread (I use Dave’s bread). But overall a lot less sugars vs gels or carb mixes.
I’ll also bring the odd banana for training rides, but they don’t carry well - a hot mushy banana isn’t super palatable.
I tried rice cakes but they are a pain to make. Certainly a lot more work than making a jam sandwich.
Most of my indoor rides are 1 hr, and I don’t eat anything during them.
The problem however in races is that jam sandwiches are difficult to eat - hard to unwrap and fall apart easily. Last year in the grand junction off-road I swear it took me 5 minutes to unwrap and eat half a sandwich while riding, and trying not to crash. maybe I need to find a different consistency bread and wrap them differently.
I’ve switched to cliff bars for races (I pre-open all the packets and cut the bars in two). And yes, do also use gels that I reserve for climbs/intense efforts.
When it comes to gels, is there much of a difference between artificial gels, vs the “naturally occurring” kind (eg maple syrup, honey)?
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I don’t think there is much difference between a maple syrup vs fructose / maltrodextrin type gel. Or any carb. Isn’t it all sugar? Just different glyceminc index, and energy delivery? (And how your gut reacts.) I think I misunderstood the post, I took it as more of a processed food thing, where manufacturers are adding sugar (like dextrose in meat) to there food. Pure maple syrup has zero added sugar. (lol)
I get the desire to remove added sugar. I have gone this approach as well but for me it is to deal with a health issue. I have Crohns disease and I realize taking in additional sugar impacts my disease and how I feel and respond. Three years ago I removed adding any sugar to my food. My breakfast is the same as yours. Supper still tends to be meat based(mostly fish and chicken), potatoes/rice and vegetables. I am extremely limited in vegetables as anything green does not do well for me with Crohns. A lot of vegetables for me are trigger foods that just dont make me feel well. Impact of all of this was I dropped a lot of weight.
I still find though I need more when I ride. I notice a definite improvement in fueling when I ride. Hard efforts or long rides will have me use items like cliff bars, Nuun tablets and GU Roctane. I do find it does make a big difference for me and doesnt negatively impact me with my Crohns. It did take me a few years of experimenting to determine what works for me and the timing of fueling. I tried other items and natural sources but there were just issues that has me use my current non natural source of GU Roctane.
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Different types of carbs take different pathways through your body and have different mechanisms for how they deliver energy. I can’t claim to begin to explain it well to other people, since I’m really a beginner on the understanding of human physiology.
In general the difference between maple syrup and plain rice is that the body is going to turn rice into glucose, while maple syrup is mostly sucrose which gets broken down into 50/50 glucose/fructose. It’s much faster to digest maple syrup though so if you need a quick hit, it’s great.
The fructose pathway isn’t great in large quantities, although its definitely a way to get more carb processing during the course of a ride. It’s also not an ideal fuel for exercise (interesting study here: The effects of glucose, fructose, and sucrose ingestion during exercise - PubMed)
I’m not putting a blanket ban on added sugar (specifically I intend to consume it during the highest intensity sessions and races for a number of performance reasons).
But for the average endurance ride, my glucose demands are pretty low and I can deal with having a much slower burning fuel.
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I like this thread. I’ve been on a quest to remove as much added sugar from my diet as possible. I’m very close except for the occasional moment.
The key was to cook fresh stuff and never buy anything from the store with added sugar. It took me a few months to read labels in the supermarket to make good decisions. Sweets I didn’t eat before.
Restaurants, dinners at friends etc I don’t mess around but this would be were I could score most of the remaining bits.
For workouts I make my own bars every other week or so and I do very well with bananas. But sometimes i still consume sugars (cliff bars and Fuel 5), Post-workout choc milk also has some sugar but I’m transitioning to a home-made oat milk/pea protein/cacao powder/honey/cinnamon mix for that
FWIW I found it much harder when traveling in the US than at home (Netherlands)
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Here is a recipe for energy balls or bars:
15 dried Mission figs — (6 ounces)
7 pitted Mejool dates — (4 ounces)
1/4 cup natural almond butter
3/4 cup oats, — either old fashioned or quick cooking (gluten free if necessary)
1/4 cup ground flaxseed meal
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract ( you could use Honey as sweetener)
Also, I buy “picky bars” they appear to be real food in a bar and eat them on the bike.
I have a bunch of recipes with Figs and dates and variations of them.
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thanks! Raw oats or cooked?
I use old fashioned oats. I put it all in the food processor and grind it to a powder.
edit:
adjust the variation of dates/figs/oats depending on how much carbs and type of carbs you want. IE: dates contain up to 48.5% sucrose , and dried figs contain a mixture of 30.9% fructose and 42.0% glucose.
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This looks like a really good recipe. I might try a variation with cocoa powder and matcha powder.
I do quite a lot of business travel, and the US is where I have the hardest time with the food.
Give me a German hotel breakfast any time.
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What does a normal German hotel breakfast consist of?
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The smaller hotels/gasthofs will have great bread, cheese, ham, hard-boiled eggs, local-made muesli, local yogourt, etc; large hotels will have enough bread choices to make your head spin (including those hard, dense small loaves that look like 2x4s and that you cut in a miter box), and just enough stuff to make a healthy meal that you can last on for a day.
And also fresh baked brezn (pretzels), sliced in half, what looks like half a pound of fresh unsalted butter in there - really bad for your health, but who cares.
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There are lots of baby food squeeze pouches made from sweet potato or similar. You can also buy reusable pouches that are designed for parents that make their own baby food. Could probably be used for mashed banana, sweet potato or other high carb, easy to digest natural fuels for the bike pretty easily
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I’ve been using a range of bars from Velorforte as they appear to be all natural but mainly because they taste so good. They include cane sugar so am not sure they are what you would be looking for. They do a range of natural gels as well but I’ve not tried those.