"I'm not interested in sugary things or energy drinks" 100% agree, I get a banana for imbust my energy on my way home and have a proper meal at home. I can't eat at least one hour before physical activities and nothing but water or/and light fruit smoothies during. Banana or grapefruit are my energy bomb if I'm doing any sport too much or/and too long.
What Do You Eat Before You Cycle. When Do You Eat It?
- Thread starter Lovacott
- Start date
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Tribansman
Veteran
I really wish I was like the people who've posted here that they can eat relatively minimally, cycle a fair bit or a lot and not be hungry. I feel like a slave to my hunger!
It's rare that i go more than two or three hours without getting pretty hungry, and that's when I'm not cycling. I can only ever ride for about an hour on an empty stomach and do that rarely anyway, and when I finish long rides (75 miles+), I'm always ravenous, despite having fuelled well before (porridge or weetabix usually) and during (bananas, flapjacks, nuts, crisps, peanut butter rolls, the odd pasty 😂).
And the day after I'm even hungrier. I think I do generally eat too much sugar, but even when I've tried to up the protein/fat/low GI carbs and minimise sugary stuff, it's not made much difference.
I'm wondering if I just have a naturally very high metabolism - on average, i'd say i eat around 3,700+ calories per day, ride 175 miles per week and don't put on any weight. I do love my food so it's not a huge issue, but I would rather not be so hungry all of the time! Any ideas or suggestions?!
It's rare that i go more than two or three hours without getting pretty hungry, and that's when I'm not cycling. I can only ever ride for about an hour on an empty stomach and do that rarely anyway, and when I finish long rides (75 miles+), I'm always ravenous, despite having fuelled well before (porridge or weetabix usually) and during (bananas, flapjacks, nuts, crisps, peanut butter rolls, the odd pasty 😂).
And the day after I'm even hungrier. I think I do generally eat too much sugar, but even when I've tried to up the protein/fat/low GI carbs and minimise sugary stuff, it's not made much difference.
I'm wondering if I just have a naturally very high metabolism - on average, i'd say i eat around 3,700+ calories per day, ride 175 miles per week and don't put on any weight. I do love my food so it's not a huge issue, but I would rather not be so hungry all of the time! Any ideas or suggestions?!
Tribansman
Veteran
I drink loads! About 750ml every 25 miles or so when riding and pretty regularly when not. I do drink a lot of tea and coffee, maybe need to cut that down
HobbesOnTour
Guru
- Location
- España
You're not alone!
I am anything but a "performance" cyclist. I commuted and cycled for leisure and was pretty much always hungry.
The advice to drink more water is good, especially before eating and before the ride. On longer days drinking was something I had to teach myself.
We're all different so your experience may not match up to others. My own theory is that we can "train" our bodies (and our heads!) how to react. I've had days on the bike where I was clearly suffering from a lack of food - I see that as different to being hungry.
I'm presuming you could investigate the matter further with metabolic analysis and dietary advice specific for you. Or just enjoy the snacking/eating. I chose the latter
Tribansman
Veteran
Wise words. Agree that a lot of it is willpower, and I could make some tweaks to sugar and crap food intake. I have read a couple of articles on training your body to be fuelled by fat rather than carbs, which avoids the peaks and troughs and regulates the feeling of hunger better. But on reflection I'm with you, while I'm not putting on weight i'm just going to enjoy eating! And it does work as a bit of an extra motivator to go out knowing ive got to burn off the excesses of the day before.You're not alone!
I am anything but a "performance" cyclist. I commuted and cycled for leisure and was pretty much always hungry.
The advice to drink more water is good, especially before eating and before the ride. On longer days drinking was something I had to teach myself.
We're all different so your experience may not match up to others. My own theory is that we can "train" our bodies (and our heads!) how to react. I've had days on the bike where I was clearly suffering from a lack of food - I see that as different to being hungry.
I'm presuming you could investigate the matter further with metabolic analysis and dietary advice specific for you. Or just enjoy the snacking/eating. I chose the latter
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
The long easy rides are what causes your body to adapt to be able to better fuel on fat. As time goes by you’ll speed up at those low HR but still be primarily running on fat. No need to change diet.
I was like you with taking too much fast carbs/sugars. Sugar is actually pretty addictive and not good in large quantities.
I learnt over a winter to ween myself off fast carbs. I did lots of low intensity riding. I drank only water instead of carb solution drinks. When I did eat whilst riding, I would eat plain sandwiches, with ham and cheese. I was able to ride much longer and not feel the dreaded knock, where you feel sick.
It takes quite a few months to adjust to no or very little sugar
I learnt over a winter to ween myself off fast carbs. I did lots of low intensity riding. I drank only water instead of carb solution drinks. When I did eat whilst riding, I would eat plain sandwiches, with ham and cheese. I was able to ride much longer and not feel the dreaded knock, where you feel sick.
It takes quite a few months to adjust to no or very little sugar
OP
OP
Lovacott
Über Member
In my teens and twenties, I was as skinny as a rake yet I consumed vast quantities of food. I'd eat breakfast, lunch and dinner with snacks every other hour but could never gain weight.
I hit 30 and things changed almost overnight. I gained two stone in a couple of months without changing anything in my diet.
Ever since then, I've watched what I eat. I avoid carb rich foods during the day because they make me feel sleepy. The exception is just before I head off out on my bike. In the morning, I'll have a bowl of oats or a banana or sometimes both. The effort from cycling kills the desire to sleep. I skip lunch at work and instead eat another banana (or two) about 45 minutes before I begin the commute home.
Because my commute is very hilly, the hour it takes me each way is pretty intense physically and unless I fuel up beforehand, it can be pretty draining. I also sweat a lot on the hills so a banana is a pretty good way of topping up electrolytes lost through sweat.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
One banana , two banana, three banana more, soon I had seven bags sitting on the floor..
All uphill
Still rolling along
- Location
- Somerset
Time for banana bread! It freezes well and is great on a bike ride.I'm going to need a bigger jersey pocket
A slight ordering error by the wife, Asda used to sell individual bananas online...
View attachment 578726
Tribansman
Veteran
Yeah, love banana bread, tasty and good fuel. Can make it as sweet or savoury as you like too.
I also did some baked bananas in rum and a big batch of banana smoothie when I had a surfeit a couple of months ago
Nomadski
I Like Bikes
- Location
- LBS, Usually
A bowl of Cheerios, usually.
Might be why I'm so slow?
Might be why I'm so slow?
Twilkes
Guru
That sounds a lot like me. I do get on a sugar rollercoaster (which is fun while it lasts!) but every few weeks I try to have a day or two where I don't eat much sugary/carby stuff, so fish for breakfast, olives and meats for lunch etc. Makes me feel more settled inside my head too, sugar can sometimes affect me a bit like a mild combination of a drug addict and bipolar depression, scratching around for his next fix of Ben & Jerrys.
I recently trialled a blood glucose monitor (the kind of thing diabetics might use) and while my resting blood glucose level was on the higher end of the normal scale, I didn't have many peaks at all regardless of what I ate. There is a test for diabetes which is drink a very sugary drink, wait for two hours, and your blood glucose should have dropped back below a certain level (somewhere around 8.0-8.5mmol/l if that means anything to anyone). But 95% of what I ate didn't even put my blood glucose ABOVE that level, never mind coming back down again.
So I seem to have a really effective insulin system to control my blood sugar levels, and I'm sure this has something to do with being able to eat loads without putting on weight, but similarly having to fuel fairly heavily while on a bike (i'm also 6ft5 and 100kg so there's a lot of me to fuel!). An individual could probably increase how effectively they burn fat by cutting down carbs and staying down in Z1/Z2 while riding, but there seems to be a genetic factor in that some people are more predisposed to this than others.
Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) is being touted as the next big thing in sports nutrition and performance management, but from what I saw when I tried it there are too many variables involved in what affects your blood glucose (sleep, food, activity, the number of letters in the day of the week) and the control of it is just not precise enough to do what the marketers are saying it can do, for non-professional athletes anyway. It was interesting but ultimately useless.
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