Road Cycling

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I cannot believe what I just read.
I would not be following that diet you have been given janp, it's simply ridiculous.

Why has it been established you need to eat more and why do people think you need to eat more as per above? I guess I am missing something from earlier in the thread.

The amount that people eat or expect they need themsevles and others to eat constantly annoys and worries me to no end.
 
I cannot believe what I just read.
I would not be following that diet you have been given janp, it's simply ridiculous.

Why has it been established you need to eat more and why do people think you need to eat more as per above? I guess I am missing something from earlier in the thread.

The amount that people eat or expect they need themsevles and others to eat constantly annoys and worries me to no end.

I think it has been mentioned before that janp is extremely underweight so I can believe that his diet needs looking at but as you say, the advice he has been given is ridiculous.
 
I think it has been mentioned before that janp is extremely underweight so I can believe that his diet needs looking at but as you say, the advice he has been given is ridiculous.

What height and weight are you janp?
Without even knowing this I agree though, if underweight, diet needs addressed but those proposals are insane.
 
Depending on the level of activity and the fact that he needs to gain some weight (I'm assuming) then a 1000 kcal increase is possibly feasible. My issue is more with the macro balance and duff diet advice. It sounds quite gym-bro to me and as Roady mentioned, increasing portion sizes and (more importantly) food choice will enable him to eat extra kcal without feeling like he's going to explode or taking in a needlessly ridiculously high amount of protein per day.

Sorry was a quick reply from me, but yes, can see the kcal increase is needed, but would have thought that increasing portion size would be feasible.
 
Was feeling a bit of knee pain this morning, so upped my seat slightly as I wasn't fully extending. It felt a bit better on the way in, but think I could still go some more.
I think some of these fittings people have had would be useful to novice like me.
 
Sorry was a quick reply from me, but yes, can see the kcal increase is needed, but would have thought that increasing portion size would be feasible.

My main point after the obvious cost of all the protein shakes (that always comes from me? :p)! But increasing portion size would balance the increase with more nutrients than just overloading on pure protein like the shake route. Eating more 'protein rich' meals is probably the best way to do it, so things like omelettes, steak, fish and many dairy products are a great source of natural proteins. In fact almost anything 'animal' is good for protein, you're not vegan are you? Cheese is amazing! So is beer! ;)

Nuts are often overlooked, certainly very easy to eat lots of them for snacks rather than for meals... Eat instead of biscuits/crisps etc. I find I eat a lot of nuts and dried fruit where before I was a bit of a crisp/chocolate monster. Although I came from the 'other direction' - I was overweight and wanted a snack to satisfy my appetite outside of mealtimes.

I'm no doctor/health nut but everyone is different. You probably have a very high metabolism meaning your body is just very efficient at burning any calories it comes across rather than converting to fat. My girlfriend is similar - she can eat all the junk and not put on weight, I even smell it and my hips are wearing it! :eek::rolleyes:

I think it has been mentioned before that janp is extremely underweight

I wouldn't say that, if he really was he would struggle to cycle as much as he is doing. He's just Niro Quintana :D
 
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Wow that's a lot to chew through (no pun intended!).

I should probably mention, that I think the main idea of the insane protein, is to counter act the fact I only really have two meals a day. I'm unable to eat after 5pm, I have to take medication daily at 6pm, which needs to be on an empty stomach.
My working hours are 8-5, weekdays and lately weekends. Naturally, this causes me issues with my calorie intake. My main meal is lunchtime, but like most offices our staff facilities are inadequate. We have a microwave, a kettle, and a tiny fridge. Meaning I generally eat out for lunch, which makes calorie counting particularly hard.

I'm 5ft11, currently weighing 9.7st (61.6kg). I started cycling in October 2013, where I weighed slightly over 8st. So I've put some weight on, recently I was hovering around 10st, but I've lost a bit more since increasing the elevation in my rides. I've also extended my daily commute quite considerably.

I went to see this coach/nutritionist as I've been seeing a decrease in performance. I was pretty sure I was overtraining, as I can longer reach anything close to my max heart rate when training. So I sought advice on that topic primarily. The person I saw didn't think it was overtraining, and that I was under fueling myself for the amount of exercise I was doing.

Would be good to get a second opinion, if anyone has any ideas of how I can improve things.
 
Wow that's a lot to chew through (no pun intended!).

I should probably mention, that I think the main idea of the insane protein, is to counter act the fact I only really have two meals a day. I'm unable to eat after 5pm, I have to take medication daily at 6pm, which needs to be on an empty stomach.
My working hours are 8-5, weekdays and lately weekends. Naturally, this causes me issues with my calorie intake. My main meal is lunchtime, but like most offices our staff facilities are inadequate. We have a microwave, a kettle, and a tiny fridge. Meaning I generally eat out for lunch, which makes calorie counting particularly hard.

I'm 5ft11, currently weighing 9.7st (61.6kg). I started cycling in October 2013, where I weighed slightly over 8st. So I've put some weight on, recently I was hovering around 10st, but I've lost a bit more since increasing the elevation in my rides. I've also extended my daily commute quite considerably.

I went to see this coach/nutritionist as I've been seeing a decrease in performance. I was pretty sure I was overtraining, as I can longer reach anything close to my max heart rate when training. So I sought advice on that topic primarily. The person I saw didn't think it was overtraining, and that I was under fueling myself for the amount of exercise I was doing.

Would be good to get a second opinion, if anyone has any ideas of how I can improve things.

I'll comment later after I make my dinner (did you get my trust message btw?). In the meantime posting this kind of info on the diet thread in the Gym Rats forum will get you a ton of useful info from the people I identified in my trust message to you.
 
I'll comment later after I make my dinner (did you get my trust message btw?). In the meantime posting this kind of info on the diet thread in the Gym Rats forum will get you a ton of useful info from the people I identified in my trust message to you.

Just spotted it, and replied :)
 
OK, you are not underweight then, which is a good thing. It looks like the nutrition advice you were given was the sort of diet someone would give a body builder wanting to bulk up! The symptoms you describe are more likely a deficiency in something or like you hint towards, not enough calories to fuel what you are doing in general.

As per what guys were saying previous, I think larger portions and keeping your meals square, clean and healthy will only serve you well. Last meal at 5pm is OK if you eat well, with starting work at 8 I imagine you go to bed quite early and get up 6ish, having a good meal at 5pm and going to bed 9/10 is OK.

The space is there to get 3 square meals a day plus snacking in between. I think if you are feeling fatigue, higher heart rate and not being able to maintain such a high level of training as previous it wouldn't hurt to consider iron deficiency. From previous experience that is what nailed me!

I can relate pretty well, I am 3inches shorter than you but previously well under 9stone (during my anemic times which I sorted out) and now I hover around 58/59kg cycling 280+ miles a week and lifting weights 5 mornings a week. If I type up how much I eat, people would be baffled as I know I don't eat anywhere near enough, but my power is increasing, I am getting fitter and more lean muscle and feeling OK. My personal problems before were deficient in certain areas, specifically iron, rather than it being complete lack of calorie intake... but regardless, masses of protein like suggested is not the answer here.

I am not trying to tell you what to do, just food for thought on my previous and personal experiences as I am pretty iffy when it comes to the whole food, weight, eating disorder ****.
 
Wow that's a lot to chew through (no pun intended!).

I should probably mention, that I think the main idea of the insane protein, is to counter act the fact I only really have two meals a day. I'm unable to eat after 5pm, I have to take medication daily at 6pm, which needs to be on an empty stomach.
My working hours are 8-5, weekdays and lately weekends. Naturally, this causes me issues with my calorie intake. My main meal is lunchtime, but like most offices our staff facilities are inadequate. We have a microwave, a kettle, and a tiny fridge. Meaning I generally eat out for lunch, which makes calorie counting particularly hard.

I'm 5ft11, currently weighing 9.7st (61.6kg). I started cycling in October 2013, where I weighed slightly over 8st. So I've put some weight on, recently I was hovering around 10st, but I've lost a bit more since increasing the elevation in my rides. I've also extended my daily commute quite considerably.

I went to see this coach/nutritionist as I've been seeing a decrease in performance. I was pretty sure I was overtraining, as I can longer reach anything close to my max heart rate when training. So I sought advice on that topic primarily. The person I saw didn't think it was overtraining, and that I was under fueling myself for the amount of exercise I was doing.

Would be good to get a second opinion, if anyone has any ideas of how I can improve things.

Okay. This is going to be quite a long and involved reply...and it will be a bit of a brain-dump so please accept my apologies for the crappy structure.

I'm making an assumption here that one of your goals is to get back to 10 stone. If you don't care about that and just want to improve your cycling I'd argue that most of this probably still applies.

First of all. For your particular issues this is probably going to be the best source of info: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18299646

Basic premises:

Weight loss/gain is a function of kcal in vs kcal out. Obviously more out than in means you will lose weight.

Minimum values for macros are important. Minimum protein intake is important for maintaining muscle mass if you are in the process of losing weight. Minimum protein based on your weight should be between 80 and 100 grams per day. From what I understand of your build (e.g. you have a slight build, little 'muscle bulk', etc) I'd guess that 80 is more likely a good starting point.

Aside from the above, generally speaking protein will help your muscles repair themselves, carbs will help you refuel for (e.g.) cardio-intensive efforts. Fat will keep your joints healthy. That said, all can be used as a source of energy but for cycling (and outside of specific diets, such as keto, which I do not recommend for you just now) you'll want lots of carbs as this is easiest kind of food for your body to turn into "energy".

Meal timing doesn't matter that much in terms of gaining and losing weight. As such your issues with not being able to eat at certain times can be worked around. That said, keeping yourself topped up with energy for your cycling will help you push yourself properly.

Despite what I'm about to say next, nobody can really tell you how many kcal you should eat per day. You can guess at it using various online calculators but if you want to get an accurate idea you need to monitor your intake, your kcal burn and your weight. If you do this even for 4-6 weeks you will have a much more accurate picture than any online calculator or 'gym trainer' can tell you.

Quite note on BCAAs: They're useful if you're riding fasted. If you're not, don't bother with them at all. They work by getting some protein into your blood stream without spiking your insulin. The only time you'd care/bother about this is if you were trying to burn fat by exercising whilst fasted. For yourself I'd recommend instead having a modified protein shake before you set off for your morning ride (see below for more details on that).

General health note: Get lots of green vegetables in each day. If you're struggling with this in your meals then take green beans, sugar snap peas, mange tout or even broccoli with you to work and just snack on them raw during the day. Lots of great nutrients in these and lots of fibre, which is good for your digestive tract and also helps level out your insulin response.

What to do:

The very first thing you should do is to start using MyFitnessPal to accurately log your intake. I appreciate that you're stuck with eating out at lunch but it's perfectly possible to do that and get fairly accurate kcal estimate. Worst case you can grab pre-made sandwiches. Otherwise you can try to stick to (at least initially) meals where it is possible to estimate kcal. If you give us some examples of places you eat at/meals you buy we can help with that.

Hopefully from what I've said above it is now obvious that drinking 150grams of protein in the form of shakes per day is...well, ridiculously pointless. That's not to say that you can't use protein shakes as an effective tool to help you. Instead of drinking 6 crappy shakes per day I would instead have one for breakfast that is made with full fat and/or chocolate milk. For example, use two of these with one scoop of protein powder and you've got ~600kcal with ~73g of carbs, ~57g of protein and ~13g of fat. You've already ha the same kcal intake as those 6 protein shakes that you were recommended earlier but instead of it all being protein which you don't really need you've got a lot of carbs. I'd actually say that you could just drop the protein powder completely as you'll almost certainly get enough protein in during the rest of your intake.

Assuming that you ride two or three times per day you'll want to time your carbs to support that. Have the above shake as breakfast before you set off for work. If you can't fit in eating until after your lunch ride then at least have a small snack (a small flapjack or some biscuits or something else high in carbs. Don't worry about the sugar content as you're about to do a ride). Finally, make sure you have something substantial between lunch and your evening ride.

I get that you have to take your medication on an empty stomach but do you have any time before bed to eat? If so, get something else in there so you can restock your glycogen levels. Once again, some carbs are primarily what you want.

I'm starting to get a bit tired and don't want to ramble any more so for now I really recommend you work with the above. You need to accurately log what you're consuming as that will educate you more than anything else about what you eat and exactly what macros it provides. Knowing your macros will help you tailor your diet to provide your body with what you need for optimum performance.

On top of the above, something to consider for general health and fitness improvements are strength training and supplements. Of the latter there's not a huge amount of point with most of them but don't discount them completely (creatine and beta alanine have proven benefits, minor as they are).

edit: Oh yeah, estimating kcal burn for exercise is really really tough but I've recently discovered that the Garmin Connect site will give you a very accurate idea of kcals burned on a ride if you use a HRM. It can also feed directly into MyFitnessPal with this data. More details here: http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/11/how-calorie-measurement-works-on-garmin.html

edit2: Regarding your over-training worries - are you getting faster? That would be how I'd measure things rather than HR alone. Then again...what is your training schedule. I can see on Strava that you ride an average of 100 miles a week at the moment. How is that split up?
 
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Stupid loose drain cover flicked up as I was going over it today, hammered my wheel hard, hoping it's just tube replacement not tyre of bent wheel. Thought I was going over the top!
 
Re-did my bike fit tonight. Set the bike up level on the turbo trainer, plumb bobbed the bottom bracket position onto the top tube, then measured forwards and marked the pedal spindle position. With the Rolls saddle, the furthest I could get back was with my knee 10mm forwards of KOPS and I wanted to try KOPS or slightly behind KOPS, so I've swapped to another saddle which is a bit overly slammed, but I can get 10mm behind KOPS. The interesting thing is with the correct height and setback, I actually find the other saddle comfortable to sit on, presumably because I'm actually sitting on it correctly!

So, I've put on a 20mm shorter stem to compensate for the corrected saddle position, plus I wanted a little less reach overall. Saddle to bar drop is 65mm for commuting and I can get this to 95mm for racing if I drop the stem. I could probably ride a bigger frame with a shorter stem, but I'd sacrifice 10mm of potential weekend warrior drop by doing so.

Once I was happy with all of that I set the camera up from the side and ran off a few movies on all the positions on the bars. Tomorrow I can double check my leg extension but it feels pretty good and looks close enough.

The bike is definitely a lot more comfortable which I'm most happy with. Here's hoping it helps with this niggling knee problem too.
 
Re-did my bike fit tonight. Set the bike up level on the turbo trainer, plumb bobbed the bottom bracket position onto the top tube, then measured forwards and marked the pedal spindle position. With the Rolls saddle, the furthest I could get back was with my knee 10mm forwards of KOPS and I wanted to try KOPS or slightly behind KOPS, so I've swapped to another saddle which is a bit overly slammed, but I can get 10mm behind KOPS. The interesting thing is with the correct height and setback, I actually find the other saddle comfortable to sit on, presumably because I'm actually sitting on it correctly!

So, I've put on a 20mm shorter stem to compensate for the corrected saddle position, plus I wanted a little less reach overall. Saddle to bar drop is 65mm for commuting and I can get this to 95mm for racing if I drop the stem. I could probably ride a bigger frame with a shorter stem, but I'd sacrifice 10mm of potential weekend warrior drop by doing so.

Once I was happy with all of that I set the camera up from the side and ran off a few movies on all the positions on the bars. Tomorrow I can double check my leg extension but it feels pretty good and looks close enough.

The bike is definitely a lot more comfortable which I'm most happy with. Here's hoping it helps with this niggling knee problem too.


You know of any guides about for doing this? Really keen to get it set up perfectly.
 
I should probably mention, that I think the main idea of the insane protein, is to counter act the fact I only really have two meals a day. I'm unable to eat after 5pm, I have to take medication daily at 6pm, which needs to be on an empty stomach.
My working hours are 8-5, weekdays and lately weekends. Naturally, this causes me issues with my calorie intake. My main meal is lunchtime, but like most offices our staff facilities are inadequate. We have a microwave, a kettle, and a tiny fridge. Meaning I generally eat out for lunch, which makes calorie counting particularly hard.

I'm 5ft11, currently weighing 9.7st (61.6kg). I started cycling in October 2013, where I weighed slightly over 8st. So I've put some weight on, recently I was hovering around 10st, but I've lost a bit more since increasing the elevation in my rides. I've also extended my daily commute quite considerably.

All good info and explains your situation along with your probable cause! Are you taking a protein shake after every ride?

Tart's response is awesome and exactly what you're looking for but also don't overlook things mentioned by xdcx (more great info!) regarding things like iron deficiencies. Many of these are easy to solve if you're changing parts of your diet already (just make sure they're catered for). Things like broccoli and spinach are better than any supplement, they're pretty much amazing for everything - iron, protein and fibre! If you can find a way to easily 'eat' them with say smoothie/shakes as part of a recovery drink - perfect!

I've recently discovered frozen spinach - perfect for smoothies! :D

Personally, I'd not eat any more and start training in the alps. You'll be the next Froome by summer 2016!

He's lighter than Froome... Hence my Niro Quintana comment! ;)

Haha cyclegaz responded! ;)

Good easy shoes, very similar to my XC30's but with 1 less strap (and Road). If the build is the same they'll last you well.

I told cyclegaz to keep pushing, pretty sure that's what he wanted to hear. ;)

Re-did my bike fit tonight.

Good luck! My fit was done with KOPS (along with Specialized BG).

Okay. This is going to be quite a long and involved reply...and it will be a bit of a brain-dump so please accept my apologies for the crappy structure.

An awesome read, found it very informative! Kudos as always.
 
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Definitely make sure you're getting a decent intake of vegetables. Iron deficiency is quite common in a lot of endurance athletes (and can often be a sign of over training too). Spinach is a good shout though my favourite vegetable is purple sprouting broccoli. So delicious :)

I'm glad you found it informative too Roady. Looking back over it I was clearly very tired when I wrote it. Some awful typos and dodgy grammar :p
 
Thanks FT, really informative and interesting to read. I'll comment further hopefully this evening, after work.

Regarding iron deficiency it's possible I suppose, am I right in thinking I can get a test done to verify this? I think one of the supplements I take contains iron, but I'll check.
 
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