Eating For Training and Performance
With all the indoor training and outdoor fat biking we do in the cold riding season, it's no surprise that we get hungry. Really hungry. Like, half a pizza hungry. So after a few months of being hangry, Mike decided to find out if we could eat better to stay fuelled for riding and recovery.
While there is abundant 'information' on the interwebs, not much of it is very useful to recreational riders looking to make changes; too much information, too many fads, and too little evidence.
Sufferfest (now Wahoo Systm) has this pretty useful and comprehensive guide to eating. They discuss how to plan your meals to ensure abundant energy, good calorie reserves for recovery, and overall totals to balance training fuel and losing weight. A light read with good background science. It's oriented to riders doing Sufferfest's (very) intense training programs, but with a minimum of work you can probably adapt the outline to your own level of intensity. You can look at their weekly schedule and sub-in your own workouts and rides and look at how they plan out food.
The main takeaways for us have been:
- 1. When to eat more protein versus when to eat more carbs?
- 2. How much of each is ideal?
- 3. How much of what type of food delivers the target nutrition?
Totally worth the read when you're ready to start feeding The Beast. Don't go hangry.