Feeding Like a Pro

In preparation for the double century bike ride I did about a month ago, I spoke with a neighbor of mine about what I should eat.  I've done enough races now that I have a decent knowledge of what works for me and what doesn't, so I can get by.  The problem is that I have traditionally relied on gels and bars that are highly processed and which are not ideal.  Now the gels and bars are designed specifically for racing so they aren't all bad but the long term effects can be negative.  To minimize those negative effects I decided I should look into eating more "real" food while I'm training and racing.  That is where my neighbor Paul was able to help me.

Shot Bloks are delicious!  

Paul is an avid cyclist and has been for years.  To give you an idea of how good he is, this week he and 3 friends are riding 400 miles from Salt Lake down to St. George, all in a single day.  The first time they did it (yes, they've done this before and are doing it again) they finished in 23 hours, with 21 hours of ride time.  Need-less to say, he has a lot of knowledge about the sport of cycling and that is why I went to him for help.

He told me about some of the different foods I could make, and how to package them to make them easy to grab and go.  I found out that his go-to snack is rice cakes with raspberries and blueberries in them as well as all the stuff you want when you're working out.  He also let me borrow a book he has that is littered with useful information and contains a myriad of recipes for athletes.  The book is called "Feed Zone Portables" by Biju Thomas and Allen Lim.  Both of these guys were the nutritionists and chefs for the BMC Racing team, one of the teams that has been competing in the Tour de France for the last several years.

The Tour of Utah 2014, up Little Cottonwood Canyon

Reading through the book I discovered a few things about what my body needs to keep going.  First I learned that our bodies get 50% of its energy from fat when you are going at a 50% effort and drops to 20% of its energy from fat when you are going at a 75% effort.  So the harder you're pushing the more glycogen you'll use which means you'll need to eat more to replenish.  I think it's safe to say that most people would consider that common sense, but what isn't common sense is exactly how much we actually need.  Luckily that's what this book helped me figure out for myself.  Here are my results:

~ 1200 calories stored for lower leg exercise on a moderate carb diet.

~ 2000 calories stored for lower leg exercise on a high carb diet.

~ Eat approximately 1/2 of what you burn from glycogen per hour, each hour.

~ I burn 550 calories per hour cycling.

~ I burn 900 calories per hour running.

This means that if I'm cycling for a longer period of time at a 70% effort, I will need to eat about 206 calories each hour.  Notice that it's not a 1:1 ratio.  I don't need to replace every calorie I burn because of the calories I have stored and because of the energy I burn from fat.  This is why many people will try and "carbo load" in the days and weeks leading up to a race.  The more you have stored, the less you should need to eat.

After learning all of this, I realized that there is a lot more research I can do that will help me stay healthy and get stronger.  If anyone has any suggestions on how I can better understand my own body and how to keep it healthy and efficient, please share.