A boat full of carbs

Just something that provides "one" daily recipe according to ones daily fat/carb/protein preference. So for example, if I'm on a low carb diet then it provides one daily higher in fats/proteins. Problem with me is I usually end up deviating from my planned diet. This would make things easier.

I'd have a plain 3 egg omelette most mornings - takes about 30-60 seconds to get eggs whisked.

Fire on pan, fire up nespresso machine and spend the 2/3 mins organising other stuff (empty dishwasher/do babies bottles etc).

Hardly a massive burden to avoid eating cereal.

ford2600 wrote: »

You can do an omelette quickly and I'm sure nutritionally there is no difference with one cooked slowly, but try slow frying your onions, mushrooms chilli etc for 30 mins or.

Just put it on and walk away from it. Add egg when veg are cooked. Add cheese on top when cooked and grill.

Olive oil and salt and you have a delicious meal

Thanks I'd often do the likes of that in the evening, when it's been a non omelette morning.

DaithiMC wrote: »

Nuts and seeds probably are the only items outside of animal products that can be eaten as raw protein or fat concentrated snacks so its not that trivial to find a reasonable variety of foods that don't need cooking.

True it's not trivial, I just think there are ways around it. I often put something simple on the cooker, have a quick shower and it's done by the time I come back. Or just cook more than I need at dinner time and eat the rest whenever I feel peckish. I had to drive to Cork for work this week. I woke up late so I just boiled some eggs while I was in the shower and ate them on the drive down.

As for uncooked snack suggestions. I like simple raw celery with full fat cream cheese. Equal parts cheese to celery.

petethedrummer wrote: »

I found that tending towards LCHF gives me back time in the long run. So there's an inbuilt reward for me.

Daithi and pprend do you notice much difference in your daily lives when you are eating LCHF? Perhaps there's no reward in this method of eating that makes you want to devote time to it. It would therefore be daft to try to stick to a plan* that isn't given you any benefits.

(*We could get into a broader discussion about "plans". I think plans are an awful idea that set you up for failure.)

To keep things simple, if I eat LCHF in mornings I feel fuller and less hungry for the rest of the day. If I switch that around (high carbs) I feel a bonk after an hour or two, sometimes less and progressively get worse hunger pangs throughout the day. Last few weeks I've gone off track so I'm trying to get back on again.

Good example would be Wegnesday morning. My usual routine is that I'm up at 6am, no breakfast as I don't have time and I commute 40km. Have my breakfast on train or in college which might be eggs or pancakes. Was up late on Tues night as had to bring the little one to hospital with a sprained ankle and that messed up my sleep routine. So I was up late Wed morning and just had carbs (few slices of toast with butter and jam and I think some cereal). Half an hour into the bike ride and I was seriously depleted energy wise. Would have been better off eating nothing as I have developed good energy levels since starting riding pre-fasted and eating LCHF.

Just come across a few useful sites here, here and here which I'm going to try and start using more consistently for the winter for menu options. I'm the type of person who thrives on plans btw.

pprendeville wrote: »

Does anyone use Ghee for stir Frying? Wonder is it worth the hassle?

You can buy ghee in shops. Comes in a tin. No need to go making it yourself.
http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=267791644

I know an English bloke who asked for Ghee in a shop Dundalk and he nearly got arrested, the poor hoor also had a speech impediment...Truth

i_surge wrote: »

Are there any world class racers successfully following lchf? Not including ultra endurance steady state stuff

Good question. I don't know of any, and that's probably worth paying attention to.

There are prevarications made about how resistant to change the pros are, how in terms of both training and diet they are highly conservative and deathly afraid of not doing what their competitors are doing in the belief that this at least can't put them at a disadvantage. But there must also be some top level guys who are willing to experiment and throw the dice a bit in seeking gains in doing exactly what other competitors don't (legally!).

Barry Murray has some links to BMC but I haven' seen him claim that any of their guys follow actual HFLC regimes, maybe a more paleo-ish, whole-food approach is implied but it's hazy to me.

There are these ideas floating about of cyclical low-carbing - relativising what would constitute LOTS of carbs for us as still being low-carb in comparison to what most elite cyclists ordinarily eat. Between advocates of "carb back loading" and using carbs for recovery in general, slow carbs etc., it almost seems like there are nominally HFLC athletes who've worked in enough exceptions to the rule that their actual diet, for most of the year, can't really be all that different from anyone trying to eat clean with the possible exception of being more phobic of things like gluten.

That means that while Barry Murray and Beth McCluskey might think they belong to different tribes on the diet issue ("HFLC" vs "a balanced diet"), when it comes to the reality of what they'd have us eat in heavy training there's very little difference indeed. Or am I wrong about that?

That and the fact that as the level of competition goes up so does secrecy. We're really no idea what most pros eat or what they actually do on the bike.

doozerie wrote: »

For quite a while after I started reducing carbs in my diet I sought out info on what really constitutes an LCHF diet. I found various descriptions, all anecdotal, many of them contradictory - suggestions that I encountered ranged from a diet of less than 20g carbs per day to a diet where carbs account for less than 10% of calories per day, and all of these suggestions raised more questions than answers for me.

Anyway, eventually I decided it didn't matter and I settled into a diet which I found worked well for me and was feasible to maintain. For me this means averaging somewhere between 80g and 100g carbs per day, more than that on training and racing days (which is an aspect of my diet that still raises questions I'm not happy I've answered well). Well, according to this How Low Carb is LCHF? article, which is one person's seemingly informed personal opinion, that means I follow a liberal LCHF diet:



There are many views and opinions on any diet of course, and LCHF is no exception, but the info I've found on that website is more balanced and considered than many I've read. Doesn't mean that article is right, of course, and perhaps hard rules/categorisations like those above simply are not appropriate for any diet, but it might be of interest to others.

Are you on myFitnessPal? I'd love to have a look at your diet habits.

I am trying to get back into the LCHF although as more of a liberal. Have fallen off the cart recently and have added weight. I started intensive training roughly around December with a view to peaking around now. Illness and few other things have put things kinda on hold but what I did notice when I started the intensive training was that I started to crave carbs more and I ended up putting on weight (about 2.5kg).

Now, I've stepped back a little and have reduced the carbs significantly and don't having the cravings that I had. A friend of mine is doing Ryaths 12 week program of LCHF so it will be interesting to see how he gets on.

ford2600 wrote: »

Is your friend on 12 week programme racing?

I looked at it but, daily HIIT training, 3 weight training sessions per week and 7 hours minimum on bike seem like a lot of sessions.

My understanding of HIIT is you should allow 48hrs for recovery of fast twitch fibres(or something along those lines). The daily HIIT put me off signing up

I didn't know there were HIIT sessions included in this, thought it was all at endurance pace? Will find out from him, he's currently doing the 100km TT, indoors imagine. :eek:

I also would have been keen to do the program but I thought it was leaning too far towards carbs or proteins/fats when I think a greater balance is necessary when racing.

pprendeville wrote: »

Are you on myFitnessPal? I'd love to have a look at your diet habits.

I am trying to get back into the LCHF although as more of a liberal. Have fallen off the cart recently and have added weight. I started intensive training roughly around December with a view to peaking around now. Illness and few other things have put things kinda on hold but what I did notice when I started the intensive training was that I started to crave carbs more and I ended up putting on weight (about 2.5kg).

Now, I've stepped back a little and have reduced the carbs significantly and don't having the cravings that I had. A friend of mine is doing Ryaths 12 week program of LCHF so it will be interesting to see how he gets on.

Yes, I am on myFitnessPal. I'll PM you the details if you like but my eating habits are reasonably consistent from day to day and this sample day is fairly representative (nutrient measures are from myFitnessPal, seem to be mostly accurate):

* Breakfast: Salted pistachios - 25g; 3x Large eggs scrambled in salted butter (30g); 1x Kiwi; Coffee
-> Carbs = 11g, Fat = 59g; Protein = 33g

* Mid-morning snack: Brazil nuts (50g)
-> Carbs = 3g, Fat = 34g, Protein = 8g

* Lunch: Mayonnaise (4tbsp); Roast beef (50g); Mature cheddar (30g); Tomatoes (175g); 6x Cherry tomatoes; Lettuce (40g); Spinach (40g); Greek style yoghurt (150ml); Berries (50g)
-> Carbs = 17g, Fat = 67g, Protein = 32g

* Dinner: Smoked salmon (75g) in Cream (100ml); Pasta (17g); Wholewheat pasta (17g); Courgette (150g) fried in salted butter (30g); Cream (150ml) whipped; Berries (100g)
-> Carbs = 41g, Fat = 134g, Protein = 30g

* Late evening snack (occasional): Aldi 85% chocolate (25g)
-> Carbs = 5g, Fat = 12g, Protein = 2g

Totals for the day: Carbs = 77g, Fat = 306g, Protein = 105g

Breakfast remains the same most days, I vary the protein portion of lunch each day (ham, prawns, tuna, chicken, etc.), dinner varies most often, some days I snack on more or less chocolate in the evenings and sometimes it's cheese instead. Most days I'm a little over 80g of carbs, some dinners push it closer to 100g when there are substantial vegetables involved.

I don't keep track of fibre, simply because myFitnessPal doesn't. I'd like to, but moving to a different diet tracking service at this stage would be a real challenge so apathy wins out.

On light/short training days I have a protein shake (300ml Full fat milk, 30g Kinetica Whey powder) after my workout. On heavy/long training days, and race days, I have a banana, up to 250ml fruit juice, plus the same shake, afterwards.

For training rides I don't eat on the bike, I drink salted water. For races I don't eat on the bike either, but drink High5 4:1 energy drink - the Des Hanlon A3 has been my longest race to date and over the 3h25 of that (where I was not competitive) I drank about 300ml of it (about 20g carbs).

On racing days where the race overlaps lunch I usually have a bigger breakfast by adding a couple of rashers to my usual ingredients. I also eat cheese and a couple of buttered ryvita slices ahead of the race if it starts at lunchtime or close to it, just to stave off hunger mainly although the ryvita slices provide 7g carbs each.

So far I've yet to feel during a race that I've been held back due to lack of carbs, it's just lack of legs, but I obviously can't say for sure. The High5 has plenty of carbs in it so although I don't drink much of it it certainly packs a carb wallop relatively speaking. I have most questions about post training/racing diet still, the proportion of carbs I take then is based on the suggestion of a ratio of 2:1 carbs versus protein which seems to be a common recommendation but I need to read up more on that.