A boat full of carbs

ryan_sherlock · 07-10-2014 3:36pm

MediaMan wrote: »

I recently started reading the Paleo Diet for Athletes (by Friel and Cordain) and I see that they emphasise very much that you should eat carbs before and during workouts. Otherwise, according to the book, as glycogen runs low, your body will start breaking down muscle for energy, resulting in longer recovery times etc. In fact the authors recommend in a sample scenario, that an athlete have a couple of gels 10 mins before exercise, and sports drink during it, which surprised me.

Which version (when was it published) - both authors have come out and said a bunch of what they had in that book they now believe to be wrong (i.e. back then they were against fatty meat cuts, saturated fat etc... and promoting polyunsaturated).

petethedrummer · 07-10-2014 4:09pm

ryan_sherlock wrote: »

Which version (when was it published) - both authors have come out and said a bunch of what they had in that book they now believe to be wrong (i.e. back then they were against fatty meat cuts, saturated fat etc... and promoting polyunsaturated).

Most of what I've heard from Joe Friel on the subject pertains to weight loss/maintenance. Not sure if he has said anything about recovery or performance.

Joe Friel: http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2013/08/aging-my-race-weight.html

MediaMan · 08-10-2014 1:31pm

ford2600 wrote: »

@mediaman I don't think anyone can satisfactorily answer your question on here.

Yes, agreed. I'm really looking to hear of other people's experiences with regard to diet vs. recovery and fatigue. Your experience of the multi-day cycles is very interesting.

ryan_sherlock wrote: »

Which version (when was it published) - both authors have come out and said a bunch of what they had in that book they now believe to be wrong (i.e. back then they were against fatty meat cuts, saturated fat etc... and promoting polyunsaturated).

I'm reading the updated edition (2012). They've rowed back their recommendation reservations on fatty meats a bit, but still have some. Their main remaining reservation about fatty meat now is that for intensively reared stock, the fat is high in omega-6 as they are exclusively grain-fed. This I guess is a lot more relevant to meat produced in the USA than here, but who knows what in some of the meat that's imported into Ireland. There is other advice around fats, recommending avocados, nuts, seeds, etc., which I guess is good. There recommendation for carb intake before, during and after workouts is separate from the overall carb/fat/protein balance and recommend foods during other non-workout times.

petethedrummer wrote: »

Most of what I've heard from Joe Friel on the subject pertains to weight loss/maintenance. Not sure if he has said anything about recovery or performance.

Joe Friel: http://www.joefrielsblog.com/2013/08/aging-my-race-weight.html

In this book, they do talk a lot about this. For example in Chapter 3 (Eating during exercise), page 39, they say:

Especially for longer events in this range [90-minute to 4-hour events], using sports drinks and gels instead of only water has the added advantage of limiting muscle damage.

And there's plenty more where that came from.

Overall I'm coming around to the view that for my case the muscle fatigue was not due to diet, or what I took on during spins, except maybe to a small extent. I will look at my overall food and nutrient balance as suggested to make sure there are not any glaring imbalances. I expect that the more likely explanation is a pretty high training load over several months, without enough attention to stretching, flexibility and such things.

Thanks for the inputs!

TheBlaaMan · 09-10-2014 10:10pm

This seems like good common sense.............something that is absent from a lot of the discussions where folks take one side or the other.
http://www.stickybottle.com/coaching/coaching-can-cyclists-improve-and-lose-weight-on-low-carb-high-fat-diets/

davmol · 10-10-2014 2:33pm

Id like to know peoples opinion on maintaining or increasing muscle mass during distances of crica 100km/150km?

I have been cycling for a while but more so as a hobby with friends.I am trying to bulk up a bit but find muscle increase and long endurance to be mutually exclusive.

Ive tried LCHF and it works for me but obviously i need to increase my protein to build and maintain muscle mass.

I breezed through this thread whcih i found very interesting and remember posts detailing alot of deadlifts and squats?So i wanted to find out the OPs thoughts on whther he increased muscle while increasing weight and how he maintained on a consistent diet?

ryan_sherlock · 10-10-2014 2:58pm

davmol wrote: »

Id like to know peoples opinion on maintaining or increasing muscle mass during distances of crica 100km/150km?

I have been cycling for a while but more so as a hobby with friends.I am trying to bulk up a bit but find muscle increase and long endurance to be mutually exclusive.

Ive tried LCHF and it works for me but obviously i need to increase my protein to build and maintain muscle mass.

I breezed through this thread whcih i found very interesting and remember posts detailing alot of deadlifts and squats?So i wanted to find out the OPs thoughts on whther he increased muscle while increasing weight and how he maintained on a consistent diet?

I can confirm that it is pretty straight forward to put on muscle mass with this style of eating and doing chronic cardio (15-30hr weeks on the bike). Eat more is the usual take away if you want to put on muscle... In 2014, I have hit power PBs on the bike from 1sec -> 10 minutes (I have really tested anything longer 'full gas' so they may have gone up too - the sub 1 minute efforts show the gain in muscle). My weight went up by about 2-2.5kg but body fat percentage remained the same. I went through some old racing photos (2010) - jeeez - road racing (as opposed to mountain bike racing) makes your legs get a LOT bigger (or maybe it is the style of racing in Belgium I was doing).

In other news (and I hope it is okay to put this into a post) - Barry (http://www.optimumnutrition4sport.com/) and I will be doing another talk in Dublin probably on November 5th. We will have details soon for those interested.

ryan_sherlock · 11-10-2014 6:40pm

For those interested, < 15g carbs total in last 2.5 days (weight dropped by 2kg so am assuming very glycogen low) and rode around this: http://app.strava.com/activities/206024166

Never pushing it, just riding along. Steak and eggs for breakfast, water during.

It is my 'off-season' but the weather was too nice

ryan_sherlock · 20-10-2014 10:20am

Related to this whole discussion, Barry and I are running another seminar on November 4th in Dublin: tinyurl.com/healthnov14

Barry has been working with various World Tour riders (and world class triathletes, runners) and our understanding on how LCHF type diets relate to performance at the top level of the sport has evolved. It is not all about having <50g of carbs/day (actually, as a cyclist, it is seldom like that)

Drop me a message if you have any questions.

pprendeville · 23-10-2014 3:44pm

Anyone know of an app/website that provides daily recipes by carb/fat/protein content? I know there's cookbooks and millions of websites but sometimes the amount of variety can lead to being overwhelmed, for me anyway. Would be nice if there was something that provided you with just one recipe daily (direct to your inbox or generated by the app) for ones main meal which could be tailored to suit ones needs, LCHF for example.

petethedrummer · 24-10-2014 12:33am

pprendeville wrote: »

Anyone know of an app/website that provides daily recipes by carb/fat/protein content? I know there's cookbooks and millions of websites but sometimes the amount of variety can lead to being overwhelmed, for me anyway. Would be nice if there was something that provided you with just one recipe daily (direct to your inbox or generated by the app) for ones main meal which could be tailored to suit ones needs, LCHF for example.

So you want the LCHF equivalent of Weight watchers or dietchef?

pprendeville · 24-10-2014 6:34am

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.

DaithiMC · 24-10-2014 9:29am

pprendeville wrote: »

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.

Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing a list of foods that don't need cooking that are LC, the problem with most of the LCHF stuff I see is it needs cooking. I am neither a cook or someone who wishes to spend time cooking stuff in the morning for breakfast. Cereals definitely have a preparation advantage in this regard! Similarly for snack food - the overwhelming majority is to HC snacks (I do stock up on tree nuts but some variety would be helpful).

ford2600 · 24-10-2014 9:47am

DaithiMC wrote: »

Actually, I wouldn't mind seeing a list of foods that don't need cooking that are LC, the problem with most of the LCHF stuff I see is it needs cooking. I am neither a cook or someone who wishes to spend time cooking stuff in the morning for breakfast. Cereals definitely have a preparation advantage in this regard! Similarly for snack food - the overwhelming majority is to HC snacks (I do stock up on tree nuts but some variety would be helpful).

Greek yoghurt/cream with seeds an low sugar fruit?

Mornings that I am rushing I skip breakfast and just have a normal coffee, find it easy to get to lunchtime fasting.

Eggs meat etc is a little time consuming first thing in morning

LCHF is a little challenging if you don't enjoy cooking

petethedrummer · 24-10-2014 10:50am

Ah come on lads it's not hard to google "list of low carb snacks" and cut and paste the results into excel. It sounds like you want to hand over responsibility for your eating to some 3rd party or a software algorithm. Sure yis'd both be moaning if this app kept throwing up meals with ingredients you didn't have in the fridge.:p

If you can't find time to prepare food then you may just have to concede that food is probably not a high priority in your life and just not worry about it. There's no harm in that. We all have different priorities at different stages in life.

I found that making it a high priority for a few months helped me build habits that made it all easier in the long run. Then it becomes second nature. I had to revisit a few things this summer as I was experiencing some bloating for a number of weeks. Food became a priority again and I had to try a few things. Bloating sorted. Food is back down the list things I consciously think about. Sleep is my new favorite subject (but I won't be starting a thread on that).

kennyb3 · 24-10-2014 10:57am

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.

DaithiMC · 24-10-2014 11:04am

petethedrummer wrote: »

Ah come on lads it's not hard to google "list of low carb snacks" and cut and paste the results into excel. It sounds like you want to hand over responsibility for your eating to some 3rd party or a software algorithm. Sure yis'd both be moaning if this app kept throwing up meals with ingredients you didn't have in the fridge.:p

If you can't find time to prepare food then you may just have to concede that food is probably not a high priority in your life and just not worry about it. There's no harm in that. We all have different priorities at different stages in life.

I found that making it a high priority for a few months helped me build habits that made it all easier in the long run. Then it becomes second nature. I had to revisit a few things this summer as I was experiencing some bloating for a number of weeks. Food became a priority again and I had to try a few things. Bloating sorted. Food is back down the list things I consciously think about. Sleep is my new favorite subject (but I won't be starting a thread on that).

I could find the time, I don't have the inclination to cook nor do I want to develop that inclination. I grow a lot of veg and fruit in the garden, this year was not so good for the veg, but even "natural" snacks tend to be on the high carb side of things if you want to be truly objective. 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.

I would like to have a reasonable option in the mornings and the above Greek Yoghurt with nuts/seeds sounds reasonable, and aligned with my current cereal based habits. It got me thinking that I could use the coffee grinder to create a mixed nut and seed grind that, mixed with yoghurt, would be a fine start to the morning! At least I could create three days worth of grind with that - and that's about as much effort as I want to go to!

ford2600 · 24-10-2014 11:13am

petethedrummer wrote: »

Sleep is my new favorite subject (but I won't be starting a thread on that).

Maybe you should.

Diet is seen as "the" thing to fix when it is just part of the problems people encounter when trying to improve wellbeing/fitness/performance.

No point stressing too much over food when your stress levels are probably maxed out and sleep is poor!!

petethedrummer · 24-10-2014 11:17am

kennyb3 wrote: »

Hardly a massive burden to avoid eating cereal.

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.)

DaithiMC · 24-10-2014 11:30am

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 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.)

I agree with you on plans which is why I have no real plan but from time to time if I have an objective, either in fitness or health terms, I would read up and tend to bias my behaviour towards that objective. One objective is long-term health (which is I'm sure everyone's) but from what I have read, fasting has a bigger impact than caloric restriction - so I do one to two 24 hour fasts per week, not the 5:2 type where you are "allowed" eat during the day, I have breakfast and nothing else but water and coffee. If my objective was short-term weight loss then caloric restriction, from what I read, is superior. For other "micro" objectives I think biasing towards one food group works but I don't ever see biasing as a long term strategy. That said, I would also add that most of my diet would be "good" food, i.e., nutritious and I don't eat a lot of processed stuff.

In terms of fitness on the bike, I found fasting gives me better endurance resistance at moderate-high levels, but not at persistently high levels, and I think this has been because I have adapted, during fasting, to pulling energy from fat stores more efficiently.

ford2600 · 24-10-2014 11:53am

kennyb3 wrote: »

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.

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

kennyb3 · 24-10-2014 12:04pm

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.

niceonetom · 24-10-2014 12:17pm

I'm bemused by the apparent helplessness of some here... a website that tells you exactly what and when to eat, and it must require virtually no preparation.

Maybe there's a market for a HFLC version of kibble for people.

petethedrummer · 24-10-2014 12:22pm

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 · 24-10-2014 12:37pm

ford2600 wrote: »

Maybe you should.

noooo, it would keep me up at night.

davmol · 24-10-2014 3:53pm

Do people not take protein shakes.There are many high protein isolates which are very low carb.

Some ie chocolate taste delicious.Its just a matter of putting a scoop in a glass with some almond milk(if you chose) whisking it around with a spoon/fork and gulping it back.Out the door in 5 mins.

I use this for days i have to get out the door quickly.Its not realy high fat but a good way to keep your daily carb intake low.

AstraMonti · 24-10-2014 4:06pm

Some days yes, but generally they are called supplements for a reason. But from eating cereal I 'd prefer a protein shake to be honest.

ford2600 · 24-10-2014 4:10pm

If pure protein was in any way tasty then yes.

If you have to add sugar/sweetener to make it edidble I won't be doing it.

DaithiMC · 24-10-2014 6:06pm

niceonetom wrote: »

I'm bemused by the apparent helplessness of some here... a website that tells you exactly what and when to eat, and it must require virtually no preparation.

Maybe there's a market for a HFLC version of kibble for people.

Not sure if that's in reference to some of my comments but I don't consider myself helpless - I simply don't want to cook at particular points in the day, in fact, if I could get away with not cooking at all I would, not out of laziness but its not something I do well or find any interest in doing as a pastime. But I do like to pay a reasonable amount of attention to what I eat and I tend to eat little processed food so kibble would not be for me!

pprendeville · 24-10-2014 7:42pm

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 · 24-10-2014 7:50pm

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

A boat full of carbs

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