High carb food advice

seamus

OK, maybe not high carb, but I'm trying to bring my carb intake into line so that carbs account for 60-65% of my daily energy intake. Up to now, it's been kind of 45 - 40 - 15 (%) in terms of Carbs - Fats - Protein. I do a fair bit of cycling and I reckon that my carb intake (and fat intake) is making me more tired and lethargic than I should otherwise be. My ability to lose weight is also stunted somewhat, cutting calories seems to have limited effect over the medium-term (4 weeks or so).

A few sums and it would seem that ideally most foods should contain about one-eighth the amount of fat as there are carbs. So if something has 32g of carbs in it, it should have 4g of fat to help reach that magical 60% figure.

It doesn't help that I'm vegetarian - my common, out-and-about source of protein is egg mayonnaise in a sandwich, which is high in protein and high in fat, but low on carbs. So I need more high-carb, low-fat foods to balance this out. Fruit is great, I know. At home I'm OK because my meals typically rely on rice, veg & tofu or quorn. Overall, I think I'm OK on breakfasts and dinners, but it's lunches and snacks where I seem to fall down because (story of everyone's life), it's harder to find paid-for foods that fit the bill.

Any ideas?

Mary-Ellen

My first thought would be scrambled/poached eggs on toast.

Or maybe you could try lentils/chickpeas/beans in a root vegtable soup with bread.

Or lentil curry with rice could be made up the night before and frozen for lunches.

I don't know a whole pile on the fat:protein:carb breakdown on foods though so someone else might have better suggestions.

Just adding:
Quorn's pretty low in fat a homemade tomato based sauce with the mince with rice/pasta/baked potatoe.
throw in some spices and kidney beans for chilli

Lantus

45-40-15 seems an odd ration for carbs/fats/protein

A typically good starting point for most folks is around 35% protein, 50% carbs and 15% fats. This should meet the requirements for anyone engaged in a wide range of activites and exercise. Dependng on how this works for you then I would suggest tweaking it if you feel you need more protein to build muscle for example. Or more carbs to suit your cycling lifestyle. Making such a radical jump isn't advisable.

Such a high fat % means either your overeating due to fats being calorifically dense or your feeling hungry because the quantity of food would be much smaller? A double hit of fat and carbs isn't great and really high carbs approaching 65% is only of much use if your swimming the channel for your day job. Or cycling at a very competative level (at which point you should be getting advice from an 'expert'

Those ratios also say nothing about the quality of food you eat which is of paramount importance.

EileenG

There is no shortage of high carb foods, especially if you are vegetarian. Oats, barley, rice, potatoes, root veg in general, fruit, beans, pulses, grains, cereals, low fat milk and yogurt etc

However, it's a myth that you need a certain amount of carbs to fuel exercise. Once food is digested, your body can use protein and carbs with ease and fat with slightly more effort. A small carb meal before a workout may help improve intensity, but if your calories are right, increasing the ratio of carbs will not make you cycle further.

seamus

Mary-Ellen wrote: »

Or lentil curry with rice could be made up the night before and frozen for lunches.

I've never been a "bring in my lunch" kind of person, but I suppose it would save money.

Lantus wrote: »

45-40-15 seems an odd ration for carbs/fats/protein

It wasn't intentional
Everyday stuff just seems to be quite high in fats, relatively speaking.

A typically good starting point for most folks is around 35% protein, 50% carbs and 15% fats.

Are you sure you're not mixing up fats and protein there? I don't think it would be physically possible to drop to 15% fat intake unless I ate mostly pureéd vegetables.

This should meet the requirements for anyone engaged in a wide range of activites and exercise. Dependng on how this works for you then I would suggest tweaking it if you feel you need more protein to build muscle for example. Or more carbs to suit your cycling lifestyle. Making such a radical jump isn't advisable.

OK, so I should probably tweak it by 5% per go and see how that works? So go for 50/35/15 for a month or so and see how that works out for me?

Such a high fat % means either your overeating due to fats being calorifically dense or your feeling hungry because the quantity of food would be much smaller?

Probably just a couple of pieces of food pushing me over the edge tbh - like egg mayo salad or a bag of crisps. Even when I'm eating well below my BMR, my fat intake can be high as I tend to ignore the nutrition information and just look at the calories - I lost 4 stone using this method in the past, but I'm not losing any more, so clearly I need to get the balance right now.

EileenG wrote:

A small carb meal before a workout may help improve intensity, but if your calories are right, increasing the ratio of carbs will not make you cycle further

It's not so much about cycling further or improving intensity at the moment, but rather getting my diet right so that I do have the right amount of energy there.

I do about an hour a day, 5 days a week at a medium intensity - commuting. Then every other week usually I'll get a 2 - 4 hour spin in at the weekend. What I'm finding is that I'm still quite tired and lacking energy on the commute, even after a good rest. The commute generally doesn't phase me, it's a very light workout, but when I want to push it harder, the energy isn't really there. Overtraining is a possibility, but I'm not actually pushing myself all that hard. A week off the bike (say on holiday) and my energy levels return, but crash again a week later when I've been back and forth to work every day.

Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree here, but I've been aware that my fat intake has been a bit "off" for a good while, I've ignored it because I'm not overeating in general. From the advice I've gotten here and from what I've been looking at today, the way forward kind of seems clear - generally more fruit and veg and replace processed/prepackaged carbs for stuff like more fresh potatoes and rice because for whatever reason they managed to get chocked full of fats in the cooking/processing stage.
Seems obvious enough, but surprisingly difficult to manage when you're away from home and only used to counting calorific content.

menoscemo

I attended a sports nutrition seminar last week (specifically designed for endurance sports such as ultra-running, triathlons etc.) The basic message was that the 'common knowledge' that you need 60-70+% carbs for fuelling endurance athletes is a myth.
40% carbs would be about right (specifically to be taken post excercise- this being the only time your body needs to replace lost glycogen, repair itself etc). At other times your diet should be based on proteins and fats. At low intensity (a rate that you will be doing most of your cylcing at) your body can perform perfectly well using fat as it's main fuel source. Any endurance athelte should aiming to teach the body to burn fat more efficiently- a body can only store enough Glycogen for 2-3 hours excercise but could run for 10+ days on it's own fat stores- therefore eating more carbs pre excercise is counterproductive.

Looking at your diet stats, I suspect you need to up your protein (not carb) intake. Protein is necessary for repairing muscle post excercise and is the essential building block of you aerobic infrastructure. Excercising causes protein breakdown and your body is constantly turning protein over. It is therefore essential for any athlete to be consuming protein with every meal. I suspect in you case, lack of proetin is leaving your muscles weak. I doubt Mayonaise is an adequate source of protein for your body's needs.

jdivision

Seamus would you post up your actual diet because it's not clear whether you're eating enough, even before the breakdown. What type of bread is in the sandwich for example.

seamus

OK, I'll give a typical daily breakdown.

Breakfast:
Porridge (about a US cup of it after cooking)

Mid-morning:
Apple

Lunch:
Wrap w/ egg mayonnaise, sweetcorn and a small bit of grated cheese.
Bag of crisps (guilty pleasure)

Mid-afternoon:
Banana

Dinner:
80g pasta
100g Quorn (about 100kcal)
Various veg cooked in 0.5 tablespoon sesame or vegetable oil

Evening
Two fig rolls or similar with tea.

Throughout the day I'll also typically drink about 300ml of low-fat milk in teas and coffees.

Fitday tells me that the above gives roughly a 45/40/15 split - lunch seems to be the biggest contributor of fat.

EileenG

You don't need to increase carbs, you have lots of those already. You do need to eat more protein, and possibly more calories overall.

Porridge, apple, banana, wrap, pasta, crisps, sweetcorn fig rolls are almost entirely carbs. Your only protein is the egg and the quorn.

Put some protein into your breakfast. As a vegetarian, it might be worth getting some whey and using that to add protein to your meals. Or try a shake before you go on a long cycle.

One interesting study found that eating a small handful of raisins gave athletes more endurance. So did swishing a sugary drink around their mouth, then spitting it out!

seamus

Interesting. OK, sounds like a plan. Any particular suggestions?

Not the greatest fan of milk, but perhaps chugging half a pint of low fat milk with my porridge would help? Peanuts are good obviously, but calorie-heavy (and don't really go with porridge! )

I'll see about sourcing whey online - some meals, particularly dinners can often be entirely devoid of protien.

EileenG

I'm a big fan of eggs at breakfast, they have been shown to fill you up better than almost anything else, so you eat less over the rest of the day.

A good carb source for lunch might be veggie sushi, which seems to be available more easily now.

seamus

Oooh eggs *are* a good idea.

I've never been much of a breakfast person - I prefer to get into work before eating, so I bought some muesli to get myself used to it. Seems to be a good mix of carbs and protein to start with. Once I've gotten into the habit of eating first thing in the morning (and getting out of bed earlier! :eek:), I might look at eggs....yum.

Thanks for all the advice guys.