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Dietary advice for cyclists - 08-07-2009Club coach Eddie Land has pulled together the following advice from a variety of sources. Nutrition and did you know.
Did you know that: - energy from food is usually measured in calories.
- Cycling typically uses more calorie per hour than running and football for example.
- That a balanced diet should be approximately be 50 to 60% carbohydrates, 25 to 30% fat and 15 to 20% protein.
- 1 gram of carbs = 4 kilocalories of energy
- 1 gram of fat = 9 kcal.
- 1 gram protein = 4kcal
- All carbohydrates are sugars either simple or complex I.e. individual sugar components up to several hundred thousand for a molecule.1gram of alcohol = 7kcal
- The stomach contains hydrochloric acid which turns all the food to a soup.
- The goodness from the food is absorbed through the intestine walls.
- All sugars are broken down into the most simple sugars before entering the blood.
- The pancreas controls the blood sugar level by emitting the required amount of insulin and the excess sugar is then stored in the liver, muscles and any excess as fat.
- A sugar surge causes a surge in insulin and a subsequent low and feeling of loss of energy.
- The speed at which the sugars get into the blood stream can be reduced by other matter ingested with the sugar content of food such as fibre protein and fat.
- Dietary fibres are not digestible and can be found in whole-grain foods, potatoes, fruit and veg etc.
- When consuming a high fibre diet you will need to drink more.
- Best to have lots of complex carbs such as starchy foods e.g cereals, bread, rice, noodles and pots - all cereals based food being wholegrain.
- It has been proved that a diet rich in carbs allows a much longer time activity time to exhaustion than a fat/protein diet, in fact bordering on three times as long.
- Carbs are stored in the muscles as glycogen and this storage capacity can be trained over a long period of time to store more glycogen. This requires endurance training - long slow rides - and a low fat high carbo diet.
- You must always have fat in the diet as some vitamins are only soluble in fat and the body cannot function correctly without it. After hard/long training sessions/comptetion it is essential to eat carbo within 2 hours of finishing as this will allow glycogen stores to be refilled in 12 to 24 hours. If we were to have a fat/protein rich meal/s then the recharge could extend to three days.
- Saturated fat is solid at room temperature and increases cholestrol levels. Obtained from animals.
- Monounsaturated are liquid at room temp and have a positive effect on cholesterol and obtained from vegetable oils and nuts.
- Polyunsaturated are liquid at room tem and have a positive effect on cholesterol and obtained from vegetable oils which are rich in linoleum acid such as sunflower, maize and soybean plus fish.
- Not overheat polyunsaturated oil when cooking or trans-fatty acid is produced - not good.
- Protein is required as it is the only source of eight of the 20 our body needs as the building blocks of our cells. These 8 are thus called essential.
- A fat person of size X will weigh less than a muscular person of the same dimensions so body mass index criteria should be used with care.
- Don’t expect to loose weight at more than 0.5kg a week if dieting, if you are loosing more that’s bad for strength.
- Vitamins as the name implies are vital. Taking too much vitamin A is toxic.
- Vitamins are involved with vision, free radical removal ( free radicals in the body context are free radicals of oxygen we take in and cause cell damage - we can’t avoid them), blood coagulation, Immune system, Hormone creation, iron intake, metabolism in general.
- Lack of fluid leads to circulation problems, slowing of oxygen transport, muscle weakness, cramps etc.
- 1 to 5% loss of fluid leads to drowsiness, 6 to 10% headaches, inability to walk and heavy breathing, 11 to 20% cramps and delirium or death.
- Drink 150 to 200 ml of fluid every 20 mins during training more so the hotter the temperature. Assume the given figures are at 20 C.
- Minerals are important.
- No not take salt tablets, usually enough in your diet and excess salt can be toxic.
- Potassium from fresh/dried fruit and juices.
- Magnesium from whole grains, legumes, pots, bananas and green veg. Shortage could lead to cramp.
- Calcium from milk and cheese, important for bones, teeth, nerve message transmission and muscle operation. .Intake improved by vitamin D but reduced by coffee, tea and bran. Shortage of will lead to cramp.
- Iron for oxygen transport as the red blood cells need this to be able to carry oxygen. From meat, lentils, whole grain, bean sprouts. Vit C improves iron intake. Iron from veg nor absorbed so well.
So eat a balanced diet, no supplements should be necessary unless you have a medical issue or are vegetarian/vegan. Drink at least 1.5 litres per day as a basis and add training/racing amounts to that. Too much water can be dangerous so don’t go bonkers.
There is a lot of guff out there about not eating protein with carbs or whatever but most of these ideas have not been peer reviewed so there is no validation of the theories put forward whereas the bullet point items above are fully validated.
Ed
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