Are you limited by your gut?
 

At 3500 kcal/pound including water stored along side it, most of us have more than enough fat to take us wherever we want to ride at 30 kcal/mile.

Wow, a new study confirming what has been known for millennia. Thanks for the click-bait...

The story within a story of the article from the OP is the importance and impact one's metabolic function has on an individual's health and weight.

Was that news to you?

Ahhh... but there have also been studies that one's performance may literally be tied to what is in one's gut.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/a...nners-a-boost/

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/...ce-enhancement

Reading the title of this thread, I wondered if it meant being able to fit behind the stem of your handlebars...

So, your gut will yell at you?

Wait, there's a limit to how many long fast ride days a person can do in a row? Who knew?
I guess the mystery of why TdF riders focus so much strategy on conserving energy has been solved. I just thought it was to keep the grocery bills down.

You guys who are pretending to have already known this.. didn't - because studies like this are quite new. People may have "guessed" at what the upper limits were but this is actually putting data into place. The prior default was to stuff as much food in as you could manage in hopes it would meet the fuel needs.

It doesn't effect one off efforts as you can always dip into body reserves short term. It is useful when planning long term expedition/endurance events. From the data one can plan a daily exertion level and diet that does not exceed the upper limit and (other considerations like injury notwithstanding) be able to sustain that effort. Where this really would pay off is in circumstances where hauling or caching food had a finite cost in terms of weight/effort/difficulty.

Or so the study says. It's a good baseline if the results are confirmed.

So, it's quantifying what was already known. ;)

Sure.. you are probably limited in long effort by your fuel supply. That's a no brainer. What that limit is in terms of defined calories in and out is the data that actually helps.

For those who already knew it, good for you. The article could be new for the rest of us.

Of course I'm limited by my gut. It's no fun cycling hungry, thus justifying a beer ( or beers) and a bite. ^^

I'm glad I wasn't the only one. I see guys pedaling knees out all the time.

Exactly. Until that scientific study was done, mankind was clueless. Yeah, coaches have been getting the food and nutrition pretty spot-on for TdF racers for decades, but this was just blind luck, kinda like 20 people each rolling snake-eyes 50 times in a row.

Ben

Would be curious what those professionals who work for the TdF teams think about such research into nutrition. Waste of time? Know it all already? Can't teach me anything new?
Somehow I doubt it.

A good historical application of this study would have been the Terra Nova Scott Expedition to the South Pole in 1910. They laid food caches but (among other things) miscalculated the energy expenditure of man hauling and deteriorated/starved enroute to base. A future example will be predicting food requirements for multi year manned space flights to Mars.

The article was to inform readers who did not know the relationship between energy expenditure and calorie intake. If everybody in this forum knew everything already, what is the point of having any bike discussions? There would be no discussions because they are already experts.


Thanks to members who provided links to studies.

Um, we get energy from food. We can only absorb calories so fast. When you run out, performance suffers. All things that any cyclist is bound to notice sooner or later. Remember the saying "An army marches on its stomach?" That goes back centuries. ;) Many articles have been written about how eating is a second job for Olympic athletes and football players.

Look, I'm not saying we try to keep these particular facts a secret. I just hate the recent trend toward click-bait articles that attempt to package common knowledge as some kind of breakthrough. That's all.

Did you even read the article.

Who, me? Yes.


Holy ****, stop the presses. Next up: water is even wetter than we thought! :lol:

You have quoted the most generic material from a source not even involved in the study and ignore the actual findings being discussed.
Yes, how much you burn per hour has been known, yes hourly absorption rates are also known; but what was not known until now was the upper limit of daily caloric intake possible (which have now been defined at 2.5x basal metabolic rate according to the study).

From that point people engaging in long term endurance activities can more accurately generate meaningful plans for energy output that maximizes effort while maintaining physical strength. Guessing at the burn/uptake rate means one can either over consume calories for no benefit (but at a cost in hauling or caching) or more importantly, not consume enough calories and waste muscle tissue to compensate. Short term that may not matter but, as alluded to in the Scott reference, long term it could mean deteriorating to the point of failure.

It also means you can calculate the estimated energy output you should strive for during long term activities (2.5 BMR). Beyond that figure you cannot fuel your output and will waste muscle as a result. To stay healthy you would need to remain within that output zone.

Why argue against or mock research this way? It's just an article that points to a scientific study. Are you suggesting those researchers wasted their time studying something you already knew? From a logistics POV, if it bears up, I find it an important component in high intensity, long term expedition/endurance planning.

Roughly speaking, if one uses a mean BMR of 1500kcal/day (from a study in Scotland), it means one would shoot for 3750cal effort output/day max and then stop for recovery while also provisioning the same amount of calories. Extended into a 90 day effort (for example) that would mean an estimated need to account for 337,500 worth of calories from food.

It also allows one to guesstimate time needed: If you know you cover 50 miles (for example) / 3750 kcal and you have a 1000mile journey you can expect to take and provision for a 20 day effort without deterioration.

I understand your frustration with topics that are rehash and seems obvious. For example the statement "drink water or you will die." It is obvious the statement is true. The discussion should then be how much water? The questions will be what size glass? Does body mass matter? What if you very active? One cannot give a general statement such as 8 glasses a day because people are not all the same. That is when studies with numbers (quantification) is important.

Research is great. I'd be surprised if this is the first time an attempt had been made to quantify these limits, but if so, good for them. Now there's a number athletes and coaches can shoot for rather than relying on trial and error. (It's like the Frank Berto tire drop thing, it gives you a pretty good starting point for tire pressure instead of just pumping up to the sidewall max and hoping for the best.) My beef is just with dumbed-down science/health writing and click-bait "reporting."

Yes. Or in this case: If you should drink one glass/ hour is there an upper limit of how many glasses total you can absorb each day (thus limiting activity). The answer for food, according to the study - is yes. And they provide that limit (based on individual BMR calculations).