memebag

I don't even know what "fat adapted" means.

I'm not a racing cyclist, just a road cyclist. I always bring food and drink, and stop to buy more when I need it.

TheKillerPenguin

I guess keep in mind I'm a 2 working on (hopefully) getting to 1 sometime next year so my perspective is a bit silly. It really depends on the time of year, what the workouts are, and what goals are coming up. In general though I try to eat more than is necessary while riding, because my typical training load while in season burns a pretty decent amount of kj a week and it just makes things easier from a food management perspective. You don't even want to know what base kj is like; I still haven't come to terms with knowing that I'm going to be burning even more this winter than last winter . You can bet that many training days in February were so long and high kj that I felt pretty not recovered day to day which is just part of what happens at the end of a base block, but you can also bet I can do the same thing to myself in season with high glycogen using intervally workouts which is bad, and has 1) resulted in long coach lectures that boil down to "DON'T DO THAT!" and 2) necessitated some unplanned rest periods to get my legs back in order.

My point though, was it doesn't hurt to bring some food and water with you even if the ride is short. The worst case scenario is you don't touch it, which just means you bring it back home with you.

sh00k

but seriously, +1 for the suggestion to mix gatorade + water. maybe a couple bottles to be safe. eggs in the morning before the ride should be sufficient for fuel.

garciawork

Nothing but the half and half in my coffee. I don't eat much before I get out, unless it is late afternoon, or closer to 50 miles.

kraftwerk 

Haven't read through all 5 pages (!) I am sure it has been said on a ride so short it's what you have eaten before the ride that morning ( that day) or the night before that will influence the ride. A bit over 25 miles and its good to have something to knosh on. Anyway, what ever it is you ingest.. especially you 'gel' / 'goo' addicts don't leave your mess of wrappers all over the place ! If the wrapper is not in your pocket when you get home you f#@%ed up.

caloso

My understanding is that it means training your body to use fat rather than glycogen as its main fuel for longer periods and at higher intensities. Long, moderate intensity rides in a fasted state trains that adaptation.

RJM

Man, amen to that. I'm finding those wrappers all over our local mountain bike trails and it certainly isn't the hikers leaving them behind.

memebag

Yeah, I looked it up. It's what they used to call "ketosis". My mom did fad diets in the 1970s that did that to her. It was dangerous.

I'm OK being sugar adapted.

surgeonstone

So yesterday a typical food /cycling weekday. No carb loading, no splurging. Today I fasted all day, had coffee (black) for breakfast, 8 ounces of water around 9 am, a diet coke at 2 pm, went for a 25 mile ride with no water and no food. Absolutely no problems, fast / typical weekday ride for me.
Conclusion, for this cyclist, and I emphasize this, 25 miles without food, or water and even on a days fast is completely doable with energy to burn. Average speed was 18.5.

Carbonfiberboy 

Not true. Being in ketosis would mean that your glycogen was gone because you had eaten almost no carbs for days, probably weeks. Carb adapted is not antithetical to being fat adapted. Everyone who's not eating LCHF and thus is in ketosis burns both, all the time. However if you can increase your ability to burn fat, you can increase your average watts on long rides.

10 years ago, Thomas Chapple wrote Base Building for Cyclists and basically proved that this worked in his coaching practice. Since then, base building has become even more scientific, but the principle is that you work on getting your fat burning going early in the year and then add intensity which stimulates the carb burning machinery. Some riders will do endurance blocks during the season to add some base back in when fat burning decreases from doing a lot of intensity. Armstrong was famous for going out on 6 hour rides in December with only water.

I went on a hard 2.5 hour ride today, 39 miles, 2200', and drank about 75 calories of sports drink. I'm not nuts about it, I just want to ride well. My performance didn't drop off: I had PRs on the last 2 hills.

Bumnah

I use Tailwind in my water bottles. 2 scoops per bottle. I fill up both bottles before I leave and that's plenty for me for 25 miles.

I did an 80 mile ride a few weekends ago and here is how I fueled for it:

breakfast of 2 peanut butter and banana on wheat sandwiches
2 water bottles with 2 scoops of tailwind in each bottle
carried 4 scoops of tailwind for 2 water bottle refills
1 peanut butter and banana on wheat sandwich cut in half (i ate each half separately)
2 regular water bottle refills at the end without tailwind

Here's a link to the stuff: Tailwind Nutrition

memebag

Being in ketosis means you have elevated levels of ketones in your blood. That's what all of the "fat adapted" diets I can find on the internet are about. It's the same thing my mom was doing in the 1970s. It can lead to ketoacidosis.

Airtorn

25 miles? I take a bottle of water and typically don't touch it on that short of a ride.

Heathpack 

That's not what I was referring to, FYI.

I am referring to doing what you can with your training to improve your body's ability to mobilize fat as a fuel source while exercising. The reason you'd do this is because you have enough stored fat to last way beyond your caloric needs for any normal cycling event (I'm not talking about super ultra events like RAAM). Whereas you have real limits in the amount of stored glycogen you have, it lasts just a few hours at intense levels of exercise.

If you're interested in reading more about it, here's a good link: Joe Friel - Becoming a Better Fat Burner

Cheers.

memebag

That's just another ketosis diet.

Carbonfiberboy 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketosis

You only go into ketosis if you don't consume carbs. I haven't seen folks in this particular thread advocating that one should exhaust liver or muscle glycogen. Quite the contrary. If I do a real base ride and keep my effort below the first ventilation threshold (VT1), I will burn very little carbs, so I'll return with my liver and muscle glycogen almost intact. OTOH if I go out hard like I did today, that's not a "base ride." I burned a fair bit of glycogen and when I got back home, I consumed carbs to help replenish that glycogen enough so that I can work out again tomorrow. My average HR was 89% of my lactate threshold for a 2:22 ride. I could do that on 75 calories (which I didn't really need) because I've done a lot of base work and because I started out with good glycogen stores. I realize that I'm not a great example because I don't train as much or as consistently as many people here do.

It was a "thing" for a few years to try to shift the body toward increased fat burning by eating low carb. That was proven not to be of any performance benefit. However since Chappel, it's been proven that athletes can shift toward increased fat burning through fasted base training without altering their base diet, and that this does benefit performance.

It's not an "or" kind of thing. It's a "both" kind of thing. To ride strong, we need to be able to efficiently burn both fats and carbs.

There's a good discussion of fasted cardio training IMO, here: The Best Cardio Tips To Help You Burn Stubborn Fat!
I always drink a scoop of whey protein in water before I go out for any ride.

Heathpack 

Did you actually read the blog post? Because it doesn't prescribe a "diet". It describes a method of training to alter the way in which you use energy while exercising.

You may continue to believe what you want of course. But to become ketotic (as measured by laboratory work, not by a lay persons guess that he/she is ketotic) takes very extreme carb restriction throughout the day as a lifestyle change. It's very hard to accomplish and requires much discipline with your diet.

I have been training this way for almost 2 years now & have had comprehensive bloodwork run annually. I'm not ketotic.

But again, no harm in your exercising with carbs, if that's what you prefer to do. Many people fuel quite successfully that way.

memebag

You can consume carbs and go into ketosis. All of this fat adapted stuff is about getting energy from ketones. To do that you have to increase ketones in the blood. You have to go into ketosis.

It's all the same stuff. If you dig it, just dig it.

memebag

Next to the last paragraph titled "Chronic diet" sounds like a diet. If you look through the research papers he's citing they are about ketognic diets.

Heathpack 

The blog article is not recommending a diet. It discusses methods of becoming fat-adapted, and that coach looks for a specific macronutrient composition to result in adequate muscle glycogen stores & better ability to mobilize fat as a fuel source.

None of the methods discussed restrict carbs to the extent that the patient would be living life in a state of ketosis.

A ketogenic diet is one in which carbs are restricted to very low levels (perhaps 10% of the diet mentioned in the blog post) in order to induce a permanent state of ketosis in which the body burns fat as fuel all the time, because it's carb-depleted.

Different type of diet vs what Friel mentions in his article.

memebag

Read the conclusion:

You referenced a blog that references ketognic diet research. You are endorsing a guy who endorses ketosis.

Heathpack 

Ok, I'm going to be out after this final comment, as you seem to be a willfully ignorant individual.

You do not become ketotic if you consume sufficient carbs. The diet Friel mentions contains plenty of carbs. It is very very difficult to consume so little carb in a typical American diet so as to maintain a ketotic state and the individuals that can actually accomplish this are few and far between.

Carbonfiberboy 

And we're sorry about your parents. That must have been tough.

I have a good friend who nursed her mother as the woman slowly died of heart disease. Screwed up her diet for the rest of her life. One of my favorite sayings is that one way or the other, we are condemned to repeat the lives of our parents.

memebag

Willfully ignorant? I read some of the research Friel referenced in the "chronic diet" section. It's about ketogenic diets.

My parents? Huh? My mom followed a bunch of fad diets, including one that was supposed to put her into ketosis. I haven't followed any fad diets.

surgeonstone

You're a aren't you. I thought so.