Drew Eckhardt 

2-3 energy bars as necessary to sate my hunger. When I weighed 45-65 pounds more and rode 125 miles a week not 200+ 1 or 2 were plenty.

Today I got up at 5:45 and ate
1. Strong & Kind Thai Sweet Chili bar. 230 Calories.
1. Clif Mojo Sweet & Salty Mountain Mix bar. 190 Calories
1. Clif Mojo Sweet & Salty Peanut Butter Pretzel bar. 190 Calories
Total: 610

Then I went for an easy 32 mile ride totaling 754kj.

I do the same thing before my Saturday ride; last week that was 60.9 miles, 1130 feet vertically, and 1813kj without eating while riding.

I do the same thing when I don't ride and won't be having a real breakfast with my wife.

Except when working to maintain weight eating more than needed to top off your glycogen stores isn't helpful because it ends up as fat and doesn't change your need to eat while riding to satisfy your body's need for carbs as your glycogen runs out. More does increase your risk of gastrointestinal distress, especially on hard rides.

Fortunately when it comes to lunch there's real food left from yesterday's dinner at my office, and on weekends I have time to pick something up.

Astute readers will note the dogma about eating when riding over 2 hours is wrong - I don't bother on endurance rides under 4 hours. Glycogen can provide just 20% (lower intensity, training, and lower carb diets reduce the fraction) of your energy while riding, and you start with up to 500 Calories worth in your liver plus 1500 in your muscles (although that can't get back into your blood stream so you can't use what's in your upper body). I do eat when hungry on harder rides over 2 hours.

At some point you need to begin eating immediately because you're using glycogen faster than you can digest carbs and will run out, although most recreational rides aren't long and/or intense enough to cross that threshold.

RubeRad

I always ride to work on empty and eat when I get there.

Either 2 pop-tarts (1 packet) or 2 pouches of instant oatmeal (Quaker, nothing especially healthy); I keep my file cabinet stocked.

Work offers free coffee from flavia packets, either hot (1caf + 1decaf) or iced (1caf + 2decaf, brewed on "ice" so it makes less, add sugar and non-dairy creamer, mix, add ice)

ShortLegCyclist

From a weight loss standpoint, it's a huge error to think that 100 mile days give you free reign to eat whatever you want.

No matter how many miles or calories you think you earned, if the goal is to lose weight, you should keep your total intake under 3000 calories in any given day, and under 2000 if you did NOT cycle or otherwise earn some of those extra calories.

jsigone

100+ mile days gets 95% free reign of what I eat before, on and after the ride. We're talking 4000-9000 cals GONE that has to be replaced + number of #s lost in water weight that has to be added back over a couple days.

Drew Eckhardt 

There's a lot of flexibility in what you can eat and still maximize weight loss, just not how much.

This 5-layer chocolate cake was one of my favorite diet foods losing over 65 pounds, although I didn't have more than half a slice per dinner and one slice a week total.


You use 2500 Calories total per 100 miles on the low end, maybe 5500 if you're riding a 5 hour century. (assume 250W x 5 hours x 3600 seconds = 5400kj and Calories. On flat ground I go faster on 210W; although I might manage that for 90 minutes at best).

You need 0 replacement Calories provided you don't fully deplete your glycogen stores and let glycogenesis slowly replenish them. Muscle catabolism and hunger contraindicate that.

On the low end replacing losses you need 500 Calories per 100 miles when you are fat adapted because 80% of your 25 Calories per mile came from fat.

On the high end you need 250 Calories of carbs an hour while riding because that's the most you can digest + the storage limit of 2000 after.

Giant Fuji

So is this question aimed at breakfast before a ride or on a normal day? No matter I will give you both

On a normal workday I fix 1 serving of steel cut oats with 1 oz. of blueberries and 3 tsp of dark brown sugar. A couple of hours later I am hungry so I eat a hard boiled egg and a 90 cal Fiber one bar, then a half hour later 1 oz of raisins and an apple. That gets me to my lunchtime ride (about 10 miles).

On the weekends it is usually scrambled eggs, low cal toast and bacon about an hour before riding. If I am still a little hungry I will eat a Pure Protein bar before setting out. That works great for my 30 mile rides.

largefarva

I have a pretty boring breakfast everyday at 5:30...sometimes later on the weekends if our dogs let us sleep in a bit late.

Two hard boiled eggs (one of them whole and the other just the egg white), several carrot sticks, several chunks of celery with jalapeño cream cheese, one banana (sometimes two), and a protein shake along with half a cup of coffee. I cut out carbs as much as I could during breakfast and it's actually helped me out big time as far as getting hungry before lunch. On most days I'm absolutely fine until lunch, but on the seldom days where I do get a bit hungry I have one or two small handfuls of dried chickpeas from a company called The Good Bean. When I used to eat a bagel with the jalapeño cream cheese instead of the celery sticks it was a given that I would be hungry by 8-8:30am.

Willbird

The cycling is the easy part, but factoring in or replacing 200 flights of stairs and 10,000+ steps in a workday is harder than the cycling. I started aiming this week for 1500 calories net, we will see how that goes :-).

Dave Cutter

A cup of whole grain cereal, 1/2 cup of fat-free milk, 1/4 cup blueberries.

gear64

Typical coffee, bowl of oatmeal (instant, quick ,steel cut depends on time). Add small handful of slivered almonds, small handful of blueberries, and a squirt of pure maple syrup.

FrenchFit 

Yawn, same old same old. I have been eating nothing until 5pm, going on two years. My routine includes running, hiking, cycling, spin and hot yoga. Sundays I'll do brunch to be social, but I'll feel it the next day. If I was doing a century I'd probably force myself to have bites and gel along the way, but more regulation than anything else. All this am food loading is corp. bunk, imho.

jsigone

uuummmm chocolate

last flat century was 19mph ave and only 3k vertical aka as flat as it gets here, bpm ave 143, bpm max 176, strava calculated 3820cal so 8-10% tolerance of that range is reasonable. Top end of my cal spectrum is when I add allot more vertical and try to stay in the A- group or MTB endurance racing with allot of vertical 1200ft/hour

Null66

Why do you presume he wants to lose weight?

If I remember correctly, he puts on a lot of miles... Like a enough that it would be a lot if it were in a CAR!

He knows better what it takes to fuel high mileage years...

mapeiboy

We have a winner here .

Mithrandir

1 egg + 4 egg-equivalent egg whites
1oz Cheyenne/Jalepeno Pepper-flavoured cheddar
4 oz diced green pepper/onion
2 oz cubed grilled chicken
ground black pepper

Blend egg/cheese in blender, mix with other ingredients in a pan, cook for 5 minutes.

Split into two meals, eat at 7am and 10am.

To drink: water + either a NUUN tablet or a whey isolate protein powder, depending on whether I'm going biking or weight lifting that day.

ShortLegCyclist

Completely agree, that's why I prefaced my comments with "from a weight loss perspective"

For those who are not concerned with losing weight, no worries.

But for those who are, and there does seem to be a running theme regarding this in this subforum, I thought that would be worth mentioning, that riding a large amount of miles one day will not do the trick, anymore than being a weekend warrior only will get you into fine tuned aerobic shape if you never get off the couch the rest of the week.

Null66

There does seem to be a peculiar reverence about food.

In the lifting world there's the oft made remark of "how long did it take to get here? why do you think it will take x to get where you want to be?" X being some absurdly short time frame...

Physical culture is a long game...

One thing that seems to be discounted is the amazing risk reduction / health improvement by moving...

found this this morning:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0617104105.htm

VCSL2015

not a big milk fan. we buy 5% fat and i use about two tbl spoons in my morning coffee. Found out the tough way that soft ice and ice cream anything with cream for that matter runs right through me. Have you considered coconut milk? It should be more healthier than Soy and Almond milk. So far my hair seems to be growing good on it =)

VCSL2015

mmmm Dennnnys.... Ok! awesome feedback everybody wheres the dang "LIKE" button??? I like all of your feedback!

VCSL2015

hilarious

VCSL2015

Dont forget to drink plenty of water to counteract that coffee supply. Coffee dehydrates you because it is a diuretic.

Ronno6

Always 2 cups of coffee w/Southern Butter Pecan coffee creamer;
Some days: a bowl of Cheerios w/2% milk and blueberries (in season here BIG time )
or, a bowl of steel cut oatmeal w/cinnamon, a splash of maple syrup, and blueberries, or raisins and sunflower seeds, maybe some walnuts or pecans.
Every now and then I haul out the Belgian waffle machine and make a batch w/blueberries or strawberries. YUM !!!

LGHT

Siopao and triple shot espresso with a dash of sugar.

Tdinotx

This morning: overnight oats= Uncooked Quaker instant oatmeal, coconut milk, chopped strawberries, chopped bananas, flax seed/chia seed mix, granola, and honey. Stir well, let sit in fridge overnight. This was the first time I tried this and it was great.

caffein8ed

During the typical workday, I drink 36oz. or so of water, and another 14oz. of coffee.

Then, it's water and/or seltzer all night.