bonk vs fatigue
07-05-21, 05:56 AM
#76
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That's funny.
I agree that fiber is useful & beneficial for gut health but not essential for gut "movement". If you consume enough fat, water and *salt* fiber is not needed for the reason I'm guessing you posted it.
That was one of my concerns when I switched my eating habits. Silly really as the Arctic inhabitants who survived so well on basically zero vegetation didn't die-out due to constipation.
I agree that fiber is useful & beneficial for gut health but not essential for gut "movement". If you consume enough fat, water and *salt* fiber is not needed for the reason I'm guessing you posted it.
That was one of my concerns when I switched my eating habits. Silly really as the Arctic inhabitants who survived so well on basically zero vegetation didn't die-out due to constipation.
07-05-21, 06:12 AM
#77
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After decades of being a normal cyclist, I was introduced to the world of ultra cycling and randonneuring. 24 hour races and rides longer than 200 miles changed a lot of my thinking about nutrition, hydration, pacing, cramps, and fatigue. I am just one data point, an experiment of one, but I do not believe I'm an exceptional athlete.
What do these words mean: tired, fatigued, bonking, exhaustion? Are they discrete things? What is that tired feeling I get after 30 hard miles, vs the tired feeling after 100? Why do i feel better after 40 miles than I do after five? How is it I can cramp up at 60 miles, but at 80 miles on the same day be rolling at 20mph? How is it i can get up after four hours of sleep and finish a 600k?
What I believe now is fuel trumps fitness, hydration trumps fueling, attitude trumps almost everything, and the need for sleep is what ends rides. My body can burn virtually anything. Food variety is good. Fitness determines speed, but fueling determines distance. Don't think so much, just feed my stomach what it wants. My job on a long ride is to take care of my mind and body.
Bonking? Forget the word. Hydrate, fuel, listen to your body.
What do these words mean: tired, fatigued, bonking, exhaustion? Are they discrete things? What is that tired feeling I get after 30 hard miles, vs the tired feeling after 100? Why do i feel better after 40 miles than I do after five? How is it I can cramp up at 60 miles, but at 80 miles on the same day be rolling at 20mph? How is it i can get up after four hours of sleep and finish a 600k?
What I believe now is fuel trumps fitness, hydration trumps fueling, attitude trumps almost everything, and the need for sleep is what ends rides. My body can burn virtually anything. Food variety is good. Fitness determines speed, but fueling determines distance. Don't think so much, just feed my stomach what it wants. My job on a long ride is to take care of my mind and body.
Bonking? Forget the word. Hydrate, fuel, listen to your body.
I think a lot of well trained athletes that rely on typical carb reserves would struggle to complete a 200k fasted, although a lot of audax / endurane athletes would do a lot better. Their ability to utilize fat reserves is simply better adapted than those in your typical group ride on saturday mornings.
I have to admit, on a couple of long rides, I only start to feel warmed up after 150 or 300 kilometers, and then I feel like my legs are finally revitalized, awakened after a long slumber!
07-05-21, 06:16 AM
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Gotta be careful of all the "supplements" people carry on rides. All the sugary gels and calorie-packed energy bars can cause a net positive caloric intake over a ride. People wonder why they aren't losing weight riding all those miles while chowing down on sugar-bombs every 10 miles.
07-05-21, 06:56 AM
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A bonk is when your blood sugar is so low that your brain is fried like mush. Fat adapted riders has so many ketone bodies in their bloodstream that they are bonk proof. Unless that 10 miles was straight up a cliff, it is hard to imagine that OP experienced a true bonk. The fact that the title included fatigue means he does not know the difference between the two
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07-05-21, 07:15 AM
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Is it because nobody thinks OP bonked? It is clearly fatigue he experienced. A run and then a bike ride might have been to much.
A bonk is when your blood sugar is so low that your brain is fried like mush. Fat adapted riders has so many ketone bodies in their bloodstream that they are bonk proof. Unless that 10 miles was straight up a cliff, it is hard to imagine that OP experienced a true bonk. The fact that the title included fatigue means he does not know the difference between the two
A bonk is when your blood sugar is so low that your brain is fried like mush. Fat adapted riders has so many ketone bodies in their bloodstream that they are bonk proof. Unless that 10 miles was straight up a cliff, it is hard to imagine that OP experienced a true bonk. The fact that the title included fatigue means he does not know the difference between the two
07-05-21, 07:23 AM
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Gotta be careful of all the "supplements" people carry on rides. All the sugary gels and calorie-packed energy bars can cause a net positive caloric intake over a ride. People wonder why they aren't losing weight riding all those miles while chowing down on sugar-bombs every 10 miles.
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07-05-21, 07:32 AM
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The OP certainly thought he bonked and a clif bar wouldn't have cured fatigue. The whole of his first post sounds like he has some underlying medical issue that really needs addressing. I'm not a medic, but if I was having those symptoms and basically needed to eat constantly all day to avoid a low sugar feeling I would be calling my GP.
*also , i'm not diabetic, and generally in good health."
No, no legs is not bonking.
I do agree that there is a metabolic issue but it is not clear at all to me that OP bonked. Anyone who needs to constantly snack and eat like that has a problem that is just as likely to be dietary. Sounds to me his high carb diet is a roller coaster ride to type 2 diabetes.
Preventing a bonk is easy. Do a lot of progressively longer zone 2 rides and don't eat on them. Don't snack between meals. Don't eat after dinner. When you break your overnight fast, make sure the morning meal aka break_fast is mostly protein.
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07-05-21, 08:02 AM
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It's actually surprisingly hard to get into a net positive calorie intake while riding, unless you are going very slowly and stopping for meals along the way. It's actually more of a battle to consume enough fuel if you are riding at tempo. I struggle to consume more than about 80-90g carbs per hour (or roughly 500 calories). But I can easily burn more than that. It's different if you are just plodding along. All this talk of 200km rides on water/salt is not going to be happening at any sort of fast pace.
07-05-21, 08:23 AM
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It's actually surprisingly hard to get into a net positive calorie intake while riding, unless you are going very slowly and stopping for meals along the way. It's actually more of a battle to consume enough fuel if you are riding at tempo. I struggle to consume more than about 80-90g carbs per hour (or roughly 500 calories). But I can easily burn more than that. It's different if you are just plodding along. All this talk of 200km rides on water/salt is not going to be happening at any sort of fast pace.
If you're trying to replace the energy burned while riding, that is not a good strategy, at least according to this, which I found very informative:
https://www.hammernutrition.com/medi...guidetosuccess
07-05-21, 09:10 AM
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80-90 grams of carbs is not roughly 500 calories.
The pace and duration before exhausting muscle glycogen and liver storage that one can ride is highly variable with individual metabolic constraints being the most significant. Long zone 2 rides will trigger AMPK and will eventually do wonderful things for one's insulin and leptin problems and allow one to ride further w/o bonking due to a greater contribution of fat and that includes tempo pace. At around threshold, most of the power is generated from glycogen. Nobody can ride at threshold long enough to deplete glycogen anyway.
For a rider who burns a relatively high percentage of fat, it is not that hard to maintain glycogen levels on longer rides in zone 2. Zone 3 is a bit trickier because muscular fatigue will probably set in before depletion of substrate. Net positive makes no sense unless one starts a ride depleted but if rides are started with the gas tank topped up, the degree and timing of depletion will vary enormously.
The pace and duration before exhausting muscle glycogen and liver storage that one can ride is highly variable with individual metabolic constraints being the most significant. Long zone 2 rides will trigger AMPK and will eventually do wonderful things for one's insulin and leptin problems and allow one to ride further w/o bonking due to a greater contribution of fat and that includes tempo pace. At around threshold, most of the power is generated from glycogen. Nobody can ride at threshold long enough to deplete glycogen anyway.
For a rider who burns a relatively high percentage of fat, it is not that hard to maintain glycogen levels on longer rides in zone 2. Zone 3 is a bit trickier because muscular fatigue will probably set in before depletion of substrate. Net positive makes no sense unless one starts a ride depleted but if rides are started with the gas tank topped up, the degree and timing of depletion will vary enormously.
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07-05-21, 09:21 AM
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07-05-21, 09:27 AM
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If you're trying to replace the energy burned while riding, that is not a good strategy, at least according to this, which I found very informative:
https://www.hammernutrition.com/medi...guidetosuccess
https://www.hammernutrition.com/medi...guidetosuccess
07-05-21, 10:08 AM
#88
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Gonna throw in some power meter data here. Someone may correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m going to guess that a lot of folks have FTPs under 250, so let’s say someone has an ftp of 225, and does an endurance ride at 65%, 146w, that would be 525 calories an hour. At that level, a good portion of calories will come from fat, even if it isn’t as much as in a well trained athlete. At that level, >80g of carbs per hour seems like overkill. This is my n=1 experience, but this past month I did a solo century where I consumed 1100 calories total (60ish grams per hour after the first hour) and expended 4K calories. So I personally have a really hard time imagining scenarios where an average cyclist would be so underfueled and overextended to truly bonk. I know it happens, of course, but as I said in an earlier post in this thread, I think a lot of people think not having anything in the legs equals bonk as opposed to just overextending an effort
07-05-21, 11:23 AM
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Gonna throw in some power meter data here. Someone may correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m going to guess that a lot of folks have FTPs under 250, so let’s say someone has an ftp of 225, and does an endurance ride at 65%, 146w, that would be 525 calories an hour. At that level, a good portion of calories will come from fat, even if it isn’t as much as in a well trained athlete. At that level, >80g of carbs per hour seems like overkill. This is my n=1 experience, but this past month I did a solo century where I consumed 1100 calories total (60ish grams per hour after the first hour) and expended 4K calories. So I personally have a really hard time imagining scenarios where an average cyclist would be so underfueled and overextended to truly bonk. I know it happens, of course, but as I said in an earlier post in this thread, I think a lot of people think not having anything in the legs equals bonk as opposed to just overextending an effort
07-05-21, 01:03 PM
#90
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I didn't just pluck the 80g carb/hour number out of thin air. It's a very widely recommended amount to consume for a reasonably well trained cyclist. What you have missed in your simplistic calculation is that for every watt you put through the power meter, approx 3 more watts of waste heat are created since your metabolic efficiency is only 25%. So your 146W of pedal power actually requires a total power output of around 584W. I agree totally about not bonking on a simple 10 mile ride. That is just absurd.
not sure I entirely agree with the latter part, what you write is true, for all intents and purposes kj reported by a power meter is the same as calories burned because of the whole efficiency factor, as far as I know none of the heat we give off actually has any role in calorie burn.
07-05-21, 01:06 PM
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That's funny.
I agree that fiber is useful & beneficial for gut health but not essential for gut "movement". If you consume enough fat, water and *salt* fiber is not needed for the reason I'm guessing you posted it.
That was one of my concerns when I switched my eating habits. Silly really as the Arctic inhabitants who survived so well on basically zero vegetation didn't die-out due to constipation.
I agree that fiber is useful & beneficial for gut health but not essential for gut "movement". If you consume enough fat, water and *salt* fiber is not needed for the reason I'm guessing you posted it.
That was one of my concerns when I switched my eating habits. Silly really as the Arctic inhabitants who survived so well on basically zero vegetation didn't die-out due to constipation.
07-05-21, 01:47 PM
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I think it's common for folks to overestimate the amount of energy used in a bike ride, and with carbo loading the night before, eating a big breakfast, 'fueling' along the way, and a recovery meal after,
it's pretty easy to take in more than what is expended. Just the bars and gels that folks eat on the ride can be more than the energy used.
The point of the Hammer Nutrition piece is, as I take it, for performance to eat the least that you can get away with during an event as digestion takes energy and can cause problems e.g. upset stomach,
and that attempting to finish an athletic event at the same nutritional or water content as the start is misguided.
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07-05-21, 01:58 PM
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I think it's common for folks to overestimate the amount of energy used in a bike ride, and with carbo loading the night before, eating a big breakfast, 'fueling' along the way, and a recovery meal after,
it's pretty easy to take in more than what is expended. Just the bars and gels that folks eat on the ride can be more than the energy used.
The point of the Hammer Nutrition piece is, as I take it, for performance to eat the least that you can get away with during an event as digestion takes energy and can cause problems e.g. upset stomach,
and that attempting to finish an athletic event at the same nutritional or water content as the start is misguided.
it's pretty easy to take in more than what is expended. Just the bars and gels that folks eat on the ride can be more than the energy used.
The point of the Hammer Nutrition piece is, as I take it, for performance to eat the least that you can get away with during an event as digestion takes energy and can cause problems e.g. upset stomach,
and that attempting to finish an athletic event at the same nutritional or water content as the start is misguided.
Last edited by pgjackson; 07-05-21 at 02:01 PM.
07-05-21, 02:04 PM
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After riding long distances for over a decade, everything is about eating. The symptom I get from over-exerting myself is cramping. If I'm not cramping and don't feel good, it means I need to eat. Or use my inhalers, but that's a different subject.
07-05-21, 02:45 PM
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Exactly. That was my original point (and would likely explain why there are so many overweight avid cyclists). Bonk/fatigue is likely attributed to simply pushing beyond your physical capabilities. Get in better shape and you might be amazed at how much better your rides are.
I lost 30# last year by riding a lot more, but more importantly, ruthless calorie tracking. It is ASTONISHINGLY easy to more than cover all the calories you burn on a ride, even a hard ride of 3 or 4 hours.
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07-05-21, 03:21 PM
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On my days with rides of 3+ hours, I find it virtually impossible to eat myself out of that caloric deficit. It's always at least a couple thousand calories on top of my base metabolic rate and I'm always missing at least one mealtime while in the saddle, maybe two (often leaving the house early and fasted). That, and I usually don't feel like gorging after a long ride, so it really comes down to a few hundred calories in the saddle, a post-ride snack and then dinner - that ain't adding up to 5k+ calories consumed.
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07-05-21, 03:44 PM
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It's actually surprisingly hard to get into a net positive calorie intake while riding, unless you are going very slowly and stopping for meals along the way. It's actually more of a battle to consume enough fuel if you are riding at tempo. I struggle to consume more than about 80-90g carbs per hour (or roughly 500 calories). But I can easily burn more than that. It's different if you are just plodding along. All this talk of 200km rides on water/salt is not going to be happening at any sort of fast pace.
07-05-21, 03:52 PM
#98
Old enough, hmmm?
On a side note I wondered where the term "Americano" (as in coffee) stems from. Apparently the Americans, who liberated part of Italy, couldn't stomach Italian Espresso and needed more water added. True or not, that kind of coffee or a long Espresso, does the trick for me.
Works well for cycling and XC skiing.
07-05-21, 03:53 PM
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On my days with rides of 3+ hours, I find it virtually impossible to eat myself out of that caloric deficit. It's always at least a couple thousand calories on top of my base metabolic rate and I'm always missing at least one mealtime while in the saddle, maybe two (often leaving the house early and fasted). That, and I usually don't feel like gorging after a long ride, so it really comes down to a few hundred calories in the saddle, a post-ride snack and then dinner - that ain't adding up to 5k+ calories consumed.
So you figure that you use up a days caloric intake in 1 1/2 or 2 hours? Yikes.
07-05-21, 03:55 PM
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