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Day 3: Nutrition
Nutrition and Lifestyle Habits
As an adult athlete, this is an area where tremendous gains can be made, especially when the time to train is limited, as is the case with most busy masters/age-group athletes!
It is essential to think about health and performance in terms of your habits outside of your workout. You are more than FTP, Watts, and fancy bike parts. With good health, great sleep, and healthy nutrition you can do amazing things.
For those with lifestyle, nutrition, and/or body composition goals we suggest using a series of phone consultations rather than or in addition to a training plan or coaching.
Resources
These are in order of how we typically suggest starting out. Having a shopping list and setting up your home to cook lots of food is a big step to setting up your environment to support your success, whether your goal is performance or health. Start with food lists & shopping, work further down the list, if needed, over several weeks.
- Super foods-checklist – This is a great list of foods you should have on hand to fuel your training. Eat more of these foods and you are doing well. (And most of these foods are ones you’ve likely already heard of or used, like spinach.
- Shopping List Sneak-Attack-Your-Veggies – Print and plan your attack on the grocery store
- Habits-Cheat-Sheet – This is an easy thing to keep on the fridge and check your meals for veggies, protein, fats, and general portions
- Portion Sizing Infographic (LINK) – These hand-based measurements are easy to do once you know them and help keep your meals balanced and nutritious. If you track this way for a few days you can then adjust (e.g. reduce or add a cupped handful or a thumb of fat). Track your usual meals then we can discuss adjusting to your goals.
- Three-Day Meal Log Template – download and track
Fueling DURING workouts
For most adult athletes this is a small consideration given shorter workout times (<1hour) and fewer days of training (more time to recover). Our focus is on eating appropriate amounts and quality (lots of veggies and protein) to support our energy needs. Use sugar powders/gels for race preparation workouts and races as required but many workouts under 1 hour or low-intensity workouts under 90minutes do not need to be fueled.
As you train more hours the responsibility to eat multiple meals and several snacks and eat during workouts increases
Rules of Thumb for Fueling Workouts/Races:
- ‘Real Foods’ can be used in many cases. Fruit, Sandwiches, Bars whatever you like. Save sports nutrition products for extreme workouts/races.
- 30-60g of carbohydrate -or- 180-240 kcal per hour is a typical range for intense/long workouts or racing.
- 16-20oz water per hour (extreme weather will push it higher) -> add salt or electrolyte to most bottles, especially with high consumption. If it is hot then you may be better at separating some or all of your calories from your water (E.g. bars/gels/solids with clear water or water with electrolytes)
- Endurance rides under 90min can be done on water/electrolytes if eating a meal prior to and after. Do not make the mistake of not eating on long workouts to try and lose weight. This makes for poor workouts, added stress to your body, and over-consumption later in the day. Eat if you are hungry or sluggish is good common sense advice.
- Carry backup food on rides as you do with tools so you can eat if you find you are short on energy or hungry (or your ride gets longer than expected!)
- Hard rides can be fueled as required, regardless of duration. The taste of sugar alone can boost performance.
- Eating should almost always be done 2-4 hrs before. A quick snack or Gel 5-10 min before is ok if hungry or part of your routine. This should be trialed frequently so you are confident in your routine and the foods you like before hard workouts/races.
- Practice race fueling in the interval / harder workouts.
- Generally, as the intensity drops more solid food can be digested. So 12-hour race can have more solids, especially early in the race but be wary of dehydration setting in later in the day when liquid calories may be better tolerated.
- Plan out your hydration and fueling before the race so you optimize the water you carry and so you are fueled early in the event and so you optimally use the event rules, aid stations, and your feeders/support staff.
Nutrition OFF the bike
- Make sure you are eating veggies and meats/proteins at most meals focus on making more quality and less poor choices.
- Supplements should be used cautiously if at all. Aim to eat food around most workouts and in-workout where possible. Use sports supplements in a targeted fashion during periods of the season. Aim to reduce/eliminate supplements for off and low-load periods of the year.
- Sleep is crucial for body composition, energy, performance, and health, but it is not sexy and it is free so many people overlook it – make sure this is an equal part of your strategy versus only thinking about dieting or supplements.
To Lose weight or Optimize Performance?
- High performance and weight loss goals are at two ends of the spectrum – we can focus on different goals at different times of the year but if you are always running a deficit you will perform poorly (do less work) and be at high risk for injury/illness. Consistency in training and nutrition over time elicits the best results.
- Be wary of starving yourself all day, having poor workouts, and then over-doing large post-workout meals, dinners, and desserts later in the day.
- Aim to turn the classic ‘loose 5lbs’ goal into healthy and ACTIONABLE daily tasks (E.g. get in bed earlier, walk in the morning, veggie/protein at each meal)
- Cooking at home and reducing reliance on pre-made ‘hyper-palatable foods helps change your daily environment and is a positive action you can control.
Change things slowly
You are doing fine right now … some things you do very well… right?
Avoid throwing out everything if there is not a compelling reason for a full ‘make-over’. You don’t need to go full Paleo or Low Carb today. Check in on how your routines and habits reflect your goals and where you are now. What needs to be tweaked? What are you willing to change? What are you able to change?
