Nutrition for someone doing a lot of cardio + GST

Started by Dan Jeong, February 20, 2014 · 7 Replies · 3,657 Views

Dan Jeong

So I will be cycling across the country this summer to raise money and awareness for people with disabilities. Although I am excited to do this especially because it is for a good cause, I am NOT excited to lose muscle because I will be biking around 80 miles a day for 2 months. So the question is, what would be the ideal diet for me in order not to lose any muscle? Am I not going to lose muscle as long as my calories intake is more than what I burn?

I'm going to be doing Foundation series to at least maintain the amount of strength I currently have. I honestly am not even expecting to increase any strength. As long as I don't lose any, I will be quite happy. I really hope that I have enough energy to workout after biking for 80 miles.

I am going to take Glutamine and BCAAs to boost my recovery and reduce the amount of muscle loss but if you have any suggestion on what other supplements that I can take, let me know as well.

Thanks!

Frankincensed

Sounds like a great time, and for a good cause!

 

Don't know your age Dan, but I spent 30 days biking in New England once. Averaged around 50 miles a day. Some were longer, some were shorter (hill days you know). I was young at the time, about 17, still growing a bit and I don't believe it hurt anything and I ate according to hunger - not anything special. If anything it was a leg stimulus, especially the hills!

 

I didn't try to train at the same time. Generally though the trend will be towards fat loss, I wouldn't focus on trying to gain.
Certainly i wouldn't do a lot of training you're used to the demands of the ride and your body has adapted to those over a few weeks.  If anything,  likely I would just focus on upper body strength maintenance. One summer isn't probably going to cause you to lose much upper body muscle mass or strength. Pure BCAA isn't special in regards to preventing muscle loss - you get it in food or any protein supplement - though it wouldn't hurt either.

 

Also it's a charity trip and not a race, I don't think that they will be pushing it that extremely hard. Sometimes some folks like to go out fast for a while and then chill while the rest of the group catches up. But overall the pace will be moderate and you'll have some days off. It  probably won't mess too much with your hunger and metabolism. As long they are giving you enough food, and you can eat according to your hunger you should be fine. Trail mix is your friend. 

 

Most importantly, make sure your seat is comfortable and enjoy the ride!

Joshua Naterman
 
Dan Jeong said:

So I will be cycling across the country this summer to raise money and awareness for people with disabilities. Although I am excited to do this especially because it is for a good cause, I am NOT excited to lose muscle because I will be biking around 80 miles a day for 2 months. So the question is, what would be the ideal diet for me in order not to lose any muscle? Am I not going to lose muscle as long as my calories intake is more than what I burn?

I'm going to be doing Foundation series to at least maintain the amount of strength I currently have. I honestly am not even expecting to increase any strength. As long as I don't lose any, I will be quite happy. I really hope that I have enough energy to workout after biking for 80 miles.

I am going to take Glutamine and BCAAs to boost my recovery and reduce the amount of muscle loss but if you have any suggestion on what other supplements that I can take, let me know as well.

Thanks!

You need to use a standard MET table to get an idea of how much energy you are going to be burning, because priority #1 for you is to get enough calories. That may be a challenge. METs are just about how many calories you burn at rest, per hour. That has been found to be a pretty good baseline, and studies on literally hundreds of thousands of subjects performing a wide variety of activities has given us the average MET cost for a whole bunch of different activities. Here's the link for biking:

 

https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/Activity-Categories/bicycling

 

You'll notice that you are going to be burning a ton of calories. Somewhere around 50-55 METs worth assuming flat ground. If you're 150 lbs and 5'8, that means that you'll be burning about 3500 to 3600 calories while you are biking. 

 

All I did to make that estimation is use that website to get the METs per hour, and I tested a wide variety of speeds to see what the difference would be for taking different amounts of time to bike 80 miles. I have given you the average. You will still need another ~1600 kcal to cover the rest of your day, not including any other physical training you perform.

 

Summary: You're going to want to eat around 5200 kcal per day, maybe a little more. Welcome to the world of endurance athletes, who hate mealtime more than anyone else on the planet :) Seriously though, it's not that bad!

 

I will suggest that you consume at 2-2.5g of protein per kilo of bodyweight, and get at least half of your calories from carbs. You're going to need so many that you will probably need the assistance of a certain amount of junk food. Try to avoid trans fats and hydrogenated fats if possible.

 

Trail mix is an excellent Idea, and so are pop tarts. Seriously. You're going to be burning so much carbohydrate... rate your cycling effort from 1-10, and then multiply by 10%. If you plan on biking at a 6 out of 10 pace (10 being the most effort that you could sustain, with extraordinary discomfort) you're boing to be burning 60% of the energy as carbs starting out. By the end of the riding session it will likely be more like 45-50%, so I would consider 50% carbs to be a good baseline. 2600 calories of carbs is around... wait for it...650 grams. Each poptart pack is like 75g, so if you're having two pop tarts every hour or so you'll have taken care of over half of your daily carb need. It is not the best thing for your teeth, obviously, so be sure to brush after you're done biking for the day.

 

Dental hygeine suggestions: I will suggest that you take some ACT fluoride rinse to maintain your tooth health. Use it twice per day, as directed, and between brushing and that you should be ok. Don't brush right after eating sugars or acidic foods... you'll just scrape off a layer of enamel. Wait 15-20 minutes after you've cleaned your teeth with your tongue and water.

 

Good luck, enjoy the ride, and take your rings + F1-4 with you  :)

 

PS: IF you can't get that much food for whatever reason, do the best you can. Don't over-think it, and be sure to still get good carbs and plenty of veggies if possible! At the very least, take a multivitamin every day.

 

Dan Jeong

Thanks both for answering and thanks so much for Joshua for such a detailed answer. This will help me immensely.

I'm 5'9" and 183lbs with under 10% body fat so I have a lot of lean muscle. That means I would be burning way more than 3500-3600 calories from biking, am I correct?

Eating AT LEAST 5200 calories a day sounds like so much fun especially if I get to eat junk food !

My trip is sponsored by the Clif Bars so I guess I would be eating tons and tons of cliff products and pop tarts this summer!

Joshua Naterman

Based on that weight, you'd need 3800-4200 kcal for the bike ride and around 2000 kcal for the rest of the day. Those are best guesses, but should put you in a reasonably good place to start making adjustments!

Clif Bars are excellent, and probably better for you than pop tarts. If you're being sponsored... eat them! :) Pop tarts are just a lot less expensive when you pay out-of-pocket. With as much as you're going to need to eat, if you have to pay out of pocket the difference would be quite enormous, but if you're sponsored and get free Clif Bars you should totally eat those since they're free and definitely less crappy. That's my opinion anyhow.

Frankincensed

Yes good points though I think there may be a little overestimation if the intensity involved. Going out at a 6 of 10 doesn't apply when u are riding all day. Youre looking at a 3 or 4 maybe. There will be times more and times less aka downhills.

And u will get fitter over time and burn higher fat percentage. So include a good amount of fat too. Its likely u will burn 50 60 pct and without a lot of body fat you will need.

You'll see and be able to tweak. Hunger and energy levels and food cravings are a good guide. Don't try to out think ur body ... its smarter than u can imagine. And keep that water handy.

MT Nordic

Hard to add much to what Josh posted.  I would say you're going to lose some muscle regardless and you should just accept it and enjoy the trip, as this is a once in a lifetime (usually) opportunity.  I can't imagine you'll feel much like training after a long day, but if you have extra energy feel free, but i'd hate for you to feel pressured to do so.  Enjoy the ride, and get back to GST when you're done.  

Joshua Naterman
Frankincensed said:

Yes good points though I think there may be a little overestimation if the intensity involved. Going out at a 6 of 10 doesn't apply when u are riding all day. Youre looking at a 3 or 4 maybe. There will be times more and times less aka downhills.

And u will get fitter over time and burn higher fat percentage. So include a good amount of fat too. Its likely u will burn 50 60 pct and without a lot of body fat you will need.

You'll see and be able to tweak. Hunger and energy levels and food cravings are a good guide. Don't try to out think ur body ... its smarter than u can imagine. And keep that water handy.

6/10 is not that hard, a 3 would literally be a comfortable walk. Not a super duper slow stroll, but a comfortable walk. When I hiked the Appalachian trail we were all keeping at least a 6/10 pace all day long. That's what it took to cover 18-20 miles in a reasonable period of time each day, leaving time for setting camp and cooking, etc. At a lower effort level you will absolutely be burning more fat, but that doesn't mean you won't need a lot of carbs. It's true that you will not be burning as much, but you will be burning more total energy. You also tend to maintain more muscle mass when you eat more carbohydrate vs less, so again I would not deviate too much from the overall ~50-60% guideline.

 

I am not suggesting, by any means, that the OP try to be low fat. He will be burning so many calories that he will actually be consuming a pretty impressive amount of fat even at 20% of total, and I will suggest he be closer to 30%. To put numbers on it, he'll be consuming ~1200 calories from fat per day during his ride days... that would be over 50% of his daily calories if he were just doing F1 and working an office job. His body will convert whatever carbohydrate it needs to into fatty acids but, as you say, his fat intake and fat/carb mix adjustments should be made by personal experimentation.

 

Percentages are easy to misinterpret when you don't also look at the absolute value that they correspond to, as well as how your nutritional plan is going to mesh with human physiology. Understanding all this is more complex, and somewhat less straightforward, than it seems at first. Fortunately, implementation of successful strategies is much less complex than understanding them :)