LCHF - Low Carb High Fat Diet Ver 2

[lovestocycle]

No need to stop your adaptation, just keep tuning the carbs down and the fats up while maintaining about 1g protein / kg bodyweight. Even if you continue to gradually do this, you will benefit in the long run and cut your adaptation time when you do decide to give it another go. If you keep your carbs nice and low your weight should continue to roll off which in turn will give you a huge power to weight advantage on the bike. Whichever way you look at it, it's a win for you !

Thanks htone!

Yip, thats the plan.

Already have no fear of hills and did a 85km ride today at base mile pace wihich means I am well placed for 94.7....what I am even more chuffed about is that this is about my 6 or 7th ride back after a 3 year break, and at age 50 this Dec I am well chuffed!

[HappyMartin]

When in a race I eat everything I can lay my hands on. I stuff my pockets and treat it as a rolling feast. Training I am quite disciplined. A race is a desperate struggle for survival and desperate times call for desperate measures. I have tried various things and for me what works is to be sure that a drop in energy is not caused by insufficient fuel. Fortunately I don't get an upset belly like some people seem to.

[jcza]

Re Topwine:

 

You can just block him. I did at the beginning of the original thread and it made the whole experience much more pleasant. You can still hunt out his posts should you wish to read them . The only view I get of them is when his original comment is included in replies.

 

It is unfortunate, as he potentially has a lot to offer. However he needs to find a more socially acceptable way to interact. I could never tell if he was being serious or just doing some clandestine trolling.

 

Top Tip - Ignore and forget

[jcza]

Hey guys,

 

Need some help here. Been following more Paleo than strictly LCHF, do consume fair amounts of fat, protein, carbs are mostly 2 fruits a day, salads and the odd sweet potato. I am "almost" a toppie at 48 yrs old.

 

Yesterday I rode the 70km Van Gaalens and took a serious beating. Finished on 6 hrs where the winner cruised in 2h20 odd.. Now I dont believe I am unfit, been training around 8 hrs a week for a while now, with heart rate monitor, doing all the high intensity stuff and also longer slower rides, what I do find is that any ride beyond 2h30 I start feeling the strain. I eat on the bike, bananas, sweet potato, 32gi bars, and also use 32gi in my water.

 

Question is, how the hell do you prepare yourself nutritionally for these mega marathon rides, and what do you guys eat/ drink on the ride.

 

Appreciate any comments

 

Regards

 

Make sure you eat properly the night before - when training I don't have anything for breakfast and take water only BUT if you train at high intensity (heart rate) you will run into difficulty. When racing I will have muffins or even choc chip cookies for breakfast. During race I will only take GU if under 5 hours. Roughly one every hour.

 

Eat & live LCHF but race with carbs. I tried racing no carbs either bonked or had no power. Was able to ride far and long but not fast.

 

On a side note - saw the doc for blood test and he said my cholesterol is on the high side. I declined meds. Also saw cardiologist to check out my heart. All ok and he told me not to worry about revving it. Hit 200 yesterday at Van Gaalen.

[Sniffie]

Hey guys,

 

Need some help here. Been following more Paleo than strictly LCHF, do consume fair amounts of fat, protein, carbs are mostly 2 fruits a day, salads and the odd sweet potato. I am "almost" a toppie at 48 yrs old.

 

Yesterday I rode the 70km Van Gaalens and took a serious beating. Finished on 6 hrs where the winner cruised in 2h20 odd.. Now I dont believe I am unfit, been training around 8 hrs a week for a while now, with heart rate monitor, doing all the high intensity stuff and also longer slower rides, what I do find is that any ride beyond 2h30 I start feeling the strain. I eat on the bike, bananas, sweet potato, 32gi bars, and also use 32gi in my water.

 

Question is, how the hell do you prepare yourself nutritionally for these mega marathon rides, and what do you guys eat/ drink on the ride.

 

Appreciate any comments

 

Regards

I am with JC on his approach to LCHF. When racing or doing longer than 3 hour training rides I do include carbs. I try to stay away from gels and energy drinks or bars though. Frankly find them very sweet and almost nauseating. I will typically add some baby boiled potatoes or sweet potatoes, biltong or droë wors and or macadamia nuts to my "race pack stash". "Slap pap", not sure what it is called in English, in Sesotho it is called "matoggo" (edit spelling), it is a drinkable maize porridge, made from my own mealie meal in a water bottle also goes down well during a race, because it is not sweet at all and provides fast acting carbs. If I do crave something sweet during a race I find dates very palatable. Fresh if you can get them or else the compressed type found on supermarket shelves. I try to stay with "real food" in other words.

[Grondpad]

 

Eat & live LCHF but race with carbs. I tried racing no carbs either bonked or had no power. Was able to ride far and long but not fast.

 

 

+1 here. I have done the same now for a while and it works. During the week I am strict LCHF. Come weekend long rides I take a bottle of 32Gi with but usually I only drink half of it. This is on rides of 5+ hours. On race day I don’t hold back and chow whatever I can find. I saw the results of this during the VG race this past weekend. The race did hurt (it still is one of the few hard MTB races around GP), but I did a good time and managed to ride where others walked. The VG race just once again confirmed that the LCHF way (with a little adaptation for races) works!

[tombeej]

Hey guys,

 

...Yesterday I rode the 70km Van Gaalens and took a serious beating. Finished on 6 hrs where the winner cruised in 2h20 odd.. Now I dont believe I am unfit, been training around 8 hrs a week for a while now...

 

... Question is, how the hell do you prepare yourself nutritionally for these mega marathon rides, and what do you guys eat/ drink on the ride....

 

To paraphrase an old truism, there's a big difference between riding a certain distance and racing that same distance.

 

What I mean to say is that performance during a race it's not always about nutrition - it's often just down to plain old fitness. So put another way, you might find it easy to ride 70km offroad easily on a weekend ride with mates, but racing 70km is something quite different entirely.

 

From your short description of what you eat on the bike, I don't see any issues there at all. My suggestion is to look at trying to replicate racing conditions on some of your long training rides. Your legs need to be introduced to the strain of long distance racing in their own time. So for example, for the next 70km weekend ride, hit all the hills relatively hard, from the first one. See how long your legs can hold the pace. If you blow at 50km, that's fine. Next weekend you might blow at 55km and then a month later the wheels only come off with 5km to the finish. And so you progress....

 

Also, don't ignore the mental aspect of it. When things get tough and the quads are failing, that's when you have the opportunity to work out how mentally strong you really are. This is a learned skill too, you don't have to be born with it.

[davetapson]

When in a race I eat everything I can lay my hands on. I stuff my pockets and treat it as a rolling feast. Training I am quite disciplined. A race is a desperate struggle for survival and desperate times call for desperate measures. I have tried various things and for me what works is to be sure that a drop in energy is not caused by insufficient fuel. Fortunately I don't get an upset belly like some people seem to.

 

This is such a great comment!! You may well have a point Mr HM...

 

I normally wait til I feel a dip before I start chowing everything that doesn't run away fast enough. Hmmm... I'm gonna dwell on this. Will probably do the no supplementing for lower intensity races (why? because I can ) but for proper racing your approach probably makes sense.

[davetapson]

Hey guys,

 

Need some help here. Been following more Paleo than strictly LCHF, do consume fair amounts of fat, protein, carbs are mostly 2 fruits a day, salads and the odd sweet potato. I am "almost" a toppie at 48 yrs old.

 

Yesterday I rode the 70km Van Gaalens and took a serious beating. Finished on 6 hrs where the winner cruised in 2h20 odd.. Now I dont believe I am unfit, been training around 8 hrs a week for a while now, with heart rate monitor, doing all the high intensity stuff and also longer slower rides, what I do find is that any ride beyond 2h30 I start feeling the strain. I eat on the bike, bananas, sweet potato, 32gi bars, and also use 32gi in my water.

 

Question is, how the hell do you prepare yourself nutritionally for these mega marathon rides, and what do you guys eat/ drink on the ride.

 

Appreciate any comments

 

Regards

 

Leon - how long have you been doing paleo? Reason I ask is that for me for the first 4 - 6 months my races were desperately horrible. Dragged myself through Barberton (nearly 6hrs), dragged myself through Sabi (at least this time I knew it would be horrible) but after 4 months or so it all started coming right.

 

But it was a horrible time. Just got no power. Would I do it all again? For sure.

 

Been off the bike for two months due to winter/life in general but have Berg 'n Bush in a couple weeks - waiting to see how I perform then! Is going to be reasonably chilled (I hope due to my fitness levels!) so should be able to experiment with eating / not eating and it shouldn't cause too much misery if I get it wrong. Will ride on water and carry some bars for emergency.

Edited September 16, 2013 by davetapson

[Leon Besaans]

Leon - how long have you been doing paleo? Reason I ask is that for me for the first 4 - 6 months my races were desperately horrible. Dragged myself through Barberton (nearly 6hrs), dragged myself through Sabi (at least this time I knew it would be horrible) but after 4 months or so it all started coming right.

 

But it was a horrible time. Just got no power. Would I do it all again? For sure.

 

Been off the bike for two months due to winter/life in general but have Berg 'n Bush in a couple weeks - waiting to see how I perform then! Is going to be reasonably chilled (I hope due to my fitness levels!) so should be able to experiment with eating / not eating and it shouldn't cause too much misery if I get it wrong. Will ride on water and carry some bars for emergency.

 

Paleo now for about 3 months...And honestly, 2 hr or 2.5 hr rides are no probs, but anything after 2.5 I start feeling the strain.

 

I got hold of some UCAN superstarch but was to scared to try it for VG, wil try this weekend and see if it makes any diff's.

 

Another thing I wanna try is some biltong/ droewors on the ride, think that can put some sodium back and as you mention, I really could not stomach anything sweet anymore.

 

Thanks for all other replies!!

 

Regards

[jcza]

Paleo now for about 3 months...And honestly, 2 hr or 2.5 hr rides are no probs, but anything after 2.5 I start feeling the strain.

 

I got hold of some UCAN superstarch but was to scared to try it for VG, wil try this weekend and see if it makes any diff's.

 

Another thing I wanna try is some biltong/ droewors on the ride, think that can put some sodium back and as you mention, I really could not stomach anything sweet anymore.

 

Thanks for all other replies!!

 

Regards

 

Remember it all depends on the intensity of the ride/race. At heart rate below 60% you can ride all day without needing fuel as your body is using fat as fuel. But the opposite is also true, at high intensity one generally needs carbs and you cannot consume them quickly enough to replenish so you will run out/bonk at some point. As tombeej mentioned racing and riding are very different but training on water only does help. Your body becomes conditioned to go further. I see the van gaalen race was mentioned, I was there and raced with 1 bottle only, stopped twice to fill it and had 2 x GU's. Remember if you cannot ride at a certain pace for a certain distance with carbs then you won't be able to do it without carbs. You need to be fit enough. I'll try post the nutrition requirements for endurance athletes later (Joe Friel & Loren Courdain). Very interesting and important to know what is happening while racing.

[zappa]

Had posted this earlier, so at the risk of flaming for repeating:

 

Recently done 5 day stage race in Zambia. Did not eat any carbs while there which is quite difficult in the bush. Breakfast was scrambled egg and bacon and coffee. Rode 5 days quite hard between 50 and 110 km per day. Only water on the bike and biltong for snacks. Ate plenty of cheese for lunch and lots of meat at dinner.Never felt like bonking or low energy. Very happy with whole low carb stage race thing, it can be done.

[Helpmytrap]

I can attest to the fact that it takes time, not that I gave it enough time but at least long enough to realise that LCHF would not work out for my anaerobic "tendencies." It was about 3 months back that I started LCHF and 1 month back that I converted to Paleo and in the last 2 weeks I've finally started getting my legs back. Although I still have a way to go before they are back to their former glory. Irrespective of not being 100% I've still pushed on with my "hard" training (about 45hrs in the last 4 weeks.)

 

If you are struggling to go over 2h30, try slowing it down a tad. Maybe you're just going a little too hard (like I was) and therefore you're not encouraging the fat burning engine, you're actually doing the opposite. So give a slower ride a go and see what happens, just now you find that you can actually go for 4hrs. Another question although relative just so that we have an idea, what is you're average HR on these 2h30 rides?

 

Dragged myself through Barberton (nearly 6hrs)

The same amount of time I dragged myself through the Ultra there.

[davetapson]

I can attest to the fact that it takes time, not that I gave it enough time but at least long enough to realise that LCHF would not work out for my anaerobic "tendencies." It was about 3 months back that I started LCHF and 1 month back that I converted to Paleo and in the last 2 weeks I've finally started getting my legs back. Although I still have a way to go before they are back to their former glory. Irrespective of not being 100% I've still pushed on with my "hard" training (about 45hrs in the last 4 weeks.)

 

If you are struggling to go over 2h30, try slowing it down a tad. Maybe you're just going a little too hard (like I was) and therefore you're not encouraging the fat burning engine, you're actually doing the opposite. So give a slower ride a go and see what happens, just now you find that you can actually go for 4hrs. Another question although relative just so that we have an idea, what is you're average HR on these 2h30 rides?

 

 

The same amount of time I dragged myself through the Ultra there.

 

Oi - show some respect to your elders!!

 

I hope you felt better than I did - sheesh. Before I even got to the first hill I just knew it wasn't going to work out.

[Da Vinci]

Ok this may be old news... Haven't exactly been keeping up with this fred....

But lookie what I found...

The crisp breads are in the oven as I type and onto the muesli next

[Helpmytrap]

Oi - show some respect to your elders!!

 

I hope you felt better than I did - sheesh. Before I even got to the first hill I just knew it wasn't going to work out.

If I had to think about it, it is one of the best races that I ever had. I was fortunate enough to have someone to ride with for the entire race which also helped.

 

That being said, I was a little mental in January. I logged 1700km in 73hrs (23 rides.) And the Monday before Barberton I went in for a Ganglionectomy on my right hand. Oh, and the night before the race a cut my thumb open while trying to centre my front brake calliper.

Edited September 16, 2013 by Helpmytrap