Metabolism, eating and fuelling for cycling

[Jon in Sweden]

I'm curious to get a handle on what you lot all eat and how it relates to your activity levels. Metabolism varies wildly between individuals, and I think you'd struggle to find anyone with a faster metabolism than me. Good from the point of view of sports performance, but bad from the perspective of cost and time to prepare/eat.

I'm 203cm (6ft 8"), 101kg, about 9-10% bodyfat, will have cycled 14,000km/540hrs by the end of the year, do some weight training (nothing serious anymore) and am generally very physically active. My job requires me to be on my feet for much of the time, and I typically do 9000-10000 steps per shift.

I eat (on average) about 6250kcal a day. Sometimes it dips down towards 5000, but often exceeds 7000kcal. This is about 50% more than any calorie calculator online says I should need, but I know my body, my food requirements and I do lose weight if I don't eat what I do.

I eat a really good diet with lots of unprocessed food. I make my own bread, cook most of my own food (with a lot of moose and blueberries from the forest) and avoid ultra processed food. I have one light (2.8%) beer a day.

It's always been like this for me. I did get up to 131kg when I was 22 by weightlifting, doing no cardio and eating a lot but it made me quite ill (all the eating without cardio).

So for reference, my calorie need is about 60-65kcal per kg of bodyweight. At that, I hold my weight.

How does this compare to you lot? Does anyone else struggle with holding onto weight? Or are you at the other end of the scale?

The time when it's most apparent to me how unusual my diet is (from the POV of quantity) is break time at work. I always eat at least double what any of my colleagues have, but it's generally only half of what I eat in a shift as I'm tanning sandwiches, nuts or homemade banana cake all the time!

[JohnR]

The time when it's most apparent to me how unusual my diet is (from the POV of quantity) is break time at work. I always eat at least double what any of my colleagues have, but it's generally only half of what I eat in a shift as I'm tanning sandwiches, nuts or homemade banana cake all the time!

How many of your colleagues cycle the distance you travel to work and then home again? Have you tried using Bike Calculator http://bikecalculator.com/ to estimate the calories consumed during your cycling? Then use one of the on-line calorie requirement calculators to estimate your daily calorie requirements for the activity level approximating to your work and non-cycling activities. Do you get a sensible answer by adding the two together?

I'm at the other end of the spectrum (currently about 5'6" and 62kg). Over 20 years ago I calculated that with a low activity lifestyle (I've since become more active) my daily calorie intake was about 1900 to maintain a stable weight. I suspect I've got a fairly efficient metabolism as result of cycling 5 miles to school, partaking of school sports activites and then cycling 5 miles home while surviving on the same amount of food as the others.

[foxyrider]

I consider calorie counting to be madness!

Base figures, at 60 yoa, i'm 178cm, between 88 and 90kg and usually do @ 15 hours/300km riding a week plus walking on non bike days. I raced on and off for 30 years and still do sportives up to 250km.

Today for example my 92km/734m ride apparently burnt in the region of 3200 calories at around 88w avg, my 'recommended' intake is @ 2600 calories/day for a static weight, by my calculations my intake today has been in the order of 2000 calories, its quite similar most ride days. The numbers just don't add up, i should be a 70kg stick but i'm not.

I'm usually pretty good judging what i need for a ride, two slices of toast/jam will take me for @ 70km comfortably, 100km at a squeeze at my normal steady 25kph pace. If i'm wanting a bigger effort for terrain/speed i'll need to start topping up from @ 40km even if i've loaded more beforehand. And don't forget to keep topping up with fluids.

I've had several jobs with commutes of an hour or more each end, sometimes quite physical 12 hour shifts. The day started the same but i was stuffing my face all day, maybe 5000 calories, to make sure i could get home - the last thing you want is to bonk ten miles from home at ten at night with nowhere to get any supplies - i've been known to abort the bike and get buses instead!

To summarise, eat little and often on any ride/activity straying into level 4 effort (when you can't easily hold a conversation), keep away from 'hard' foods (eg nuts, unprocessed red meat) as they are difficult to process. Keep any meals 'light', (eg eggs on toast as opposed to pie and mash!), you can eat heavier stuff after the ride/activity as it won't be diverting exercise energy to process the food.

[Pendodave]

Just watching this week's GCN show (available on all good telecommunications devices).
The first item is on various scientific theories about the role of exercise in weight loss. Hypothesis is that it doesnt make much difference, as the body just does less of other stuff, like thinking or breeding...

Personally, I never think about it at all. I eat proper food, not too much, some of it might even be green...
I've always had fairly stable weight, and if I seem to be up or down I just slightly compensate.
There looks to be a bit of overthinking going on here...

I wonder how this would work if I ever undertake a very long trip where I was cycling a long way every day. I'm unlikely to ever find this out.

[djnotts]

Never count calories, try to eat "healthy" foods - but far too many cakes. I've always wanted to reach 10 stone, which would give me a BMI of c.20. I never did even when I drank 6-10 pints of bitter or Guiness every day for many years.
Apart from waist increasing from 30" to 31" in last 2 years as a side effect of post-radiotherapy prostate cancer drug treatment (as I was told it would!) I'm almost exactly same size as I was 60 years ago. OK, yes I have shrunk in height!
Just had my usual porridge with honey.
Sandwich or cake for lunch, smallish dinner at 7 p.m. await.
Nil alcohol for over 20 years may explain no old age obesity!

[briansnail]

Check out Dr Michael Moseley BBC Sounds and impact of cold.He swears by 15 c.This apparently can can contribute to reduction in diabetes,cancer etc as you burn sugar and fat and manufacture brown fat.Brown fat has more mitochondria so speeds metabolism.
I will skip my stats as weight can be misleading.Some people weigh a lot but it is healthy muscle.The podcast did say on average women have less muscle so feel colder than men.Due to less generation of heat.
Never the less both sexes will benefit a lot when cycling in the cold! Just watch out for the pesky sliding cars in the wet.
**************************************************************
I ride Brompton and a 100% British Vintage

[Jon in Sweden]

I consider calorie counting to be madness!

Base figures, at 60 yoa, i'm 178cm, between 88 and 90kg and usually do @ 15 hours/300km riding a week plus walking on non bike days. I raced on and off for 30 years and still do sportives up to 250km.

Today for example my 92km/734m ride apparently burnt in the region of 3200 calories at around 88w avg, my 'recommended' intake is @ 2600 calories/day for a static weight, by my calculations my intake today has been in the order of 2000 calories, its quite similar most ride days. The numbers just don't add up, i should be a 70kg stick but i'm not.

I'm usually pretty good judging what i need for a ride, two slices of toast/jam will take me for @ 70km comfortably, 100km at a squeeze at my normal steady 25kph pace. If i'm wanting a bigger effort for terrain/speed i'll need to start topping up from @ 40km even if i've loaded more beforehand. And don't forget to keep topping up with fluids.

I've had several jobs with commutes of an hour or more each end, sometimes quite physical 12 hour shifts. The day started the same but i was stuffing my face all day, maybe 5000 calories, to make sure i could get home - the last thing you want is to bonk ten miles from home at ten at night with nowhere to get any supplies - i've been known to abort the bike and get buses instead!

To summarise, eat little and often on any ride/activity straying into level 4 effort (when you can't easily hold a conversation), keep away from 'hard' foods (eg nuts, unprocessed red meat) as they are difficult to process. Keep any meals 'light', (eg eggs on toast as opposed to pie and mash!), you can eat heavier stuff after the ride/activity as it won't be diverting exercise energy to process the food.

It sounds like you have a lengthy experience riding distance at high efforts. I too eat regularly when riding, and only easily digestible foods. Whilst my diet is generally excellent, I will admit to consuming fairly large quantities of a soft strawberry sweet from Lidl whilst riding as it's a cheap way to keep the carbs coming in.

2 slices of toast wouldn't take me 70km though, I can assure you!

[Jon in Sweden]

The time when it's most apparent to me how unusual my diet is (from the POV of quantity) is break time at work. I always eat at least double what any of my colleagues have, but it's generally only half of what I eat in a shift as I'm tanning sandwiches, nuts or homemade banana cake all the time!

How many of your colleagues cycle the distance you travel to work and then home again? Have you tried using Bike Calculator http://bikecalculator.com/ to estimate the calories consumed during your cycling? Then use one of the on-line calorie requirement calculators to estimate your daily calorie requirements for the activity level approximating to your work and non-cycling activities. Do you get a sensible answer by adding the two together?

I'm at the other end of the spectrum (currently about 5'6" and 62kg). Over 20 years ago I calculated that with a low activity lifestyle (I've since become more active) my daily calorie intake was about 1900 to maintain a stable weight. I suspect I've got a fairly efficient metabolism as result of cycling 5 miles to school, partaking of school sports activites and then cycling 5 miles home while surviving on the same amount of food as the others.

None of my colleagues seem to do much in the way of exercise. I will attempt to encourage some of them to cycle next spring. Mid winter isn't the time to get a newbie on the road - I had 20 minutes of fairly heavy snow on the way back today. Like warp speed in Star Trek!

I've always had a fast metabolism. The only time it slows right down is when I'm a couple of weeks into a period of complete inactivity. Then (on paper, metabolically) I start to seem more normal.

My daily calorie needs for cycle commuting vary between 1500kcal (if I take it very easy) to about 2200kcal (if I push really hard).

[Jon in Sweden]

Just watching this week's GCN show (available on all good telecommunications devices).
The first item is on various scientific theories about the role of exercise in weight loss. Hypothesis is that it doesnt make much difference, as the body just does less of other stuff, like thinking or breeding...

Personally, I never think about it at all. I eat proper food, not too much, some of it might even be green...
I've always had fairly stable weight, and if I seem to be up or down I just slightly compensate.
There looks to be a bit of overthinking going on here...

I wonder how this would work if I ever undertake a very long trip where I was cycling a long way every day. I'm unlikely to ever find this out.

I listened to that episode on GCN today. The studies they're citing just don't relate to (what the presenters called) extreme athletes (10 plus hours a week).

Sure, if you do 3hrs in the gym every week, it's not going to make a big difference. But if you're cranking out 300km a week, it's going to take some serious fuel. And if you don't fuel sufficiently, you will lose weight.

[Jon in Sweden]

Check out Dr Michael Moseley BBC Sounds and impact of cold.He swears by 15 c.This apparently can can contribute to reduction in diabetes,cancer etc as you burn sugar and fat and manufacture brown fat.Brown fat has more mitochondria so speeds metabolism.
I will skip my stats as weight can be misleading.Some people weigh a lot but it is healthy muscle.The podcast did say on average women have less muscle so feel colder than men.Due to less generation of heat.
Never the less both sexes will benefit a lot when cycling in the cold! Just watch out for the pesky sliding cars in the wet.
**************************************************************
I ride Brompton and a 100% British Vintage

I love the cold! It's getting closer to freezing now, but hasn't actually been above freezing for 12 days. Many commutes at minus 8-10c, and I could take it a good bit colder too.

I also enjoy sauna and ice dipping, which I do every other week, but it'll be every week after Christmas. An amazing feeling.

[Jon in Sweden]

Never count calories, try to eat "healthy" foods - but far too many cakes. I've always wanted to reach 10 stone, which would give me a BMI of c.20. I never did even when I drank 6-10 pints of bitter or Guiness every day for many years.
Apart from waist increasing from 30" to 31" in last 2 years as a side effect of post-radiotherapy prostate cancer drug treatment (as I was told it would!) I'm almost exactly same size as I was 60 years ago. OK, yes I have shrunk in height!
Just had my usual porridge with honey.
Sandwich or cake for lunch, smallish dinner at 7 p.m. await.
Nil alcohol for over 20 years may explain no old age obesity!

I would think you'd have no problem gaining weight if you ate some more. For reference (to illustrate how much I eat to maintain), today has been:

* 500g full fat greek yoghurt, 160g kvarg (12% protein yoghurt), 100g blueberries, 130g strawberry jam, 10g sugar (1100kcal)

* 3 rounds of salami sandwiches on homemade bread, generous butter (1300kcal)

* large hunk of banana cake (900kcal)

* 200g moose/pork burger, two large jacket potatoes, 200g peas, 20g butter (900kcal)

* 300g stewed pear, 100g blueberries (400kcal)

= 4600kcal

Just about to eat a very large bowl of veg/noodle/tofu stirfry (about 1500kcal) and will have some supper later too, so probably total 7000kcal today.

Training wise, 2hrs 8m on the bike, 6hrs moderate activity at work coupled with an hour of resistance training (I can do band work whilst supervising my machine). I will do 30 minutes of table tennis later too.

[djnotts]

Never count calories, try to eat "healthy" foods - but far too many cakes. I've always wanted to reach 10 stone, which would give me a BMI of c.20. I never did even when I drank 6-10 pints of bitter or Guiness every day for many years.
Apart from waist increasing from 30" to 31" in last 2 years as a side effect of post-radiotherapy prostate cancer drug treatment (as I was told it would!) I'm almost exactly same size as I was 60 years ago. OK, yes I have shrunk in height!
Just had my usual porridge with honey.
Sandwich or cake for lunch, smallish dinner at 7 p.m. await.
Nil alcohol for over 20 years may explain no old age obesity!

I would think you'd have no problem gaining weight if you ate some more. For reference (to illustrate how much I eat to maintain), today has been:

* 500g full fat greek yoghurt, 160g kvarg (12% protein yoghurt), 100g blueberries, 130g strawberry jam, 10g sugar (1100kcal)

* 3 rounds of salami sandwiches on homemade bread, generous butter (1300kcal)

* large hunk of banana cake (900kcal)

* 200g moose/pork burger, two large jacket potatoes, 200g peas, 20g butter (900kcal)

* 300g stewed pear, 100g blueberries (400kcal)

= 4600kcal

Just about to eat a very large bowl of veg/noodle/tofu stirfry (about 1500kcal) and will have some supper later too, so probably total 7000kcal today.

Training wise, 2hrs 8m on the bike, 6hrs moderate activity at work coupled with an hour of resistance training (I can do band work whilst supervising my machine). I will do 30 minutes of table tennis later too.

I simply cannot imagine eating that much. I didn't get anywhere near that when doing 8 hours a day hard manual labour, although I did drink at least 8 pints of bitter a day!

Will beat my cycling target to average 100 miles per week for the year - means nearer 120-130 p.w. to counter the weeks away on holiday and nil miles!

At 75 with bad COPD and post-prostate Radiotherapy drug treatment I consider I'm doing not too shabbily.

Both my parents were my build/weight.

Reckon I'll stay as I have always been!

[Jon in Sweden]

I simply cannot imagine eating that much. I didn't get anywhere near that when doing 8 hours a day hard manual labour, although I did drink at least 8 pints of bitter a day!

Will beat my cycling target to average 100 miles per week for the year - means nearer 120-130 p.w. to counter the weeks away on holiday and nil miles!

At 75 with bad COPD and post-prostate Radiotherapy drug treatment I consider I'm doing not too shabbily.

Both my parents were my build/weight.

Reckon I'll stay as I have always been!

It goes without saying that irrespective of age and health conditions, a weekly total of over 100 miles is excellent. Couple that with being in your 8th decade and the COPD, then all I can do is doff my cap

I'm a big guy.I'm 40 next year, but the fittest I've ever been. When I left home aged 19, my mum said her shopping bill halved. There were 4 of us in the household!

It's one of the reasons I cook/bake/forage* so much is cost. It'd be horrendous if I had to pay full price for everything.

* I put 110kg of blueberries into the chest freezer this summer. It was a good year, so that was actually only about 25hrs work. I now have 200g of blueberries every day, and feel smug about it too

[JohnR]

My daily calorie needs for cycle commuting vary between 1500kcal (if I take it very easy) to about 2200kcal (if I push really hard).

Is that a Garmin estimate or a Bike Calculator (or similar) estimate? I've found that different Garmins give different estimates with the same data and having/not having a heart rate monitor changes the estimates it gives me.

Ultimately, it's a matter of interpreting the various estimates in a way that the bottom line makes sense.

I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to winter cycling (my fingers and thumbs were hurting at 4C today despite two layers of gloves) so the weekly mileage reduces and my waistline increases (I'll add 1 to 2kg by the time spring arrives as cold weather also makes me more hungry) and the challenge is to burn off that excess before the next winter arrives.

[Jon in Sweden]

My daily calorie needs for cycle commuting vary between 1500kcal (if I take it very easy) to about 2200kcal (if I push really hard).

Is that a Garmin estimate or a Bike Calculator (or similar) estimate? I've found that different Garmins give different estimates with the same data and having/not having a heart rate monitor changes the estimates it gives me.

Ultimately, it's a matter of interpreting the various estimates in a way that the bottom line makes sense.

I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to winter cycling (my fingers and thumbs were hurting at 4C today despite two layers of gloves) so the weekly mileage reduces and my waistline increases (I'll add 1 to 2kg by the time spring arrives as cold weather also makes me more hungry) and the challenge is to burn off that excess before the next winter arrives.

Various online calculators mostly.

I used to struggle a bit with cold hands once it got to minus 3c, but the ski mitts have been a revelation. I have genuinely sweaty hands at minus 10c.