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For almost a year we've cut out sugar and cut out beige carbs and feel a lot better for it , but ive started cycling a lot more and think i need more than just electrolyte tablets to fuel 2hr plus rides .
So what fuel can i use without loading up on the sports drinks , gels and energy bars that are full of sugar
What you putting in the night before and pre ride as that should be doing a chunk of it and carbs will play a part of it.
The only thing you can burn fast enough for high wattage activity is glucose.
You can get this in many forms and it doesn't have to be out and out sugar like jelly babies and those horrible gels.
I tend to use oaty and nutty breakfast type bars.
Flapjack. If you make it yourself, you can add whatever sugar you like; golden syrup for the win...
Cake...maybe bananas too but mostly cake
Err.....Haribo
Peanut butter and jam on brown bread sandwich.
Flapjack though I do have an adversion after one 100 plus mile event
Nut bars with chocolate
Sainsbury's fizzy fangs vegetarian ones
I tend to take breakfast/oaty/nutty bars... A sandwich maybe.
In the old days they stuffed their pockets with sausages. Whatever takes your fancy really.
Banana malt loaf bars and jelly Babies, and porridge before cycling on those colder days.
Coke.
And hookers, obvs.
Ive done fully loaded century rides fuelled by jam sandwiches.
too much sugar is obviously bad, generally, but you do need some sometimes, like on a long ride.
eating a jam sarnie on a long ride is very different to eating it sitting on a couch.
Hartley's Jelly - the rubbery cube stuff. Far cheaper than Shot Bloks and almost the same (OK, less complex carbs / more sugar but )
12x11g cubes for 55p
Typical Values
Per 100g as sold
Energy 296 kcal</td>
Fat 0.0g</td>
Carbohydrate 68.5g
of which sugars 57.4g
Protein 5.5g
Salt 0.4g
Shot Bloks Pack = 6x10g cubes = £3
(per 100g)
Energy - 320kcal
Fat - 0
Carbs - 80g
Sugars - 40g
Protein - 0
Salt - 0.46
naked bars are good, they're mostly dates and nuts. I'm not sure if the kind of sugar in dates is in or out of fashion at the moment though.
OH and are you hitting the gels etc out of habit or because you need them?
The other answer is if you are fuelling properly before and running out get this read the intro and pick your food
https://feedzonecookbook.com/portables/
I used to do the carb loading thing and eat a gel or bar every half hr like the sport drink sites recommend but having stopped that its made no difference what so ever to my fitness or speed ,and in all the years of cycling ive never hit "the wall" so i must be good at using fat as fuel... but its the getting hungry bit that bugs me so maybe a peanut butter sandwich is the future
Veloforte - likes to think of itself as the Rapha of energy bars but bloody lovely!
So what fuel can i use without loading up on the sports drinks , gels and energy bars that are full of sugar
When you say you've cut out sugar, what do you mean? Refined sugars, High GI foods? And to what end? This will largely dictate what options are open to you.
You can just eat normal food. High GI is better for intense exercise and short bursts but you can fuel lower intensity exercise on less sugary food.
Most cake, flapjack, malt loaf, fruit based things will be high in simple sugars.
In the past I've tried mini baked potatoes, potato cakes with cheese, rice cakes, peanut butter sandwiches. Non amazing but better than jels and sweets.
My default these days is just cereal bars. Nothing wrong with sugar if you are exercising. Gels and drinks saved for racing - more because I can't chew on the rivet and need to be able to eat fast.
Feedzone book is good, many of those ideas can be found online now too. There was a few pages available for free?
Get fitter? My commute is 25miles and I usually do it on an empty stomach or a couple of slices of toast at most. And another couple when I get to work. That's almost two hours, and I am VERY unfit!
One of the adaptations your body makes with exercise is to improve how much glycogen it can store, so if you want to ride for 2 hours without food, have a decent meal the night before (no need to go crazy, just have some carbs if you normally have none) and go ride it, then again a few days later, and again until you can ride for a couple of hours without resorting to junk food.
Whilst cycling your body burns fat and carbs. So you don't need to replace the calories 1:1 with sugar (assuming you have 'some' body fat at all to burn). On top of that a lot of "cycling burns XXX calories per hour" (including what the cycle computers, heart rate monitors and garmin's say) are wildly optimistic for the average weekend warrior (roughly your calorie intake is equal to your kJ output, so an hour at an FTP effort of 300W (a very fast roadie) burns 1080 calories. An hour to do follow the dog at Cannock doesn't, so you don't need to follow the gel manufacturers instructions and eat one every 15-20min, that would probably rot your teeth and give you diabeties!
Typical roadie club run, 5 hours with a stop for a generous portion of cake and milky coffee halfway. I'm tired by the end, but just have a normal-ish lunch when I get back. Racing is different, and people who race competitively don't have much fat to burn so have different needs to 'normal'.
peanut butter jelly sandwich, banana, few grumpy bar as a pick me up on 6hrs plus outing.
Has been said breakfast of porridge, this is rocketfuel, light the blue touch paper and go.
I could go into a hugely complicated answer about carefully balanced diets, but the reality is that Haribo and Jelly Babies have saved my ass on more occasions than I care to mention and are now a staple part of my back pocket kit on a long ride, even if I also take other stuff. And for riding distance with kids, they are pretty much mandatory!
Sorry, I know this doesn't help a great deal 🙁
Tin of Sardines
or
B&M Flapjacks 29p
Apple, Banana and a Satsuma.
Nutrigrain bars
and as above...^^
Porridge for breakfast with a handful of blackberries chucked in.
Loads of water... but that is obvs.
You can have sugar. There is nowt wrong with it. The problem comes when you have too much of it, like alot of us do these days. So if your diet is pretty good with a low sugar content, then fuelling with the odd sugary snack during vigorous physical exercise is not going to be a problem for you. It's about having the right 'tool' for the job. FlapJacks and the like are great for a one off during a ride, or when you want to load on complex carbs that will release energy over time, but contain the wrong type of carb for a quick hit (golden syrup or honey excepted but how much of it in a flapjack?), and I for one don't like eating heavy stuff like flapjacks when on the bike, they're way too bulky and make me feel crap, though everyone is different - if you can take flapjacks on the bike then go for your life, whatever works for you. I find them fine if I stop for a break, like lunch or something where it gets time to digest and get off my gut, but when on the bike I need something alot less bulky - I'm not eating because I'm hungry, I'm eating because I need fuel.
I have banana's for the slower release energy and sugary stuff for quick hits and keep back a gel or two for emergencies.
You've cut out beige carbs in your diet, but the reason why you're feeling better might not necessarily be because you've changed they type of carbs you eat, it's probably because you've simply improved diet as a whole, so having the odd sugary snack is unlikely to be a problem...in fact your body is probably better prepared and capable to deal with it.
I've been doing keto since January and I can do all day 10+ hour rides on nothing but my body fat and water, and finish still not feeling hungry.
Top 15÷ of my heart rate, real red-line stuff is not really a goer (so I go slower on those ups) but other than that I could walk out my door now and ride until I dropped dead of boredom before I really needed to eat.
Did Cromford>Edale by a mixture of the high peak trail, pennine bridleway and limestone way on Saturday (bout 40 miles in the heat) and only stopped off once to have a caprese salad starter in the Royal Oak in Hurdlow.
Carbs are for losers 😉
Carbs are for losers
Pizza for winners
I subscribe to the school of thought that says if you are outdoors it doesn't count, so if you are up a hill or on a bike or whatever then just get tucked in. Pork pies, malt loaf are the current fuels of choice. Tesco jelly beans are 3 bags for a quid and have got me out of bother once or twice (or maybe even three times...)
I think probably the answer to your question is take actual food with you rather than gels and all that crap. Just eat what you like eating.
Always ride within pushing distance of a kebab shop?
Dairylea Barm, Malt Loaf, any combination of peanut butter, jam and cheese you fancy.
Minstrels in the summer, Maltesers in the winter.
Peanuts and raisins.
Bananas.
OPTIMISINGNUTRITION.COM Banana and natural yogurt in porridge for breakfast, then home made malt loaf when out and about.
Breakfast of a champion?
Sainsbury's jelly babies (only because they're cheapest I've come across at 95p)
Peanut butter, reduced salt yeast extract and jam sandwich
Banana just before setting off
Porridge for breakfast
14 SiS Go Gels?
Would not want his bowels after that!
2 hours plus?
Breakfast. Usually a bowl of some chocolate flavoured cereal as couple of hours before I go out. I'm a bit of a plodder so 2 hours is about 30 miles if solo or a a bit more on a club run. If I have remembered anything then sometime after that its whatever muesli bar that I found in the cupboard. That see me to about 50 miles. More than that, another bar. Might chuck a few glucose tabs if to get me home if I bonk. Generally that's not the case and a few miles of grovelling doesn't do any harm in the same way that running out of liquid 10 miles out doesn't.
Ive not gone full keto but have read lots about it and Apparently even the slimmest of cyclists has around 40,000 calories of energy stored as fat to tap into if needed .
Belvita breakfast biscuits do the trick for me. One pack gets me through about 3 1/2 hours riding with a fair amount of climbing.
As others have said, porridge is the one. I tend to go 50g of oats, half water / half milk, topped with a handful of walnuts broken up, big dollop of honey and some fruit such as blueberries or banana, and a teaspoon of cocoa.
You can do a similar thing with overnight oats, which are great as can just be left in the fridge and eaten quicky if it's early and you're in a rush to get out.
I can't bring myself to use energy gels. They're a bonk emergency only.
Malt loaf, and jam and peanut butter on rice cakes are my in ride choice at the moment. After the first hour I start nibbling every half hour or so.
I tried asking a similar question, but due to my phrasing, didn't exactly get the most useful answers.
In case you're wondering, I'd been reading "Feed Zone Portables".
Malt loaf (with jam), flapjack, haribo are my ride staples, and if there is a cafe stop then cake obviously.
Big plate of porridge for breakfast, then 4 Snickers bars per 200km does me, plus a bag of jelly babies in case of desperate need.
Flapjack, rice bars, bananas, jelly beans, jam butties, dates.
I don't mind gels, but save them for races only and not for anything over 4hrs.
Malt loaf is my favourite backed up with bananas plain choc coated raisins plain oatcakes for long days might take couple wholemeal rolls with cheesespread well compacted - breakfast as much muesli as can stuff in and a couple of slices wholemeal toast - I'll carry something like a cliff bar or similar in case run out of food and in a real emergency knock back a coke from a filling station - eat well in advance and regularly during a ride then gels aren't essential can't remember last time had one...on a full day out do quite like a cafe stop but don't actually like cake!
got given a copy of Michael Hutchinson's book Faster at xmas - though not about nutrition has some easily readable stuff about processing food when riding - not seen the feedzone book suggested above - obviiously more relevant will check it out - cheers
Ambrosia semolina. Drink of champions. Also porridge in freezer bags. Make mine with Bradley apple. Tuna and rice before. And also in freezer bags. I use sticky rice
I cant chew food when riding, so swallowing thick fluids is the way for me. Dry bars are an absolute no no
Oats to go porridge pouches are fantastic. 60g of carbs per pouch. If you want something more robust in your pockets.
You really need a sugar fix for a 2 hour ride? I'm T1 diabetic - even I can manage 2 hours moderate exercise without needing to boost my sugars! Porridge gives me uber bad guffs. Usually take a banana, fluids and some high glucose jelly beans, maybe a lunch of a couple of wraps or similar if I'm out on an all dayer and then a pint and a pub meal on the way home so I don't hypo while driving home.
How many gels would a TdF rider use on an average stage? (100km +?)