The amount of sports drink I’m injesting currently is getting ridiculous as I go through a high glycogen burn in my training currently. Looking for a cheaper option than SIS energy I discovered a cheaper option – half price at rrp – from Bulk Powders.

However, it’s a mix of Malrodextrin and Dextrose as apposed to Maltrodextrin and Fructose in SiS. My understanding is that Dextrose is basically the dreaded Corn Syrup.

Does is matter, is one healthier than the other or is it all sugar at the end of the day?

Myprotein do a 100% maltodextrin powder

https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/is-maltodextrin-bad-for-me#how-its-made

A maltodextrin / fructose blend delivers energy to your body far more efficiently that just maltodextrin.

As Simon says. I have a myprotien account but couldn’t find a product.

Go and check out Torq website.
There is a lot of info there and links to loads of independent study’s that they base there product on.

maltodextrin is basically a mix of different length sugars / carbs and you don’t know the mix including fructose and dextrose IIRC It is basically high fructose corn syrup made into a powder

Its appalling stuff to fuel your body on. Basically you are just chowing down on sugars in vast amounts. incredibly bad for you in terms of your insulin response, teeth, digestion

Dextrose is table sugar.

My understanding is that Dextrose is basically the dreaded Corn Syrup

Dextrose is another word for glucose

Or just eat proper trail snacks every hour instead of drinking industrially derived shite?

Oats, berries, fruits and nuts combined with a bit of honey and baked into balls or bars. Protein, slow release carbs and quick release carbs together with actual real nutrients that your body desparately needs.

You know. How we evolved to eat and power ourselves over the last 150,000 years before business **** up human nutrition in the last 40…

Poah is right – I always get that muddled. Dextrose is glucose The “d” always makes me think its a disaccharide

Brother in law is a good runner, ultra is his thing, and all that OCR stuff. He has recently been experimenting with a plant based diet, which he seems convinced us working for him, the only other things over and above his 3 meals he has is a protein recovery shake, and almond butter sarnies when out on long runs.

I’m pretty sure he’ll be expending more calories than you in his training regime OP.

Be interested in how turboferret fuels, if he sees this, given his training program.

NBITF its clear you don’t understand the principle. Your mate isn’t relying on glycogen as much as I am.

Or just eat proper trail snacks every hour instead of drinking industrially derived shite?

Oats, berries, fruits and nuts combined with a bit of honey and baked into balls or bars. Protein, slow release carbs and quick release carbs together with actual real nutrients that your body desparately needs.

Today I need to get about 624g of carbs into my body – I’ll let you work out how to do that efficiently on a low fat principle with the method your recommend and the time required to “make|” the foods.

That is 2500 calories in sugar effectively – appallingly bad for you. that way lies diabetes

Only if all of it was energy drink TJ…

TJ knows cock all about sports physiology and has no experience of either being trained or training, so ignore him.

Re carbs, you can probably buy what you need cheaply from Bulk Powders, they have an Amazon store if you want to save on postage. I use their maltodextrin.

I would not advise trying to make your own drinks with fructose though since they end up incredibly sweet, and the DIYer does not have access to the kind of flavour chemical engineering to offset it.

Maltodextrin is A sugar but it is not sucrose. If you’d ever drank a glass of 60g of maltodextrin in water youd know that.

Again, don’t listen to him, he thinks everyone’s experience in the same as his own. He’s no idea what proper training is like.

Good article here, including links to carbs types for the uninitiated:

https://www.srasanz.org/sras/sugar-and-health/role-carbohydrates-athletes/

Re carbs, you can probably buy what you need cheaply from Bulk Powders, they have an Amazon store if you want to save on postage. I use their maltodextrin.

Useful tip, I’m a prime member, thanks.

Msaltodextrin is a mix of sugars / carbs of varying chain lengths to be precise 🙂 The mix will vary in different batches. Its basically an industrial byproduct

I do understand a wee bit of basic physiology.
kryton – I suggest you read up a bit of basic physiology from a medical viewpoint as well as sports stuff – you will often find them very conflicting

Twin Dellorto 40’s worked well for me, much livelier response I found.

What are you doing to need 600g of carbs theres no way I could take that in without having gastric issues. I didn’t take anywhere near that in ironman though I accept that’s done at a relatively low intensity.

You can train to use less cabs dvenbatva higher intensity, Dan Please did ironman Kona on 50g an hour for the bike and run, without carb loading or a carb breakfast. He cycles at about 280w and reckons he’s barely using his glycogen.

Anyway carbs during sustained efforts don’t illicit an insulin response, it’s not the same as sitting in front of the TV drinking a 2l of full sugar coke

I suggest you read up a bit of basic physiology from a medical viewpoint as well as sports stuff – you will often find them very conflicting

They conflict because they are covering different situations. For example, when you eat sugar or similar, the insulin produced promotes your cells to take up glucose and store as glycogen. However if you are fully rested then the glycogen stores are full so then the excess is laid down as fat. However if you’ve been exercising hard and/or regularly then your glycogen stores are depleted so the insulin is a good thing; the uptake of glucose is what helps you recover.

The effect is much more pronounced in people who use more glycogen in their exercise, which may be because of the type of exercise they are doing, how they are doing it, their physiology, or all three.

For many people exercise is an hour in the gym or football once or twice a week. But cyclists in particular get through far more energy than most casual exercisers, so there’s a big difference in requirements between even general sports and fitness people and hardcore cyclists.

What are you doing to need 600g of carbs

Yesterday and today I’m carb loading at 600-800g for tomorrows 4hr MTB. The rest of the time I’m doing 3hours or so of V02max intervals and about and an hour of sweet spot in 5-6 hours of riding which needs to be supported – daily then I’m circa 350g per day, 250g per rest day which is essentially normal diet – no supplements on rest days.

The Vo2max is burning through glycogen at quite a rate and some of the sessions are back to back days so constant replacement is necessary.

He cycles at about 280w and reckons he’s barely using his glycogen.

Bearing in mind what he does he at a different threshold than me, mine is measured at 225w.

How many hours a week you riding altogether Krtyon?

5-6 currently. All measured high intensity except and unmeasured “hit the hills” out door 60-90mins on Saturdays.

Creeps up to 8-12 end of Feb onward when intensity lowers and volume increases.

6h/week, at threshold that’s still only <5000calories even allowing a healthy margin for calories to build muscle that’s only going to be 6000-7000 calories over your normal diet.

I don’t agree with the naysayers that supplements aren’t useful if you’re riding hard*. If 6h/week is the total then your average ride must be <2h, you really should be able to do that on glycogen (and complex carbs at meal times) and maybe the odd gell or swig of 2:1 to get your through an interval session. You’d be better off with something more like a “pre workout” drink (which is similar, but with added stimulants). It’s not the aim to replace all the energy burnt during exercise during the exercise, a lot of that energy comes from fat, you just need enough to get you to the end a which point you can eat real food again.

*even if that’s just relative to your normal pace, I’m not fast but I still take a bottle or two of 2:1 on 100 mile rides to supplement whatever real food I can stomach, it makes the difference between collapsing at the end and having the energy to do another 10 each way to the pub and go out again the next day.

Personally I’ve stopped using energy drinks (used a huge range of them over the last 30 years). I now make flapjack once a week and that fuels all my bike sessions, I’ll also use some after a longer swimming session or a run session if I can’t get other food quickly.
Overall I believe it’s healthier for me and cheaper than using energy drink, plus I don’t experience any gastrointestinal issues. At present I’ve not ran out of energy whilst training, which normally has included about 15-19 hours of biking per week plus 4hrs swimming and a few runs each week. I’d definitely recommend giving it a try 👍

6h/week, at threshold that’s still only <5000calories even allowing a healthy margin for calories to build muscle that’s only going to be 6000-7000 calories over your normal diet

Sure my average cals is 2600 per day net up from 2100 during this period, its not huge.

I believe it’s healthier

Its not, its full of butter and sugar, unless you are making to a control that is otherwise.

At present I’ve not ran out of energy whilst training, which normally has included about 15-19 hours of biking per week plus 4hrs swimming

Time is not an issue, its what you are using for fuel in my case, glycogen of which we all have a limited store of circa 90 mins. If you are topping up that 10hrs riding on Glycogen and 9 on body fats p/w that you are doing.

Look, my coach is from a reputable company mentioned in this thread, is a sports scientist with a masters degree from one of the top Uni’s on that subject so I’m going to defer to him rather than debate the issue further.

I’ll ask him Monday which is preferable Dextrose of Fructose which was the original question.

Its not, its full of butter and sugar

How do you tell that ?

If anyone can do an MTB race only burning fat I take my hat off to them!

Back to your original question, here’s my understanding:

– Maltodextrin is essentially a source of glucose. It’s useful in sport drinks because it doesn’t taste super-sweet and it also takes a wee while for your gut to break it down (prevents a bit of gut-rot). A maltodextrin-glucose mix is essentially a glucose drink, and as such there’s a limit to the amount of it you can actually process in a given time frame.

– Fructose is metabolised by a different pathway to glucose (although it is turned into glucose eventually). It turns out that this means that you can process it at the same time as glucose and therefore take in more calories effectively. My (almost certainly oversimplified) thinking on this is that glucose goes to your muscles and fructose goes to your liver. I think some people don’t tolerate big doses of fructose well though – from memory that’s what caused Tom Dumoulin’s unscheduled comfort break at the Giro.

Oh, and the dreaded ‘corn syrup’ is actually high in fructose. It’s not very good for you if you don’t use it up I gather.

How do you tell that ?

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1205637/flapjack as an example.

Stevious – so are we basically saying as long as I’m using up the cals, Dextrose is no more or less detrimental than fructose in its effects?

Ah yes an arbitrary recipe.

For the record it’s possible to make flapjack with no added sugar and a small amount of butter.

Bit like suggesting beer as a carb drink .

“Its not, its full of butter and sugar, unless you are making to a control that is otherwise.”
Nice, nothing like telling someone you don’t know how they make their own flapjack 😂. Enjoy your race 👍

Normal traditional widely eaten flapjack is full of butter and sugar, so you can’t blame us for assuming that’s what he meant!

If he’s doing all that training on flapjack alone then he’s probably very good at fat burning and also keeping the intensity low.

Is it really worth putting your body through all that shit ?

6hrs a week isn’t that much surly possible on normal food?!?

6 hours a week could be two ten mile TTs a day with a 25 at weekends. That would take it out of you, no?

Fair enough, I’d incorrectly assumed that this being a cycling forum that it would be taken that the home made flapjack would be for the sporting type (low fat, lots of oats and a mixture of low and hi GI CHO sources, plus some peanut butter for protein 🤔).
I only suggested it as I’ve seen great benefits for my own training over the last couple of years, and my bike/swimming training has a pretty large sweet spot/L4 component which of course uses high quantities of CHO.

“6 hours a week could be two ten mile TTs a day with a 25 at weekends. That would take it out of you, no?”

If it is then the coach needs to take. Look at him self.

Look, my coach is from a reputable company mentioned in this thread, is a sports scientist with a masters degree from one of the top Uni’s on that subject so I’m going to defer to him rather than debate the issue further.

Then why ask a nutrition question on here, when you know exactly the sort of responses you are going to get.

Fair enough, I’d incorrectly assumed that this being a cycling forum that it would be taken that the home made flapjack would be for the sporting type (low fat, lots of oats and a mixture of low and hi GI CHO sources, plus some peanut butter for protein 🤔).

You make that sound so appetising.

And hang on. We’ve gone from ‘low fat and sugar’ to ‘made with a mix of low and high GI carbs (i.e. oats and syrup) and peanut butter (which is 50%fat)’, so we’re back where we started, just with the word peanut added before the butter.

I’ll ask him Monday which is preferable Dextrose of Fructose which was the original question.

2:1 mix of maltodextrin:fructose, just flavour it with squash and you basically have what torque sell (you actually have to sweeten it a bit with squash as maltodextrin tastes a bit odd on it’s own).

I’m not saying don’t have some, there’s research that shows performance improves even after just swilling some sugary water in your mouth and spitting it out, I just think those numbers seem awfully big for 6 hours a week.

TriChris – I apologise but yes that was my implication – that if you are buying Sainsbury’s Flapjack off the shelf its likely a lot less healthy than perhaps you would make on your own particularly if you are educated in nutrition. Thats what I mean by “your own control” – you may well be applying your own nutritious recipe, I have no idea if you are…

I just think those numbers seem awfully big for 6 hours a week.

Well, again I don’t know you TINAS but lets assume Torq / an experienced coach with a Masters in Sport Science maybe knows best, and they’ve no interest in overselling to me as I’m not using their products. For one thing, since we started this as an experiment to see if it affects my performance, I’ve only ever had positive gains. Starting with a lesser FTP in October than 12 months ago and failing to complete my VO2 Max intervals at that point I’m now in January completing 3 x 8 mins on back to back days relatively easily at the top end of my z5 since the introduction of about +125g of addition carbs into my training days.

I have gained weight though – 4lbs – and I am concerned about that, but my coach says this’ll drop off as we get to the 8-12 weeks period, some of the workouts being fasted and 4h+ weekend Z2 rides putting me in significant calorie deficit. I don’t like the weight gain but am putting my trust in him.

FWIW in summary I’m more powerful yet slightly heavier than I have been before at this time of year, albeit my endurance isn’t there yet.