Cycle for Shelter Nutrition

 

You’ve started your training for the Cycle for Shelter- you have the right riding equipment for the ride but is your body nutritionally equipped for the next few months of training and the ultimate event?  Yes? No? Well pull up a chair – my name is Pat Bebo, I am a registered and licensed dietitian/ nutritionist in MA and I will try to guide you along a path that will provide you with adequate nutrition during training, ample fuel for the ride and a short, hopefully painless recovery afterward.

 

Let’s get started today!

 

§    Resource: Hegmann, Jenny, Nutrition for a Century or Double; www.ultracycling.com, accessed 3/26/06.

 

§    Your daily training diet is an important component of your overall training regimen. A cyclist training for a century ride should derive 55-65 percent of their total calories from high quality carbohydrates.  This will allow you to prevent chronic glycogen depletion, train better and then ride better the day of the event and continue eating your usual foods pre-event to limit any digestive upset that may occur from a change in diet.

 

§    Excellent sources of carbohydrates include whole grains, fruits, vegetables and legumes.  Protein is important should not be the focus of the diet approximately 15% of calories should come from high quality protein in the form of lean meats, seafood, poultry and low-fat dairy products.  This amount of protein will enable your muscles to adequately repair themselves during training.  Finally fat would comprise no more than 30% of your daily caloric intake mostly in the form of unsaturated fat from vegetables oils and lowfat protein sources.

 

§    A day’s menu should be comprised of breakfast, lunch, dinner and three snacks.

 

According to Hegmann’s article there are three tasks you must complete during your months of training for your ride.

 

1. Learn your carbohydrate targets
1. Before riding: Replenish your morning-low liver glycogen by consuming about 75 grams (based on a 150 pound cyclist) of carbohydrate – this is roughly a bowl of cereal and banana.
2. Learn your sweat rate and fluid targets
1. Sweat rate is the rate at which you lose body water.  Optimal hydration depends on replenishing fluid as you lose it.. To do this, weigh yourself naked before and after a ride.  Each pound you’ve lost represent 2 cups or 16 ounces of fluid. To that fluid amount add the amount of fluid you drank during your ride and divide that total by the hours you rode. This would be your hourly sweat rate and is the amount of fluid you should drink per hour while riding.
3. Practice during training to avoid unwanted surprises on event day
1. Training is your time to experiment
2. Learn what and how much food/fluid work best for you and when.
3. Develop a schedule to meet your carbohydrate and fluid targets during the ride.
4. Learn what to carry and where to keep it.
5. Practice consuming foods/drinks that will be available during the event.
6. Train at the time your event will occur.

 

More information may be found in the Cyclist’s Food Guide by Nancy Clark, MS, RD and Jenny Hegmann, MS RD. 2005.

 

Over the next several months I will answer your questions and give more information about the food and fluid that will fuel your ride in July.

 

Happy riding!

Pat Bebo MS, RD, LDN