Training a diet...

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tomUK
Any input to this post would be greatly appreciated.

Last week I had two days where I took great care of my diet.
Basically they consisted of a breakfast of 50g Oatmeal with a banana, lunch of 50g pasta with a tin of tuna and dinner of 2 chicken breast, broccoli, Cauliflower and baked potatoes. In the evening before I went to bed I had a hot cup of milk with a little honey (it helps me sleep). I did not drink coffee or tea throughout the day. I just stuck with Water and herbal teas.

At the end of the second day I did my standard training. It was a normal session of 190W for 1 hour. Perceived exertion was about normal but my heart rate was 15bpm lower. Also, I must add that when I woke on day 2 and day 3 I felt better and had slept better.

Is the key to improving performance more associated to diet than we would like to believe. To be honest eating that healthy is tough (and boring to say the least), however, if it yeilds such great performance gains and allows your body to recover quicker then surely it is worth it for those of us whom are serious about cycling?

Any thoughts/comments?

Tom.

Diet does play a really important part in training and performance. However rather than a good diet making you go faster; a poor diet is going to make you fatigue sooner, recover slower and go slower.

I'm not sure that a good diet for cycling has to be boring or hard to eat; but thats a personal thing. If you are serious about cycling, diet is definately worth thinking about.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tomUK
Any input to this post would be greatly appreciated.

Last week I had two days where I took great care of my diet.
Basically they consisted of a breakfast of 50g Oatmeal with a banana, lunch of 50g pasta with a tin of tuna and dinner of 2 chicken breast, broccoli, Cauliflower and baked potatoes. In the evening before I went to bed I had a hot cup of milk with a little honey (it helps me sleep). I did not drink coffee or tea throughout the day. I just stuck with Water and herbal teas.

At the end of the second day I did my standard training. It was a normal session of 190W for 1 hour. Perceived exertion was about normal but my heart rate was 15bpm lower. Also, I must add that when I woke on day 2 and day 3 I felt better and had slept better.

Is the key to improving performance more associated to diet than we would like to believe. To be honest eating that healthy is tough (and boring to say the least), however, if it yeilds such great performance gains and allows your body to recover quicker then surely it is worth it for those of us whom are serious about cycling?

Any thoughts/comments?

Tom.

I'm with 2Lap on this one, i don't see the reason or need why a good diet should be boring.

The majority of your diet should come from quality carbs -- these will help your cycling delaying fatigue, and keeping your power up.

the quantity of carbs you consume will be dependent upon the absolute amount of exercise that you do, if you only do an hour a few times a week, then ~ 60% of your diet should be carb based. on the other hand if you do more e.g. ~ 8 to 12 plus hrs a week, then it's best to define carb intake as an absolute measure based on body mass (i.e., 6 to 10 g carb per kg body mass per day).

you should also aim to eat plenty of fruit, veg, lean proteins, and small amounts of fat. no reason why this should be boring, plenty of food is in these types of proportions and not boring (e.g. Italian). [obviously, taste/flavour/boring/ is all open to personal interpretations].

depending on how much training you do, it doesn't look (at first appearance) that you eat much carbs.

additionally, i don't feel you can make any suggestions with regards to your HR being lower on a particular day -- HR can vary for many reasons, and is one reason why training with power is much more important.

ric

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tomUK
Any input to this post would be greatly appreciated.

Last week I had two days where I took great care of my diet.
Basically they consisted of a breakfast of 50g Oatmeal with a banana, lunch of 50g pasta with a tin of tuna and dinner of 2 chicken breast, broccoli, Cauliflower and baked potatoes. In the evening before I went to bed I had a hot cup of milk with a little honey (it helps me sleep). I did not drink coffee or tea throughout the day. I just stuck with Water and herbal teas.

At the end of the second day I did my standard training. It was a normal session of 190W for 1 hour. Perceived exertion was about normal but my heart rate was 15bpm lower. Also, I must add that when I woke on day 2 and day 3 I felt better and had slept better.

Is the key to improving performance more associated to diet than we would like to believe. To be honest eating that healthy is tough (and boring to say the least), however, if it yeilds such great performance gains and allows your body to recover quicker then surely it is worth it for those of us whom are serious about cycling?

Any thoughts/comments?

Tom.

Wonder if your HR reduction and better sleep was due to your stopping caffeine for two days? If you'd been used to a daily intake of 300 mg or more, believe this could be a factor.

You didn't mention any withdrawal headaches, so perhaps you're not used to a high daily intake.

caffeine is not a substance I used too often - it tends to send me a bit loopy.

This HR-Power business still bothers me a little. While I understand that Power is the key figure, isn't it important to listen to what your 'engine' is doing? Surely if you are producing for example 210W at 110bpm this is better than 135bpm?

If one day I'm working at out 210W and my heart rate is clocking 135bpm could I not potentially be working too hard? Sometimes I get high heart rates but low Percieved exertions. Other days I can get low heart rates and relatively high PE's. What is the relationship here then?

Thanks,
Tom.

Quoted post said:

Originally posted by tomUK
This HR-Power business still bothers me a little. While I understand that Power is the key figure, isn't it important to listen to what your 'engine' is doing? Surely if you are producing for example 210W at 110bpm this is better than 135bpm?

If one day I'm working at out 210W and my heart rate is clocking 135bpm could I not potentially be working too hard? Sometimes I get high heart rates but low Percieved exertions. Other days I can get low heart rates and relatively high PE's. What is the relationship here then?

Thanks,
Tom.

not really wnating to turn this into another power thread... however, at a given workload and due to a variety of factors HR can vary quite a lot (as you point out). Similar thing happens to me (and many others). For e.g. at TT power my HR can regularly vary 15 to 20 b/min depending on what training i've been doing and how fatigued i am (this is at the same power). i'm (you) still producing the same power.

HR can vary due to altitude, temperature (hot and cold), wind speed, cadence, topographical conditions, fatigue, caffeine, dehydration, anxiety, food, other stuff. as long as you can produce the desired power then that's fine you're body is coping with it.

obviously, though, if you were trying to ride a (e.g.) a race and you had some sort of cardiac episode, then (you'd hopefully) stop and see a doc irrespective of what your HR is (i.e. you'd feel there was something wrong, you don't need a HR monitor to tell you this)

i rarely use a HR monitor - in fact last season i only used one to a) see how much HR actually varied at constant workloads b) to see if my HRmax had changed

this season i'm only using it for checking whether it works or not (on a Power Tap, when the handlebar battery starts to loose it's energy the HR display goes first -- like a warning system)

ric

I know this is going off the subject a bit, but a questin for ric: how waterproof is the Power tap you own? I have heard from a couple of people that it doesn't like wet weather too much? I should imagine you must know living in Wales! I'm considering buying one but as I spend a fair bit of time in England I really need something that can take some precipitation!

The original PTs weren't waterproof (dull grey hub), the new ones are. they're as reliable as the SRM. My PT has been through some horrendous rain :-(

ric