Help - Fatigue!

Sounds like a nutrition issue to me.

JR,

It does sound diet related. Could be something else, such as stress.

BTW, how did you determine your max heart rate ?

Thanks for the responses.

Stress: There's a little pressure, but I've lived through very much worse. OK, here's the diet:

Breakfast of 5 weetbix, dried fruit and nuts with soymilk.

I top up with 500ml of gatorade when I arrive, followed by a crumpet and hot chocolate at 10am. Lunch at noon consists of a couple of breadrolls with 100g tuna and salad.

Coffee and fruit at 2:30-3pm. Afternoon snack at 4:30-5pm is another crumpet and hot chocolate. Ride home starting at 6:30-7pm. Arrive home an hour later and eat dinner immediately, consisting of 100g chicken, fish or beef and a plate of vegetables like potatoes, corn and peas. Sometimes pasta or rice.

I'm going to check with the quack tomorrow to see about some asthma issues that are probably contributing, but I feel they're is not the whole story.

Thanks again for your help.

PS: heartrates: max is 220-age, the trip HR stats came from my cheapo echowell HRM.

JR, sleep problems can also occur if you are overtraining, which you are not.

The 220-age is just an estimate, individuals have different max heart rates.

Your diet is high in carbs in the morning and lunchtime, that much isn't really needed for the modest amount of exercise you are doing. Perhaps you could play with your diet and see what happens, perhaps reduce the carbs a litte in the morning and add a few carbs to the dinner and see what happens.

What are your fitness objectives?
- Loose fat
- Gain muscle
- Improve fitness
- non of the above, stay the same as currently

mikesbytes said:

.

What are your fitness objectives?
- Loose fat
- Gain muscle
- Improve fitness
- non of the above, stay the same as currently

Thanks for the feedback. My objectivers are al o fo the above.

Loose weight is largley about diet, the gaterate you have in the morning probably has more calories in it than you burnt on the ride in and personally I prefer to eat my calories. Having said that its got mineral replacements but is missing magnesium. For weight loss, why don't you try something different in the morning, perhaps 2 or 3 weetbix with fruit and low sugar yoghurt. Replace the gaterate with plenty of water, mild dehidration can make you feel hungry when you are actually thirsty, btw I'm assuming you have a water bottle on the bike and drink before you get thirsty?

The calorie saving from the morning will provide you some buffer, so if you get the munchies, you can score a piece of fruit for a snack. The fruit will give you a bit of sugar along with a bunch of good stuff.

Why soya milk? I use it sometimes because I don't produce very much of the enzine that breaks down lactose, but if you haven't got a special health issue, just use normal milk. There is debate as to whether soya milk is bad for you. Besides you can score milk from the office fridge usually.

Muscle Strength. When you exercies muscles you damage the muscles and then the body repairs them, using protein to repair them and make them stronger at the same time. To be honest, I'm not sure how much protein you need to repair after cycling, I'm guessing that the protein in the weetbix and the yogurt (if you go down that path) is sufficient in the morning and you have protein covered at lunch and dinner, so you are probably ok there. I lift weights in the morning immediately after riding in, so I damage my muscles much more than you and need more protein.

Lunch. Much better than mine, you could mix it a bit, fish gets boring after a while. Check out the carb content in the rolls, I'd bet that there are more calories in the rolls than there is in the filling. More filling less boring bread.

Dinner. Sounds pretty good. Not much improvement. Switch to Basanti rice if you are not already using it, Basanti has heaps less carbs than Jasmaine.

Commute. 6 months in , you are going great guns. The first 6 months is the hardest, as the body has to adapt. You will find that you will advance less rapidly from now on, but will continue to improve. BTW, what actual route are u riding, I'm thinking of the hills, they can be used to your advantage to mix up what you do. Sometimes on the way home, I push myself to the limit up the hill and then have a rest before tackling the next hill, a kind of informal interval training to build muscle strength and I'm still getting the aerobic content in there as well.

Get some ideas of others, what works for one doesn't work for everyone and make the changes one at a time.

Let us know how it went at the Doctors.

Thanks, this is useful information.

Diet:
The 5 weetbix I have in the morning before jumping on the bike. The soya milk is partly acquired taste, partly food sensitivity dating back to childhood. Too much milk product increases my phlegm production. I'd cut it out entirely but the soy tastes like cardboard when you put it in hot coffee, plus it's not hte most digestible of proteins.

I have a hydration pack or water bottle and sip probably about 400ml of water over the journey. And once a week I treat myself to a large Chinese takeaway.

I used to supplement with about 30g Whey Protein Isolate or Concentrate mid-morning and mid-afternoon until a couple of months ago when I didn't bother re-ordering. I was doing a lot more fast-twitch work (surfing and related strength training) back then, and while I'd like to keep the training the boardriding is now confined to weekends due to work schedules. This fatigue thing is cutting into the boardriding and related training quite a bit.

I'll try cutting the amount of powder in half in the gatorade bottle, and replace the morning crumpet with the WPI. I find the carbs are important if I've had a good run in (ie few stops with smooth traffic flow) so I don't "bonk" mentally at my desk mid-morning.

Route:
My route runs from Allambie Heights down Allambie Road, up the cycleway past Burnt Bridge Creek Deviation, down via the Spit, and along Spit and then Military Roads until Bent Street in Neutral Bay. Down the winding hill on the eastern side of the freeway to the eastern side of Milsons Point Station then under the short tunnel and over the Bridge.

Return route is similar except I come up from the Bridge via Miller St North Sydney to N-Bay, and up from the Spit via Battle Boulevarde then across over to Burnt Bridge Deviation and either the cycleway if the light is good or across to Condamine Street of it's getting dark. The climb back up Allambie Road is the last stretch - fun, but it can be challenging!

Weight loss:
I'm quite slim, there's just a couple of love-handles I'd like to wear off,so it's more of a vanity thing I suppose. :p

Off to the quack this afternoon.

Hmmm. Weird. Based on everything that has been said I think the only thing that really needs to be done is to edit the original post from 'I feel smashed ' to 'I feel somewhat more fatigued at the end of the week relative to the beginning of the week'.

You would then join 99.9% of the rest of us 🙂

existence said:

Hmmm. Weird. Based on everything that has been said I think the only thing that really needs to be done is to edit the original post from 'I feel smashed ' to 'I feel somewhat more fatigued at the end of the week relative to the beginning of the week'.

You would then join 99.9% of the rest of us 🙂

Nah, it's more than that mate. Smashed is thoroughly apropriate. I feel like I need to sleep for a full day to recover. Not so good when you've got a young family wanting your company and participation on the weekends, and you're too buggered to do anythign but grouch at them. 🙄

I would be careful about eating that much Tuna because of the mercury content. At least in the United States the government has an official set of guidelines about how much fish is safe to eat, and it also listed the mercury content. Some fish were very high, especially large predators like sharks and swordfish. I think chunk light tuna is not one of the worst, but I wouldn't eat it more than once a week. I could be wrong about the kind of tuna though. There are not similar problems with freshwater fish, as mercury pollution is not that much of a problem. I have also heard anecdotal stories of people getting severe mercury poisoning from eating fish every day. So maybe you should look into this yourself, it might save you some trouble down the road.

According to the US EPA, for someone weighing more than 150 lbs (68kg) the most tuna that you can safely eat is either 1 can of white albacore every 9 days, or 1 can of chunk light every 3 days.
The supposed maximal safe mercury intake is .1microgram per kg per day, or in your case .75 micrograms of mercury. The mercury content of Tuna is between .09 to .49 ppm depending on the type of Tuna. Assuming you eat 100g of .09 ppm Tuna per day, you ingest 100*.09/(10^6) grams of mercury, or 9X10^(-6) grams of mercury, or 9 micrograms. This is 10 times the safe level of consumption, at least according to the US government. Take from it what you will. I also might have calculated wrong, and my estimate of .09 ppm is less than the concentration in the safest tuna, so depending on what you are eating you could be consuming more.

j.r.hawkins said:

Nah, it's more than that mate. Smashed is thoroughly apropriate. I feel like I need to sleep for a full day to recover. Not so good when you've got a young family wanting your company and participation on the weekends, and you're too buggered to do anythign but grouch at them. 🙄

Ok well lets look at it. Your cycling is at a fairly low to moderate tempo and the distance/time is also low to moderate. Your fatigue sensation is not systemic and specifically has an onset later in the week (and you subsequently use your weekends to let your body 'catchup'.

If it were stress then you would be seeing a far higher flux in when you fatigue...i.e find it much more difficult to correllate to your 'end of week' theory.

This only leaves nutrition and sleep. However you appear to be consistently getting 6 hrs sleep and if you are consistent in the diet you have outlined then like mike said its more than good enough. Any tinkering at the sidelines is unlikely to stop you feeling 'smashed'.

If I could suggest anything it would be to take a WPC protein shake about 30mins before bed...(by the way dont waste your time with WPI in your situation total waste of money IMHO) follow this with 500ml of water sipped just prior to bed. Also look into how much of the good fatty acids you are getting in your diet.

Otherwise I am stumped!!

j.r.hawkins said:

Hi All,

I started cycling to work 6 months ago and I'm finding that by the end of the week I'm feeling totally smashed and it's only be the end of the weekend that feelings of fatigue are gone. I'm hoping that you guys can provide some guidance on dealing with this issue.

Here are the stats:

Age:44
Ride: Slick-tyred hardtail MTB 24-speed, weight about 15kg.
Hours in saddle per week: 7 1/2
Route: mildly hilly (coastal Sydney)
Inbound trip: 17.5km in 50 minutes including 5 or so minutes for traffic stops
Homebound trip: 19.5km in 57 minutes including the same 5 for traffic stops
Riding days: Mon, Tues, Thurs, Fri. Wednesday rest day.
HR Max for age: 176
Max HR for trip: 166-171
Average HR for trip: 144-147
Training zone set at: 123-153bpm
Time in training zone: 35min
Time over training zone: 17min

If I get home after 8pm I find I'm still buzzing and don't feel much like retiring until almost midnight. Sleep is often interrupted about 3-4am for 30-45 minutes. Wake at 6:30-6:45am feeling like a truck has run over me. Breakfast usually revives and I feel great after the ride in.

My weight hovers around 78-79kg with body fat around 19 point something percent. Diet is reasonable and I can spell that out more in another post if this would help.

Any informed advice you may care to offer is most appreciated.

Sounds like you're riding too hard too often. 7&1/2 hours a week of daily commuting in stop and go traffic doesn't sound like a picnic to me.

"Buzzing" until midnight, and then waking up at 3-4 am is a sign of overtraining.

Don't know what your previous cycling history is, but suggest your commuting trips ought to be easy. Your current commuting, with avg. of 80% of max HR and peaks of 95% twice a day for almost an hour each way certainly isn't easy riding, but some pretty serious training which sounds like more than you can handle well.

When it comes to hard training, too much is a lot worst than not enough. I believe a lot of us self-coached cyclists tend to fall into this trap. Then after 6 months or a season, we wonder why we're tired all the time and not getting faster on the bike.

Suggest you start by resetting your HRM training zone to 110-130, and never exceed that 130 max. Also, I'd put in an extra rest day each week, so you're riding M-W-F, with a rest day after each riding day. It will take some discipline to ride this slowly, but believe it will really help you in the long run.

After a month or two, if you're free of fatigue symptoms, you can gradually bump up the intensity for one or two rides a week. Do it in small steps, like 5 bpm at a time, and go at least two weeks each time to see how you respond.

dhk2 said:

7&1/2 hours a week of daily commuting in stop and go traffic doesn't sound like a picnic to me.

You're right, it isn't. And I see you've picked up on the significance of the HR data I gave.

The tendency is to sprint away from the lights and stoppages so as not to be a traffic nuisance and to keep closing speeds to a minimum. And there's the competitive thing with other cyclists 🙄 - apart from a very few MTBers the only guys consistently quicker now are all on roadbikes.

Update:
I've been to see the quack and he could find nothing immediately wrong. Blood pressure, listened to my lungs, felt around lymph nodes, abdomen and so on. All good.

I had my asthma script renewed, so hopefully getting back on the wagon with medication and symptom management will help with sleeping.

He's written up paperwork to get some blood tests done. I think his thought is around iron levels. I'll keep you posted with results.

In the meantime I'll cut the cycling days to M-W-F until the sleeping patterns stabilise. Cutting the intensity will be a challenge, with the hills on the route being what they are. The homeward journey is the tougher one, with Battle Boulevarde being steeper though shorter, and the climb back up Allambie Road around 3km in length.

I'm looking to get a road bike - would that help much?

j.r.hawkins said:

I'm looking to get a road bike - would that help much?

Yes and No, the road bike will be more efficient, but the laws of physics still apply and the hill you are doing out of the spit bridge, each way isn't exactly small.

If you haven't already done it, get some cleated pedals and cycling shoes.

I kind of doubt that the commute is the reason for your sleeping problems, but perhaps a change will trigger a change in sleeping and then you can resume 5 days commuting.

mikesbytes said:

If you haven't already done it, get some cleated pedals and cycling shoes.

Done. Got the LBS to put 'em on before I took delivery. Was a bit sketchy at first but now I'd never go back. Love 'em. 😎

Just my first thought when I read your post because it hit home... Have you been tested for sleep apnea? Do you know if you snore? Do you catch up on sleep on the weekend? There are over the counter remedies for sleep issues besides drugs. Good luck!

Let us know how you went. All the best.

Sounds like you're a competitive type all right. It's great that you're having fun on the commute, but not good if it causes you to overdo the intensity on every ride. It will take discipline to watch the HRM and forget about chasing everybody that goes by you. Those short sprint efforts really can add extra stress, particularly if you're doing them everyday.

After you've been commuting for a couple of seasons, you'll likely find you don't need to watch the HRM limits all the time; you'll be able to put in some hard sprints or climbs without causing fatigue.

Yes, a road bike will get you to work a bit easier. Power required for climbing at a given speed is proportional to weight (bike+rider). Don't know what your MTB weighs, but if you could save 10 lbs, you'd certainly notice it on climbs. On the flats, believe you'd notice easier pedaling when in an aero position on the drops, particularly on those days you have to punch into a headwind.

Glad your medical report is good so far. Agree with the posts that say sleep is very important. I've read that 8-9 hours sleep is essential to good progress, even for pros.