Hey guys I am a bodybuilder & I just started cycling. I have been training on a lower carb diet. I already plan on consuming 600+Carbs a day for 3 days. BUT what kind of carbs and how frequently should I eat?
Geez, you see more cycling posts on this site than on Velonews anymore. Armstrong’s making it almost cool to ride a bike.
Refer to previous post with regard to low carbs and endurance. If you are racing, you do not want to be on a low carb diet. If just training to lose weight, you are going to get cut fast. Bicycle racing requires more glycogenic metabolism than any other endurance sport. Once you’ve done a few races you will realize that you need to be able to go really hard for several minutes at a time. This requires threshold type training that cannot be done on low carbs.
That being said, eat at least every 3 hours. Best to split it up as much as possible to moderate insulin effect. By elevating carbs drastically for the three days before the race, your body is going to go into storage mode and it will be real hard to burn fat, or anything for that matter. By spreading the carbs out as much as possible (300 cals at a time 3 hours apart) this will be minimized and you likely won't feel as flat. Eat complex carbs as much as possible. You will want simple carbs on the bike though in a 8-10 % solution.
You will have to change your approach to eating and training if don’t want to get schooled on the bike. Good luck.