Thread for advice on nutrition

[joel-lucozade sport]

Hi all.

My name is Joel and I’m a sport scientist for Lucozade Sport. I am also an age group triathlete with experience of competition at World and European championships for the last 3 years. My job primarily entails helping people understand a little more about nutrition in order to achieve their maximal performance and optimize recovery. With such a large amount of information available to the regular consumer, it’s very hard to distinguish between correct practice and poor practice.

If you struggle to know what best to eat to fuel your body, are baffled by how much fluid to drink during training and have no idea what carbohydrate loading is I’m here to help.

Please feel free to post any questions you might have and I’ll get back to you with some clear and practical advice. Cheers

Joel

[goz]

Just the man i'm looking for , have you any advice/information on nutrition for an up-coming double ironman. Thanks alot Goz

[Blinkybaz]

I am interested in recovery food.drink and the best times and quantity to use?
I have been using the Cow and banana shake (1/2 pint of semiskimmed and 2 banana's with some whaet gearm mixed into a smoothie) with in 20 mins of exercise.

Any advice would be fab!


Cheers
Blinky

[joel-lucozade sport]

Hi – thanks for your questions!

Firstly, Goz…double Ironman, wow, that’s hardcore! I’d like to know a little bit more about what you currently do in terms of nutrition, particularly during racing and long training. How you find it and also, crucially, what intensity you work at during a Double Ironman? If you use HR as a method monitoring training pace and intensity, then if you could let me know the % of HR max that you work in and I can give more specific advice.

The reason I ask is that (as you may be aware) there is considerable research to suggest that above 70%(ish) of our VO2max we are utilizing Carbohydrates for fuel (rather than fats), therefore in times where races and training are above this level you need to pay more careful attention to replacing this nutrient. We can only store a very ,limited amount (up to around 100mins of exercise) and can only top up a limited amount as well so strategies must be developed to meet the needs of our event an also to maximise the amount of Carbohydrate we get in and – more importantly – utilise.

As I am sure that you are aware, you will also be utilizing fats as fuel for much of your training and racing so I would also be keen to know if you currently use any strategy to increase your body’s utilisation of fat as a fuel source?

Secondly, Blinky!

Firstly, good work on picking up on the idea of Protein and Carbohydrate after training, you can increase protein synthesis (which is essentially what your body does as part of the recovery process) by three times over what it would be without both these nutrients by ingesting them after training, so your doing yourself a favour.

The science suggests that you need between 15-20g of protein and around 1g of Carbohydrate per KG of Body Weight AS SOON AS POSSIBLE after training (particularly very heavy or long training) to get this effect. Therefore the 2 banana’s will give you around 40-50g of Carbs and the milk will give you around 10g of Protein. I would be interested to know why you add wheat germ? Wheat germ is a great source of Fibre, which is a good thing, but fibre can slow the absorption of the carbohydrate, and as you want to get this into your system asap after training, it maybe that you look to get the fibre in during meals later in the day, where the fast absorption of carbs is not so important. The other thing that I would mention is that the protein in cow’s milk absorbs quite slowly when compared to whey protein (which you might find in good quality sports supplements). You could supplement the milk with a little whey protein, of even better have the whey protein on it's own with another source of quick release carbohydrate (banana’s on white toast with honey is rather nice!).

I’ve talked for long enough, but let me know if that helps and what other questions that brings up. Also Goz, let me know about your current strategies and we’ll go from there.

In the mean time, I have covered some of the areas that you might want to know about in some article on the fantastic TZero website, so have a look…:

http://tzero-tri.com/2010/06/24/triathl ... something/

Cheers

Joel

[goz]

Thanks for that Joel, In terms of nutrion for an ironman race or long distance training i'd use gels or bars every half an hour plus energy drink and water. The trouble with this is come the run I can not take any more and suffer a slump. I have also tried caffeen loading mid bike which seem to help but over a double distance I think this would be unwise. As for heart rate I stick to 70%-80% of max on the bike and 75%-85% of max on the run. As for utilisation of fat as a fuel source i'm afraid youv'e lost me a bit there. Thanks in advance Goz

[Blinkybaz]

Thanks Joel that info is good.

With regard to wheat germ, I use it as a scrubber for my digestive system and it also helps prevent diarrhoea issue which I can be pron to sometimes. I take it in some form most days.

[joel-lucozade sport]

Hi

Sorry not to have got back on the forum till now, few day off and now there's far too much to do...i'll never catch up. Ahh well!

Just to say that i'll get back to your posts in the next day or so, but glad that you found the info helpful.

Cheers

Joel

[joel-lucozade sport]

Goz and Blinky!

Wow, last week saw me working 70 hours and fitting 13 training sessions, somehow I’m not dead, but do apologies for the lack of a post. Anyway, some really interesting points in the last couple of posts, you have obviously both worked hard on getting nutrition as good as you can. Here are some thoughts I had about you last posts:

Blinky

Sounds fair enough on the use of the wheatgerm and if it works for you, defiantly keep it as part of your diet. I would only advise that maybe add it in at another time, particularly after really hard session where you feel very drained when you get in and your body could benefit from being able to absorb carbohydrate as quickly as possible.

Goz

What other nutrition have you tried on the bike? I have heard many wacky ideas from people who swear by their chosen method, including Pretzels, Ritz Crackers and Fruit Cake (which I don’t think sounds too bad at all). Many people find that that constant sweet sugary carbs cause them problems and they just get sick of the taste. Given this, maybe try to take use more savory nutrition on the bike when it is easier to get in and save the gels for the run when, A. they are more convenient and, B. you won’t be so sick of them because you haven’t been knocking them back for the last 6hours! Maybe you’ve tried this already, but let me know what you think.

Lastly, I’ve fallen into the caffeine loading trap before, but don’t. Research shows that caffeine intake doesn’t have a dose response relationship, meaning more Is not necessarily better. In my case 100mg has the same effect as 350mg.

Lastly, during exercise that’s less than about 70% of max, you use Fats as the primary fuel source. You can increase your body’s ability to do this by A. Training in a ‘starved’ state (i.e. not having breakfast before a long weekend ride and gradually trying to longer or harder before taking on board carbohydrate (don’t ALWAYS do this though) and, B. Increasing the amount of fats in your diet slightly and reducing the carbs for 14 days before carb loading before a race. You can do this by adding olive oil to salads and eating avocado wraps and snacking on nuts. You still need to keep away from saturated fat, but upping the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat intake for a short while has been shown to help.

Let me know your thoughts on all of that. Hope it helps!

I am still keen to hear from more people on the issues and questions that you may have about nutrition, so please post about anything and I’ll try to help.

Joel

[largeade]

Hi Joel,

I was told recently that a 2% loss of body weight during a 2hr10m run was expected, if not more than that. I added it to my list of things to check out.

From what I can see it appears fluid loss alone may be hard to measure outside of a lab.

I found this article http://200.89.72.103/documentos/deporte ... C3%B3n.pdf which states that during ironman "despite high rates of fluid intake (median hourly fluid intake = 716 ml/h), athletes sustained a median weight loss during the race of 2.5 kg." with the conclusion of "at least 2 kg of weight loss during an ultradistance triathlon is due to factors other than pure fluid loss. This weight loss includes loss of fat and glycogen, and the metabolic water stored with glycogen".

Do you agree, and what kind of fluid loss do you think is acceptable in each of the tri distances?

Cheers
Adrian

[joel-lucozade sport]

Hi Largeade

A very complicated subject indeed and also one which is very much open to debate at the moment in the scientific community. As you might be aware, one of the authors of this study (Tim Noakes) is very much of the opinion that the research suggesting that 2% Body Weight loss = 2% Fluid loss and that this WILL equal a drop in performance is out dated and needs to be reviewed. From one point of view he is probably right and at the end of an ultra endurance race, there will be a degree of body weight loss which is not accounted for by fluid loss alone due to significant substrate utilization (use of Carbs and Fats as energy).

Further, if ambient temperatures are high, due to limited gastric emptying rates, it is inevitable that some degree of dehydration will occur by the end of the race. It is advisable to ensure levels of dehydration do not exceed 2% but there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that elite athletes can tolerate higher levels of dehydration with the benefit being they are carrying less weight in the later stages of the race. The caveat to this is that these elite athletes have regular sports science support, are able to practice in training and have individual re-hydration strategies to ensure health effects are limited

In terms of what fluid loss is acceptable, I would suggest that it is difficult to make general recommendations and athletes need to establish their own hydration strategy. It seems that problems may occur from the over drinking of water alone and so the inclusion of electrolytes is therefore paramount for the athlete. It also seems that gastric emptying is limited to around 500-800mls an hour (depending on various factors) and so consumption of this amount of fluid should help maintain hydration as much as possible, while consumption over this amount will not be of further benefit and is not recommended.

I hope that this helps but please come back to me on any of the above points.

Cheers

Joel