Pre-ride and especially pre-race or sportive is a time that’s filled with old tales of what is best to eat-the “Miracle Breakfast” that will have you riding faster than ever! Most of the time these tales are just fads or gimmicks getting you to purchase odd foods or supplements that often aren’t warranted.

Something I stand by when working with One Pro and any of my riders is the anagram “KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid”, especially before a big day out on the bike whether that’s training or sportive alike.

So why Oats?

• When you have at least a couple of hours before heading out Oats are quite carb dense and not too high in volume – so you don’t end up overfeeding and getting bloated – and provide a nice steady release of energy.
• If it’s a big day you should have probably carb loaded for 1-2 days prior and have your muscles saturated with stored carbohydrate, so on the day you only need to top up your depleted liver glycogen stores.
• Oats can be combined with other ingredients– like honey and bananas to increase the number of carbohydrates and to further aid in liver glycogen replenishment, because they are comprised of fructose.
• Porridge is available pretty much anywhere in the world (same for bananas and honey), making it ideal to have in practice and on the day, helping you to keep to your usual routine and safe knowing you’re going to feel great because of it.
• Aiming for about 100-120g before should ensure you’re topped up, and will aid in performance – this looks like 80g of uncooked oats, 1 medium banana and 1 heaped tbsp. of honey.

Recipe: FLAPJACK

Here are my flapjack energy bars that I make for One Pro on race day. The riders absolutely love these!

I recommend making 8-12 per batch (no less than 4 per batch though as they will be too much to digest at once on the bike)

150g Oats (I used Quaker Oats)

180g Banana

50g Raisins

160g Golden Syrup

Orange zest

1tbsp of squeezed orange juice

1 or 1/2 tsp cinnamon

MASH bananas

ADD golden syrup, zest, juice

STIR

ADD oats and raisins

STIR

DIVIDE 

BAKE @ 180C fan assisted for 10-15mins

LEAVE to cool

DONE

Macros for 1 of 8 – 168Kcal – 36.75g Carbs – 2.5g Protein – 0.3g Fat – 26.75g Glucose – 10.3g Fructose

Feeling light on the bike, and not carrying a few extra pounds can make the difference between feeling like a seal going uphill or soaring up it like an eagle.

Weight has a huge importance in cycling but also in health and finding your ideal riding weight is a sought-after goal by many avid cyclists.

Here are my top tips for helping you achieve that race weight.

Be in a calorie deficit – This might sound silly but if you’re ultimately not in a calorie deficit you will not drop the excess body fat/weight you want. Even if you cycle 20+ hours a week, if you have fast cake hands and you’re eating more than you’re burning it won’t come off.

Understand where you are – This could be one of the most crucial ones! If you don’t know what you’re having in general- let alone how much of it- how do you know what to change? Write a food diary for yourself for one week. You may be surprised as what you snack and just happened to forget about.

Be conservative – Knowing you need to be in a deficit is important and once you’ve seen how much you’re consuming you can start taking a few things out. Don’t drastically drop out all your food and have an apple a day- this might drop weight quickly but may not be all the right weight and you will find you may plateau quickly, will you then go to half an apple? Do it steadily and start with around 200 calories a day reduction and see how your weight is after one week.

Not all days are equal – Eat for the day’s activity rather than eating the same every day. If you’ve got a rest day and you’re going to have it nice and relaxed then you really don’t need to eat a huge amount and could probably have less because your energy expenditure is less. But if you’re going out for a big weekend ride with all your friends for 5 hours then you can definitely eat more calories.

Think weekly rather than daily – Carrying on from the previous point, rather than eating the same every day and focusing on daily intake think about your week and where you could do with more calories and less and plan accordingly. If you needed on average 2500Kcals a day that would be 17,500 a week. You could divide that weekly amount better in relation to your rides with less on lounging days and more on hard riding days.

How much should I lose – Your weekly weight loss should be around 1% of your bodyweight in pounds per week. This will change depending on how lean you are already. If you’re bigger you will find you have more scope to have a slightly bigger drop but if you’re on the leaner side aiming for 0.5% might be best. Why? Because the amount of muscle loss with bigger weight drops when you’re leaner can make up a larger percentage, so it’s better to go steady and lose

Keep Protein high – This is an obvious one but when in a calorie deficit and trying to drop weight it’s important to keep protein high to prevent muscle loss during this time and it’s also satiating, keeping you feeling fuller for longer! Aiming for around 1.8-2g/kg/bodyweight would be ideal in this situation.

Carbs for performance – Dropping all your carbs out when riding lots is a no-no. You will quickly lose all your energy and feel tired, lethargic and probably end up bingeing when someone brings some cake into the office. Instead of eating fewer carbs and riding worse, why not fuel for your workouts or rides so you can work as hard as you can, get the most out of that session and in turn burn more calories because you worked harder? One study suggests that ingesting carbs before working out increases the post-exercise “afterburn” effect more than the fasted state. That means more calories burned throughout the day, not just during your sweat session, though not fully conclusive, some food for thought there

Fats for weight loss? – Having a high fat, low carb diet for dropping body fat gets mentioned a lot but is it right? Fat has 9Kcal per gram whereas carbohydrate and protein are only 4Kcal per gram. So you could quite easily over consume on fat and end up not being in your calorie deficit anymore PLUS you could have twice as much protein and carbohydrate than you could fat if comparing equal amounts.

Think long term – In relation to fat for weight loss, and when comparing two identical, calorie deficit matched diets between low carb high fat and high carb low fat, the latter has been shown to work more effectively BUT – here’s the big “but” – does that work for you! If you’re riding lots and lots and training hard then realistically you’re going to struggle on the bike and in your sessions, you will underperform on your wattage and may get cravings causing you to ultimately binge two weeks down the line ruining your progress.

The best diet is the one you can stick to – The decision between eating more or less of carbohydrate or fat should be dependent on your activity and what you will actually stick to! If my special, amazing fantabulous diet here “diet special” would make you lose more weight but you absolutely hated it and felt rubbish on the bike, the likelihood is that you won’t stick to it. As long as you’re in a deficit and eating a well-balanced diet with lots of vegetables and enough protein to stop muscle loss you will lose fat.

Fasted riding – Research has demonstrated that fasted cardio does not increase fat burning over a 24-hour period. While your muscles adapt to using more fat when you exercise, you don’t actually lose more fat overall on the days that you exercise versus days that you don’t. If you’re wanting to increase your ability to utilise fat at a higher rate during exercise then it’s great but if you’re doing it just for increased fat loss you could be putting yourself through a harder session for no reason.

Tracking your food – If you’ve done a food diary and followed the tips above but are still struggling to lose the fat you want then here are some more tips. Keep another food diary for a week but actually weigh all your food or scan the barcode of the foods you’re having into a calorie tracking app which will give you an accurate measure of how much you’re exactly consuming. Then repeat the above tips of reducing your calories by about 200 a day or 1400Kcal over a week, keeping protein high and carbs adequate for training and see if you lose weight then.

Increase your non-exercise activity – What does that mean? Well if all your riding and any training your do is exercise activity we want to increase what isn’t that and our way of controlling it can quite easily be through step count. Setting yourself a step count means you will always have some level of calorie expenditure you can control and ensure you’re hitting, even on your rest days. This is a great way to increase your calorie deficit without reducing your food or adding another session in.

Use Volume – When dieting you’re going to be a in a calorie deficit and as such you can sometimes find yourself feeling pretty hungry. The best way to combat this is to have meals high in volume. Make the most of vegetables to create filling meals such as a noodle soup, tomato based curry sauce, stews and stir-fries. The number of calories in non-starchy veg, such as broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and bell peppers is very small so why not make the most of it and eat more?

Here’s a recipe that makes a low calorie, low carb ice cream that can really fill you up and curb your sweet cravings.

Protein Frogurt

Ingredients;

• 200g Frozen raspberries – Or any berry
• 150g Fat free Greek yogurt
• 30g Whey protein

WHACK it all in a bowl

USE a hand blender to combine it all (this may take a few minutes, you can use a food processor but will need to stir frequently)

BLEND till smooth

DONE

Literally that easy and you will have made yourself a Frogurt/ ice cream style snack.

Knowing what we should have before a ride is important so we can make the right choices to give us the perfect fuel so we can ride harder and perform better and having foods like berries, fruit and ultimately fructose can aid us in this.

Liver Glycogen –
The name for stored carbohydrate in the liver. This store of energy has a direct relationship with being able to maintain blood glucose levels during exercise, and if its low you’re going to quickly find it hard to maintain your exercise output.

You may not have known but when you carbohydrate load you’re saturating your muscle with loads of carbohydrate, which is usually the day before a/or THE big ride. But despite carb loading you will still wake up with a liver empty of glycogen, as that fuel is used to maintain blood sugar levels while asleep.

What role does fruit play in this?
Well fruit is first and foremost broken down in the liver with a large proportion of that energy being stored there.

What does this mean for me?
Knowing that, you can make that pre-ride/race breakfast improve your performance even more than before. Combining a steady, slow releasing carbohydrate like porridge or brown bead 2-4 hours before with fruit like a fruit compote, banana or maple syrup can help bring those liver glycogen levels back to normal.

How much should I have?
For breakfast – Looking solely at performance and not accounting for goals like body composition then having 1.1-2.2g/kg/body weight would be ideal – the amount deepening on ride duration, intensity and also if you woke up quite a lot lighter than the previous day

If you’re already out riding – Having fruit in your pocket, honey in your water or some fruit juice are all sources of fructose and can be had in amounts of up to 30g an hour while on the bike. Great ideas of ways to save money on gels and still help your performance.

Here is a great fresh snack/meal idea to add to your day while its hot and summery;

Protein Ice Cream

Ingredients

• 200g Frozen Rapsberries
• 30g Whey
• 1-2 tbsp water

ADD all ingredients to a bowl

BLEND with a hand blender (alternatively you can use a food processor but will require some pushing around)

ADD extra tbsp of water if not combining

With the warmer weather picking up now and you heading out in your summer kit, you’re inevitably going to be sweating a lot more! Replacement of fluid is important but replacing electrolytes is just as crucial.

Over-hydrating with water without electrolytes or being severely dehydrated are equally as dangerous and can lead to hyponatremia which is a dangerous place to be.

Electrolytes?

Electrolytes are the minerals we lose through sweating and help with muscle contraction and fluid balance in addition to other vital functions. The main electrolyte we lose in exercise is Sodium.

Salty Sweater?

Some individuals can be particularly salty sweaters and may need 1000mg of sodium per bottle to maintain electrolyte balance.  Considering most commercial electrolyte tabs only provide 300mg a serving you can easily see why you might still be getting issues.

If you’re getting any of the above symptoms or notice you have a particularly salty face or large salt lines on your jersey there is a good chance you may be needing more.

Try upping the dosage and see how you feel or if you’re still being  caught out while on the road give this quick lifesaver a go.

There are services by some companies like “Precision Hydration” that do a sweat test that quickly analyses how much salt you lose in your sweat and what kind of sweater you are and I’m sure it’s not the woolly variety.

Emergency electrolyte carb drink

This nifty little concoction is something you can make at any café, pub or eatery – the sugar improves water uptake as will the salt but this is primarily replacing your important electrolytes. And the citrus is to help prevent dry mouth and add some flavour

Ingredients for 1 bottle

• 1-2g salt
• 15g table sugar (3 level teaspoons)
• Citrus Juice

“New year, new you!”; “A fresh start!”, “My New year resolution!” and “Got to lose that Christmas weight” are all things that are said frequently this month and whether that’s the case for yourself or you’re still trying to carry on your goal of dropping a little body fat then this is just for you!

Understanding how to create a deficit and then the importance of carbohydrate, fat and protein and their role in fat loss is important.

Deficit

First of all, we need to be in a calorie deficit to lose body fat – if it isn’t dropping then you’re still eating too much compared to the activity you’re doing. Try tracking your food in a calorie counter and doing so accurately while monitoring these things;

• Your weight (preferably as a weekly average)
• Step count – all your non exercise-based activity
• Monitoring the calorie or Kj expended on your chosen bike computer

Protein

In a calorie deficit protein is integral to success and helps us to keep fresh and powerful on the bike. It is the foundation of recovery; it aids us in maintaining our lean tissue; it’s filling and may help us still gain some muscle despite being in a deficit.

How much?

Aim for 2g/kg/bodyweight per day and have a portion with every meal which is every 3 to 4 hours in addition to after our training session.

Fat

Fat plays an important role in hormone, nervous system and cell health and provides fat soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids.

How much?

As cycling is mainly endurance based, we only need a daily requirement of about 0.6-0.8g/kg/bodyweight to keep a healthy system with higher intakes only really being needed on specific protocols, strength-based sports or very high calorie intake days. On rest days- which could be a couple of days a week- we can quite easily a drop this amount a lot lower to help with a calorie deficit.

Carbs

Lastly, we have carbohydrate – this fills out the remainder of our daily calories.  These become the most heavily manipulated macronutrient on training days fuel for the work required.  Have a larger daily serving on intense/ long duration bike days or if you’re just at work all day and not training then sack them off a bit, eating smaller portions at each meal as you don’t need the energy.

Focus on having some carbohydrate before hard sessions, fast releasing before morning sessions (like a 1 slice of bread, banana and a bit of honey) or slow releasing 2-4 hours before an evening session or a later start on the weekend.

NEAT or Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is essentially all the activity we do outside of exercise… so step count or your job if it is a manual labour one. This accounts for the biggest contribution to calories expended after our resting metabolic rate – unless we’ve done 5+ hour ride.

Why is this important you might ask?

Well, when trying to drop body fat and get stronger on the bike we may be tracking our calories/food and ensuring we’re training lots but if we aren’t taking not of the other biggest variable we may be losing out on a trick!

1000 steps = ~50kcal – depending on how big you are and how fast it’s done.

Often, we start seeing that fat loss we want but then randomly is plateaus, the reason for this may be a reduction in our NEAT levels which our body does sub-consciously as calories are restricted. You may also see those levels drop as you do a super tough turbo, chat laps in the morning or out for your weekend ride but after working really hard physically, you’re tired, legs ache and in turn you walk less. So, if your turbo session burnt 1000Kcal but you normally burn let’s day 600kcal from walking all day but now you just sit and only burn 200kcal, that turbo session net is actually only 600kcal.

Our 3 main variables in the goal of fat loss are:

Calories eaten

Exercise performed

NEAT

These provide the main factors that determine if you’re in a calorie deficit and thus losing fat or if you’re at maintenance/surplus.

My suggestion would be to track your food, monitor your step count on a free pedometer app or wearable device and ensure your training volume and intensity relatively similar each week or is accounted for in your food.

For the ever-busy cyclist, commuting and riding out those weekend miles finding the right food sources to help replenish and refuel can sometimes be difficult. Even more common is how to bring in some variety, since most carbohydrate choices tend to be pasta or potatoes.

Endeavouring to find something new and exciting can be extremely tedious and time consuming! Enter the Humble Parsnip! Parsnips offer a great solution with their prime season being between autumn and spring and provide an inexpensive option to add variety to one’s meals.

The unsuspected parsnip –

A great choice for carbohydrate to replenish and refuel, providing around 17g of carbohydrate per 100g. It is a high Glycemic food meaning it is rapidly broken down and converted into useable carbohydrate and also means it can be put to good use in replacing lost carbohydrate stores and aiding in recovery, which is especially important if we’re going to be riding again soon. It’s high in vitamin C, most minerals and provides a decent amount of fibre to help with gut health.

All of this combines to make it pretty awesome.

What I truly love about this recipe is that it’s something you can -after boiling- just leave in the oven while relaxing and also batch make, cooking extra for tomorrows lunch.

Rosemary, Maple and Orange Parsnips (Serves 4-6)

• 1kg Parsnips
• Couple sprigs Rosemary
• 2 tbsp Maple Syrup
• Peel of 1 orange
• 1 tbsp Olive Oil
• Salt & Pepper

PEEL & CHOP parsnips lengthways in half down the middle

PAR boil for 10mins

DRAIN & ROLL in remaining ingredients

WHACK in the oven at 180C for about 40mins

ROAST till golden

DONE

Nutritional Information for recipe (per serving of 6)

166Kcal
35g Carbohydrate
2g Protein
2g Fat

Not a fan of the flavours? Try swapping out the orange, maple and rosemary for Honey and thyme.