Internal Mono(b)log

Source: Road Cycling Summit

This looks pretty cool.  Gonna try to check it out.

I really like the balanced view in this article.  Personally, I tend to tailor my nutrition to my workouts.  Distance rides and runs at lower intensity will typically get fueled with a lower carb ratio than the days when I’m doing hard swim, bike or run intervals.

The cornerstone of nutrition is the fundamental principle that nutrition is intensely personal: genetics, availability, familiarity, digestive challenges all necessarily must play a part in your personal nutrition plan both when racing and not. 🙂

Food Fight: High Carb or High Fat Diet For Endurance Athletes | TrainingPeaks.

EFS vs Skratch Labs vs Osmo: An Electrolyte Hydration Drink Comparison – First Endurance.

Yup just a great product from an awesome company

This is a great panel discussion – definitely a good watch.

Discussion panel with Chris McCormack, Sebastian Kienle, Andi Boecherer & Rinalds Sluckis – YouTube.

Nice article from FirstEndurance talking about fueling for intense training.

Nutrition During Intense Training | First Endurance.

Especially well timed as a small hoard of us are heading to Mont Tremblant for a 4 day training camp very very soon now 😉

(Yes, I’m getting excited about the spring training camp ;0 )

The Healthiest Sweetener | NutritionFacts.org.

I wish coconut sugar was in this list.  I’d guess it to be somewhere in the middle of the pack.  Wasn’t really surprised by #1 or #2.

Which brings me to a thought I had the other day.  Everyone knows of the much-demonized High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS).  It’s this nasty sweetener found in all kinds of poor nutrition choice foods.  It’s 56% fructose, 44% sucrose.

Well.. Agave nector is at least 80% fructose.  Making it an even HIGHER HFCS (Higher Fructose Cactus Syrup).

Just one 6-inch Roasted Garlic loaf from Subway–just the bread, no meat, no cheeses, no nothing–has 1,260 mg sodium, about as much as 14 strips of bacon.

And other scary stuff!

via Scientists Officially Link Processed Foods To Autoimmune Disease | True Activist.

Raisins vs. Jelly Beans for Athletic Performance | NutritionFacts.org.

100 kinds of awesome here!  No real surprise though.  One of the reasons I like my energy bites so much: real food™, no preservatives, minimal processing, tasty and they work just as well (or better) than sports energy supplements costing 10-20x as much.

There are a bunch of recipes on my blog.  Search for “energy bites”

Rich Roll did a very well worded response a lot of the confusion rolling around about fats, low-carb, etc.  Definitely worth a glance.

Let me prefice his article by restating: I believe that nutrition is extremely personal.  What works for one person may well not work for another based on genetics, disease, etc.  The only responsible way to eat, if you really care, is to determine through ongoing experimentation what works well for you.

That said, I think that a lot of the Paleo movement is good: whole food, minimally processed, stay away from known inflamatory foods, but I don’t (personally) deal with fats well (no gallbladder) and I have found myself happily carb adapted and see no reason to change.

Coconut Oil: Panacea or Artery Clogger? | Rich Roll.

Lets also face it… bacon, while tasty, is not nor has it ever been “good for you”. 🙂

The Importance of Carbohydrates and Glycogen for Athletes – Posts – TrainingPeaks Blog.

A good write-up on fueling.  The picture of bread accompaning the article threw me a bit, because obvisouly there are more nutrient rich and less inflamatory sources of carbs than bread and pasta (why is it when people think carbs they think “bread, pasta, rice, potatoes” and not “fruit and veggies” is a mystery to me – social conditioning I guess…)

Anyhow, article generally aligns with my belief that you can go low carb, fuel with fat, and be in ketosis and fat-adapted using ketones for energy, but you’re going to be missing the top-end that glycogenesis provides to muscles that are working hard and need fuel to burn through fast.  Restated: you may be good for a 6 hr bike ride at a leisurely pace, but pick up the pace and try to trash a few hills and you may end up thrashed at the side of the road 😛