Nutrition / Appropriate Calorie Intake

[boss]

Hey guys,

What sort of calories should I be aiming for if doing:

Monday, Weds, Friday
8km ride in the morning, 8km ride home

Tuesday, Thursday
40-45km ride in the morning, first 16km is an uphill climb to the highest point in Adelaide.
30km ride at lunch, with 4km climb sprint and a couple of shorter steeper climbs.
15km ride home, usually more relaxed but still keeping reasonable pace.

Should I be backing off eating on the rest days?

I'm 27, 5'10, 65-70kg, and have a pretty reasonable level of fitness. Been riding a proper roadie for a few weeks now but have found it easy to slip into the top 30-40% on climb segments and hold good average speeds. Prior to roadies I've been more into freestyle/stunts/etc but have always commuted to work.

[Mrfenejeans]

Use a basal metabolic rate(BMR) calculator which tells you how much your body burns at rest for a day(i believe there is some degree of inaccuracy depending on how active you are but its a start), and with a heart rate monitor(HRM) which with a garmin or something will tell you energy burned during exercise which gives you how much energy you've burned that day.

http://www.mydr.com.au/tools/basal-energy-calculator

Then depending on your goal you consume as required.

For example(My average calories burned daily.)

BMR = 2083cal
Avg Calories burned (60km ride) = 1750cal

Total to be consumed that day to maintain current weight = 3833cal



I personally have found the Myfitnesspal iphone app a good way to log and keep track.

Try not to use calculators which work out how many calories you burnt while doing exercise, typically they are way out and say that you have burnt more calories than you actually have.

[durianrider]

I go for an MINIMUM of 10g of carbs per kg of bodyweight per day. I don't train as much as you either.

Calories are not calories. Some cals are loaded with fat, salt, hormones or levels of fat and protein that will tweak your hormones into fat storage by creating insulin resistance. Dr Neil Barnad has many good books on the subject.

[boss]

I go for an MINIMUM of 10g of carbs per kg of bodyweight per day. I don't train as much as you either.

Calories are not calories. Some cals are loaded with fat, salt, hormones or levels of fat and protein that will tweak your hormones into fat storage by creating insulin resistance. Dr Neil Barnad has many good books on the subject.

Purely out of curiosity (I'm a skinny dude) can you give me a quick rundown of how that works?

And what's your usual breakdown of carb / fat / protein?

[durianrider]

I sit around the 65kg mark so for me thats around 650g of carbs per day. Im a BIG fruit eater so for me thats around 30+ large ripe organic bananas a day or a 1kg bag of organic medjool dates. Rice and pasta, works almost as good as fruit so approx 1kg bag of rice is around 6-700g of carbs. When you eat whole plant foods you automatically get protein and essential fats with that too. You get levels that are healthy for the kidneys and waistline. Hence why all cultures that lived on carbs as their staple, regardless of caloric intake, are slim.

A lot of people say Im wrong and I just say 'look how lean I am compared to my family members and guys that train 3-4x as much as me. Look at my strava data while your at it...'

I spend a lot of time in Thailand with my gf and its lean beans all around until they get more money and can afford the regular consumption animal products like we in the west get fat on.