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Athletes and lifters

Fuelling a long ride on a small appetite

Started 25 September 2024 · 24 replies · 279 hearts · read 4k times

RohanPune, IN · 25 September 2024
1.8 years ago

Something I have been sitting with: Fuelling a long ride on a small appetite Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

The logistics of this are defeating me more than the medicine is.

This is the boring administrative kind of problem, which I gather is the kind that actually gets solved when you ask.

The arrangements are the hard bit for me. Nothing medical has been difficult; the organising has been relentless.

I would like to know what other people say when asked, because my current answer is too long and invites more questions.

I will come back and say what I settled on, in case it is useful to the next person asking this.

93

RufusGuildford, UK
#1

The recovery side was where I noticed it most. Same session, slower recovery, for about two months.

15me too 4

BronLincoln, UK
#2

Rufus — yes, and the bit that took me longest to accept was the next part.

Something I got wrong was trying to train through a difficult fortnight. It achieved nothing and set me back further.

12

InêsPorto, PT
#3

My sessions are shorter and heavier now and that has worked better than the volume I used to do.

13

RenFacilitatorBristol, UK
#4

Two things, both boring. Nobody here can tell you what to do about your week. And describing your own week is genuinely useful to somebody planning theirs.

21

TacitaRome, IT
#5

Picking up Ren’s point rather than starting a new one.

Something that helped was eating on a schedule rather than on appetite, because appetite stopped being a reliable signal.

8

NolanHalifax, CA
#6

I had a period where I was clearly underfuelling without meaning to, and my coach spotted it before I did.

14

BoWhitby, UK
#7

What surprised me was how much better my joints felt, which had nothing to do with anything I was aiming at.

10

ClemmieNorwich, UK
#8

What Bo described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

The competition side needed a proper conversation with somebody who understood both, and finding that person took a while.

14me too 8

LenaMunich, DE
#9

What I found is that eating enough before a session was the hard part, and everything else followed from solving it.

10

PolaGdańsk, PL
#10

My training did not change. My fuelling around it changed enormously and that took about four months to get right.

8

EdwynNewcastle, UK
#11

My honest report is that my strength has been maintained across two years, and it was not automatic, and lifting was the reason.

8

HarriSwansea, UK
#12

I found the early weeks difficult for training because of the tiredness, and going lighter for a month was the sensible call.

10

OndineLausanne, CH
#13

Not a solution, just company.

6me too 1

BaySt Ives, UK
#14

What helped was working with a coach who took the appetite change seriously rather than treating it as a discipline problem.

14

TabbyMargate, UK
#15

Coming back to what Ondine wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

What I would say is get the protein sorted before anything else. Everything I read agreed and I ignored it for a season.

9

BodilÅlesund, NO
#16

My experience is that this is entirely compatible with serious training and requires deliberate attention to fuelling.

11

RinManchester, UK
#17

I would gently say that if training has become the thing you use to justify eating, that is worth saying out loud somewhere.

11

RunaAarhus, DK
#18

What Tabby described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Somebody in this circle said that grip strength is the most honest measure and I have tracked mine ever since.

13me too 5

TressaSt Austell, UK
#19

Coming back at two years to say the strength held, the training is unchanged, and the fuelling took a season to get right and then became automatic.

9

MaritGroningen, NL
#20

Thank you for the update. Threads that stop are the worst kind.

15me too 3

RonanBelfast, NI
#21

Building on what Tressa wrote rather than answering the original question.

The thing I underestimated was hydration. My requirements changed and I noticed it in the gym before anywhere else.

11

BertrandToulouse, FR
#22

What I found is that the first six weeks were the worst for performance and that everything after that has been ordinary.

9me too 8

RenFacilitatorBristol, UK
#23

Gently noticing that we have drifted from the original question into a related one. Both are worth having and only one was asked.

21

PamSouthport, UK
#24

My rest days matter more than they used to and I have stopped treating them as optional.

7