Eating and calories after endurance training

pgray007

I'm training for a century (100 mi bike ride) and have a weekly long ride that burns about 1200 calories (using garmin HR monitor with power meter on the bike).

I generally try to eat back most of these calories, although I usually find myself craving salty and sweet, so I might eat them back in the form of a couple slices of pizza and a beer or two, and I'll have a big spike in weight the next day that will take a couple of days to return to normal.

Why do folks that work off a big chunk (1k+) of calories do during or after workouts that keeps their bodies in good shape while continuing weight loss?

triathamom2

So I was having the same issue. I had always been in training so felt like I had to eat back all the calories I had burned so I would have the energy to keep training. I had always learned don't try and lose weight while doing endurance training. So if I burned 2000, I ate 2000. I recently read an article that set me straight. It said don't eat back all the calories because you need the deficit to lose weight. The author pointed out that we can over estimate (and so can our Garmins) that amount of calories we have burned. Eat back with healthy foods and not all at once. Protein within 30 minutes will help in muscle recovery and get some good carbs for glycogen replacement. I don't know that pizza and beer qualifies, but you already knew that . There are some great articles about the ratio of protein and carbs during endurance training that you can find on the web. Livingstrong is a good place and some triathlete websites have good endurance training food advice. I'm still trying to find my balance. Enough to keep my energy for increased gains while training still get down to a comfortable racing weight.

L_Master

I'll routinely burn 1500-4000 kcal on rides depending on what I'm doing. General rule of thumb for me is that I eat a fairly large meal beforehand, usually about 2 hours before consisting of anywhere from 1500-2500 kcal. Then when I get back from training I'll usually eat another large meal roughly similar to the calories burned while training.

So if I'm going out for a good 5 hour ride expecting to burn 4000kcal on the ride I'd probably eat 1500 kcal before, a few hundred kcal worth of stuff on the ride, and then a large 2000-3000 kcal meal shortly after I get back, and maybe a smallish snack a little before bead.

That weight gain you're noticing is just extra water weight retention related to the extra salt from the foods you are eating. It's not fat mass gain though, just water weight, no nothing to worry about.

Sausis

I find that on days that I've burned in excess of, say, 2000 calories, I'm ravenous for days afterward regardless of whether I've replaced all the calories on the day of the exercise or not. So, I'll eat enough the day-of to adequately fuel the activity, eat enough directly afterward and into the evening to feel relatively satiated but then eat a lot more in the following days to eventually replace all of the calories burned.
I have a huge appetite anyway and I think that if I didn't put the brakes on it a little bit, I could easily eat 10k calories everyday throughout the training season- too much!

Good luck with your Century ride!

robertw486

I don't worry about any short term swing, and just try to eat back what is a real calorie burn estimate. Any time you have to eat large volumes it's going to take a day or so for weight to settle some again anyway. Or you can pre fuel or during as suggested above by L_Master.

But really, pizza and beer after a hard workout sounds like a better plan sometimes!

pgray007

This is good advice. I also think I probably need to be more consistent with immediate post-workout nutrition based on some of the reading that was recommended. As a reforming fatty I'm still struggling to get my head around eating during and post-workout. It just seems sacrilegious.