21. Cycling nutrition made easy
Do you think your cycling nutrition plan needs to be really hard and complicated for it to work?
If you are a cyclist trying to lose weight and improve your power to weight ratio what is stopping you trying something new (and easy) to achieve that goal?
I'll give you a hint. It ALL starts with nutrition timing - the way you fuel before, during and after your training.
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When you fuel your rides everything else falls into place so much easier.
I typically work with my 1:1 clients for a period of 3 months, and my ultimate goal is to empower them and condense all the 15 years worth of experience and education into an easy, sustainable and realistic framework for them to apply. Essentially, I work my way out of a job so they no longer need me to tell them what to do.
We all know how we can eat better, but often aren't doing it so a lot of the work I do is based around psychology and behaviour change to help you figure out what's getting in the way and where, when and how to make easy nutrition changes and swaps that you can stick with.
Everyone's lifestyle, goals, personal preferences and training plan is different, which is why I teach you a framework of how, when and where to adjust your eat around your training in an easy manner.
People often think nutrition has to be complicated - but the more complicated and restrictive that nutrition plan is - the less likely we are to actually stick to it in the long term.
Many of my clients commenting on how EASY their weight loss is when they begin using my cycling nutrition framework. Easy in the sense of disbelief because they thought it shouldn't be so easy and needed reassurance and reminders that what they were doing was working!
A female client who has lost 4kg in the first month we began working together with weekly 1:1 sessions on my gold nutrition coaching package questioned that it seemed 'too easy' and thought she maybe needed a bigger deficit. Despite losing 1kg a week consistently, having stable energy levels, no more sugar cravings and enjoying eating regular meals!
During one of our calls I reminded her that when these changes are 'easy' to stick with, they are easier to continue doing and stick with long term. The harder the change is, the less likely we are to stick with it for years to come. Which is essence the 'secret' to long term weight loss - being able to stick with those nutrition changes long term.
Cycling nutrition doesn't need to be hard to lose weight.
Similarly I was chatting with a male client using the cycling nutrition framework who has learnt how to adapt his food intake around his training.
He now eats anywhere between 2000-5000kcal a day. He was also surprised and almost shocked at how he had managed to lose another 1kg in the past two weeks 'without having tried to'. Because when he was looking at the numbers on the nutrition tracking app, he thought he was eating too much.
Nutrition is more than numbers - it's about the timing, frequency portions and context and that fuelling around training is the critical piece of where and when your extra energy should be fluctuationg on a daily basis.
This is the power of learning how to fuel your rides and applying nutrition timing appropriately to what you eat before, during and after your training.
Depending on the training you do, different days have different energy needs. Many people will eat the same thing day in day out, underfuelling their rides, eating back their calories afterwards and as a result their nutrition timing is completely out of whack.
It's time to stop eating REactively and learn how to eat PROactively to fuel your training when it comes to your nutrition as a cyclist.
When you learn how to fuel your training, it is easy to improve your performance and lose weight without compromising power at the same time because you ensure your body gets what it needs, when it needs it.
Cycling nutrition coaching, workshops and resources to fuel peak performance as a cyclist. Become a well fuelled cyclist with Advanced Sports Dietitian Dr Gemma Sampson.
Fuelled cycling nutrition framework
My cycling nutrition framework is a 4 step process to simplify how you eat around the training you are doing in a way you can sustain whether you are in full training mode, on holidays or taking a break from riding.
When you fuel your rides everything falls into place.
It's easy to do, and that's why it works so well.
Like, subscribe and fuel your ride and I'll see you next time.
Gemma
Fuel your cycling with confidence
Learn how to fuel before, during and after cycling with the Fuelled Cycling Nutrition Team for optimal body weight, recovery and performance.