May 24, 2009, and May 24, 1979....

Replaced the awesome flower basket with Cubs fuzzy dice and the banana seat for a Terry comfort saddle.....and am protecting my head with a sturdy helmet rather than that Cubs hat, but otherwise I haven't changed much in 30 years!

Post-Ride Refueling...

I often compare carbohydrate in our bodies like gasoline in a car. Both carbohydrate and gasoline serve as fuel. But there is a big difference between the human body and a car….unlike the large gas tank in a car, our bodies do not have a big carbohydrate tank. We can only store a small amount of carbohydrate (in our liver in the form of glycogen). While you may be able to fill your car’s gas tank once a week and have enough gas to commute to work every day, our bodies need a fill-up multiple times each day.

Some of the carbohydrate we eat is converted to glycogen, which is stored primarily in the liver, and when we are exercising and need more blood glucose to fuel our muscles, that glycogen gets converted back to glucose.
Although the amount of glycogen we can store in our livers is small, there are some things we can do to maximize how much we can store. One of those things is pre-event “carbo-loading,” which involves focusing on high-carb meals for a few days before an event. Another way to maximize how our glycogen stores is to be sure to eat a snack with carb and protein right after finishing a long ride.

It is during that 30-minute window after completing a long bout of exercise that our body is sort of like a sponge in terms of utilizing carbohydrate. You don’t have to eat a huge meal right after riding, but do try to eat or drink something. Within that 30-minute window, the recommended goal is to eat a snack that has about ½ gram of carbohydrate per pound of your body weight. So, for example, a person who weighs 150 pounds should try to eat a snack with approximately 75 grams of carbohydrate.

Research suggests that including protein in that post-ride snack will help your body maximize its glycogen storage. Protein is also important for re-building muscle tissue that you’ve been taxing during exercise. Good sources of protein are lean meats, fish, eggs, nuts and nut butters, dairy foods, beans/lentils.

Often at the end of a ride, my appetite is nonexistent, but I still try to eat a snack. A banana (carb) with peanut butter (protein), some graham crackers (carb) and a glass of chocolate milk (carb and protein) is a favorite post-ride snack for me. But as I’ve said before, you need to test out different foods to find what works for you. If eating right after riding is just not possible, at least try to drink a sports drink and perhaps also some juice and be sure to eat a nutritious meal within about 2 hours.

Ride on!
Shelley

Carb=Fuel

The poor carbohydrate. It’s gotten such a bad rap in recent years, with overblown claims that they set us up to gain weight. But carbohydrates are not the enemy—in terms of overweight/obesity, the issue goes back to balance of calories consumed and calories expended. Carbohydrates can contribute to obesity because it can be very easy to consume carbohydrates in excess, particularly sugary drinks and that trough-size platter of pasta that so many restaurants serve. :o) But that doesn’t mean we don’t need carbohydrates. Truth is that for exercise, carbohydrates are essential.

There are three main building blocks that make up the food we eat: carbohydrate, protein, and fat. Most foods are mix of the three, and we need all of ‘em. But when it comes to fueling your body for exercise, I focus on carbohydrate.

Carbohydrate for your body is like fuel for a car. It’s carbohydrate that is most readily converted to glucose (sugar) in your bloodstream, and it’s that glucose that fuels your muscles and fuels your brain. Cars have a fairly large gas tank that will provide sustained fuel a car a few hundred miles before needing a refill. Our bodies, however, have a very limited capacity to store our fuel, which is why we need to feed ourselves fuel more often.

Lots of foods provide carbohydrate, and some carbohydrate foods are more nutritious than others. Foods that are primarily carbohydrate include: all breads/grains/starches, fruit/fruit juices, and starchy vegetables (potatoes, corn, peas). Other vegetables have some carbohydrate, as does milk. Sugar is also a carbohydrate, so soda and sweets are another source of carbohydrate. An orange certainly has more nutrients than a candy bar, but both will provide glucose and fuel for your body.

To fuel for exercise, I focus on carbohydrates that are nutritious. If someone who is exercising needs to replenish their glucose quickly, I recommend a fluid carbohydrate such as juice that will be digested very quickly. But it’s best to try to keep up with your fueling so you don’t approach that "I've-run-out-of-gas" bonking feeling. For sustained energy, I recommend fueling with something that digests a little slower. An apple with the peel stays in your stomach longer to get broken down than does apple juice or applesauce. That means that the apple will be a more sustained source of energy than the apple juice.

For a ride or workout that lasts less than an hour, your body will have enough fuel to get you through the ride from your usual dietary intake. It’s a good idea to eat a snack within an hour after a 1-hour ride, though, to refuel and aid muscle recovery.

When your ride is longer than an hour, you will need to refuel during the ride. The general recommendation is that for every hour of exercise, your body needs about 60 grams of carbohydrate. This is just a ballpark figure and will vary based on how intense your workout it and on your muscle mass. But 60 grams is a good place to start.

On the MS ride I expect that a breakfast eaten about an hour before riding will fuel me for the first hour or so, but after that I’ll be thinking about the carb foods at the pit stops.

What does 60 grams of carbohydrate look like in terms of food? I break that 60 grams down into 15-gram increments, and, doing the math, that means I need four of these portions per hour to reach 60.

Each of the following have approximately 15 grams of carbohydrate:

· 1 small apple, orange, pear, etc.

· ½ banana

· ½ cup 100% juice

· 1 slice of bread

· ½ bagel or English muffin

· 1 Tablespoon of jelly or jam

· ½ potato

· ½ cup cooked pasta

· ½ cup cooked rice

· ½ cup oatmeal

· 1 cup milk

· 1 cup yogurt

· Energy bars and granola bars vary widely in the amount of carbohydrate. A Cliff bar has about 45 grams of carbohydrate, but you need to read the label to know how much each brand has. Look for “total carbohydrate” on the food label.

· Sports drinks have about 15 grams of carbohydrate in 8 ounces, so if I’m drinking a 16-ounce bottle of Gatorade each hour, I’ve already gotten 30 grams of carbohydrate. Add a half banana and half bagel at the pit stop, and I’m good to go for another hour.

As always, test out different types and amounts of carbs during training and note when you feel you have the best energy ….and also when you feel you don’t seem to have enough energy…..listen to your body and adjust!

Next post will look at post-ride recovery fueling.....

Ride on!

Shelley

Cereal & Milk vs Gatorade?

Interesting early research article that I thought might be of interest....(Please keep in mind that this study was very small--only 12 subjects--so it's hard to draw sweeping conclusions.)

Post-Workout Sports Drink? Try Cereal and Milk Instead

As a dietitian, I always prefer the food option.... but putting myself in the shoes of the MS Ride organizers, the logistics of providing cereal & milk for hundreds of cyclists at the end of the ride would be a bit logistically challenging! :o)

Ride on.

Shelley

Bike the Drive?

Anyone planning to ride Bike the Drive this year? It's on Sunday, May 24th. Would be fun to ride as a team....
http://www.bikethedrive.org

Ride on,
Shelley

How to get hyponatremia (or, please learn from my mistakes!)

About 7 or 8 years ago, I was riding in the Tour of the Mississippi River Valley (TOMRV) weekend ride, with the goal of riding the long routes both days (106 miles on Saturday and 90 on Sunday). I’d done the ride the year before and loved it, and was equally excited for a great weekend of cycling as it was the first relatively warm weekend of that year. (I highly recommend TOMRV, although this year it is the same weekend as the MS ride.)

The Friday before the ride, I drove out to Bettendorf, Iowa, with several friends. We had dinner at a barbecue place, and I didn’t eat much because I didn’t have much of an appetite. I was getting over a cold and still taking a decongestant. I remember thinking I should be hydrating more, but we were going to be sleeping in tents that night and I didn’t want to have to get up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom, so I didn’t drink much water. (duh, sounds really ridiculous now to not hydrate for this reason!)

In the morning, again, I wasn’t feeling much of an appetite, but I did enjoy a huge cup of coffee. No, not the breakfast of champions....

Saturday morning was sunny, warm, and glorious. It was great to finally be riding and shorts and short sleeves and leave the gloves, jackets, and tights at home. I’d been riding quite a bit that spring in training for the AIDS Ride, so I had a lot of miles on my bike. But most of my riding that spring had been done in cold weather, so I was not acclimated to warm-weather cycling yet. Issue number one on my route to hyponatremia was that I was not realizing how much I was sweating. On the bike, when you sweat it evaporates rather quickly—I find that it seems like I sweat more when I go for a run….. actually, though, I think I sweat just as much on the bike, but because I’m moving faster on the bike, the sweat dries quicker.

As a dietitian, I know that I need to drink both water and sports drinks to replace both fluild and electrolytes, but KNOWING and actually DOING are different. I wear a camelback, which I use for water, and keep a bottle filled with a sports drink on my bike. When riding, it is much easier to drink from the camelback. It sounds crazy now, but I tend to avoid drinking from that bottle on my bike because of the additional coordination to reach for it, and the fact that it’s harder to keep my eyes on the road while drinking from the water bottle. Generally, I prefer to drink from that bottle only when I am at a stop sign or a pit stop. On TOMRV, there are not many stop signs between pit stops, which is great for riding, but not so great for someone like me who doesn’t like to grab a bottle while moving. Of course, I COULD put a sports drink in my camelback, but I have avoided doing that because it’s a lot harder to clean sports-drink residue from the camelback than from the water bottle. (again, this sounds crazy now, but that was my thinking at the time.)

So, the Saturday morning of TOMRV, I’m having a great ride, enjoying the sun and drinking like crazy from the camelback. The first pitstop was a local firehouse that makes a pancake and eggs breakfast for the riders. Did I eat? No (I know, duh!) Instead I downed a couple of ibuprofen because my knee was acting up. (I know now that ibuprofen and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs can predispose some people to hyponatremia.) For reasons I can’t explain, I was not drinking from that Gatorade in my bottle even at the pit stops. Over the course of the morning I emptied that 50-ounce camelback 3 times, yet still did not need to make a bathroom pitstop. My body was holding on to all of that fluid.

At the next pitstop a friend mentioned that my forehead looked “salty” where I had been sweating, but I still didn’t get the hint. Clearly, I was sweating out sodium, but did I drink any Gatorade? I’m embarrassed to say I did not.

At the next pitstop I was feeling a little light-headed and woozy, and at this point I did drink a good 16 ounces of Gatorade, and when I got back moving on the bike I felt fine, so I kept going. The next pit stop was lunch and I still hadn’t needed to use the bathroom after all that fluid, and I was feeling even more light-headed, so I stopped at the medical tent. They advised me to stay there and not get back on my bike until I’d used the bathroom. An hour passed. I tried to eat some pretzels (finally, actually eating some food that day), and not too long later I was vomiting a whole lot of water, water that had just been sitting in my stomach with no where to go.

No more riding for me that day….at least no more bike riding. Instead I got an ambulance ride to Galena Hospital. There they discovered that my blood sodium was 119 (normal is about 135), and rather than hanging out with cyclists that Saturday night, I spent it in the hospital. Ultimately, with some IV electrolyte replacement I was fine and discharged in the morning, but hyponatremia can be serious, so I want to encourage everyone to not make the silly mistakes I made.

So, in summary, here’s what you can learn from my story:

• Be aware of the climate and what you’re accustomed to. Pay attention to your sweat and replace what you’re sweating.
• EAT! Don’t skip meals and snacks on long rides.
• Be liberal with salt during meals and snack on long-ride days (unless you have medical reasons that necessitate a low-sodium diet).
• Don’t let the annoyance of cleaning a camelback prevent you from putting a sports drink in there. :o)
• Practice reaching for that water bottle on your bike so you are comfortable drinking from it while the bike is moving. Or, be sure to drink some sports drinks at the pit stops.
• Be aware that some medications can increase the risk of hyponatremia—I am NOT saying to not take those medications, but just be aware so you can be extra-vigilant about keeping your electrolytes normal.
• Two other risk factors for hyponatremia are age (the older you get the bigger the risk) and gender (women seem more at risk than men). Of course, these are risk factors that we have no control over, but again, it’s just good to keep these in mind so you maintain an awareness of the need for fluids and electrolytes.

Ride on! (and please hydrate smart!)

Shelley

Intoxicated....with water?

Is it possible to drink too much water?

Actually, yes. “Water intoxication” from drinking too much plain water and not replacing electrolytes is possible..... and it’s happened to me.

Stop! That does not mean you should start limiting your fluid intake! Dehydration is still far more common than water intoxication. We just need to keep both in mind so that we avoid both extremes. Many times in nutrition counseling I think of the repeating mantra in "Goldilocks and the Three Bears"....we don't want too much, or too little....we want it just right......

With so much focus on avoiding dehydration, some cyclists can go a little overboard in their prevention efforts. When I say “some cyclists” I have to include myself in that group, as I have personal experience with drinking too much plain water and not replacing electrolytes on a 100-mile ride…..which led to water intoxication and hyponatremia. (Hyponatremia=low sodium concentration. Remember back to chemistry class and the periodic table? The symbol “Na” is for sodium. “Hypo” means low. So when you put it all together, you get the term “hyponatremia”.)

This basically means that by drinking only plain water (and LOT of it) that my blood supply also had too much plain water compared to the amount of electrolytes. A colleague once gave me this analogy to illustrate what’s going on in hyponatremia. Fill a glass with 1 cup of water and mix in 1 Tablespoon of salt (salt is half sodium). The concentration of salt in the glass is 1 Tablespoon per cup. Pour out half of the salt water. The water you pour out represents what you sweat out during exercise. The water left in the glass has ½ Tablespoon of salt. Add back ½ cup of plain water. The concentration of salt in the glass is now ½ Tablespoon per cup, which is only half of the concentration that was in the initial glass of salt water. So, if after sweating a lot you drink only plain water, a similar thing is going on in your bloodstream: The concentration of the sodium is less.

Severely low sodium is a concern because a normal sodium concentration is required for your body to conduct nerve impulses and for muscle function. Symptoms of hyponatremia include: nausea, muscle cramps, weakness, headache, disorientation. Unfortunately, the symptoms of hyponatremia can sometimes be misinterpreted as dehydration, and a cyclist may think he/she just needs to drink more water, possibly making the situation worse.

Hyponatremia is a risk primarily for endurance events such as marathons and all-day bike rides like the MS ride. You often hear warnings about hyponatremia around the time of the marathon each year. Hyponatremia is not really a concern for the elite runners who finish the course in 2 hours—they are running so darn fast and not drinking enough fluid to overwhelm their system. But for the non-elite-athlete-runners (the "slow-and-steady" folks like me) who may be on the course for 5 or more hours, if they only drink water and don’t include some sports drinks for electrolyte replacement, they can risk hyponatremia.

Hyponatremia is serious, but also very preventable. My main advice to you is to be sure to drink some sports drinks on the days of the MS ride and during long training days. A common recommendation is to have two bottles on your bike—one for water and one for sports drinks—and alternate drinking between the two.

In my next post, I’ll take you step-by-step through my day of mistakes that led to my own hyponatremic experience….and an unplanned visit to the hospital in Galena. It’s a tad embarrassing as a dietitian to show up in the ER with my electrolytes out of whack, but I certainly learned a lot from the experience. :o)

Looks like at last we may get a respite from the rain this weekend….Ride on!