Any foods that make your performance tank

[fitty4]

I told my wife not to buy white bread anymore, at first she didn't listen. She would make herself a white bread sandwich resulting in coming home from work/school emptying the fridge. She never eats white bread now. White bread is our kryptonite

[LouisN]

Dude bananas keep me going. On long winter base rides I'll often eat up to 15 of them.

That's funny

Louis

[CarpetFibre]

Dude bananas keep me going. On long winter base rides I'll often eat up to 15 of them.

That's funny

Louis

Perhaps I should have put a comma after 'Dude'.

[ricey155]

A restaurant curry with plenty of chilli's no good for me, rips straight through beer very heavy red wine better for me I need to stop

Nexus 4 kit kat

[vdrey]

I've found that pepperoni pizza the night before a race is quite good.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

[nathanong87]

i've lost races a day after eating a sushi buffet
i've also lost races a day after eating carbs and healthy stuff

so i've concluded that pretty much the rider is the limiting factor...not food.

[LouisN]

Food should not be perceived as a performance enhancer IMO.
Winning races has a lot more to do than just the "fuel" you put in your tank hours before.

The subject is not about best factor to win races, it's about food that has a personnal negative effect on performance, from what I understand it.
I remember seeing that Peter Sagan picture from Milan-San Remo 2013 with almost a whole pie in his hands. I know pie crust has nasty effects on my general feeling and performance...

Louis

[rekemeyer94]

The only few things that seem to mess up my training, food wise, would be large amounts of coffee/espresso. However, we're talking 60-80 oz of coffee or more than 3-4 double shots of espresso, so not really normal quantities. I have never suffered from the dreaded "pizza legs," but I still try to refrain from eating it the night before a big race (Nationals, Dairyland, NCC/NRC type events, not some little local race) or during a multi-day event.

[dvincere]

Too much fat right before riding definitely hits my performance. Seems to interfere with getting the carbs and water in. As much as I love fatty hashbrowns for breakfast before a big ride they don't do me any favors while I'm out there.

[bananasbrah]

Fat is a huge performance killer, there's no debate on that one. The lower, the better, for performance. I find a number under or around 5% of total calories works best, naturally if mileage is significantly higher than normal then a number nearer 10% is sometimes achieved, but that comes with the additional carb calories consumed, no overts necessary.

Dairy does nothing beneficial performance wise, all it's been proven to do is clog the *f##k* out of our respiratory and lymphatic systems. When I drank milk, I used to have difficulty keeping a tempo and breathing deeply when needed. I had no idea how much unnecessary mucus I was carrying around and how much it all affected my breathing. In all honestly, my chest just felt different when it was no longer a part of my diet.

The protein found in eggs is second to dairy in how it affects these things, so stuff like scrambled eggs or an omelette is actually a poor choice in my opinion, there will undoubtedly be asthma-like symptoms from eating this gunk, which I myself only noticed when I removed it from my diet.

Then there's meat, which, in all honestly I don't see why any cyclist would want to eat on performance grounds. Aside from the fact it sits in our guts for days trying to digest, which is probably the most basic performance killer (that's valuable blood being used for digestion that isn't going to your legs), the inflammation that animal protein causes is ridiculous... arteries stiffen, our blood floods with toxins and endotoxins. Aside from carrying all the extra weight up every climb with us, it's a surefire route to poor performance as the entire body reacts against what's been put into it.

[asdf123]

So whats your point here?
Egg protein is one of the fastest to digest.
Regarding fat post and prior yes, keep it low. I aim for a 40p/45c/15f ratio daily as I'm very sensitive to carbs.
Prior I go for complex carbs and low fat (5%) and low protein (30%) meal. Post is the same just with some fast digesting carbs.

[AGW]

Bananasbrah, are you that youtube quack that yammers on about 30 bananas a day being nature's design? Your statements that meat is either inflammatory or endogenously toxic are utterly absurd.

[bananasbrah]

Well, my point is that those are the foods which, in my opinion, negatively impact performance the most. I would have thought that was obvious on a post entitled 'Any foods that make your performance tank'.

I'd like to hear more about egg protein being one of the fastest to digest, that sounds pretty subjective. Compared to what exactly? Perhaps the breakdown and assimilation of protein bonds would be quicker with a cooked egg than a steak, but the severe lack of dietary fibre in both would surely forego any real discussion. Besides, a more constant trickle of varied aminos, delivered sparingly, and in accordance with organic macronutrient ratios present in plants, undoubtedly leads to more efficient cell delivery. I'd argue that the consistent array of essential amino acids present in fruits & vegetables is far superior in terms of ease and efficiency of digestion.

[AGW]

You can't back-track, calling something an opinion which you previously espoused as some kind of published fact. Claiming that animal proteins are toxic to the human body or produce inflammatory changes are not subjective statements, they are claims without a biological basis. Blood flow doesn't "slow down" or clog s/p fatty meal, as that simplistic diagram of yours so inaccurately depicts.

[bananasbrah]

Okay, here are your biological facts:

The stomach acid inside a carnivore's body is around 20 times as strong as yours or mine. These animals are therefore able to eat just about any other living creature available to them. A household cat can easily swallow the entirety of a mouse; bones, connective tissue, skin etc.. Upscale this to whichever size of carnivore you can think of, and the same is true. This means the digestion of other animals is done almost entirely in the stomach, dissolving everything ingested.
Now, unless you've already had some of it removed, your intestinal tract is 32ft in length, whereas the tract of carnivorous animals such as cats is only three times as long as their body. While a true carnivore will evacuate the leftovers of any meat consumed rapidly, in humans, huge amounts of meat are travelling past the stomach, into the intestinal tract. Therefore all partially digested meat matter is spending an extended period of time inside you, literally rotting away. The decaying meat produces poisons like cadaverine and putrescine, which in turn become pathogenic and toxic within the body. And since your long, long intestine is your major organ of digestion, large amounts of those toxins will be absorbed by the body.
Furthermore, how do you think the body will react to the sodium nitrates and other assorted additives and chemicals which are present in the vast majority of purchasable animal flesh? What about the gargantuan amounts of antibiotics, sedatives, growth hormones, and chemical feed additives which are all involved in the meat production process.
What about how undigested quantities of animal protein remain inside the digestive tract and form a layer of mucoid plaque which prevents nutrient assimilation for decades?

But please, see for yourself. Fat doesn't clog RBC transport? Eat a tub of butter or drink a bottle of olive oil, get on the bike the next day and let me know how your legs feel.