Vegans: pre-ride nutrition

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helldiver
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by helldiver

Great explanation @jamesbass, thank you very much for the tips and links for further study. When i was preparing home-made energy gels for longer (4h+) rides, I did them by mixing date paste, coconut oil and almond butter (which is very high in fats as well) - for no other reason as to have more "balanced" energy source then pure glucose (dates). Your explanation basically suggest that it would certainly better to omit coconut oil and maybe even almond butter from them, at least for intense rides/races where i need maximum performance more then anything else, correct ?

jamesbass
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by jamesbass

Yes. When Chris Froome bonked on Alpe D'Huez, he said he "ran out of sugars". Might seem weird to just eat sugar but, when on the limit in that situation, it's what the body craves. Richie Porte definitely didn't go back to the car to get him some olive oil!

To be honest, just eating dates by themselves on a ride will probably be better. They provide everything you need. Adding fats to them also slows down your digestion considerably so, again, should be avoided while riding. During long races like the Tour de France, you have to understand that the riders will struggle to fully replenish energy after consecutive days so can get really hungry in the peloton. Sometimes they will eat fatty things such as chocolate bars as treats/emotional eating because it is a fast way to stop hunger & get extra calories in. If you're just eating dates for 4 hours it can get irritating though so it's always good to have other things as a backup.

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KWalker
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by KWalker

I'd add some BCAAs in during a long ride and perhaps before if I were a vegan as most vegan protein sources lack leucine. People often fail to realize that a gram of protein is not a gram of protein and most plant sources are very low in BCAAs. It probably won't impact you a ton, but if you want to cover your bases that would be a great place to start. Sugary sources are great during very intense efforts or when you need fast processing, but I would otherwise eat something with some wholeness to it that contains oats, fiber, and some kind of grain. This will be a more stable release, provide amino acids to prevent gluconeogensis and protein breakdown, and some fats for energy as well.
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helldiver
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by helldiver

@KWalker: I really don't want to start any kind of flame, but i would be careful with such assumptions (leucine content in plant protein sources). This is straight from wiki (10 dietary sources of leucine, descending):
Food sources of leucine
Food g/100g
Soybeans, mature seeds, roasted, salted 2.868
Hemp seed, hulled 2.163
Beef, round, top round, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 3 mm (1⁄8 in) fat, select, raw 1.76
Peanuts 1.672
Salami, pork 1.63
Fish, salmon, pink, raw 1.62
Wheat germ 1.571
Almonds 1.488
Chicken, broilers or fryers, thigh, meat only, raw 1.48
Chicken egg, yolk, raw, fresh 1.40

Last time i checked, Soya and Hemp are plants... Incidentally, both are staples in my diet, Soy in form of tofu/tempeh (i like tempeh much more) and i almost always put hemp seeds in my breakfast (oat flakes). There is also shitload of vegan protein (Reflex, Weider, etc.) available, almost all of them containing protein from multiple sources (legumes, grains, seeds) to ensure that you get complete protein (all nine essential amino acids) into your body :) .

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by xena

Don't forget the Vit b12.
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KWalker
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by KWalker

helldiver wrote:@KWalker: I really don't want to start any kind of flame, but i would be careful with such assumptions (leucine content in plant protein sources). This is straight from wiki (10 dietary sources of leucine, descending):
Food sources of leucine
Food g/100g
Soybeans, mature seeds, roasted, salted 2.868
Hemp seed, hulled 2.163
Beef, round, top round, separable lean and fat, trimmed to 3 mm (1⁄8 in) fat, select, raw 1.76
Peanuts 1.672
Salami, pork 1.63
Fish, salmon, pink, raw 1.62
Wheat germ 1.571
Almonds 1.488
Chicken, broilers or fryers, thigh, meat only, raw 1.48
Chicken egg, yolk, raw, fresh 1.40

Last time i checked, Soya and Hemp are plants... Incidentally, both are staples in my diet, Soy in form of tofu/tempeh (i like tempeh much more) and i almost always put hemp seeds in my breakfast (oat flakes). There is also shitload of vegan protein (Reflex, Weider, etc.) available, almost all of them containing protein from multiple sources (legumes, grains, seeds) to ensure that you get complete protein (all nine essential amino acids) into your body :) .


100g of soybeans raw is 443 cal and 36g of protein. 100g of chicken thigh is supposedly (by a quick Google search) 19.5g and 115cal. So, if we equate by calories, to get the same 2.8g of leucine from chicken as soy, you only need to eat 217cal total and get the same amount of protein. 100g of peanuts is 567cal with 26g of protein. Going off just leucine by grams of food doesn't see to make much sense considering that you need a lot more calories of the plant sources to get the same protein and leucine. It all depends on which way you slice it, but I prefer grams per calorie. I'm sure there are some that are close, but for the most part you have to eat a lot more calories of food to get the same amino acid content.

143cal of Greek Yogurt gets you 2.5 as well, so does 92g of whey, or 147cal of chicken. Soy protein isolate solves that at a cost.

Stacy Sims covers this in depth in a lot of her work interestingly, especially regarding post workout nutrition.

My point for the OP remains the same unless he has a hell of a lot of time to digest 400-500cal of food. Soy isolate, which also has less bioavailability than egg or whey, might be a good sub as would simple bcaa powder.
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helldiver
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by helldiver

It actually doesn't make much sense to compare ingredients in raw form, particularly legumes & meat, since almost no-one eats them that way (for good reasons) and nutritional composition changes by thermal preparation, fermenting, etc.
Again quoting wiki, here is my favourite soy product (tempeh):
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 803 kJ (192 kcal)
Carbohydrates
7.64 g
Fat
10.80 g
Protein
20.29 g

And here is chicken (Chicken, broiler, meat and skin, cooked, stewed):
Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)
Energy 916 kJ (219 kcal)
Carbohydrates
0.00 g
Fat
12.56 g
Protein
24.68 g

So it's ~9,5kcal for 1g of protein in tempeh, compared to 8,9kcal for 1g of protein in chicken, i would say pretty comparable. My point is that is't just not true that it's in any way hard to get enough balanced protein from plant sources and it's also not true that all (or almost all) plant based protein sources are very low in leucine. I was using https://cronometer.com/ for some time, there was never any problem to get the amount of (complete) protein from ordinary food sources like grains, legumes, root vegetables, etc. Second thing, it's absolutely not necessary to have complete protein in single food serving, even if many plant based foods do (mainly those based on legumes). It's sufficient to eat varied protein sources through the whole day (so you have all your essential amino acids covered by end of the day, roughly speaking).

KWalker
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by KWalker

So if you don't like to compare that way then why did you post a source that did so?

Using nutritiondata:
100g cooked tempeh gets you 1.43g of leucine and 19g protein.

100g chicken breast is 2.4g and 30g protein.

Lets not forget soy is high in phytates, the highest in allergin content of any protein (second to eggs, which are far lower in content). You can ferment it to remove some of the allergins and phytates.

This is interesting as an aside: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905294/

But again, my recommendation was simply for during workout or near workout food sources that would offer high quality per calorie and be easily digestible.
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helldiver
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by helldiver

No, I didn't, my first post comparing protein content included roasted, salted soybeans (thermally prepared snack ready to eat).
Phytates are true, but again, cooking, fermenting, sprouting reduces that greatly.

mvcap
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by mvcap

@jamesbass Excellent info, thank you so much. And nutritionfacts.org is such a great site, glad you cited it as well.

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Clean39T
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by Clean39T

Vegan (but not perfect) here - I just eat hi-carb in general and am usually fueled enough as is - if not, a bowl of cereal w OJ works well for me.


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Clean39T
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by Clean39T

Tapeworm wrote:Not a vegan, but my fuelling wouldn't change if I were.

Depending on the ride:-
1-1.5hrs: black coffee
1.5-2hrs: black coffee + fruit toast
2hrs plus: oats w/ a bit of coconut oil and maple syrup + black coffee

During the ride:
1-1.5hrs: water
1.5hrs-2hrs: diluted juice or sports drink is hard sesh
3hrs+: sports drink (sugaaaaaaar!).

If on the erg for intervals: just water and pulse jelly beans as needed.


Very similar here.. :)


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jamesbass
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by jamesbass

Been a few months since I posted here and, seen as it's still an active thread, I'll just add that potatoes appear to be the holy grail for me. Literally, loading up on them the day before a race seems to have a ton of benefits. When you are trying to stay light for hill climbs, let's just say they don't stick around in the digestive system long if you catch my drift... There are many people who do an all-potato diet and document it via YouTube etc. Apparently, they have all the human body needs. For getting that last kg off (this is weight weenies!) they have been invaluable the past couple of months. Easier than rice to digest and more filling I think. Maybe too much in the 3 hours leading up to an event though.

The exception is when grease is involved. No chips/crisps (fries/chips for US readers). They kill all motivation for me.

KWalker
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by KWalker

Potatoes of all kinds are highly underrated. One of the easiest foods to digest, flavor, and they provide a lot of nutrition in a small package. My go-to race day nutrition is a potato or sweet potato with 2 eggs and a bit of coconut oil. Keeps me satiated and full most of the race, which is helpful when you do not know exactly when you will be able to eat.
Don't take me too seriously. The only person that doesn't hate Froome.
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sanrensho
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by sanrensho

Post-ride and as a snack (energy boost), I've been grooving lately on something as simple as sliced bananas spread with natural peanut butter. Much more satisfying than plain bananas. Or muesli/soy milk post-ride if I had something else pre-ride.

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