Should you eat gummy bears like Peter Sagan?
Maybe.
In this episode, we are joined by Dan Cavallari and Dr. Stacy Sims, founder of Osmo who now works with Nuun, to discuss the difference between food and fuel — what you should be eating on the bike, and off. We cover everything from the basics of sugars to osmotic gut pressure to the benefits (or lack thereof) of red algae.
Some of the conclusions just might surprise you.
Episode Transcript
Caley Fretz 00:00
Welcome to Fast talk developer news podcast and everything you need to know to run like a pro. Fast dock is sponsored by Quirk, maker of next generation power meters, including this ram red D zero power meter. built specifically for strands groundbreaking red groups at this ram red D zero parameter is compatible with all of strands, red group sets, find out more@quark.com forward slash d zero.
Trevor Connor 00:33
Remember, when you are going hard, the gut doesn’t work as well. And you don’t want to be drawing fluid out of your blood. So really, I’m gonna keep saying this. The best products are the ones that are simplest and have just what you need, which is some sugars in a good ratio of glucose to fructose, and some electrolytes and not tons of electrolytes, anything beyond that, probably not going to help your performance it’s going to put a greater strain on your gut and it might put a greater strain on the osmotic pressure. Why would you want to do that to yourself?
Caley Fretz 01:05
Welcome back, dear listeners to another episode of fast talk. I’m Kaylee Fretts, senior editor here at VeloNews. sitting across the table as always, from our favorite coach, Trevor Connor. How are you, Trevor?
Trevor Connor 01:17
It’s our last day of a week of podcast recording. I’m doing great.
Caley Fretz 01:22
Trevor’s a little bit grumpy. He’s been made even more grumpy by some of the things that are sitting on the table in front of us, which you will learn about soon. We also have Dan Cavallari here today, our tech editor. How are you doing?
Dan Cavallari 01:34
I’m doing well. Kaley. Thanks for having me.
Caley Fretz 01:36
You’re welcome. You’re very welcome. So today, we’re going to we’re gonna hit on the hot button topic once again, of nutrition. We had we had a episode about nutrition with Dr. Golia. A little while ago, there were some people that emailed in to tell us that they didn’t necessarily appreciate some of the science in that episode, you may have heard a brief mention at the beginning that we were not totally confident in some of the science and episode. Regardless, we’re going to hit on nutrition again, this time, it’s just going to be myself, Trevor and Dan, just a bit of background here. So Trevor has a degree in nutrition among a couple degrees that he has from Colorado State University. Dan does not have a degree in nutrition. He is a top notch eater of food. So those all about what’s edible.
Dan Cavallari 02:23
What’s not edible. Thanks, Graeme.
Caley Fretz 02:24
Yeah. Studied both eating and drinking at the University of Italian Americans. Yes.
Trevor Connor 02:30
Well, you are trying to get your Italian citizenship, isn’t there a food component to
Dan Cavallari 02:33
that trying to get my weight up to an acceptable Italian American level? So I got about 30 pounds to go.
Caley Fretz 02:40
I think to get your Italian citizenship, it’s kind of like a small gay test. But for pasta, right? Yeah, they
Dan Cavallari 02:45
don’t ask for any birth or death certificates. They just they put a plate of Italian food
Caley Fretz 02:48
and you have to identify various shapes of pasta and things like that. And then you have to eat all of it.
Dan Cavallari 02:54
And then you have to have an Italian grandmother say, Why are you so thin?
Caley Fretz 02:59
My grandma does that sometimes. Anyway, the goal of today’s podcast is to take a look at the difference between food and fuel. And to cut through some of the jargon that surrounds Well, that’s around on bike or athletic nutrition. So part of the reason why Trevor is a little bit grumpy this morning beyond the fact that we’ve made a whole bunch of podcasts this week, and it’s it’s currently quite early is that he was sitting before the podcast began for our recording began reading the back of a bit many of the available on bike nutrition products that Dan is thoughtfully brought in and splayed out on the table in front of us. And he was generally not pleased with what he was seeing. There are definitely some great products out there. There are definitely some less great products out there. Our goal today is less to talk about which ones specifically are good and bad and more just to explain to you what you should be looking for within your on bike nutrition.
Trevor Connor 04:02
My favorite is the one that has researched with an asterix and then doesn’t explain the Asterix.
Caley Fretz 04:11
Yeah, this is very much in Trevor’s wheelhouse. And so Trevor is going to be dropped. We’re going to be leaning on Trevor for the science side today. And then Dan and I have have eaten most of these things. And we can tell you whether a lot of them are actually edible, which is also important because the food that you eat on the bike has to be somewhat edible. Anyway, let’s start with our big question, which is the difference between food and fuel? Dan,
Dan Cavallari 04:39
we’re cutting straight to the guy who doesn’t have the nutrition degree. So I’m gonna give this to you in my my very unqualified definition, which to me fuel is something that you want for short term consumption. It’s going to give you that little kick on the bike. Food is something you eat when you’re you know, sitting at the table. It’s long term sustenance, it’s it’s healthy, it’s what your body needs to stay healthy overtime fuel, think of fuel as basically the turbo boost. That’s why the primary ingredient and most of this stuff is sugar. And we’re going to be talking a lot about sugar today. So when you think fuel, yes, of course, Food is fuel, but we’re using it in the sense of that short term boost, your body needs to keep going in the race or going in on the ride. It’s kind
Caley Fretz 05:28
of like how all puppies or dogs but not all dogs or puppies, right? And that all we’re all food is technically fuel. But not all of these products necessarily qualifies. You would actually want to eat anytime when you’re not exercising,
Dan Cavallari 05:46
you don’t want to be eating any of this stuff. If you’re not on the bike, let’s just let’s just clarify right up front.
Caley Fretz 05:51
I mean, we do do that sometimes. Sometimes I’m really hungry, I miss lunch, I just walk over to Dan’s desk and steal some some shop blocks. And then I immediately get sort of this weird sugar induced head rush because I just sitting at my desk trying to eat basically candy.
Dan Cavallari 06:05
Let me give you the disclaimer My dad always gives me which is do as I say not as I do. We’re not exactly paragons of model behavior.
Caley Fretz 06:13
Let’s turn to Trevor, since Trevor actually knows what he’s talking about. And Dan, and I don’t, Trevor,
Trevor Connor 06:20
when I talk with my athletes about nutrition, I really divide the day into two parts. So there is the starting about an hour before you exercise, until about an hour after you exercise, and I’m not talking, you’re going out for an easy hour recovery ride that you don’t need special nutrition for that I’m talking about a race or a good long, hard ride or intervals or training, race, things like that. The one part of the day is that hour before to that hour after. And then there’s the rest of the day. In that exercise window you are eating for performance you are eating to prevent fatigue, it is all about what’s going to keep you functioning on the bike. The rest of the day is about eating for health. And they’re quite distinct. And I’m going to give very different recommendations. There is a physiological basis behind this. And Kayla, you just touched on it when you said well, you know, if I’m really hungry, and there’s Clif blocks or whatever lying around, I’ll eat those and I get this big Sugar Rush. Our bodies try to very tightly control or regulate sugar, we need to maintain a certain level of blood sugar if it drops too far, that’s when you start going dizzy, that’s when you pass out. And if it’s really bad, you can die from it. Our brains normally function purely on sugar, so they need it for your brain needs at first. So we have this thing called insulin that regulates our sugar levels. And what happens is most of the cells in our body cannot absorb sugar. Without insulin. I’m going to throw out my one technical term for the day, we have what are called glute four transporters, that they exist in most ear cells, insulin cars, those transporters that come to the surface of the cells, and then those transporters are what take the sugar from the blood pulled into the cells. When those transporters aren’t at the surface. We can’t absorb sugar, insulin causes that, as I said, causes them to come to the surface. Really interesting thing about exercise is as soon as you start exercising our body shut off the insulin response. And the exercising muscles naturally send the glute four transporters to the surface of the cell. So exercise allows cells, just the exercise in cells to take up sugar. This is really important for diabetics, it’s why they recommend exercise for diabetics, because since they either don’t produce insulin or they’re insensitive to insulin, it’s a way for them to control blood sugar levels without the benefits of the insulin system. So that’s a very long way of saying how our bodies respond to sugar is fundamentally different during exercise than it is during rest.
Caley Fretz 09:11
So that’s the scientific version of what Dan and I were saying, which is that food and on bike fewer, maybe two different things. I said it better.
Dan Cavallari 09:22
Okay, so So we’ve basically established that there, there’s two different ways you should be eating, you should be eating a different way on the bike and off. So let’s start with on the bike, because, you know, the main ingredient in all these products, as I said is sugar. And we read in the news all the time that we’re in this public health crisis where we’re consuming far too much sugar. Why wouldn’t that be a concern on the bike? You know, what is the difference? Are there different types of sugars in these products that make one better than the other?
Trevor Connor 09:50
Well, so it goes back to what I was saying before it’s spiking of insulin that’s causing a lot of our health issues and there’s a ton of research that I won’t dig to equally in showing that if you are constantly spiking your insulin levels A, that leads to metabolic syndrome that leads to diabetes, it can lead to other conditions. So you want to regulate your insulin levels for health. But as soon as you are exercising, insulin doesn’t get released. So those negative health effects of sugar essentially disappeared during exercise.
Dan Cavallari 10:22
So we get a little bit of a free pass when we’re exercising to consume sugar that you shouldn’t really be consuming off the bike.
Trevor Connor 10:29
Right? It’s not 100%, free pass. And I don’t want to get too deep into the science but also consuming a lot of sugar has immunological effects on your body, that can also lead to issues but for the most part, let’s simplify it and say, when you are exercising most of the negative effects of sugar disappear.
Dan Cavallari 10:49
Okay, so that is so that now that we’ve kind of got that clarified, let’s talk about the various products and not even limited to just products, we can, we can talk a little bit about food, because there are different types of sugars. So on the table, you guys can’t really see this, obviously, but in front of me right now I have several types of energy products. And I think eating some chocolate, including some chocolate, yes. And I also have some dates and some dried mangoes, we have an energy drink, we’ve got all sorts of stuff on the table right here. And everybody is marketing that their product is going to give you that boost in a way that no other product can. So how do we determine what’s good sugar? And what’s bad? Are they all using the same thing? Or are they using different things? Well, and
Caley Fretz 11:33
beyond sugars, what else are we looking for? What else is in the I think, Trevor, we’re going to turn back to you on this? What are the what are the things that consumers should be looking for? If you read the back of some of these nutrition labels? What should be on those labels in terms of a good read food?
Trevor Connor 11:50
And my question back to being early in the morning is how grouchy Am I allowed to be?
Dan Cavallari 11:55
At this this can write the whole time.
Caley Fretz 12:01
You can be quite grouchy, we don’t mind we don’t mind at all. Oh, we’ll get to
Trevor Connor 12:05
that can get to that can.
Caley Fretz 12:11
Let’s start with the positive. What are we looking for what good who’s doing who’s doing it? Well,
Trevor Connor 12:15
let’s start just with the sugars. We’ve talked about that we can get to the other ingredients in a minute. But let’s just start with the sugars, because that’s one of the main things that you’re trying to get with these products is just simply that fuel. You’re gonna hear all sorts of different things about different types of sugars and different types of mixes. A lot of it is really marketing. The important thing to know is that basically, once it’s in your body and broken down, there are two types of sugars. There’s glucose and there’s fructose inside your gut, they have to be transported into your body, they can’t just passively go from your gut to your bloodstream. It’s matter of fact, fructose doesn’t go through your bloodstream, but I’ll save that for another time. The transporters in our guts. So there’s, I believe it’s glute five and Sgt one, one transports glucose, the other transports fructose, we can transport depending on the individual about 60 to 90 grams of glucose per hour, and only about 20 to 30 grams of fructose per hour. So ultimately, what you are looking for is a large amount of glucose. So you want to get at least that 60 to 90 grams of glucose per hour. And then a little bit of fructose because it has a different transporter. So you can increase the amount of sugar you’re getting per hour. When you start reading about maltodextrin. And all these other sugars. They’re all basically just some form of either straight glucose as as a polymer or a combination of glucose and fructose.
Dan Cavallari 13:53
What if What if I just want to take a thing of Twizzlers with me on the right is a sugar different in that?
Trevor Connor 14:00
No. And that’s what I do. I try like Swedish Fish. And when I’m under like we talked about this weekend, because everybody laughed, we’re we’re on that a long ride up in the mountains. And being the Nutrition has been The Science Guy. I think everybody was watching to see what I pulled out of my pocket and pull out this giant bag of sweeteners fish, and one of the guys commented on it. He’s like, Well, you eat those. And I go, Yeah, you know what the difference between this and half of the other products out there is and he goes, good marketing and went yeah, and about two bucks. That being said, there are slight differences. A lot of the candy on the shelves, has a lot more fructose and glucose. And like I said, you really want that ratio of say about three to one glucose to fructose and the candy on the shelves isn’t quite the right ratio, so it’s not as good. I’m from Canada. Glucose is our primary sugar up there. So Canadian candy actually is pretty close to being as good.
Caley Fretz 14:55
Is that the same as Okay, so let’s think back to right after that. Speedwagon, one Kern, Brussels, Kern, is hailed as he, his, his his swan year walked up and literally just poured a pile of European hairbows and European hairbows are different than American hairbows. I think. I think I’m right in saying that it’s more glucose and less fructose, just like in Canada, poured a bucket of hairbows into Peter sargans hand and Peter SLOG and then proceeded to stick all of them in his mouth, and eat an entire bag of hairbows in one in one shot, is that sort of what you’re talking about here is essentially, if you can find a candy with a similar ratio of glucose to fructose, then you’re 90% of the way there with most of these expensive on bike nutrition things.
Trevor Connor 15:46
So I’m gonna have to go into hiding from all these companies. All these products are seen on the table with a bit of a qualifier. Yeah, I think it’s for the most part, just as good there are. And we’ll get into these, there are little things that make these products better. And so I will admit, I’m in a race. Yeah, I like Clif blocks, they sit well with me, and they’re a little better than candy. I’m out on a training ride. No, I’m eating my Swedish Fish or whatever. And actually, I will walk into a store, I will look at the different types of candy. And I will look for glucose to be the primary ingredient. If I see that then great.
Caley Fretz 16:25
Pro tip, go to the candy store, look for candy, which is the primary ingredient, call it a day. Save yourself a bunch of money. I mean, obviously, you know, we we do we work we work for our listeners, we do not work for the nutrition industry. I think that’s actually a pretty good tip. And I’m I’m exactly the same way i i actually buy these like, like house brand Twizzlers from a local grocery store here in town. And that is that’s one of my primary red foods, I also just tend to like stop and eat pie and buy through my reds, which is the other way to do it. But I add it significantly cheaper than going through a whole lot of something like a cliff block or glucose box, which actually really tasty and they work really well. But it just saves you a bit of cash,
Dan Cavallari 17:10
I am actually an advocate of of gels, because you don’t really find these too often in candy form in the grocery store. So these are kind of a specialty item. And what I like about them is that it’s easy to eat, the ride goes down quick, I don’t have to think about it. I’m not I’m not looking for a snack, you know, I’m not looking to enjoy the process of eating, I just want some quick fuel. So the gels to me are a little bit set apart from the rest of these products because of the convenient delivery. That might just be you know, a preference thing. I don’t know if there’s any science behind it absorbing any quicker or anything like that. But just from a pure convenience standpoint, I do like the
Caley Fretz 17:51
gels. Yeah, I often used to race with gels, but you could not pay me enough to have one of those things in training except for to make sure that my stomach can handle it. Right. That’s the only reason I would ever have one in training. Because they’re kind of gross, Trevor, what else? What else should we be looking for so
Trevor Connor 18:06
so there is another side to the science that it’s really important to know about are two sides of the science that are really important to know about. One is osmotic pressure. And I will try to give you a simple explanation for this. If you take a you fill a bucket with water, and then you start adding things to it, like electrolytes, you start adding sugars to it, it’s going to have a concentration of the solutes. The higher the concentration, the higher it’s osmotic pressure. But what’s important, and you can do this experiment, if you take two buckets, one filled with seawater, one filled with with natural water with with no salt in it, and then you connect a tube between them. And then you go away, when you come back, there are going to end up having about equal concentration of the sodium. So that’s called a concentration gradient where one fluid has a higher osmotic pressure than the other. This is incredibly important in our body. If there wasn’t this concentration gradient effect, we would all die because it drives most of the processes in our body, including how our neurons work. And I’m not going to geek out on you. Why that is important is because your gut is filled with fluid, your blood is a fluid. You want to drive the water and those solutes into your blood. Water should have taken a step back and said this before water is called the great follower. Water is going to follow the osmotic pressure, it’s going to follow the solute. So it’s not going to be a case where Ooh, you got all these solutes in your gut. So we’re going to pull them into the blood that will happen slowly. If the fluid in your gut has a higher osmotic pressure, you’re going to have the opposite effect. You’re actually going to pull you’re going to Pull fluid from your blood into your gut, to reduce the osmotic pressure. And so people complain about this, if you’re on a ride, and you eat a ton of candy, or you take a huge thing of gels, some people will later complain of bloating, say, you know, this really blows me, it makes me feel bad. Well, that’s exactly what’s happening, you suddenly have this really concentrated fluid in your gut. And you’re going to draw fluid out of your blood to dilute it. And that’s going to dehydrate you and it’s going to swell up your gut, we don’t want that. So what that means in terms of a product, if you have a product that’s heavily concentrated, you can run into problems, it’s going to increase the osmotic pressure in your gut. And then fluid is going to be pulled into your gut to bring down the concentration. So you will see a lot of sports drinks now are actually reducing the carbohydrate content and reducing the electrolyte content, so that you don’t get that bloating. One of the issues with gels is because they can dissolve so rapidly in fluid, they often hit give your gut this huge osmotic hit, and cause bloating.
Caley Fretz 21:14
And I always thought it was a good idea. If you are going to take a a Gu of some sort, you drink a bunch of water at the same time.
Trevor Connor 21:22
Exactly.
Dan Cavallari 21:24
This one here says no need for water says it right on the packet. Well, that’s because they
Trevor Connor 21:28
if you go to there, so this is should we mentioned. Yeah, let’s talk about it. So this is the science and sport and I’m not on their website. But if I remember correctly, they’re very sensitive to the osmotic pressure, and they’ve kept that gel pretty close to the osmotic pressure of our blood.
Dan Cavallari 21:47
And it does have an interesting texture, you can you can tell that this is different from other gels, just by bites by tasting it a little more liquid. It’s it’s yeah, it’s definitely a liquidity, taste and texture. And I actually I’ve started to really prefer this one over other gels that tend to stick to your mouth and get that really peanut buttery honey kind of feel. This goes down easy or easier. And I don’t know if that has to do with the balance of I mean, is there just more water in this than others? Is that how they do this?
Trevor Connor 22:17
That’s if you open that up. It’s pretty
Dan Cavallari 22:19
liquid, right? Right. And glucose is sort of similar glucose is gL UKOS has a gel and it’s also very, very liquidy, almost to the point where it’s like a drink.
Trevor Connor 22:30
Admittedly, this podcast is a little more off the cuff than I normally do. So I decided to go back to an interview I did four years ago with Dr. Stacey Sims. She is arguably one of the top experts in the world in sports hydration. She’s one of the minds behind Skratch nutrition, and she’s the creator of Osmo Nutrition, scientifically to the best sports drinks on the market. While their interview was about hydration, she had a lot to say about sugars during exercise. And if you thought I was hesitant about fructose, wait until you hear her opinion. Frankly, it’s a lot more informed in my early morning grouchiness.
Dr Stacy Simms 23:02
So the type of carbohydrate will have an impact if you’re having something that’s glucose and sucrose based. And that helps with the glucose sodium, passive transport of fluid in the intestine. But if using maltodextrin, or fructose, which are your traditional sports drinks in sport nutrition, it might exit the stomach quickly with low osmolality. But when it gets to the intestines itself, it changes the osmotic pressure in the first part of the small intestine, which does a reverse waterflood. So this is another indication of people are using a lot of gels and, and drinks and things in maltodextrin, they start getting a little bit of Bloating and Discomfort. It’s the reverse water flux in the small intestine, they might not have the splashing or GI distress in the stomach because things have exited. But when it gets into the small intestines, and you have this reverse water flex, this is another contributor to some of the post race, gas and comfort that people have.
24:06
And it’s doing that it’s just increasing the osmotic pressure that much.
Dr Stacy Simms 24:11
Yeah. So if you’re having like I get this question all the time that Osmo has glucose and sucrose, and if you cleave a sucrose molecule, then you get glucose and fructose. And I’m always telling people don’t use fructose don’t use fructose, because your body rate limits things. So if you cleave this sucrose molecule, that glucose gets used in the intestines with the sodium and get your net that premium glucose transport chain and pulled water across, and the fructose is such a small amount that it actually does go through the hepatic portal vein to delivering its process. If you’re using something that’s maltodextrin and fructose, you wind up with a quote fructose dump, or all of a sudden you have so much fructose, your body can’t titrate it out fast enough through that hepatic portal vein, suppose water and to kind of dilute it and hold it until your body can get rid of it. And maltodextrin is very similar in the fact that your body doesn’t recognize it as part of the feedback system or the mechanism of action of water uptake. And it pulls water in increases the oncotic pressure in the small intestine. And when you have an increased oncotic pressure, you have more water that comes in two, it pulls things across like a magnet. And these are things that people don’t talk about when they’re like, Oh, well, if he has something that has a letter maltodextrin, then it’s low. osmolality is not just dogma lousy, it’s what it does in the small intestines where all the water uptake takes place.
Trevor Connor 25:34
I kind of classify these products into two different types. And this is where I’m not going to use names. Except I will mention this with glucose, because I think that’s a decent product, at least from the scientific standpoint, there are products out there where they have really read the science. And they only put in there what has been proven to be performance enhancing, they’re aware of osmotic pressure, there were these various issues. And they’re pretty minimal products just to give you what you need to keep you going during the activity. Then there are other products, where I call them marketing ingredients, they throw in a whole bunch of stuff, to try to differentiate their product based on some iffy science saying this is somehow going to help your performance. Really all I see is a whole bunch of stuff in there, that’s going to increase osmotic pressure, that’s going to put greater work on your gut and give you no gains whatsoever. As a matter of fact, it could potentially dehydrate you and starts pulling fluid into your gut. The other side of the science I was going to bring up is there’s an expression that I’m going to alter slightly that you have a gut and a brain and not a enough blood to power both. Or at least exercising muscles
Dan Cavallari 26:49
will choose I choose my gut every time.
Trevor Connor 26:54
So again, you have to think of we were not designed for exercise we were designed for hunting and gathering. And when we are running or working really hard, our bodies think we are running away from a very big lion right now. And it’s not too concerned about whether we’re able to digest. So it is going to shunt blood away from your gut to your working muscles to give you the best chance of not being dinner, as opposed to digesting dinner. So when you are exercising, when you are out on the bike, especially as you go longer into a race, especially on a hot day, your guts going to start shutting down, it’s not going to be as effective. So you don’t want to eat these products that are going to put this huge demand on your gut to be able to digest what you just took, you really want something quite simple. And actually, if you read a lot of the sports nutrition research, they will say, as you get later into races and your gut start shutting down, you should just be drinking water.
Dan Cavallari 27:56
So the other big ingredient we always see on these packages. And if you look what I just did in front of me, I took my thermos full of coffee, and I stacked it with some gels that are both blaring with so 32 milligrams of caffeine, I made a big caffeine tower in front of you right here. Trevor, is there is there benefits to having caffeine in these products do you need the caffeine and what’s what’s the goal behind including caffeine and some of these products.
Trevor Connor 28:22
So I remember a while ago, and I’m sure it’s been updated since I read a really good review on all the performance enhancing the legal products. And their conclusion was there are only three things that have been proven to be definitively performance enhancing and a fourth that is conditionally performance enhancing Number One On The List caffeine. Number two was creatine but that’s more for strength athletes. Number three was sodium bicarbonate. But that only really helps you for events that are under 10 minutes. The fourth that I add to the list, which we should probably talk about at another time is L glutamine. Which is an amino acid that it’s the highest quantity amino acid in your body. It is also the primary fuel of your gut the only fuel of your immune system and when you are exercising and going really hard you tend to deplete your L glutamine because you will use it as fuel once your blood sugar levels start to deplete which is another reason on a really long hard right your guts gonna start shutting down and why your immune systems not going to function as well. So getting some l glutamine can really help you especially in recovery. Is that why I
Dan Cavallari 29:39
got a cold on Monday? He’s not a doctor. But yeah,
Caley Fretz 29:46
big right on Saturday and then I got a cold on Monday. Damn it.
Trevor Connor 29:50
Caffeine is performance enhancing. I used to love the days when we discovered this and everybody got big on the caffeine pills and they were taking these 1000 milligram pills. And you’d line up at the start of the race and you just see this guy beside you who is all jittery. Hey, buddy, how you doing, buddy? What? What do you want? Fortunately, if since showing that up to 200 milligrams is performance enhancing beyond that you get jittery, but it’s not going to help your performance anymore.
Dan Cavallari 30:18
So it is there is a legit claim to including this stuff in these products. It’s actually can’t help you. Well, that’s good news, because I wasn’t gonna give it up.
Trevor Connor 30:30
All right, time for a quick break. Fast talk is sponsored by cork maker of next generation power meters, including the SRAM xx one eagle Power Meter, the x x one power meter unites corks, D zero platform with carbon tuned crank arms for robust, intuitive power measurement in the lightest ever mountain bike chasis. It’s compatible with all the SRAMs 1x mountain bike drive trains, find out more at ct.com/d zero. What else
Caley Fretz 31:00
are we looking at driver? Like what other things should we be keeping an eye out for that are positive attributes of an on bike nutrition product?
Trevor Connor 31:10
Oh, you’re moving that that thing towards?
Caley Fretz 31:13
We’re not into negative attributes. And
Trevor Connor 31:18
we’re not done today until we talk about
Caley Fretz 31:20
there’s a can there’s a can in front of Trevor right now that Trevor hates that we’re gonna talk about later. But I still want to talk about good stuff. Like, let’s talk about like electrolytes. Everyone’s always talking about electrolytes in particularly with with drink mixes, I think even more so than, than the solid foods that we must have been talking about so far. What exactly should people be seeking in terms of their electrolyte products? A
Dan Cavallari 31:45
couple examples. If you want to look at a couple Yeah,
Caley Fretz 31:47
we’ve got stuff like noon, we’ve got glucose has its own tablets, we’ve got what else is called Isagenix, Asa Genex, amped something.
Trevor Connor 32:00
So this is where when I say that candy isn’t quite as good. This is one of the places I’m talking about there is benefits to having electrolytes. When we’re talking about exercise, you do need to keep your sodium and potassium levels up. It’s just not as much as you think for one thing, if it has that huge levels of sodium, potassium, it goes back to the osmotic pressure issue, you’re going to increase the osmotic pressure in your gut and you’re going to draw fluid out of your bloodstream, you don’t want that. The other thing is, the way you lose sodium. Potassium is in sweat. Sweat is hypo osmotic, meaning it has a lower concentration than your blood. So you don’t need to replenish a lot worse, because you’re losing more fluid in your sweat than sodium and potassium, your blood is going to become more concentrated as osmotic pressure is going to go up. So you need to replace proportionally more water than sodium and potassium. And there are a lot of products out there that ignore that they get into that philosophy of Moore’s better. So we’ve got twice as much sodium as the other product you want us?
Caley Fretz 33:13
Yeah, it’s like how much can we get in there without it tasting? Gross, basically, right? Yeah. And that
Trevor Connor 33:17
is not the way to go. Another thing to be aware of is you lose a lot more sodium than potassium, because sodium exists primarily in your blood. Potassium exists primarily in your cells, you don’t sweat out a lot. So that’s why when you are exercising, you want a lot more sodium than you want. Potassium. Osmotic pressure is actually a very complex subject, and I was really just giving you the basics. This is Dr. Sims wheelhouse. So let’s hear what she has to say about the effects of electrolytes. So why with for example, the sodium, why not just take a ton
Dr Stacy Simms 34:00
because sodium is in different compounds. So most people associate sodium with sodium chloride. And they think that table salt and that kind of stuff. If you take too much sodium chloride, the chloride ion dissociates in the intestine, and changes the membrane potential allows intestinal cells open up releasing endotoxins. And this can contribute to an increase in core temperature rise because it’s a toxin and also contribute to GI distress and reduces the integrity of the contractile mechanism of the intestine. The other aspect of taking in too much sodium is with water their sodium so if you’re ingesting too much sodium, then water is going to come to the sodium that’s in the digestive track. So it’s a fine balance. And this is where a lot of triathlete kind of and to some extent, age group cyclists go awry when they start taking salt tablets. When they’re taking sodium chloride into taking high doses adding chloride when you start, people are trying to take one to three grams of sodium to match sweat losses. And they start doing that it’s way too much. The upper in that you should take per hour as a heavy sweater would probably be 1000 milligrams.
Dan Cavallari 35:23
Can I ask, I want to ask a question that I think had never really occurred to me as a cyclist. Because you from the time that I’ve started, you know, cycling in any competitive fashion or even just doing long rides, there have been these products. So it never occurred to me to ask the logical question, which is do we really need these are is the optimal fuel in food that already exists? You know, I’ve got I’ve got dried mangoes here, I’ve got dates there’s, there’s real food, that acts can act as fuel. Are they any better or worse than these products that we consume that are simple sugars?
Caley Fretz 36:00
Can I try to answer this one? Trevor? Tell me if I’m right.
Trevor Connor 36:04
So clearly wrong. So
Caley Fretz 36:07
I’ve been learning I’ve been learning today. So based on based on what Trevor was telling us earlier about glucose fructose, I’m gonna take a stab at this one and say that a lot of those fruit items that you’re talking about fruit, is fructose Correct? are not going to have that optimal ratio of glucose to fructose because they are fruit and so they will have more fructose and glucose. That’s my guess. Wait, am
Dan Cavallari 36:30
I right? Before you answer before yet I have a further conjecture, okay, that the digestion of these might be a little more difficult while you’re writing because of the pulp and the the skins and things like that.
Caley Fretz 36:43
The fiber the fiber, yes, that is good for you.
Dan Cavallari 36:46
Is it good for you on the bike though?
Caley Fretz 36:50
Trevor, are we right?
Trevor Connor 36:53
So different fruits will have different ratios of glucose to fructose. So definitely be aware of that. I will tell you even though I love the story of Saigon eating candy at the end of a race, and I’ve certainly done that myself, my go to food at the end of a race is dried fruit. Dried fruit is just candy with vitamins and minerals in it, essentially. But you’re spot on about the digestion, as we were saying, when you’re exercising in your
Caley Fretz 37:19
face frets. Dan’s got his hands up in the air, like just want a bike race. I’m smart,
Trevor Connor 37:26
your gut starts shutting down. It just doesn’t absorb as well. So what you don’t want to do is be putting complex foods into your system. A lot of the science, the sports nutrition research, basically says yeah, at the beginning of a race, you can eat things that are more complex, eat your bars, you can have some dried fruit, because your guts still working well, as you get further and further into the race and it gets more and more intense. You just want to be doing simpler and simpler and simpler products. And, again, the product companies aren’t going to like me saying this. There’s a lot of research showing that at the end of the race, water, just straight water is the best thing you should be taking. Likewise, how do you get enough calories? And then well?
38:13
Or are you trying to
Trevor Connor 38:17
when you’re getting into the last hour of a race, you’re not the height dehydration issues are going to be the bigger issue, trying to get calories into your system 30 minutes before the end, you’re not really going to be able to use them before the end of the race. Anyway, this is a triage situation to triage situation, but you want to keep yourself hydrated and you’re probably going to just absorb the straight water better. Remember what I said before is that sweat is proportionally more fluid. So your blood is getting more is getting hyperosmotic It’s getting more and more concentrated. So you want just straight fluid to get the osmotic pressure of your blood down. Likewise, on a short ride, anything under an hour you don’t need anything besides water.
Caley Fretz 39:04
Yeah, I tend to try to go at least two without water. That’s some lazy though. Without water without anything about water.
Dan Cavallari 39:10
That brings up a pretty important point about food versus fuel because I know I know I won’t name names because it would be embarrassing for these people. I hope if I name their names, is it me? Yeah. Okay. You don’t really need a lot of this stuff. If your ride is going to be short. I know a lot of people who they will not go for a ride without first popping a gel. It’s like you just don’t need it.
Caley Fretz 39:35
It’s definitely not me. No,
Dan Cavallari 39:37
I was kidding. But at that point, really all you’re doing is messing up your teeth. You just coat and your shirt your teeth with with sugar for no reason. It’s important to note that these products really only are beneficial to you if you’re going to be doing a hard effort a long race, a long ride, you know for short lunch rides you don’t you didn’t need this stuff. Am I right?
Trevor Connor 40:02
Right? Yes, exactly.
Caley Fretz 40:03
I mean, you know, if you are going to if you do want to bring some food and then go the cheap, like candy or Twizzler route and some 45 minutes in, you know, there’s really no point in spending. I mean, this pile of stuff on the table here. Yes, they work really well, yes. If you want to optimize your performance in a race, you should be looking at products like this. They’re also like a $30. With a product. Yeah, it’s like $1 or two per item, which, when you add them up over the course of the season, you’re talking about a huge chunk of change there. Personally, I’m sticking with my Twizzlers for most of my bike rides,
Dan Cavallari 40:38
and I will note to cyclists, we need to brush our teeth more than most people do. And that’s, that’s a legitimate concern. I actually was talking to a dentist on a ride not too long, a couple months ago, and it was right around the time that that whole thing about flossing became a controversy. Like, Oh, you don’t need to floss anymore. He said, he’s like, Yeah, try this, try that, see how that works out for you. But he said he made a good point is that we consume so many of these sugary products, that people forget that that is just attacking your teeth. So we need to, we need to brush our teeth more often than most perhaps, right? I
Caley Fretz 41:11
want to move this discussion into this little can of doom that is sitting in front of Trevor right now. So we wanted to talk about things that you should avoid doing. We you know, we, I will say right now that the maker of this can is not going to like us after this discussion, and I’m totally okay with that. Because we are not bought and sold here about is we have a distinct add edit wall. And so I apologize to our sales, guys. But we’re gonna talk about this anyway. What should you avoid? And we touched on this already, actually, Trevor, because you were talking about, you know, the companies that just sort of pack their food or drink full of as many sort of hot marketing ingredients as they can. That’s definitely something to avoid. But what are those, those hot market ingredients that are not actually going to be beneficial to you,
Trevor Connor 42:08
I would say is a general guideline to start with, if you start seeing all these dramatic claims on these products, you know, whether using tons of words like giving you the fuel you need and power you for your ride and that sort of stuff. Big cautious at least go their website and see if there’s actually any science behind what they’re saying. Because that that’s just a big marketing sign for me.
Dan Cavallari 42:38
I just want to see you want to see Trevor flip out, hold on, I’m gonna
Trevor Connor 42:41
you’re gonna chuck this whole thing. Oh, no, it’s
Caley Fretz 42:43
coming down. Dan is going to be that was regrettable. So this, this can is roughly you know, I think that they’re trying to go after we should say it’s called Red Power 20 elixir is what I have. And the one that Trevor has is the one that Trevor has is the power elixir. This is a company owned by Michael ball of rock racing fame and a box showed up here at the office, maybe a month and a half ago or something like that. It actually doesn’t taste that bad. It you know, I would put it in a similar category as like a Red Bull or monster energy or something like that, where they you know, they do have a lot of claims on the front of this thing. There’s a it has red algae in it. I think that’s where the name comes from. Trevor, perhaps we can have a brief discussion of whether red algae is
Trevor Connor 43:39
I spent 15 minutes before this podcast trying to find anything on red algae.
Dan Cavallari 43:46
I want to build some sushi in my water.
Trevor Connor 43:49
The only thing I can think is that certainly in the nutrition world, there’s a love of seaweed and algae because they tend to be very nutrient packed. The best I can come up with and like I said, I only got 15 minutes to look I couldn’t really find anything on their website is that it’s like a lot of seaweed and algae products. You have a lot of sodium in it.
Caley Fretz 44:14
There is 115 milligrams of sodium 5% of your daily value, right? We got that complex. We got electrolytes, we got aminos we got green coffee bean extract, 180 milgrain milligrams of green coffee bean extracts. You got your caffeine in there.
Dan Cavallari 44:32
So to me this, this strikes me, you know, we could probably go all day talking about this, but I think it was Adam Craig used to say that after a long race, the first thing he wanted in his hand was a Coca Cola. So you know, could we consider this a guilty pleasure or like you know, a post ride treat for having done a good job in a race?
Caley Fretz 44:54
Yeah, these cans are clearly not designed to be adjusted while riding. So this this does fall. It’ll fall into something of a different category from the rest of the things we’re discussing here, which is, you know, on bike nutrition. I mean this this Can I guess you could put one in the back pocket, but it’s not going to fit in a, it’s not going to fit in a waterfall cage, that’s for sure. It’s a little bit too far too narrow. It’s like I said, it’s about the same size as like a radical Monster Monster. Let’s
Trevor Connor 45:19
just go through some of the things that I’m seeing here too, to use as a idea example of issues or things to avoid. So number one, going to the ingredients list number one, carbonated water, fine. I wouldn’t want to drink carbonated water in a race. Number two crystalline fructose. So their sugar is fructose. And we already talked about that, that you want primarily glucose. So that’s an issue right there.
Caley Fretz 45:45
What’s wrong with rietkol? What is the red? That’s the second thing. Tall is a long word. We’re gonna Google this riff.
Trevor Connor 45:56
See that on my that’s,
Caley Fretz 45:58
that’s only in mine. Okay. That’s my it’s got the 20 minute power. 20 years is just power, that must be 20. I’ve got 20 Earth rentals.
Trevor Connor 46:09
But here’s some of the things. First of all, again, when we’re talking fuel, food versus fuel, something I see a lot is products really saying, well, ours is better because it’s all natural. So we have honey versus mixes of sugar. Honey is sugar. Okay, it might be natural, but honey is sugar, it’s got the same negative health effects. If you eat it straight up, it’s got the same benefits is a sugar mix in a drink or a gel. And there’s gonna be a whole bunch of people that are going to attack me about that, but that I’m going to stand behind that one, I will tell you, in my nutrition world, the website that I edit, I’m part of one of the ultimate natural diets. And I’m going to be one of the first to say natural gets tossed on things to make it sound better when it’s not. Another great example is people feel that well. Sodium is really bad for you, but sea salt is healthy. Now they’re both sodium chloride. What’s the difference?
Caley Fretz 47:08
I found out what erythritol is please Sorry. It’s sorry to interrupt you, but this is breaking breaking news. Breaking news.
Trevor Connor 47:14
I’m letting me get to my grouchiness.
Caley Fretz 47:20
Earth retile is a sugar alcohol that has been approved for use as a food additive the United States and throughout much of the world. It is a fake sugar. It’s a sugar substitute. Okay, so it’s got butane in it. sugar alcohol, or polyol. You’re gonna see butane in it. Yep, butane the industrial level it is produced from glucose glucose by fermentation with a yeast. So it’s it’s sweetener without calories is what they basically were saying. Anyway,
Trevor Connor 47:56
probably gonna have a whole bunch of chemists chemists call in on this one because it’s been seven years since I’ve done organic chemistry, but I believe an alcohol is defined as having a beautiful ring, but
Caley Fretz 48:09
it’s got the detail wrong. So we have the Wikipedia page Earth fertile and human digestion enters through the small intestine. 10% interest of the colon does not normally cause laxative effects. That’s good. I drink Eddie. Anyway, let’s let’s continue with our discussion of these ingredients. So we figured out whether with rotala is is just a sweetener. Followed by Crystaline fructose in mind, your crystallin for fructose is the second ingredient on yours here.
Trevor Connor 48:49
So let’s look at some other things. Again, I’m seeing this red marine algae, I see the green coffee bean extract. I’ve seen a whole bunch of products that have things like this. And yeah, I will firm with my one of my athletes asked me I’ll dig into the science. And every once awhile you might see something in a study that it helps performance a little bit. But for the most part, I’m going to try to avoid that stuff unless there’s a lot of science saying yeah, this stuff is beneficial. Another thing that you will see in a lot of products is they try to throw in tons of vitamins and minerals and amino acids, because they’re important for health. Yes, that’s true. So so this one has all the B vitamins that has the amino acids, you do need those and when you are vitamin D deficient, you are going to be fatigued you’re not going to be able to perform very well. But the argument I’m going to give is to use an analogy, stretching helps recovery. But should you be stretching in the middle of
Caley Fretz 49:48
a race? Maybe that right?
Trevor Connor 49:51
You’re not going to pull over and do a ton of stretching during an event during a race. You want that simple product that your your digestion can handle, and worry about getting the health, that your vitamins and minerals worry about the health side. After the event,
Caley Fretz 50:09
yeah, this goes back to our original discussion of the food versus fuel and sort of what you should be eating, you know, while riding and then with an hour on either end versus what you should be eating off the bike completely,
Dan Cavallari 50:23
which, which I’d like to talk about before and after the ride, because I’ve actually had some issues before writing that I’d like
Caley Fretz 50:31
to talk laxative effects. So
Dan Cavallari 50:34
let’s see, that’s sort of a problem for me all the time.
Trevor Connor 50:37
Before we get there, let me cover one other because there’s a lot of products out there now that are trying to put they love to get the branched chain amino acids into the product, they talk about, well, you need protein in your fuel during during an event. In fact, there was this product up in Canada that a bite my lip on a lot, but they actually it was the ultimate marketing product ever. And they were they were marketing as a endurance performance, drink mix. And it was zero calories. Because they were saying, well, sugars are bad for you, you don’t want calories because calories are bad for you. So here’s an endurance product that actually has zero calories, which why would you ever want that in a race? And they replaced all those carbohydrates with branched chains? Amino acids, because that’s what you need in an endurance event. And yeah, I
Caley Fretz 51:33
wish you could see Trevor’s facial expression. Right, right, right,
Trevor Connor 51:35
like whelming. How
Caley Fretz 51:36
can we kill me, it’s like Oscar the Grouch, combined with the Cookie Monster when you just took his cookies away.
Trevor Connor 51:44
But going to the amino acids, there were some studies back about 1015 years ago, maybe now, where they compared a sports drink that had a four to one ratio carbohydrate to protein up against a straight carbohydrate drink mix. And you saw performance enhancement. can remember was performance enhancement, or just a longer period of time before they fatigued in the athletes that drink the four to one mix. So that became really, really popular, there’s a lot of products out there that use that four to one mix, I will admit I drink accelerate, which is a four to one mix.
Caley Fretz 52:21
I just really liked the taste, which is half the battle,
Trevor Connor 52:24
which is half the end, there’s actually there was a huge study on that, that compared to all the different sports drinks. And their conclusion was the best sports drink is the one that you like. Because if you like it, you will drink it. If you don’t like it, you will not drink it.
Caley Fretz 52:36
That’s why a lot of people are big fans of Scratch. It’s really tasty. It’s really tasty.
Trevor Connor 52:41
But everybody really landed on that research and said we need that four to one ratio. Finally, somebody looked at the research and went there not isocaloric, meaning for the four to one drink, they just took the carbohydrate drink and added protein to it. So it had more calories. So they repeated the studies where they equalize the calories between the straight carbohydrate drink and the four to one drink. And all of a sudden, all the benefits of the four to one drink disappear.
Caley Fretz 53:09
So you actually just need more calories, you just need more calories. But that comes back to the careful balance between if you start putting too much stuff in your sports drink and there are definitely sports drinks to do that, then you run into this osmosis osmotic pressure static pressure problem, right? I know science, hashtag science. That’d be science for a moment.
Trevor Connor 53:32
Well, just remember, when you are going hard, the gut doesn’t work as well. And you don’t want to be drawing fluid out of your blood. So really, I’m going to keep saying this. The best products are the ones that are simplest and have just what you need, which is some sugars in a good ratio of glucose to fructose, and some electrolytes and not tons of electrolytes. There is an argument super hot day if you’re doing an Ironman. Yeah, you need more electrolytes. But for most of us, no, you don’t need tons of electrolytes, anything beyond that. Probably not going to help your performance, it’s going to put a greater strain on your gut and it might put a greater strain on the osmotic pressure. Why would you want to do that to
Dan Cavallari 54:12
yourself? So I think what Trevor is saying is you should really carry Coors Light with you at all times. Yes.
Caley Fretz 54:16
Well, it’s it’s all gummy bears. And at first, that’s exactly
Trevor Connor 54:19
right. I managed a cycling team and I will tell you this, if I ever if we ever showed up to a race and we didn’t have flat Coke, for the last hour of the race, I wouldn’t get cola. Not right. Cool. Sorry. We’re not doing lines in the biker. unmarked packages maybe. actually love it. I mean, one of my my sports nutrition classes back when I was racing full time. I was the only endurance athlete in the class. Everybody else was very interested in this but they weren’t actually athletes. And they got obsessed with gastric distress. It was only a good product if it didn’t cause gastric distress. And so we were talking about what do you need on in a in a bike race? And the people in the class are coming up with these crazy things. You go well, yes, that makes sense. Have you read the science but in practice? No, that’s that’s, you’d never do that. Finally, the teacher looked at me and just said, well, Trevor, you are professional cyclists. What do you have at the end of a race? I just went you honestly want to know and he goes, Yeah, I go. Flat Coke. Coke Cola. whole class flipped up. No, you’d never do that. That would cause gastric distress. That’s That’s crazy talk. And I just looked at them when you’re four hours into a race. You’re dying. You’re looking at a category one climb to the finish. All you’re trying to do is suffer to the top of that race. Do you really care if you’re a little gassy?
Caley Fretz 55:50
Yeah, I will say that I had I had a can of Coke saved my ass. Last time I did. Leadville, got a can of Coke, about 10 minutes before power line, which is about probably an hour hour and a half from the end of the race itself. And I was I was probably not going to make it up powerline without that kind of coke. And I ended up you know, finishing pretty well.
Dan Cavallari 56:10
That’s that’s what they were handing out at the Pinarello GranFondo. You get to an aid station. It’s these, these grandmother’s handing out orange slices and Pepsi. I was like, You’re my hero. Exactly.
Caley Fretz 56:20
I mean, this, you know, this comes back to what we were talking about earlier, which is, you know, you can replace a lot of these fancy, you can replace a lot of these fancy, you know, energy Chews and energy drinks with much cheaper, you know, sort of generic options. Yes, maybe you don’t get 100% of the same benefits. But you can get most of the way there. And sometimes if it’s tastier. I mean, that’s what big thing for Coke for me is like five hours in the Leadville, that’s really all I wanted was was a coke so quick, it’s easy. And then he doubted the whole thing. And you’re better off, right?
Dan Cavallari 56:54
If we could switch to if we could switch to something that I am a champion endurance athlete, and that’s eating off the bike. Like I said, I I’ve had issues with fueling up before a ride. And the problem that I have is, despite it doesn’t seem to matter what food I eat before a ride, I always get that stomach stitch about 30 minutes into the ride. So what’s going on there? What should I eat before ride? And what should I eat immediately after
Trevor Connor 57:26
a long ride? Now, is this an all events? Or is it ones that start hard?
Dan Cavallari 57:31
Look, we’re talking about performance. So we’ll say racing racing situation.
Trevor Connor 57:37
I’m not sure this is mostly going to be guessing. Because I’m not sure exactly what causes that that stitch that people get. I used to get those fortunately, I don’t get them anymore. And I’ve never understood why. I think some of that my my guess at that is it’s what I was talking about is blood has been shunted away from your gut. But your gut still has a lot of food that it needs to process. And that causes you pain and distress. You don’t actually have pain sensors in your gut, they connect to the pain sensors on your skin. And that’s why when your gut is in pain, you feel it on the surface. That’s why you get those stitches. So before a race a couple. So that’s one really important thing to know is if you put a ton of food in, and then the race starts really hard and your gut shuts down. Yeah, that’s that’s going to cause the issue. So you might want to avoid eating the hour before an event. Another reason you want to be careful about eating before an event is what we were talking about before is the two different ways that you can get those glute four transporters to the surface of your cells to get your your cells to absorb sugar. If you eat before a race, you’re going to get an increase in insulin, your insulin levels are going to go up and that’s going to promote your cells to take up sugar. Then if you start exercising, you’re going to get a double whammy. That’s also going to promote glute four. And you can get what’s called reactive hypoglycemia, all of a sudden, the floodgates have been opened. All the blood sugars being pulled out of your blood and your blood sugar levels drop and then you get lightheaded, then you feel like your energy goes away and suddenly you’re out of the race 15 minutes in.
Dan Cavallari 59:20
What about after the ride? When I get off the bike? How should I be devouring something the way Saigon did immediately after I get off the bike? Should I be waiting or? Yes and what should I be eating?
Trevor Connor 59:32
So remember, because you are exercising, you still have all those glute four transporters at the surface of your cells. Your cells are very primed to take in sugars. You want to restock your glycogen. That is an optimal time to do it. So right after exercise, you want to take in some more simple sugars. So basically what I do is whatever’s in my pocket I just wolf it down because the nutrition that’s right for racing is also the nutrition that’s Right 15 minutes for the 15 minutes right after right, which is why
Caley Fretz 1:00:03
Saguenay? No, we’re gonna be bears,
Dan Cavallari 1:00:03
right? And I crave a gel immediately after I get off the bike. It’s strange. Yeah, what about
Caley Fretz 1:00:08
adding a bit of protein to introduce protein and that recovery phase,
Trevor Connor 1:00:13
my general recommendation is in that first, in the first 15 minutes, wolf down a bunch of sugar. After you’ve had that hit of sugar immediately after exercise, I’d say about 1520 minutes afterwards is where I’m going to try to have something that has both sugar and protein in it to help with tissue repair. And it’s actually really critical to make sure now you’re getting the electrolytes, replenishing your electrolytes after exercise is actually more important than during exercise. And I won’t go into the science, but that’s also going to help your body rehydrate. So that becomes critical. So that’s where a smoothie will help. That’s where one of these recovery drink mixes can really help. Some people just like chocolate milk, but something that’s got that mix of carbohydrates, protein, and electrolytes. Once you start getting an hour away from exercise, that’s where you just go back to eating a healthy diet. So before we taste test a few of these products, let’s check back one more time with what Dr. Sims had to say about what you should be eating during endurance sports.
Dr Stacy Simms 1:01:18
And then the foods that you eat will also impact how the fluid is absorbed. So you want to not contribute to kind of GI distress or reverse Mater flux by not ingesting maltodextrin and non ingesting fructose. Definitely don’t want to do liquid calorie concentrates, which would be gels or liquid shots with kind. And then I’m always on the adages, if you’re using real food, you can really tailor your nutrition to who you are, what your training history is, what environment you’re getting ready to get training in or racing. If it’s altitude if it’s hot, if it’s low intensity with high intensity with short duration, high duration so all these things you can tailor with your food and fuel. I think that the two biggest things if people would change just two things, they would have so much more out of their training and racing and first thing is eliminating gels and things that have maltodextrin and fructose space and then second thing would be eliminating sodium chloride tablets
Dan Cavallari 1:02:30
well bottoms up boys let’s let’s all ask the gel everybody open your open so yeah,
Caley Fretz 1:02:35
to finish off today’s episode, Dan has handed us each a gel. I have a honey Stinger vanilla. What do you have Dan?
Dan Cavallari 1:02:44
I have the science and sport tropical flavor go energy. What about you Trevor?
Trevor Connor 1:02:49
I have amped fuel apple that says what the other ingredients are. But nowhere does it list the primary ingredient
Caley Fretz 1:02:59
my honey Stinger contains organic tapioca syrup. organic honey, water, potassium, vanilla, citric acid sodium chloride.
Dan Cavallari 1:03:10
I have that. That’s pretty cool. I have some of those. I have multidetector eyelets let’s let’s download it so it is in one word when you finish just one word description of your experience with this job
Caley Fretz 1:03:18
okay
Dan Cavallari 1:03:24
Kaylee go
Caley Fretz 1:03:29
that’s actually pretty good. Yeah, not Good job, honey singer. It’s not gross. Trevor Trevor’s making his Oscar Oscar the Grouch face.
Trevor Connor 1:03:42
I can feel the apple
Dan Cavallari 1:03:49
you made that sound really creepy.
Caley Fretz 1:03:51
I mean, these things are really not good off the bike. But this was actually my it’s not my it’s not that I will say
Dan Cavallari 1:03:57
yeah, the science and sport i i Keep it a medium bueno.
Caley Fretz 1:04:02
A medium boy now. I wouldn’t want to just eat it. But so that’s the one that’s kind of like liquidy right? Yeah, it’s got kind of robotic pressure optimized. Yeah,
Dan Cavallari 1:04:10
it’s it says it right on there. No need for water ever. You don’t ever have to drink water again.
Caley Fretz 1:04:17
Okay, well, that was another episode of fast talk. As always, we love your feedback. You can email us at Webb letters at competitive group.com You can subscribe to fast talk on iTunes, Stitcher, SoundCloud and Google Play. And be sure to leave us a rating and a comment while you’re there. Also, while you’re there, check out our sister podcast developments podcast, which covers news about the weekend cycling. You can hear me actually yeah, not on the only one in this room. It’s on that one. You can hear me share my thoughts during that podcast as well. Become a fan of fast talk on Facebook at facebook.com/felonies and on Twitter at twitter.com/felonies also exciting news. We now Have Trevor on Twitter so you can follow Trevor on Twitter at at coach underscore, T Connor. That’s t c o n n o r you should all follow Trevor on Twitter. He doesn’t really know how to use it but we’re working on it. Fast Doug is produced by VeloNews which is owned by a competitor group. The thoughts and opinions expressed on fast talk are those of the individual for Trevor Connor and Dan capillary I am Kaylee Fritz. Thank you for listening.
Trevor Connor 1:05:31
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