Fitness News #69 - Tour de France diet

Last year when I raced in Australia's toughest one day road race - Grafton to Inverall, the calorie calculation worked out at 7,700 calories.

In the Tour de France, massive calorie burns happen day after day and without optimised nutrition, we would see riders collapsing on route.

The Tour de France Diet

 Switch the TV to SBS tonight and you will be confronted with some mouth watering French cooking, put together by Gabriel Gaté, followed by extremely fit lean cyclists riding at break neck speed.

So these cyclists must have really good diets, to be so lean.  Well its not quite that simple, their diets are carefully worked out, to provide the needs of their special situation.  Lets call this optimised dieting.

So what do they need?

1.  Energy delivery
2. Recovery
3. Whatever is needed for normal living

There's another twist, that's the ability of the body to absorb and process the energy.  So the focus thru the day is for food types that release its energy straight into the blood stream and easily delivered to the muscles.  Hence during the race the food consumed has a high sugar content, which will spike the blood sugar levels, just like when you drink a soft drink.

Post race the diet continues to contain a generous dosage of simple carbohydrates, such as pasta, as the riders take the opportunity to replenish their depleted glycogen reserves. 

What you should do

Unless you need 6,000+ calories a day, then you shouldn't be following the Tour de France diet, without their calorie burn, you won't end up lean like them, in fact you will end up the opposite, as the body converts the spare energy into fat.

What you need to do is create your own optimised diet, which meets your needs.  An optimised diet will mean that your goals will be easier and quicker to meet.

What if you did nothing

 In one way or another, you goals will not come as easily as they could, or even slip further away, simply because what you are doing is not what you need to do to achieve your goals.

 Riding

 Cough cough

Took this weekend off as a sickie, starting with missing track racing Friday night and then cancelling the weekend training rides, which I was suppose to be ride leader for.

Never mind, next week I'm planning to ride the NSW TTT course with 2 of my 3 team mates

Classes

Have you tried the new format Ride30 at Pitt st, Monday 1.10pm

Fitness First 

Rockdale Mon 6.00am Ride 
Pitt st Mon 11.30am RPM
Pitt st Mon 1.10pm Ride30 
Five Dock Mon 5.45pm RPM
Rockdale Tue 6.30pm RPM
Top Ryde Wed 5.45pm Ride

Walker St Thu 6.00am RPM
Pitt st Thu 12.20pm RPM (covering for Stuart)

 

YMCA

Riverwood Mon 7.30pm RPM
Riverwood Tue 6.15am RPM

SCG

Stadium Fitness Centre Friday 6.15am RPM

Sleep Ride Eat Repeat