Advise as how not to burn muscle mass

[ColinJ]

Your body chomping its own muscles isn't something that you normally have to worry about when eating and exercising at any sensible level!

My body did chomp its muscles in 2012 and it was horrific, but it took a near fatal illness to make that happen. (I pretty much stopped eating and was bed-ridden for weeks before ending up in hospital. I lost over 20 kg of weight in a month. My legs ended up looking like scrawny arms, and my arms became scarily wasted. I struggled to open a bottle of milk!)

 

[cyberknight]

Your body chomping its own muscles isn't something that you normally have to worry about when eating and exercising at any sensible level!

My body did chomp its muscles in 2012 and it was horrific, but it took a near fatal illness to make that happen. (I pretty much stopped eating and was bed-ridden for weeks before ending up in hospital. I lost over 20 kg of weight in a month. My legs ended up looking like scrawny arms, and my arms became scarily wasted. I struggled to open a bottle of milk!)

Indeed. You really need to be in starvation level deficit before you start eating your muscle

 

[presta]

So we only start burning the muscle mass once the energy has depleted?

A few bullet points from Kreider et al:

• There is much controversy about protein, as the requirement increases greatly with energy deficits as small as 100kcal/day. There is evidence to suggest that endurance athletes may need less protein than the sedentary provided that energy intake is adequate, so it is more important to consume adequate energy than consume extra protein.
• Increasing fat intake inhibits carb utilisation and accelerates the onset of exhaustion. Subjects can run 70% longer before exhaustion on a high carb diet compared with high fat.
• Sufficient energy is vital to prevent muscle wastage.
• When carbohydrate is depleted, protein contributes 2.5 times more energy during exercise (10% vs 4%).
• The extent of protein degradation during exercise is heavily influenced by the availability of bodily carbohydrate stores. Fat accounts for about 80% of total energy stored.
• Carbohydrate accounts for just 1-2% of total energy stored (79% in muscle, liver 14%, blood 7%).
• It is thought that acute or chronic carb depletion may play a role in the onset of Overtraining Syndrome.
• Muscle glycogen is replaced twice as fast if carbs are consumed immediately after exercise; 0.4g/kg every 15 minutes for 4h is optimum..

I did some work on this a while back, I eat a little over a 1000 kCal per day more than recommended for someone of my size and weight, and average around 125 mile cycling per week - so probably 45 - 50 kCal per mile ?

I have a record of my weight, calorie intake and exercise every day for the last 20 years. I'd say that's roughly the right ballpark.

The American College of Sports Medicine Compendium of Physical Activities is what the scientific community uses for calculating the energy expenditure of various activities. It includes over 800 activities from cycling to washing up to having sex, and 70% of them are actual measurements. See here for an explanation of METs (it's just power consumption normalised to body mass). The compendium data are for population averages, any single individual can improve the accuracy by adjusting for sex, height, weight & age.

My data seem to be a pretty good match with theirs, this is a plot of the ACSM data with mine appended:

This is the additional energy over and above sedentary consumption, for a bodyweight of 72kg.

However, I have it on good authority from the experts on this forum that cycling doesn't consume any calories at all, or is that only when it comes to calculating the CO2 emissions from food production?

 

[cougie uk]

Basically fueling.....

1000 cal per ten miles I'd reckon. So for a 50 miler I'd want to be eating 5000 cal. So an average day of 3000 + 2000 extra?
So eating extra food like bananas, Belgian buns, flapjack crisps in between meals but also carb loading or eating really well the day before.

On century rides esp multiple ones I'd eat a light breakfast then stop and have a big breakfast then lunch and tea and big supper...

That's waaay high.

Running is about that - cycling is a lot less.

My Ironman bikes say 4000 calories for 112 miles. So 36 calories a mile ? Call it 40.

 

[cyberknight]

That's waaay high.

Running is about that - cycling is a lot less.

My Ironman bikes say 4000 calories for 112 miles. So 36 calories a mile ? Call it 40.

my garmin says about 35 cals a mile too .

 

[CXRAndy]

You will not lose muscle on the legs cycling 50 miles. You may slim down on the upper body if you balance calories in to burnt calories.

Re calorie burn, steady riding is around 500 cals per hour and upto 1000-1500 calories going absolutely balls out effort per hour.

The body has enough stored glycogen (sugar in the muscles and liver) to give you around one hour of flat out effort. However if you ride at a steadier Z2 pace your body will call upon body fat to fuel your ride. Especially if you have a fat adaptated metabolism. That's why riding steady state you can go for hours with minimal calorie input.

Just slightly increase protein and have a fairly balanced diet to maintain weight and muscle development

Only if you're body goes into starvation mode will it become to break down muscle tissue to make fuel. Studies have shown even with several days of fasting muscle is still being maintained and even grown from body fat stores. The average body has several hundred thousand calories stored

 

[Ming the Merciless]

1000 cal per ten miles I'd reckon

If you rode at 276 watts for an hour, you’d burn approx 1000 calories. Plus go somewhat further than 10 mile unless you were on a long alpine climb.

 

[Bonzothechippy]

You will not lose muscle on the legs cycling 50 miles. You may slim down on the upper body if you balance calories in to burnt calories.

Re calorie burn, steady riding is around 500 cals per hour and upto 1000-1500 calories going absolutely balls out effort per hour.

The body has enough stored glycogen (sugar in the muscles and liver) to give you around one hour of flat out effort. However if you ride at a steadier Z2 pace your body will call upon body fat to fuel your ride. Especially if you have a fat adaptated metabolism. That's why riding steady state you can go for hours with minimal calorie input.

Just slightly increase protein and have a fairly balanced diet to maintain weight and muscle development

Only if you're body goes into starvation mode will it become to break down muscle tissue to make fuel. Studies have shown even with several days of fasting muscle is still being maintained and even grown from body fat stores. The average body has several hundred thousand calories stored

Thank you for such a superb comment. You have answered all my questions. I only ride 50 miles two to three times a week.
I’ve bonked out a couple of times when riding stupid, no breaks and mostly hills for four hours (MTB) and no eating,Had to ride the last three miles just using my body weight on the pedals (muscles were finished) to get home 😂
Saying that, my fat reserves never helped or not at the speed I needed. As soon as I got home, I raided the fridge and sat on my garden bench for an hour or two, simply waiting for the body to replenish itself.

 

[lazybloke]

this is very true, very good powerful cyclists are usually pretty skinny, and the opposite of that silly muscle man look

You're looking at the wrong muscles. Have a look at their legs?

 

[CXRAndy]

Thank you for such a superb comment. You have answered all my questions. I only ride 50 miles two to three times a week.
I’ve bonked out a couple of times when riding stupid, no breaks and mostly hills for four hours (MTB) and no eating,Had to ride the last three miles just using my body weight on the pedals (muscles were finished) to get home 😂
Saying that, my fat reserves never helped or not at the speed I needed. As soon as I got home, I raided the fridge and sat on my garden bench for an hour or two, simply waiting for the body to replenish itself.

You need to do some more steady state riding, possibly change your diet to a more fat(lipid) rich. Then you will given a bit of time be able to ride several hours with just a banana or two (other favourite snacks) to fuel the entire ride.


When I do long Z2 rides, I start fasted, then don't consume food for the first hour, just water and then eat small snacks every 20mins for the remainder of the ride.

Everyone is different and you may be able to consume larger volume of snacks during the ride. Or go for longer before fuelling. Only by experimenting will you find the correct fuel and hydration strategy for you.

Unless you want to pay a sports nutritionist to do bloods during your ride to check glucose levels 👍

Saying that you can now get real time glucose monitoring by buying diabetic kit.

I did several months of it to assess what foods spike glucose and therefore insulin production. The kit I used only read glucose every 15 mins. The newer kit does it every minute

Depending which country you live in

This device maybe available
https://www.freestyle.abbott/uk-en/products/freestyle-libre-3.html

Else its the cheaper libre 2 with every 15 minutes monitoring

 

[cyberknight]

You're looking at the wrong muscles. Have a look at their legs?

depends on the cyclist, track sprinters yeah but the likes of froome etc

 

[Bonzothechippy]

You need to do some more steady state riding, possibly change your diet to a more fat(lipid) rich. Then you will given a bit of time be able to ride several hours with just a banana or two (other favourite snacks) to fuel the entire ride.


When I do long Z2 rides, I start fasted, then don't consume food for the first hour, just water and then eat small snacks every 20mins for the remainder of the ride.

Everyone is different and you may be able to consume larger volume of snacks during the ride. Or go for longer before fuelling. Only by experimenting will you find the correct fuel and hydration strategy for you.

Unless you want to pay a sports nutritionist to do bloods during your ride to check glucose levels 👍

Saying that you can now get real time glucose monitoring by buying diabetic kit.

I did several months of it to assess what foods spike glucose and therefore insulin production. The kit I used only read glucose every 15 mins. The newer kit does it every minute

Depending which country you live in

This device maybe available
https://www.freestyle.abbott/uk-en/products/freestyle-libre-3.html

Else its the cheaper libre 2 with every 15 minutes monitoring

I went out for a 50 mile ride over the Surrey hills this morning, no breakfast, after 27 miles I stopped and had a break at the top of Boxhill. One banana and two thick wedges of Malt loaf. Calf muscles were not happy, most likely because I changed bikes from Mtb (winter) to my road bike. You would think it’s the same but not for me, my leg muscles know the difference😂
Like you say, I just got to work out what works for me. Massive thanks for your input as it really is helping 👍

 

[Tenkaykev]

Your probably right it's probably more like 5000cals for 100 miles thinking about it.

But eating enough is always a constant struggle tbh.

Try running an ultra marathon! That really is a nutrition test!

I ran quite a few of those over the years and have seen some strange feeding strategies. Indeed the only time Mrs Tkk has told me to " F*ck Off! " was when I was trying to get her to eat during the later stages of a 24 hour track race and she was adamant that she didn't need anything. Fuelling is really important and it's best to have it organised and tested in real life before the event.

 

[cyberknight]

Sprinters don't get their muscle mass from cycling though do they? They get it from resistance training and then apply it to cycling.

View attachment 764482

The very short answer to avoiding going catabolic is to make sure you consume enough calories.

i wasnt the one who said look at the legs though was merely replying to another post saying that .

 

[winjim]

i wasnt the one who said look at the legs though was merely replying to another post saying that .

Deleted 👍