Cyclists missing breakfast drop power output by 3%
Fasting and low carbohydrate diets are very popular at the moment. You could be forgiven to think these are the best way to lose weight. They aren't of course. No diet regime is superior to any other for weight loss. They all have one thing in common, a calorie deficit by either cutting out a food group or delaying mealtimes.
What interests me is making sure that we are eating the right foods to support training and retaining as much muscle as possible in our training. (Endurance sports are not great for retaining muscle and, as we get older, we start to struggle to hold onto muscle.)
When you look at the body of evidence eating a higher protein diet spread between 4 and 6 meals evenly across the day is the sweet spot for retaining as much lean muscle as possible. You can see why prolonged fasting is not a good nutrition approach as we get older.
Carbohydrates are muscle sparing too. What that means is eating more carbohydrates and a higher protein diet will help you retain more muscle. Let that sink in a bit.
The problem is that a lot of Triathletes are still a bit carbophobic. There is still that misunderstanding that carbohydrates dramatically make you gain weight. I don't know how many times I have to say this, but overeating, calories will make you gain weight. Please don't demonise carbohydrates.
From experience. Those that eat a higher carbohydrate diet consistently perform better, recover faster and are in great shape.
Anyhow, I digress.
I wanted to talk about fasting because I hear a lot of people singing about its benefits for performance. However, this recent study shows that missing breakfast resulted in decreased performance in evening training.
The great thing about this study is that both the breakfast and non-breakfast participants ate the same calorie and macronutrient profile with the timing of meals the only difference.
The non-breakfast participants experienced a harder perception of effort and a 3% drop in power compared to the breakfast eaters. The take home. Meal timing is important if you want to perform at your best in the evening.
All this evidence points to what and when we eat is important for performance and that trendy diets such as fasting are not all that they are made out to be.
Thanks for reading
All my best, Simon
Omission of a carbohydrate-rich breakfast impairs evening endurance exercise performance despite complete dietary compensation at lunch:
https://www.tandfonline.com/.../10.../17461391.2020.1797890
PS: Protein fasting is effective at blunting lean muscle loss, I'll talk about that another time
PPS: This is a cool study for anyone still worried about carbohydrates
Calorie for calorie, dietary fat restriction results in more body fat loss than carbohydrate restriction:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4603544/
(Although this particular study was in obese populations it has real-world application to hard training cyclists and athletes)
Thanks for reading
Simon
Performance & Nutrition Director
2 X Winner of Gym Based PT, and founder of VPCC