Diet for endurance training

[Burgerman543]

I’m curious on what y’all’s diet looks like or your opinion on diet for endurance athletes. I just did a 16 week cycle 500 test with 15 mgs rad140 during my marathon/Ironman training. Averaging 50-70 miles per week running and 100+ on the bike. My relationship with food is not good, have a bad habit of falling into restrict/binge dieting. I have sat around 1800-2500 calories per week for the past 16 weeks and maintained a lean but muscular body style. Do you guys think adding more calories would benefit for the next train up I do?

 

[Hayes88]

Can only speculate since it depends a little what your future goals are in endurance training. In other words, do you need to add mass or do you just want overall information to keep going strong as you do? Example fighters needing to stay at a weightclass.

I am not professional regarding endurance training and p/f/c ratio, but I would suspect in your case high carb, moderate protein, low fat. Though I would still keep fat intake somewhat higher since it has so much more benefit than just being an energy source.
The basics stay the same though, surplus to add, deficit to drop, calc TDEE to see maintain.
18-2500 is a huge jump up and down and won´t improve you much longterm.

Poptentially look into BPC-157 & TB500 (never tried it myself) to keep injuries in check (overstraining yourself). Stay away from dry compounds, maybe go test, npp next?

Looking forward to more knowledgable answers from other members here as well regarding this.

 

[Burgerman543]

I should’ve started with my weight and goals, I started at 205 probably 17-18% BF now I’m 193-195 pounds about 13-14% BF. Goals are to maintain but also improve half marathon/marathon times. And eventually do an Ironman in the months to come.

 

[Burgerman543]

.

Can only speculate since it depends a little what your future goals are in endurance training. In other words, do you need to add mass or do you just want overall information to keep going strong as you do? Example fighters needing to stay at a weightclass.

I am not professional regarding endurance training and p/f/c ratio, but I would suspect in your case high carb, moderate protein, low fat. Though I would still keep fat intake somewhat higher since it has so much more benefit than just being an energy source.
The basics stay the same though, surplus to add, deficit to drop, calc TDEE to see maintain.
18-2500 is a huge jump up and down and won´t improve you much longterm.

Poptentially look into BPC-157 & TB500 (never tried it myself) to keep injuries in check (overstraining yourself). Stay away from dry compounds, maybe go test, npp next?

Looking forward to more knowledgable answers from other members here as well regarding this.

As far as TDEE calculations go, they say to eat over 3k calories a day to maintain. I would be putting on some serious weight if I ate that much. Could be my metabolism due to restricted eating for so long but I guess it’s just a thing that I have to mess around with for now. Thank you for the reply

 

[poff1]

overall diet doesn't differ much to the average healthy diet for any sport.
The difference for endurance sports are the pre wo meal and the intra wo supplementation.
I ran half marathons and hiked 30+km during university, i even did canoeing for 15+ km solo a couple of times (to the next town and back), and i recently (during quarantine) got back into fitness and training.... one of the challenges i did during quarantine was bw and weighed stair climbing (up to 250 floors up and down in 1 day, and up to 100 up and down with 25kg added weight), but i'm far from the top form in my 20s.

For pre wo meal carbs are the most important thing, for the half marathons i used to eat a pb and jelly or pb and banana slices sandwich with whole grain bread and a soft boiled egg about 2 hours pre, and a cup of yogurt with rolled oats and a dash of whey isolate and creatine 1 hour pre.

for intra wo i mostly used bcaas, maltodextrine and glycerol.

nowadays i would add alcar, citrulline and beta alanine to the stack.

For PEDs that i tried so far (very little) i would say cardarine will definitely help, but haven't really put it to the test.

 

[Millard]

I’m curious on what y’all’s diet looks like or your opinion on diet for endurance athletes. I just did a 16 week cycle 500 test with 15 mgs rad140 during my marathon/Ironman training. Averaging 50-70 miles per week running and 100+ on the bike. My relationship with food is not good, have a bad habit of falling into restrict/binge dieting. I have sat around 1800-2500 calories per week for the past 16 weeks and maintained a lean but muscular body style. Do you guys think adding more calories would benefit for the next train up I do?

The restrict/binge dieting issues are a concern.

The 1800-2500 daily caloric intake suggests you are still training in a deficit.

I can't imagine doing 70 miles running and 100 miles cycling per week with such little fuel.

The 500mg test per week is excessive. Such high dosages are not necessary for someone who is training for marathons and losing bodyweight.

 

[MountainBaby]

^best post here.

I'm a recovering endurance athlete myself. I raced bikes for ~10 years. Kept strength training in for most of those years, but switched to just cycling during the pandemic - and got skinny AF.

Having spent years around high level (domestic and WT pro) cyclists, the unhealthy relationship with food is unsurprising to hear. These sports put a lot of unhealthy emphasis on weight. I don't believe I ever really unnecessarily restricted myself - but I've realized over the last 2 years that I also never sufficiently fed myself (personally, just never been a big eater). I'd say you are firmly in that camp as well.

I'm 5'11, my lowest race weight was usually around ~156-160lb without every trying to lose weight. At 3-4 days strength training and ~5-7 hours cycling a week, my weight would be more around ~170lb and my total daily calories around 2100 before I learned better (which came ~2 years ago). I upped that to ~2700 calories a day and physique improvements came along better. Fast forward a bit and I'm taking a break from cycling, doing 10-13k steps a day (several brisk walks), lifting hard 5x a week, 195lb and 12% bodyfat and my maintenance calories are ~3500. More importantly, my carbs are as high as 480g on lifting days where my workout is 75 minutes.

Cliff notes:
- Build your diet around .8-1g protein per lb of BW
- Eat more carbs. They aren't evil - they help. Your range should be 1.5-3g per lb of BW per day, depending on training needs (ex 1.5 for light/no training, 3g for hard days (2+ hrs training))
- As a rule, distribute your macros pretty evenly across your meals
- Your PWO meal will likely have higher carbs by ~20-50% compared to the other meals
- Fats will make up the remainder of calorie allotment, whatever that is, so long as you're not below .3g per lb of BW (the floor for general health)

Good luck!

 

[Burgerman543]

^best post here.

I'm a recovering endurance athlete myself. I raced bikes for ~10 years. Kept strength training in for most of those years, but switched to just cycling during the pandemic - and got skinny AF.

Having spent years around high level (domestic and WT pro) cyclists, the unhealthy relationship with food is unsurprising to hear. These sports put a lot of unhealthy emphasis on weight. I don't believe I ever really unnecessarily restricted myself - but I've realized over the last 2 years that I also never sufficiently fed myself (personally, just never been a big eater). I'd say you are firmly in that camp as well.

I'm 5'11, my lowest race weight was usually around ~156-160lb without every trying to lose weight. At 3-4 days strength training and ~5-7 hours cycling a week, my weight would be more around ~170lb and my total daily calories around 2100 before I learned better (which came ~2 years ago). I upped that to ~2700 calories a day and physique improvements came along better. Fast forward a bit and I'm taking a break from cycling, doing 10-13k steps a day (several brisk walks), lifting hard 5x a week, 195lb and 12% bodyfat and my maintenance calories are ~3500. More importantly, my carbs are as high as 480g on lifting days where my workout is 75 minutes.

Cliff notes:
- Build your diet around .8-1g protein per lb of BW
- Eat more carbs. They aren't evil - they help. Your range should be 1.5-3g per lb of BW per day, depending on training needs (ex 1.5 for light/no training, 3g for hard days (2+ hrs training))
- As a rule, distribute your macros pretty evenly across your meals
- Your PWO meal will likely have higher carbs by ~20-50% compared to the other meals
- Fats will make up the remainder of calorie allotment, whatever that is, so long as you're not below .3g per lb of BW (the floor for general health)

Good luck!

Thank you for the reply, glad someone has some experience and solid advice to go along with it.