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Eat before you are hungry and drink before you are thirsty.-League of American Bicyclists

Just as a car runs on gasoline, your body is fueled by what you eat. When you ride a bicycle, you are the engine. How you fuel-up your engine can make a huge difference on how much energy you'll have, how comfortable you'll be while biking, and ultimately how far a distance you'll be able to ride. Good nutrition is the key for helping your engine to achieve maximum power and run efficiently. Here are few nutritional tips to help you get more out of biking.

Muscle Fuels
What is the most important fuel for working muscles? According to the Wisconsin Dietetics Association (WDA), the answer is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates can be divided into two basic categories either simple carbohydrates, also called sugars or complex carbohydrates also called starches. Simple carbohydrates provide quick energy because they convert into glucose molecules before entering your blood stream; and they can easily be acquired by eating fruits and vegetables. Complex carbohydrates provide long-term energy, which is stored as Glycogen in muscles and the liver; and can be found in grains, pasta, breads, and cereals. Glycogen is the fuel that your muscles run on. If you ever feel sore and exhausted after a moderate length bicycle ride, that soreness might be an indication that you didn't eat enough carbohydrates. But what if your muscles aren't sore, but you feel faint, lack energy, and can't think straight?

Bonk, bonk, bonk
Carbohydrate, in the form of blood sugar, is also major fuel for the brain. Glycogen stored in your liver, is release into your blood stream to maintain your blood sugar level. If your blood sugar drops too low, you will feel tired, lightheaded, weak and have great difficulty concentrating, and in cycling terms you will "bonk". Nancy Clark MS, RD, the author of Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook states that bonking occurs because the "liver isn't releasing adequate sugar into the blood stream. Although muscles can store glucose and burn fat, the brain does neither. This means that food must be consumed close enough to strenuous events to supply sugar to the blood, or the brain will not function optimally". Remember that biking at 10 mph, depending upon your weight, burns up about 6 calories per minute. So eat before you are hungry. Bring a simple carbohydrate snack along with you even if you only plan to take a short ride.

Snack time
Eat snacks for quick energy!. Pam Barrett, sports medicine physical therapist, and professional cycling racer, suggests dehydrated banana slices. She compared the nutritional values of a popular 65-gram energy bar with a 65-gram portion of dehydrated banana slices. Barrett found that, "gram for gram, dehydrated banana slices provide more calories, potassium, and carbohydrates, while contributing less fat, cholesterol and sodium. And a bag of dehydrated banana slices fit neatly into a jersey pocket or bike bag". Other quickly energy sources are fig bars, yogurt, juice, bagels, raisins, granola bars. The LAB suggests that when you are cycling, you should refuel with a snack about every twenty minutes or every 10 miles. Experiment with a variety of foods that taste good, settle well in your stomach, and meet your nutritional requirements.

Balanced diet
"The best balance for a sports diet is 60 - 65% of the calories from carbohydrates, 10-15% from protein, 20 - 30% from fat", states Clark. This simply means eating meals based on carbohydrate-rich foods but not meals that are exclusively carbohydrate. Clark suggests that you can add balance to your diet adding powdered milk and nuts to your morning oatmeal, and eat your bagel with peanut butter. Add canned tuna to your pasta lunch or dinner. Clark says that the goal is to eat protein-rich foods at least two times per day (for building muscles) and protein and calcium-rich dairy foods (for keeping strong bones) three to four times a day. Eating peanut butter and nuts helps to balance your diet as well as provide sustained energy.

Keep your body fluid
Water is another essential nutrient that should be included in your diet. When you are physically active especially in hot weather, you can become seriously dehydrated in a short amount of time. It's very important to maintain adequate fluid levels in your body. Clark mentions in her book about the importance of body fluids. She states that body fluids perform extremely important functions that most of us take for granted; "fluid in the blood transports glucose to the working muscles and carries away lactic acid; urine eliminates waste products, sweat dissipates heat via the skin. If you sweat heavily and lose too much fluid, you reduce your ability to provide adequate circulation to both the muscles and body surface". Here's how to hydrate your body of water.

Drink before you are thirsty
According to the American Dietetic Association (ADA) an average adults body weighting 150 pounds is made up of 10 - 12 gallons of water (about 60 to 75 percent of body weight). If more than 10 percent of body weight is lost from dehydration or water loss, extreme weakness and potential heatstroke could result. Symptoms of dehydration are: dark and concentrated urine, small amounts of urine, elevated heart rate, headaches or dizziness, rapid weight loss. Thirst is not a good indicator of hydration. By the time you feel thirsty you may all ready may be dehydrated. Clark says that you can easily determine if you've had enough to drink, "The simplest way to tell if you are adequately replacing sweat loss is to check the color and quantity of your urine. If your urine is very dark and scanty, it is concentrated with metabolic wastes, and you need to drink more fluids. When your urine is pale yellow your body has returned to its normal water balance." The LAB suggests that while you bike you should be drink one, large, 20 oz water bottle per hour or every 12 - 14 miles. So that's at least 8 - 10 oz of water every 15 - 20 minutes to replenish your bodies' fluids, as you are losing them. Clark recommends that when replacing fluids you should take in "a liter of water (about one quart) for every 1,000 calories you expend. If you are making trips to the bathroom every two to four hours, you are probably drinking enough".

So to keep your engine running smoothly, just remember to eat before you are hungry and drink before you are thirsty. And pass those dehydrated banana chips over here!

This article first appeared in the In Gear column Wednesday June 9, 1999 in the Breakaway Section of the Wisconsin State Journal.