2 meals a day?

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zill
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2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Sat Jan 24, 2015 11:28 am

How is the idea of one very large breakfast and one largish/normal dinner only. Maybe some minor fruits during the day depending on level of hunger. And maybe some gels if riding a lot.

If overall calories are kept in check for the day would this be healthy?

One obvious positive is it allows long training sessions during midday and the early afternoon.
Last edited by zill on Sat Jan 24, 2015 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.

Calvin27
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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby Calvin27 » Sat Jan 24, 2015 11:32 am

I'd do a very large and early breakfast then a very large late lunch. Snack for dinner
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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Sat Jan 24, 2015 11:42 am

Calvin27 wrote:I'd do a very large and early breakfast then a very large late lunch. Snack for dinner
Problem with snack for dinner is you might wake up in the middle of the night from hunger.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby Duck! » Sun Jan 25, 2015 4:27 pm

There is some suggestion that a big dinner such as we typically enjoy is not really necessary, (and perhaps detrimental to health) as the body's energy requirements through the night are not that great.

So Calvin27's suggestion of a big breakfast & large, late lunch with a light dinner is not without merit. Your two main meals fuel the body during its active time, and the small dinner is just enough to keep it ticking over through the night - it's fairly well understood large energy intakes that don't get burnt off accumulate as fat.....
I had a thought, but it got run over as it crossed my mind.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Sun Jan 25, 2015 9:22 pm

How about an early dinner instead of a late lunch. That way, no need to eat anything before bed time.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby Duck! » Sun Jan 25, 2015 9:37 pm

That's a big break between meals when you're active & need the energy, and still tending to give the body energy it doesn't need for the time it's mostly asleep.
I had a thought, but it got run over as it crossed my mind.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Sun Jan 25, 2015 11:19 pm

Duck! wrote:That's a big break between meals when you're active & need the energy, and still tending to give the body energy it doesn't need for the time it's mostly asleep.
What about recovery after an exercise session between breakfast and dinner?

Also have some fruit and gels between breakfast and dinner.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby CKinnard » Sun Jan 25, 2015 11:39 pm

what about doing what the pros do.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:04 am

CKinnard wrote:what about doing what the pros do.
What do they do? Each pro probably adopts a slightly different plan.

To be honest, I want to adopt 2 meals a day so that I can enjoy my food and feel pretty full when I do eat (especially with breakfast) but also keep calories in check. Do you think it can work? Or am I destroying myself by doing this?

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby CKinnard » Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:24 am

Nigel Mitchell is Team Sky's dietitian and is as good as any in pro cycling.
something to start you in the right direction

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/insigh ... ght-Loss-0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://youtu.be/c2c6CH5nJ_4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://roadcyclinguk.com/racing/intervi ... m-sky.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/fitness/ ... diet-37892" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby greyhoundtom » Mon Jan 26, 2015 5:38 pm

zill wrote:
To be honest, I want to adopt 2 meals a day so that I can enjoy my food and feel pretty full when I do eat (especially with breakfast) but also keep calories in check. Do you think it can work? Or am I destroying myself by doing this?
While I must admit I have not looked at the links provided, however I do think just having two decent size meals a day is the wrong thing to do.

If you are trying to keep your weight under control the last thing you should be doing is eating a couple of large meals a day because that will stretch your stomach and will make you feel very hungry very quickly when it empties, and you then have a considerable wait before the next large meal.

On the other side of the coin if you had four small nutritious meals during the time from rising to going to bed, over time your stomach adjusts to suit and you would be unlikely to feel hungry again, and yet be able to maintain a steady supply of nutrients to your body. The meals can even be varied in type to suit what your energy requirements will be in regards to protein, carbs, or salads.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:36 pm

CKinnard wrote:Nigel Mitchell is Team Sky's dietitian and is as good as any in pro cycling.
something to start you in the right direction

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/insigh ... ght-Loss-0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://youtu.be/c2c6CH5nJ_4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://roadcyclinguk.com/racing/intervi ... m-sky.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/fitness/ ... diet-37892" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great information but what do you think of the idea of 2 meals a day? They don't really mention that but one can imagine of this happening if they have a long race day that starts around midday.

Also a training session between the 2 meals will allow for some kind of fasted training which seem to have benefits.

zill
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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Mon Jan 26, 2015 10:40 pm

greyhoundtom wrote:
zill wrote:
To be honest, I want to adopt 2 meals a day so that I can enjoy my food and feel pretty full when I do eat (especially with breakfast) but also keep calories in check. Do you think it can work? Or am I destroying myself by doing this?
While I must admit I have not looked at the links provided, however I do think just having two decent size meals a day is the wrong thing to do.

If you are trying to keep your weight under control the last thing you should be doing is eating a couple of large meals a day because that will stretch your stomach and will make you feel very hungry very quickly when it empties, and you then have a considerable wait before the next large meal.

On the other side of the coin if you had four small nutritious meals during the time from rising to going to bed, over time your stomach adjusts to suit and you would be unlikely to feel hungry again, and yet be able to maintain a steady supply of nutrients to your body. The meals can even be varied in type to suit what your energy requirements will be in regards to protein, carbs, or salads.
Each one to their own liking. If I am able to lose fat consistently then I am happy. I like to try this 2 meal a day but just not sure if it is catastrophic to the body in the long term.
Last edited by zill on Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby march83 » Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:10 pm

try it, see if it works for you and report back. we're all different, it works for some, maybe it works for you.

personally, i've had success losing weight eating 2 (lunch + dinner), 3 and even 5 meals a day. the most critical factor is calories and the 2nd is gaming my appetite to make consistent deficit achievable and survivable. no strategy has had a particular impact on my cycling except for the common trait that significant calorie deficits make it hard to perform at your best.

don't place too much emphasis on training fasted. the jury is still out on that one it seems. impact on cortisol by skipping meals and exercising is not to be underestimated.

don't assume that just because the pros do it that it's the right thing to do. firstly, that implies that they're actually doing it "right" (which is near impossible when they're on and off planes, doing press conferences and interviews immediately after races, etc - faster by michael hutchence has some good examples of how hard it is to keep the pros on track). Secondly, they're riding immense volume which you and I probably aren't coming close to.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:14 pm

march83 wrote:try it, see if it works for you and report back. we're all different, it works for some, maybe it works for you.

personally, i've had success losing weight eating 2 (lunch + dinner), 3 and even 5 meals a day. the most critical factor is calories and the 2nd is gaming my appetite to make consistent deficit achievable and survivable. no strategy has had a particular impact on my cycling except for the common trait that significant calorie deficits make it hard to perform at your best.

don't place too much emphasis on training fasted. the jury is still out on that one it seems. impact on cortisol by skipping meals and exercising is not to be underestimated.

don't assume that just because the pros do it that it's the right thing to do. firstly, that implies that they're actually doing it "right" (which is near impossible when they're on and off planes, doing press conferences and interviews immediately after races, etc - faster by michael hutchence has some good examples of how hard it is to keep the pros on track). Secondly, they're riding immense volume which you and I probably aren't coming close to.
Understand that, maybe borrow some things from the pros here and there if it suits you is useful though.
Last edited by zill on Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby piledhigher » Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:21 pm

Zill

I'm currently on two meals a day, but only because I'm not doing the kms/hrs that I used to do, train some more, when you are properly training you can barely eat enough.

Anyway back to the zill overthinking everything threads////

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby Calvin27 » Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:22 pm

zill wrote:Problem with snack for dinner is you might wake up in the middle of the night from hunger.
Do people actually wake in the middle of the night hungry and start eating? I usually wake up pretty hungry in the morning when this happens (I don't do this all the time) but never actually felt hungry at night to wake up and eat.

Oh yeah and time fruit intake very carefully. They seem to boost my digestive enzymes and make me feel hungry very quickly. I think it's something to do with the sugar spike.
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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby CKinnard » Mon Jan 26, 2015 11:26 pm

zill wrote:
CKinnard wrote:Nigel Mitchell is Team Sky's dietitian and is as good as any in pro cycling.
something to start you in the right direction

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/insigh ... ght-Loss-0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://youtu.be/c2c6CH5nJ_4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://roadcyclinguk.com/racing/intervi ... m-sky.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/fitness/ ... diet-37892" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great information but what do you think of the idea of 2 meals a day? They don't really mention that but one can imagine of this happening if they have a long race day that starts around midday.

Also a training session between the 2 meals will allow for some kind of fasted training which seem to have benefits.
One of the articles says to have several smaller meals between your large. There's no skipping meals.

You have to make your mind up whether you want to train seriously or reinvent the wheel every week. If you want to do the former, you are lucky to be living at at time when a lot of science has been done and pro teams are making their methods public. You'd be wise to take it more seriously than anything else you read or hear.

Anything you have read about doing 2 meals is not going to be aimed at people doing mid to high intensity training most days.
There's supposed to be a longevity advantage in eating less often (twice a day), but it doesn't apply to people tapping out their glycogen stores almost daily.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby greyhoundtom » Tue Jan 27, 2015 6:43 am


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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby CKinnard » Tue Jan 27, 2015 7:31 am

The other benefits to eating more regularly relates to protein.
Large 'doses' of protein via a smaller number of big meals will result in a lot of it being wasted rather than used to repair, remodel, or grow lean tissue.

Why?
- The body can only utilize so much protein at a time and has no capacity to store it for later usage.
- Protein that cannot be used within several hours of eating, is primarily excreted through the kidneys, and small % is converted to fat and stored as such.

When doing a lot of high intensity exercise, you benefit from having protein in your blood plasma 24/7 because repair, remodeling, and growth goes on in the background all the time. If there is inadequate plasma protein, your body will break down muscle to supply protein for higher priority needs like tissue repair.
So more regular doses of smaller amounts of protein (to make up 2g/kg bwt/day) benefit athletes more than 2-3 doses of larger amounts of protein, by sparing lean tissue from catabolic destruction.

Zill, you need to question a lot more carefully the source of the nutrition ideas you read, and how applicable they are to someone doing 6+ hours of moderate to high intensity cardio exercise a week. Though the smartest thing to do is just read what the pros do. Their support staff are paid very well full time to research the literature and experiment with their team. The staff often have access to the world's foremost experts in their fields. They've already done the heavy lifting for you.

If you go off and read some doctor/dietitian/scientist who decided to write a book, you first need to know what experience the person has prescribing diet for endurance athletes, cyclists, sprinters, etc, how much independent research they've done in nutrition, whether they are respected by their peers within their field, etc. The usual story is people who write populist books are not the most respected and experienced researchers in the field they are writing about. The worst thing you could do is read a book by a person who is not educated or working in the field they are writing about i.e. actress, lawyer, journalist.

In my CC, I have to just sit back and watch a senior club coach constantly switching from one approach to another, because s/he doesn't have the education or experience to screen and appropriately weight information from other coaches and sources s/he stumbles over. If a US basketball coach says one thing, that takes precedence over what a local rugby union coach says, etc, etc. People like this go round and round in circles, confuse a lot of people around them, and don't get the basics right.

You always want to prioritize getting the basics, the fundamentals right...and worry about marginal gains after that. Marginal gains are built on having the basics sorted...and never ever the other way around. That's why so much of what is said on forums is unhelpful. It doesn't weight various ideas appropriately.

So in closing, rather than keep reading things from different sources, different sports, or written for a broad and generic audience, go to the top...read what pro cyclists do....then go see a sports dietitian with experience with competitive cyclists. Stop kerfuffling and going round and round in circles.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Tue Jan 27, 2015 2:01 pm

CKinnard wrote:
zill wrote:
CKinnard wrote:Nigel Mitchell is Team Sky's dietitian and is as good as any in pro cycling.
something to start you in the right direction

http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/insigh ... ght-Loss-0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://youtu.be/c2c6CH5nJ_4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://roadcyclinguk.com/racing/intervi ... m-sky.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/fitness/ ... diet-37892" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Great information but what do you think of the idea of 2 meals a day? They don't really mention that but one can imagine of this happening if they have a long race day that starts around midday.

Also a training session between the 2 meals will allow for some kind of fasted training which seem to have benefits.
One of the articles says to have several smaller meals between your large. There's no skipping meals.

You have to make your mind up whether you want to train seriously or reinvent the wheel every week. If you want to do the former, you are lucky to be living at at time when a lot of science has been done and pro teams are making their methods public. You'd be wise to take it more seriously than anything else you read or hear.

Anything you have read about doing 2 meals is not going to be aimed at people doing mid to high intensity training most days.
There's supposed to be a longevity advantage in eating less often (twice a day), but it doesn't apply to people tapping out their glycogen stores almost daily.
Alright 3 meals it is then.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby Carrots » Tue Jan 27, 2015 2:35 pm

Try it for a while.

If it works for you, all good. If it doesn't, no harm done.

One point though. Why the hell would you use gels as a regaular source of nutrition? Epic fail if you are.

FWIW my partner is a rower. She can eat and by eat I mean EAT. Fortunately can row too, and even more fortunately her favourite colours are green and gold. Like many of the rowers, her intake is huge. Regular meals, but constant snacks in between otherwise she'd fall over like a leaf in the wind.

Point being, for a serious athlete her intake is constant and for the most part derived and reviewed by sports dietitians. If you're planning on representing your country at some stage, spend some time and money and seek out a dietitian who understands cycling. If you're not, just consume a regular balanced diet.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby casual_cyclist » Tue Jan 27, 2015 8:19 pm

You might be onto something this time Zill. Some researchers have been looking at restricting feeding time. So basically you limit the number of hours in a day that you are eating.
According to the researchers, constant eating may deprive our bodies of an important chance to maintain itself. While we eat, the body stores fat, which adds weight and puts stress on the liver, and produces glucose, which elevates blood sugar levels—a sign of diabetes. In contrast, evidence suggests that when we stop eating for several hours, the liver stops releasing glucose into the blood, and instead uses it to repair cellular damage. It also releases enzymes that break down cholesterol into acids, which in turn help break down brown fat—a “good” fat that converts calories into heat.

Without adequate time away from eating, however, this process may be cut short or suppressed entirely. It's not yet clear whether there's a minimum fasting time for the metabolic benefits to kick in at all, or whether they simply work better the longer the fasting time.
http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news ... ed-eating/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/1/7.full" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This does not have to be an everyday thing. For example, I could skip breakfast on Tuesday and Thursday and just drink green tea with no milk or sugar. If I finished eating by 8 pm the night before and ate lunch at 12, that would be a break from eating of 16 hours twice a week. On Friday, I could easily stop eating by 8 pm and not eat again until 8 am, a break of 12 hours.

There is probably some good advice in this blog post that may apply to you.
You can’t live an unhealthy life in other areas and expect one thing to solve all of your problems, but you can slowly add a piece here or there, continue to self-experiment, and gradually develop a health strategy that works for you, your goals, and your lifestyle.
http://jamesclear.com/good-bad-intermittent-fasting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby redheeler » Wed Jan 28, 2015 8:10 pm

I usually ride early, 3hrs max 6 mornings a week, therefore skipping breakfast. Upon returning home from my ride I'll tuck into a large bowl of fruit, yoghurt & muesli. I do carry oat bars & a banana/jelly beans with me. I'll analyze my ride on Strava while eating, then shower and head off for afternoon shift. I work in Aged Care. Coffee (large skinny flat white) & a snack before I start my shift at 3pm with my evening meal of rice/noodles with veggies in my break at 7pm. If I find my energy sinking, I'll grab a snack size Mars bar. I've lost & kept 18 kgs off since I started riding seriously 2 yrs ago. And I still enjoy a pub meal with wine twice a week.

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Re: 2 meals a day?

Postby zill » Wed Jan 28, 2015 10:48 pm

casual_cyclist wrote:You might be onto something this time Zill. Some researchers have been looking at restricting feeding time. So basically you limit the number of hours in a day that you are eating.
According to the researchers, constant eating may deprive our bodies of an important chance to maintain itself. While we eat, the body stores fat, which adds weight and puts stress on the liver, and produces glucose, which elevates blood sugar levels—a sign of diabetes. In contrast, evidence suggests that when we stop eating for several hours, the liver stops releasing glucose into the blood, and instead uses it to repair cellular damage. It also releases enzymes that break down cholesterol into acids, which in turn help break down brown fat—a “good” fat that converts calories into heat.

Without adequate time away from eating, however, this process may be cut short or suppressed entirely. It's not yet clear whether there's a minimum fasting time for the metabolic benefits to kick in at all, or whether they simply work better the longer the fasting time.
http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news ... ed-eating/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/1/7.full" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

This does not have to be an everyday thing. For example, I could skip breakfast on Tuesday and Thursday and just drink green tea with no milk or sugar. If I finished eating by 8 pm the night before and ate lunch at 12, that would be a break from eating of 16 hours twice a week. On Friday, I could easily stop eating by 8 pm and not eat again until 8 am, a break of 12 hours.

There is probably some good advice in this blog post that may apply to you.
You can’t live an unhealthy life in other areas and expect one thing to solve all of your problems, but you can slowly add a piece here or there, continue to self-experiment, and gradually develop a health strategy that works for you, your goals, and your lifestyle.
http://jamesclear.com/good-bad-intermittent-fasting" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Have you tried it yourself?

2 meals a day seems to be all about intermittent fasting. Probably depends more on the person if it's appropriate.

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