How to Eat Like the Champions

If you’re like me, you’ve been enthralled watching the Tour de France and the Paris Olympics. I found myself wondering about the strategies these high-performing athletes use to fuel their bodies before, during, and after extremely hard training sessions and competitions.

The webinar Fueling the Tour de France addressed my curiosity and solidified my observation that sports nutrition has indeed evolved into being a central component of the training and competing strategies of elite athletes.

In the past, Tour de France riders refueled minimally—perhaps a protein shake—soon after the day’s race. They waited until they got back to the hotel to eat three to four hours later. Today’s riders consume a significant amount of carbs right after each stage to speed up their recovery. Compared to their peers of 10 to 20 years ago, they also eat significantly more carbs. Result: They experience fewer episodes of hitting the wall, bonking, and becoming depleted completely. This hastens recovery; if you don’t dig yourself into a hole, you don’t need to dig yourself out of one.

Here are some interesting takeaways from the webinar that may inspire you to take a closer look at your fueling patterns, carbohydrate intake in particular. While you may not be a Tour de France cyclist, it’s likely you have the similar goal of becoming the best athlete possible.

• Tour de France losses are linked commonly to inadequate carbohydrate intake. While a cyclist may not win the tour in a single stage, he can lose it in a single stage.

• Fatigue related to training hard vs. fatigue related to underfueling is difficult to distinguish. Experimenting with eating more grains can help identify and resolve an underfueling problem.

• To optimize the availability of fuel (carbs) for muscles and the brain, rowers who train intensely should:

—carb-load a day or two before the endurance event.

—consume adequate carbs during the endurance event.

This will reduce the risk of bonking/hitting the wall and will improve stamina, endurance, and overall performance.

• Ideally, each competitive rower has a meal-by-meal plan and day-by-day approach that offers high-, medium-, or lower-carb meals according to the demands of the day. That is, not every day requires a high-carb intake. For a Tour de France cyclist, flat stages require fewer carbs compared to mountain climbs, with further adjustments needed for heat, wind, and rain.

• While some high-level endurance athletes have a support crew that helps provide food and fluids during long training sessions and events, the cycling Team Sky has its own kitchen truck with three performance chefs who guide food intake during the Tour. The four main meals are breakfast, on-bike fueling, post-bike fueling, and dinner. For rowers, the strategy is to surround your workouts with food.

• Overall daily targets are 2.5 to nine grams of carbohydrate per pound (five to 20 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram) per day to fuel muscles, more than 0.9 grams of protein per pound (two grams per kilogram) per day to preserve muscle mass, and minimal dietary fat intake (so athletes fill up on carbs, not fat).

• During hard efforts that last longer than 2.5 hours, the goal is to consume 90 to 120 grams of carbohydrate per hour. That’s about 350 to 500 calories from carbohydrates per hour—a lot more than most endurance athletes consume.

• Endurance rowers, take note: For a 150-pound (69 kilogram) Tour cyclist doing extreme work, nine grams of carbohydrate per pound (20 grams of carbohydrate per kilogram) translates to 1,350 grams of carbohydrate. That’s 5,400 calories just from carbohydrate alone—about the amount in a two-pound bag of uncooked white rice. No wonder Tour de France cyclists consume bowls of white rice for a pre-race breakfast!

• Consuming that much carb from food can be difficult. Hence, concentrated sources of carbs such as gels and chews can help athletes hit their carb goals.

• During endurance exercise, sports drinks facilitate the ability to consume 120 grams of carbohydrate per hour. Tour de France riders rarely go below 80 grams per hour. Endurance runners should choose hydration fluids that offer more than just plain water.

• Consuming a variety of carb sources enhances their transport out of the GI tract and reduces the risk of intestinal distress. Carb blends (such as sports drinks made with glucose + fructose) have limited variety, so don’t eat too much of the same commercial sports food. Standard carb-rich foods (banana, granola bar) offer a wider variety of carbs.

• Tour de France cyclists must train their guts to be able to  digest and absorb up to 120 grams of carbohydrate (around 500 calories) per hour comfortably. In training camps, they do not only on-bike training but also gut/digestive training. They practice eating as they would for a race. Gut training can take years as cyclists increase their intake of carbs per hour gradually. Simultaneously, they test different products they might want to use.

• Cyclists should plan to begin feeding early and for as long as they can manage if they know they’ll be unable to ingest much during the upcoming mountain climbs. Similarly, rowers who can’t eat much on race day should consider eating extra the day before.

• In the first 60 to 90 minutes of recovery, a Tour cyclist may consume cherry juice (carbs + antioxidants), quickly absorbed carbs, and a whey + carb recovery shake. When traveling back to the hotel, they eat a meal (such as salmon and pasta with extra salt) and sweets (cake, fruit).  If they have a hard ride the next day, they eat and refuel as much as possible. At the hotel, they snack, have a massage, eat another dinner, and go to bed with a full belly.

• At the elite level, some endurance athletes practice carbohydrate periodization (training with depleted muscle and/or liver glycogen stores some of the time) for selected workouts at the start of a training block. “Sleeping low” (with low glycogen stores) and then training on empty (no pre-exercise carbs) a few times a week can enhance cell signaling and induce adaptations that can improve performance. These train-low sessions get phased out as training intensity increases. (Note: Athletes not at the elite level should focus on the fundamentals of fueling adequately. No need to train low when there are easier ways to enhance performance.)Conclusion: Food is more powerful than many rowers think. If you have a hit-or-miss sports diet, think again. A sports dietitian can help you eat to win!

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