If he's hitting a wall and feeling the "crash and burn" feeling, that means the glycogen in his legs is depleted. His muscles will be so insanely insulin sensitive right then and there that if he eats any high GI carbs, the muscles get priority and they will suck the carbs up and store them as glycogen before any carbs get a chance to be stored as fat (so long as you don't overdo it).

As for avoiding that crash and burn in the first place with some pre workout carbs, I'm no expert but people that carb cycle have no problems with this and in theory it seems like if you take in X number of calories in carbs and then burn off 2X calories with an insane cardio session... I don't see where the big problem is so long as you don't have any conditions. Most everyone is "insulin sensitive" to some degree... but is more than 1/2 the population really SO insulin sensitive that this would have a dramatic effect on them??? I find that kind of hard to believe.

I personally find it easier to have low body fat if I maintain or build muscle while shedding fat. I could just go low or no carb and workout hard and lose mostly fat but some muscle and still end up at low body fat %, but for me it's easier to keep or build the muscle (since more muscle means you burn more calories). Carb loading and carb cycling can help you with this. Most of the bodybuilders who get ripped naturally and are down around 5% body fat or so use some form of carb cycling or carb loading, which is why carb cycling, CKD, and TKD are such popular diets among body builders.

I'm not saying that these diets are right for everyone, or even for most people, but for people that are already in shape (sounded like this guy is if he can mountain bike for 2.5 hours!) and would like to build/maintain muscle while shedding fat, they're really good.

This is an excellent thread going on. I went road-bicycle riding this past Saturday. Through mile 20 was great. Suddenly, I hit the wall. I mean hard. Shakes, etc. Miles 21-28 were misery. The hard thing about bicycle riding or running is that when you bonk, you can not just quit. You have to get back home, to the car, etc. I will have to learn how far I can go and how much energy I can burn before I run out of energy and make sure that I am back when that happens. I am not in very good shape right now, so I will need to be conservative.

I would love to know how much carbs to eat and how long before I ride to be able to continue these rides longer. Any one have ideas?

Chris

Seriously try a bowl of steel cut oatmeal in the morning ( I use the brand Mccanns, avail at the regular grocery store), with a few blueberries. Or, eggs with Ezekiel toast (found at the health food store in the frozen section). I think you will have alot more endurance. Drink tons of water (wear a Camelbak). Also, sometimes I bring snacks like flaxseed crackers or string cheese, but it's mostly just for security, I rarely ever eat them on the ride

First post so be kind. I've been low carbing since March of this year. I have no problem with the diet and it has been very effective so far except when playing tennis. After an hour or so, particularly on very hot days, I've been running out of gas and my mental acuity slows (e.g., I can't remember the score or what happened two points ago).

I have been experimenting lately with targeting 25-50 grams of fast absorbing carbs like dextrose (Sweetarts, Pixie Stix, etc.) 30 minutes before playing then more if necessary. This has really helped. I'm still tweaking the procedure but the mental fuzziness and physical sluggishness has greatly diminished when I do this.

This small amount of carbs hasn't even thrown me out of ketosis yet either. I've done several tests with keto stix right after returning from playing and I have always tested at at least trace levels. My goal is to get to 11% bodyfat, which is quite a challenge for a 52 year old who has never been close to that since junior high school. So far however this targeted carb intake has not impeded my progress (see signature).

Oops, signature didn't display so I'm trying again.