I'm 86 kg right now and I need to get to 77 kgs for race season. That means dropping 9 kg without losing any power. So I called in an expert.
I called Dr. Sam Impy, World Tour nutritionist, to rebuild my fueling strategy from scratch. This is what it actually takes to get to race weight.
Sam Impy, welcome back to the Roadman podcast. >> Hey, good to be back. >> So the grand the grand overarching goal for today.
I was 86 kg starting off this journey. I have a target weight around 77 kg. We're going to dive heavy into the strategy.
But first, when an athlete approaches you and you hear that sort of weight loss, where does your head go as a nutritionist? >> Uh the the simplest answer and the and and always the first answer to that is how long? >> Always.
>> Okay. Interesting. >> Always how long.
Um, and you get a you get a wild mix of answers from the, you know, sort of the number of kilos divided by two, and that's the number of weeks they've got. Or you get a um, hey, you know, I'm going to do I'm going to do this over a three month period, a five month period. it's uh it's something that I want to work towards as a a much longer you know a much bigger goal or um yeah it it it it varies wildly um and uh yeah so so most of the time it's around setting expectations and and kind of tempering um yeah tempering some some initial plans sometimes >> I surveyed a section of our email list around this and most people came back with they want to hit race weight.
And then I was kind of left just before this podcast a little bit early. I was jotting down some notes and I was like, what is race weight? Is race weight do you think it's a number?
Is it a feeling? Is it a performance metric? Is it a body calipers reading?
>> It's do you know what that's the that's the eternal question. Um, I mean I I've been asked this a few times like how do I how do I find my race weight? Like what is my race weight?
Race weight is the is the the the eternal question. Um, and honestly it's probably a combination of how do you feel? What's what's your perception of how you your performance is?
And you know, kind of is that tied to or you know, would you be confident to back up absolute capacity with a little bit of durability? Like how long can you sustain um the the the sort of physiological state that you're in? Um I would love to tell you that there's a formula for it, but there really isn't.
Um we, you know, we were kind of chatting a little bit about Yonas Abraham there before. Um I think he's quite a nice example of someone who you would have asked him five, six years ago, what's your race weight? Um you'd get a very different answer than you would today.
>> Um >> 58 or 78 I think. >> Exactly. So you know it's the it's really the it's a really tough question to answer particularly with someone who's um you know with with athletes potentially who are sort of um younger in their in their their training racing experience.
um even with some people who are kind of quite well established. Um I remember one uh one one rider I used to work with quite a bit who uh would would cycle through the same pattern every year and I'll be like in two weeks time you're going to get sick cuz you're pushing too hard. He's like no no no no no it'll be fine every year same two week period get sick and you know so it it's it's honestly it's it's a combination of like what's the what's your aggregated tolerance for body mass reduction?
how's your power output? How's your tolerance to training? Um, and kind of the kind of convergence of of a number of different factors, not not just what you see on the scales.
But that's why I'm excited to work with you on this project this year to take this weight off sustainably because I have fallen into like that trap that you're talking about like the the unnamed rider where I am super motivated. So, I s I hit it really hard. At some point, I push it too hard and I get sick.
I get injured or I just can't sustain it in terms of willpower. Oh, sure. One chocolate won't hurt.
Before I know it, I'm eating a full box of roses on my own crying, watching episodes of Father Ted. And then it's this boom and bust cycle of just I go through a period of self-loading, gaining weight, and then it's like, "No, I'm back on it. I catch a Gogggins video.
I'm back on it. Who's going to carry the boats, bro?" And then it just rinse and repeat.
But there's this yo-yo dieting cycle that's got to do damage to us. >> Yeah. I mean, you train regularly enough that I would say you're you're you're probably fairly safe.
So, in terms of like an absolute if you talk about a real damage perspective, it's not great, don't get me wrong. Um, but I wouldn't I wouldn't advise it. Um, but you know, the it's one of those things that it's it's always that really unsexy answer.
Um, like you know, it's can you do something consistently? and actually probably a little bit more measured like a little bit probably slightly more tapered than everyone inherently thinks you should do it, right? And that's what makes the that's what makes the the end result.
It's it's the same principle is applying to training methodology, right? Um >> yeah, >> you look at someone who's gone out and gone gone through 90 95% of their training plan, completed it. um versus someone who's absolutely hammered the first, you know, they they've accumulated 120% of the first half of the training plan and then fell off a cliff for three weeks and then tried to come back and and you get to race day and it's, you know, then you can have two very uh very differently performing um human beings.
>> I wish it wasn't, but it seems like the answer to every difficult question in life is consistency and compounding. Whether that's from an investment point of view, building business, building fitness, losing weight. So to to get strategic on it now, so going from 86 to 77 or if a listener has their own numbers, starting point, end point, where do we start?
Is it with identifying a calorie deficit that we're looking to hit each day or how do you even conceptually approach this challenge? >> Yeah. So um I mean I think you know as as we said right at the start, let's set a realistic time goal.
Um, so it I would always go back of an envelope, a a realistic goal that is sustainable for for most human beings. And this is someone who's training like a reasonable amount, you'd be over 7, eight hours a week of of kind of aggregated training time. um if you can you can look at about half a kilo per week as like a that's a pretty aggressive kind of weight loss, but it's sustainable um if you do it in in the right way.
Um and so again, back of envelope, um that's kind of 3,500 calories over a week. So divide that by seven, you've kind of got your your daily calorie deficit, which which is not massive, right? Again, generally speaking, you'll be somewhere between 3 to 500 calories a day.
Again, back of envelope. You're just kind of trying to add up just start with a huge goal, break it down into a slightly smaller goal. How long do I have?
What's my kind of weekly total? And then that kind of gives you your daily total. So if you just if you if everyone it's a classic thing to do of just like have this big pinnacle of a goal but no one works it down to as you say what's what you know what do I do dayto-day.
>> So yeah and it's it's a really it's a generally speaking it's a relatively small it feels like a relatively small deficit in in my opinion if you're doing it well you shouldn't really notice it. Yeah, >> that that's the feedback we always get from from people who use Hexus. Um, you know, I'm training well, I just don't really I don't really feel any different.
Maybe sometimes on on rest days because we create, you know, we create quite big differences depending on the work that you're doing in um in fueling. We we really believe in periodizing each day appropriately. Sometimes on rest days, they go, "Ah, it's just it's because this day is so big and then this day is so small.
That can feel tough. If that's the only thing and you're not like, "Oh god, I'm really hungry six days out of six days out of seven." That's a win for me.
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It's actually been almost the opposite for me. Like, we talked about this at the very start. You're like, "Oh, how you getting on?
" And uh and one of the first things I was saying is like should I feel hungry or here? Like I don't feel that hungry. I just and I was wondering is that almost a sign that I'm not doing this right?
That I'm so broken with my conditioning from racing for French team that I just feel like like remember my director saying like if you're not going to bed with paints in your stomach from the hunger, you're not doing it right. >> So and I would I would I would disagree with that unsurprisingly. Um [clears throat] but yeah, no, honestly that that's that's honestly the the the biggest thing that I think we see with um with people who start approaching their the their training and nutrition as an interaction correctly.
Um begin to dial in that that periodization piece as well. So um you know actually creating pretty meaningful differences in carb intake on training days. Um your training quality should always be maintained.
That that's really what we're we're trying to we're trying to drive training qualities is the most important thing here because you do that that will your body will adapt you know do it well fueled your body will adapt and also change the way the the priorities in which it holds mass it'll change your system mass so because you fuel the training sessions well your body will inherently go well I don't I don't need as much fat reserves because each day each session is being fueled well um your muscles are adapting your cardiovascular system's adapting like it, like we said, right? It's it's all these small changes that compound, but they they kind of systematically add up that the the things that cause your training adaptation will also inherently kind of support the fact of your body changing its um composition to be beneficial towards racing performance. It feels like you're also changing the nature of the engine and like by fueling because say I'm going out and I might have limp through an endurance session at 180 watts the bottom of my range.
Now I'm going out and doing the same four four or five hour endurance ride at 220 230 watts. Rate of perceived effort the same as it was at 180. Heart rate same as it was at 180.
But I'm getting through an extra 40 or 50 watts average on the session. that's pushing my total kilogjle expenditure considerably up for the session which means I need to eat more on the bike but I'm also eating more off the bike when I get off >> and that's fueling the next session and it just feels like you're you know that old rolling stone going down the hill analogy. >> Yeah.
Yeah. 100%. And I'm I'm glad you mentioned it because the like that that the all you're doing is if you think about increasing your body's ability to burn energy that like if you increase your FTP, what have you done?
You've increased your body's sustained capacity to burn energy before you hit a hit a a level of fatigue. Right? So, um, that that's support training quality.
The the better trained you are, the higher your body, the the bigger your engine capacity is to just burn energy. Um, >> yeah. >> So, unsurprisingly, as you support that through a training block, and that gets better and better and better, you know, you're you're going to that that's going to support your body's ability to to to to burn fat, you know, as a from a as a from a tissue perspective.
um because you've just you've just physically increased your body's capacity to expend energy. Um and fueling it correctly again is is is just purely going to support that process. And and it's it's always that thing that seems so counterintuitive.
Well, hang on. If I'm I'm I'm eating more carbs on the bike and I'm putting more in before and afterwards, but your you know, your total capacity is is just increasing. your total energy expenditure is increasing >> and that's going to be, you know, as you say, as you get fitter and fitter and fitter, that's just going to that's then going to start, >> you know, with the metabolic flexibility that comes from periodizing your your kind of carb intake as well, you're just going to start burning through a lot of the that kind of um yeah, a lot of that fat tissue and the kind of your body will just begin to to dial into what it needs.
it it'll begin to naturally dial into what your race weight, your race mass actually is inherently. It's just those compounding steps like you see it over and over and over again. When someone does it well, they go, "Ah, this I feel great.
This is brilliant." And you know what? Actually, this the weight's coming off down the scales and it's and it's fantastic.
And the one of the other things I would say as well is I you might see as as this process goes on, you might begin to see greater fluctuation in like you might see a little bit of greater fluctuation in day-to-day um variability in on the scales. That's because the so carbs which are stored in your body as glycogen, they need three grams of water to store one gram of carbohydrate. >> Okay.
So it holds more water. >> Yeah. So, it's a heavy it's a heavy fuel, but also what we can do is again because we're going fill the tank, empty the tank, fill the tank, empty the tank, that tank gets gets slightly bigger as you get fitter.
So, if you go out and do a massive session and so you've emptied the tank, you know, like you the the variability that you're going to see is is can get greater. But what generally what we see as well is is that some of that like the body's natural tendency to sometimes retain fluid, you know, if you get a bit inflamed and as you gain to the end of the block and you're a bit cooked and that that actually goes down a little bit. So, um you you kind of go, I'm seeing these big changes in weight, but I don't I don't feel like I'm it's not like I'm sore and you know, like you get some of that like sometimes get that puffiness around the um you know, when you get to that real fatigue stage of a of a block.
So there's little things that you you'll start to notice as as we progress and um yeah it's just that it's that compounding nature of your body adapting. >> One of the questions I actually had about on the bike fueling. So if I if X has given me a recommendation of we say 100 grams an hour for a hard session and I there's two different ways I've fueled and just honestly just depending on what's lying around the house.
So I'm not any more organized than that. So use case A, I have some gels lying about, a brand that sent them in or whatever. I'm like, "Oh, sweet.
I've got gels." Otherwise, I'm hitting the store downstairs and I'm picking up some Haribo. >> Sure.
>> If I'm taking 100 grams in one bang at the top of the hour versus if I'm drip feeding 25 grams every 15 minutes, is there a difference in that or is there a preferential way to do it? >> Yeah, good, very good question. So, um there's actually a study that's um it might be out or it might just it might be just about to come out from from Liverpool John Mo kind of looking at if you do bololises in the hour, does that uh change your exogenous carbohydrate oxidation capacity or you know is it better to do little and often or you know can you do these these big bololises?
Um I I personally wouldn't recommend maybe doing a hundred in one go. um just because I think you're going to you're going to increase the risk of uh having some GI symptoms. Uh that that's for sure.
If you do bigger bololises, you do increase the risk, >> but um it doesn't appear as though that there's there's too much of a difference. Um you know, as long as you're getting it in and you don't have you don't have too many stomach issues, um it doesn't appear as though there's a you know, there's there's too much of a difference. Now, I I don't think those guys tested all of it in one go.
I think they maybe did it in two or or two or four feeds over the hour, but um yeah, if you can split it, like, you know, you could always try and get a um you could always grab a a carbohydrate drink as well. >> Yeah, I think that's going to play. >> Try and split it.
Um you know, try and split it half and half or 7030, but um it it doesn't matter too much. um as long as you're getting as long as you're getting it in and you know as long as you if you know that you don't get any stomach problems with that then that's that's grand. Um but um yeah if you can split it a little bit different sources as well just mix it up a little bit um is always going to help.
>> And what I noticed uh Timeware sent me out one of their respiratory uh breeding devices. So I think they're literally just out Vizma had them last season and they've just started shipping them out to a couple of people now. Most of the platforms don't even, you know, know what to do with the data yet.
But the Timeware app is built. So I was sitting on the indoor bike and I was like, I wonder what the effect is. Am I breeding with different fueling sources?
A bit of bro science here. >> Sure. >> Haribo is hypoxic food.
I've come to the conclusion. >> Haribo changes my respiratory zone. I go into a different respiratory zone.
>> Yeah, that makes sense. um that there's a there's a there's a lot of that a lot more of that involved with with some hari bow than there is with um with a gel or or a drink. So yeah, I I can believe that that's kind of maybe that was that would be a better reason to do uh to do little and often with those as well.
Just minimize the >> try and try if nothing else, let's reduce the chew time perhaps. Maybe that's the way to think about it. >> Start swallowing my tablets.
>> >> Again, not my advice, but you know, if it works >> when you wake up, I my first experience. So, I started I think I don't have to do that offh hand, but like 86.6 I think was my first weigh in.
Last week, two weeks ago I was down to 82.0. Last week I was at 82.
1. And I know it's 0.1, but it was the first time I've had to mentally deal with the scales isn't going down every single week.
it's gone up.1 instead of down. >> What how do you view that?
How not even how do you view but how do you work with an athlete who is struggling to see progress when progress isn't easily measurable like that? >> Yeah, it's it's a good question and I think the I think having data points is really is really important here. So trying to have a an objective measure that's that's pretty consistent and ideally you're you're capturing fairly regularly you know as you are um like trends feature in Hexus is is perfect for that.
That's exactly why we built it. And just just take it back, look at some look at the numbers objectively and be like, you know, listen, there's an interaction here between training volume, how much you're eating, you know, what what the initial, um, reduction in in in mass was, um, which is always a little bit quicker for the first couple of weeks. You always see it quick drop, little plateau, and then you get a nice a more consistent decline.
Um, it's it's very very common. Um, but I think just trying to readress the, you know, just readress and reassure to be like, look, you know, we're either we're off to a great start or sometimes even if they're not, listen, we're just this is this is this is a process that's going to take this long and we're here. >> Yeah.
>> So, you know, we've still got plenty of time. Um, don't do anything rash. That's always the that's always kind of the the the first um Yeah.
one of the first messages. Um, but it's it's just giving them the confidence to trust in the process. So, you know, look, you put your training in, we'll give you a fuel plan.
I can tell you very confidently how all those calculations are made and why they're accurate. You know, look, let's we're going to compound this over the next few days, the next few training blocks, next few weeks. Um, that the process is there and it's going to, you know, it's going to add up and it's going to compound as we said to to really help achieve those goals.
So Hexus and the program we seem to be working off the moment. If I was coaching an athlete, I'd call this like a micro block. We're looking at what the training week is and we're periodizing around that.
Like Monday typically an easier day for me. Lot of intensity. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is a lighter day.
Friday maybe some sort of activation longer. Saturday, Sunday. So Hexus is rightly giving me more carbohydrate consumption on longer, harder days.
Is there a use case for zooming out here or has there been research done on this and zooming out and expanding this to a macro block and saying, "Okay, the block we're in at the moment is V2 focused where there's going to be two to three V2 sessions per week." Is that a different fuel and consideration than if somebody's in a threshold block or a sprint block or is that just getting way too nuanced? >> Uh, no.
I don't I don't think it's getting too nuanced at all. Um, and actually the um, it's interesting the the the way you've the way you phrase it uh, is exactly how we do it. But because we can work at an individual day resolution, we don't have to work on on a block level.
So if you think about it on a block level actually, you kind of go, okay, well there's V2. So you traditionally before we had the ability to take in each each session and make each day and your meals unique, you would have to work in a block session because the nutritionist didn't have the capacity to really periodize each day individually depending on the work that you're doing, what you're recovering from and what you're planning for. >> So you would do it as a V2 block and it would be like cool.
Yeah, probably slightly higher carbs, particularly on training days because, you know, you're going to be into that real fast glycogen burning zone, you know, well above uh first lactate threshold, probably above second lactate threshold. Um, you know, particularly if you're getting anywhere near uh V2 max, then, you know, those over and 4020s, you know, 3030s, whatever it is, absolutely rip through rip through your body stores of carbs. So, you'd say, yeah, you know, higher carbs for the for the block.
The good thing about Hexus is is that like we actually work on an indiv like a dayto-day level. So you're inherently going to have higher carbohydrate requirements for a block of work that has a V2 focus, but not because it's a block of work with V2 focus because we're able to take the detail of each session. >> That makes sense.
>> And periodize appropriately for that. So when we retrospect it which you know which we can do we can look back at the trends over a week a month um and we can see how how your recommendations changed in aggregate um but you you'll see that natural you'll see block periodization but it's because of the individual periodization of each day more so than than the block if that makes sense. >> Excuse the brief interruption to my conversation with Sam Imp.
Since this video has been recorded I've actually lost the weight. I've gone from 88 to 80 kg. I can't actually believe it because the crazy thing is I'm eating way more than ever before.
Some days my jaw is actually getting sore. I'm eating so much. But I feel amazing on the bike.
My power numbers are not quite back to my best, but I'm trending there very fast. But importantly for me, my big hesitation when I got back training was, yes, I had the time available to train, but I couldn't do it if it meant sacrificing energy, the focus to come and have highlevel conversations on the podcast. And I have so much energy off the bike.
Like, I'm coming in the door fresh after three-hour rides. It's wild. I've never experienced it before.
And I want you guys to check this out. I chatted with Sam Offair and his co-founder David at Hexus and they've hooked up an amazing discount code for the Roadman listeners. So if you want to try Hexus for yourself, it's honestly the biggest leap that I've seen in cycling ever.
Forget aerodynamics, it's fueling properly. So if you go over to Hexus Hexis.live and you use the code roadman when you're checking out, you're going to get 25% off your Hexus plan.
Go just test it out. Trust me, it's a game changer. Okay, back to my conversation with Sam.
We're talking about Yonas Abrahamson. Me and him were kind of comparing notes on what we're doing with our diet at the moment. And obviously, he's putting out like bananas power on his endurance rides.
I think when I talked to him, he was just in from a 6 and 1 half hour ride at 270 watts or something. >> Like that's >> fat max for me. Like that's cruising all day zone for him.
>> So it's, you know, light years apart. Me and him are hardly the same species, but a hack he was using and interesting to see if I'm throwing him under the bus or if there's some legitimacy to this. >> He found with that amount of food, he just mechanically struggles to get that much food in on a on a day.
Just the just practicality of eating that much is difficult. So, and then he found the exact same as my experience that on a rest day he really found himself like built the habit of eating so much now I'm breaking that habit one day a week. So, he redistributed some of that food onto the rest day.
>> Yeah. >> Is there flawed logic in that or how does that make sense if we look at it because we're still hitting the same macros over a 7-day period? >> Yeah.
So, no, that's that's absolutely fine. a good you know a good good logic to do that. Um couple of reasons for that.
Um as you say I if it's just a function of time and time capacity and just you know the as you say a mechanical limitation of the ability to get that kind of calories down you like like fair fair play. Um you're you're putting away some calories there for sure. But also like if you're going to shift call it I don't know 10% of those calories into onto a recovery day one because it's just easier not to consume them on in the at the dinner of a training day because you've been out for six hours and you don't want to go to bed, you know, like a uh how did someone describe it to me the other day?
Like a tuda king, you know, like cuz they're so, you know, like so full of food. Um, so you know, um, like fine, like that that's okay. Like if you if you leave some some headroom on that day because you want to move it into the next day, absolutely fine.
Like you're not going to that's not going to hugely, you know, drastically under underreover you in that that time between going to bed and and waking up on a rest day. Put those calories back in on the rest day again. Help drive that recovery, that adaptation.
Um but also if it makes the if it kind of closes the gap slightly on on the variability then then then that's absolutely fine. Um you know I would I would say I wouldn't put like 50%. >> That's probably too much that you're not you're not recovering effectively enough from the ride in the short in that kind of acute period but also you're not creating enough variability dayto-day either.
Um yeah there's also you know you can also think about it as well that extra 10 15% maybe that's um helping me recover but it's also preparing me for the session the the start of the next block or you know the the following day whatever it is. So yeah. No, I mean good good for him.
His the um you you think about those kind of number like whatever it was like 270ish. So he could be on like a you know like 7,000 calorie day. His RMR is like a joke as well.
So call it 7 and a half thousand calories. The the calorie cost for him to digest his food is 750 calories. >> Oh my god.
I seen Quinn Simmons as well on another podcast and he was talking about I'm not sure what he's using athletes Kitchen or you guys uh or Dre I don't know what Trek use. >> Uh Little Trek. >> Yeah, >> they're uh I think they're I think they're in the process of trying to build their own system.
>> Okay, very nice. But they're seem to be using a similar system to you guys. And he was sort of saying that he's saving up his calories on those days and then just going to the cake shop at the end of the day.
I was like that's what I worried about. start to incentivize this bad behavior. I'm like, well, if I don't eat for seven hours, I can go and have a scoop of Ferrero Rush cheesecake.
>> Yeah. So, and and I think there's I think there's Yeah. There there's there's probably some some context to to be important with there.
Like, cal a calorie is a calorie, right? It's a unit of energy at the end of the day. Um it's the same as the amount of energy required to heat one kilo of water by one degree.
So like fairly standard well-c calibrated unit of energy. How you get that calorie can have very different outcomes physiologically. If you get that calorie from protein or carbohydrate or a mix or fats that the the fuel that you put in the body will uh will change the output of that total calorie aggregation.
So um maybe that's maybe that's as much as anything else a bit of a uh a mental thing for him. a little a little positive mental thing for him. Um, you know, >> it's like putting dirty diesel into the tank.
>> Exactly. But I would say that there's there's um better choices he could make that that will certainly optimize his body's uh adaptation and training. >> Sam, we'll check back in.
Um 82.1 and that 0.1 is important because it cost me some mental hardship going up that 0.
1. 82.1 at the moment.
We'll check back in in seven or eight weeks or 6 weeks or whenever suits you and we'll see in this uh it's like operation transformation or something. I like it. It's good.
We'll get t-shirts [clears throat] made. >> Thanks for chatting, Tom. >> Easy.
Cheers.