Nutritioninterview

WORLD TOUR NUTRITIONIST "WE GOT FUELLING WRONG"

1:31:12·1 July 2025

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Everything you've heard about cycling nutrition—from the 120g carb-per-hour protocol to high-fat adaptation—might be oversimplified or just plain wrong. Dr. Sam Impy, who's worked with Tour de France winners, breaks down why pro riders' fueling strategies don't translate to amateurs, reveals the real limiting factor in carbohydrate absorption, and explains how to match your nutrition to your actual training stress rather than blindly copying what the pros do.

Key Takeaways

Total energy expenditure differs drastically between pros and amateurs—a World Tour rider might spend 20-30 hours training weekly at high power outputs, while most cyclists do far less, so recommending the same carb intake (120g/hour) makes no sense without context
Your gut is trainable and adapts every 5 days; it's a muscle that improves at processing carbs through consistent training volume and daily carb intake, not just race-day fueling
Overfueling sessions dampens training adaptations by reducing metabolic stress on muscles—you need to balance fuel amount to sustain mechanical work quality while still creating the energetic stress that drives adaptation
Use nutrition periodization: high carb on high-glycemic demand sessions (VO2 efforts, intervals), lower carb on low-intensity recovery rides, and align carbohydrate intake with daily training volume for metabolic flexibility
Fat adaptation is trainable but never reaches 100%—you can improve fat oxidation capacity through structured low-carb training sessions, but carbohydrate oxidation never stops (and shouldn't), making extreme low-carb approaches counterproductive
Start amateur fueling at ~60g carbs per hour (1g per minute) regardless of intensity, then adjust based on ride duration and how you feel over weeks—success is sustainable ingestion plus improved training quality, not the absence of discomfort

Expert Quotes

"Just because you don't get [symptoms] doesn't mean that you're absorbing it. But equally, it also works the other way around. You could still get loads of symptoms but actually be processing it fine."

"By changing how much you're fueling during the session, that will change how much energetic stress is put on the muscle. You're changing the cost of the work almost."

"There's a huge element of how well they're fueling in training, which is now really beginning to see that translate into longer, more sustained power outputs. You look at some of those riders at the end of races and you're like, how the f*** are you doing that?"

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

What if everything you think you know about cycling nutrition is not just wrong, but actually making you slower? Today, I'm sitting down with Dr. Sam Impy.

He's working with some of the biggest names in cycling, from Tom Pickock to Philippe Oana. He's the scientist who literally rewrote how Tour to France winners fueled their bodies. And he's about to reveal why the 120 g of carbohydrate protocol that's taking over professional cycling might be the biggest mistake amateur cyclists are making.

Plus, he'll explain the AI technology that's helping World Tour riders personalize their nutrition down to the minute. If you're serious about cycling performance, the next 90 minutes will completely change how you think about fueling. It's Dr.

Sam Imp. Sam, thank you for making the trip. No stress at all.

Good to be here. H really excited. Obviously, you're a you're one of the most renowned experts in the whole space of nutrition.

So, it's a it's a privilege to sit down and expose my ineptitude in the whole area. Are you a true expert? That that's kind.

I think there's a there's a fair fewer of us, but um I'll I'll take that definitely. H I want to dive in and start with this idea of high carbohydrate. Sure.

90 grams of carbohydrate, 120. We're seeing some pro riders pushing 150. I spoke to Alex Wilds, the gravel rider, uh and he was talking about lads pushing 190 plus at Unbound only a few weeks ago.

It's gone high octane. Yeah. The carbohydrate intake.

My rogue science understanding of this is the limiting factor isn't going to be the carbohydrate or the glycogen we're getting into our muscles, but our ability to absorb and transport that glucose and fructose without the stress. How do we think about this carbohydrate consumption in the context of amateurs just mimicking what pros are doing? They're all looking and saying, "Hey, they're doing 120 grams an hour.

I should be doing 120 grams an hour. It's fine taking 120 grams an hour, but do we have an ability to use 120 grams per hour?" Yeah, it's a I think it's like I mean, geez, it's it's topical.

I'd love to do a quick count on how many uh articles um are published like blog posts to put out on, you know, on on fueling, intra workout fueling every week. Um pretty high. Um I think there's like there's I mean geez like how long have we got um unlimited um so I think there's a few factors like when you look at um like simple simple math to get going right difference between the lads who are doing unbound for 10 10 hours for 10 hours yeah for a winning time at average powers of like they're high for me they'd be at high zone three from probably high zone three for them because they're lighter as well I'd say 300 watts nearly.

Okay. So, like total energy output massive, right? Guys in the prop pelaton um Milan San Ramo 6 hours, you know, whatever it is stage of the tour that are coming up 200ks, pretty high power output.

Depends on what job you're doing in the Pelaton obviously, but you know, pretty high power output, massive energy output. Yeah. um you and me out on a Sunday ride even if we're doing four five four hours say longer one 3 four hours like good power output you know good energy output for us but the gap is is going to be yeah the gap is going to be enormous in total energy cost right so I always think like just start at that point like the need the difference in the need from you know a lot of the amateurs just just pure from an energy perspective to the the, you know, the riders who are doing these massive massive days on the bike.

There there's your first point of difference, right? I've never even heard it explained like that before because for me it's I'd heard these generic recommendations like 60, 70, 80, 90, whatever. So someone would say, "Oh, if you're doing an endurance ride, it's 60 grams per hour, but I never thought about it as a function of my ability or my function of my threshold power.

" Like if I have a, you know, we work with clients who have, you know, quite low threshold powers in some cases. Someone might have 220 watts. Or if you take uh Sarah who's training for Badlands this year, like Sarah will do 270 watts for 20 minutes.

Like it's, you know, it's good for her and she's progressing, but in the scheme of things, if you're mimicking what a world tour rider is doing, they'll ride that power for 15 hours if they have to. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And so like I suppose where I'm going with it, like that's kind of like that's just like fundamental difference part one.

So then you look at like well what goes into that for the you know for the the higher output guys the the world tours the badlands you're 20 25 28 maybe 30 hours a week of training and that's also matched with you know 8 to 12 grams per kilo probably every day of of carb or so call it 5 to 10 easy easier numbers right of carb intake. So that whole process just begins to like increase your body's ability to up to eat, digest, absorb, and burn carbs because that's like all they're doing. So there's a gut efficiency level almost like the gut is a muscle we can train to get more productive at processing carbohydrates.

Yeah, more than likely that that seems like it. And and there's a few like there there are a few different components to it. So you can think about it from like an acute as in four weeks leading up to a race start to add more carbs into your on bike fueling with the idea is that you reduce any risk of um symptoms and symptoms and the ability to uptake it are not the same.

So what are we talking about symptom? Can we talk? Nauseous like feeling heavy, bloated.

Um, you know, if I mean, unless you have to make an emergency stop, um, you know, find a toilet somewhere. Um, anything like that. Anything where you're like you're starting to take in carbs, drink, drinks, gels, chew, whatever it is, and you just get that real uncomfortable, um, you know, like a little bit of cramping or just bloatingness or anything like that.

But that doesn't mean we're not processing the carbohydrates. Uh, so the opposite way around. Just because you don't get that doesn't mean that you're doesn't mean that you're absorbing it.

Okay, if that makes sense. But equally, it also works the other way around. You could still get loads of symptoms but actually be processing it fine.

Okay. Both require a tweaking of how you fuel, but they can be they can mean different things if that makes sense. Okay.

Interesting. So point one on this that you were saying was looking at total workload. What other lens do you look at that through?

Yeah, exactly. So total workload is obviously very very different. Then you get the associated day-to-day diet that goes with it and the amount of food and carbs that come in and go out every day that compounds and also like the lining of your gut.

So you're talking about it being um like a muscle that you can train. Yeah. The lining of your gut turns over significantly more often at a higher rate of turnover of the actual cells than your muscles do.

So like the lining of your gut will completely replace itself every I think it's about every 5 days. So the internal lining, you know, completely renews itself. So, you know, it's very adaptable and very malleable.

Um, and so you can, and that's why there's that's why I say there's there's a couple of components to it. that long-term associated diet that facilitates 20 hours, 30 hours a week of training. But there's also, you know, in the buildup to races or when they go on when pros go on training camps, altitude camps before the tour as they'll be probably coming down from in the next few days um or you know coming down from ready for the tour this year that in that in those two weeks altitude you know on bike fueling will go up.

Um they'll start to use the products that are specific to that team. team. So, you know, whatever the team sponsor is, whatever they're going to use in the tour.

So, you just start layering on specificity, specificity, and it's all those factors that contribute to that like higher total capacity. So to kind of answer your question, your first question, um that's really like it's a compounding effect of a lot of different systems that make that difference in why, you know, the pros could potentially have above 120 gram an hour and those, you know, us us more mortal uh bike riders maybe should probably sit a little bit lower than that. um how do you start thinking about as an amateur rider?

What's your framework for landing on your ideal carb intake? Is it trial and error? Yeah, it's a really good question.

So, um at the moment, uh I say that it's probably a little bit of trial and error, unfortunately. Um for more amateur riders, like if you're general rule of thumb, like I would start at I'd start have your sort of midpoint at kind of 60 grams an hour at one gram a minute. Yeah, easiest way to think about it, right?

Regardless of intensity, uh, yeah, let's just for simplicity, let's go with regardless of intensity. So, and then if you're going to go for a longer ride, so if you're going over, pick your number. If you're going over two hours, but whatever's a whatever you feel like a long ride, because if you're new to cycling, 90 minutes might feel like a long ride, but if you're more adapted to it, 3 hours might be your long ride.

So, if you're going over um 3 hours, then, you know, maybe look to increase it a little bit, but see how you feel. you if you want to go up to to 90, you know, you can and and that's where you look at those glucose and fructose, maybe that's a different conversation as well. But if you're doing less than 60 minutes or you're doing kind of somewhere between um 60 and and 75 minutes, you know, depends on what the what you want to get out of that session.

If you're just going out for a ride and you're going to go to a coffee shop, you probably just take some water with you. You'll be fine. If you're going to go and do some hills or maybe you've got some tempo work, whatever it is, then maybe put, you know, 30, 40, maybe 50, maybe even 60 grams of carbs or take 50 60 grams of carbs with you.

Well, and how are we defining success and failure on this, though? Because you're saying that like gastric pain, nausea, these symptoms aren't necessarily an indication that I'm not processing the carbohydrates. So, how am I defining what success is at 90 grams of carbs an hour?

Yeah. So it's a really good really good question. So I mean I would first of all make sure that you can ingest it or whichever the amount is that you kind of want to use for it's staying down.

Yeah. So ingest it comfortably um you know in forms that are familiar and and and easy for you you know to to process and and ingest. Um that's probably the kind of primary outcomes when you start looking at it slightly longer term.

So actually when you aggregate the how that session felt. Did you come off that session and go, do you know what, I actually felt pretty like I felt pretty good there. Or once you've aggregated a couple of weeks of training and you started to fuel this, feel better during your training.

It's the thing we see most often um with the feedback that we get from from how we recommend fueling with Hexus is people go, "Geez, I just I don't know." They like, it's it's so funny. They say out loud.

They go, "Something's changed, but I just can't put my finger on what it is." you're like, well, you maybe you're fueling a little bit better, fueling your workouts a little bit better. And it's an interesting observation because I spoke to Derek Freel, the Training Peaks founder, the other day, and I was asking him, what's the difference between the top 1% of users on the platform, like the highest achievers, you know, from Primos Rugglitch's Training Peaks account all the way down to your weekend warrior training account.

and he said the feedback they put in for themselves after each session, the ability to use the notes section, so they can look back then and trace patterns and they can say, "Hey, I'm on a period of really good form." Instead of going, "I'm on a period of really good form and have no idea why I landed there." Now, I can look back at all the comments and say, "Actually, I changed my fueling.

" Yeah, that's why I'm on a period of really good form because I can see it traced in these comments because I've documented my fueling strategy across the training peaks. Obviously with you guys, you can historically look back at your fueling as well. If on the one side, if we think about this as a continuum for this experiment, so I'm going out the door and I'm trying 90 grams of carbohydrates per hour.

You're telling me how I know if I've taken too little, but at what point on the top end is there kind of diminishing marginal returns? Do I am I no longer getting a benefit from adding the extra 10 grams if I'm pushing up to 120, 13, 140, whatever the number is. Yeah.

So that that's um that there's there's kind of two components to that. So there there is um there is now a company in the UK um that you can do testing of um your body's ability to process and absorb exogenous carbohydrate oxidation. What's that called?

It's called exo analytics. Um so um we can edit this bit out or not, but full disclosure like I'm I'm involved as an adviser of it. So um that's cool just to just just to just to disclose that.

So Dr. Jamie Pew might get a discount. You you might.

Yeah. Yeah. Um so Dr.

Jamie Pew who you had on podcast as well. Great lad. He's the founder.

Oh, no way. I must get you. I really really enjoy chatting with him.

Very knowledgeable. Uh so uh talk about credibility for the for the product, right? Um so Jamie's Jamie's the founder there.

So great. So he's that sort of expanding that capacity to begin to test it. And so um in answer to your question like what's the um what's the sort of value out of inc you know progressively increasing well actually measure what your ceiling is and then tailor fueling around that um without that so you know outside of testing um again like if you're progressingly progressively increasing the amount that you're taking in on bike then again I would kind of align that with the what's the goal what are you trying to get to like just because you can take in 150 grams an hour on a 2hour hour bike ride doesn't mean you should.

Yeah. So, you know, it's kind of I think there's a trade-off there between what are you trying to achieve? Well, I guess if I'm trying to optimize performance or even if I break that down because that sounds quite vague, optimize performance, maximize my adaptation or my return on my training time investment.

If I'm going out the door for two hours, I want to maximize the adaptation I can get within that two-hour win. Correct. Exactly.

And and so in which case there's no need to overfuel that session because you will dampen the training responses like we you know there's there's plenty of um of evidence that shows that actually you can you know potentially harm some of those adaptations if you massively overfuel. Interesting. Okay.

So break that down for me because my understanding of it is that training is stress and we we want to stress the body in order for it to repair, recover, adapt to move to the next level. If we overfuel with carbohydrates, we're somehow dampening the stress. Exactly.

So the the way in which you're dampening it, so so you might still get the physical the mechanical work done, right? It's the same mechanical work, whatever it is, two hours, two hours at 200, 250 watts. Pick what?

Pick your numbers. Right? So, that's mechanical work that's very measurable.

But by changing how much you're fueling during the session, that will change how much energetic stress is put on the muscle. You're changing the cost of the work almost. Exactly.

Yeah. Or you Yeah. You're changing like the you're changing the flux through the fuel tank if you think about it.

And so so where I think where a lot of people went um kind of two early 2010s that kind of stuff like maybe went a little bit too far the other way into fall super Yeah. Yeah. So like you cuz you can undercook it and you know you you obviously feel very viscerally feel the um effects of that.

But the trade-off there is you're losing the quality of that mechanical work. So what we're trying to do is find that balance point of sustaining good training quality, keeping that mechanical work that you're going to get done, but also creating the correct metabolic stress or that energy stress inside the muscles because that's a that's a really potent driver of adaptation. Just when people thought fuel was getting easier.

Exactly. Hey, let's it's all got simpler, guys. Don't worry about it.

So we need to think about it now in terms of there's strategic reasons to underfuel, over fuel and optimally fuel. How do you think about when to employ each of these strategies? Sure.

I think that maybe this is maybe this is a a challenging piece, right? Because I think semantically strategically underfueling just doesn't sound I don't know. There's something that I cognitively struggle with that a little bit, but I know what you mean.

So, I think I'm I'm trying to think of like how to articulate it in a way that is um isn't going to get people to be like, "Cool. Yeah, I'm actually falling in the door three times a week, but it's strate but I've made the decision to do that." French names are probably still there.

Well, hey, you'll have to ask them. Um but the I think the like using different types of training, right? So, it's it's it's it's periodization of training.

Periodization of nutrition is a you know, it's the same thing. So you don't always do the same training session every day because it doesn't change the stimulus. Same thing with nutrition.

So um my personal opinion is that in used in the correct way, faster training is is fine. I think it's a different way to create uh stress through different um metabolic processes in the muscle, right? Um that's not for everybody.

Um certainly wouldn't, you know, wouldn't recommend long periods of fasted training for younger athletes, etc., etc. um anyone who's at low energy risk, for example, you know, maybe not for them or use it cautiously, fine.

But I think there's a I think it has a um a strategic use in a in a training period, right? Equally, going and doing a training session where you're very highly fueled and you fuel well during it has a different goal. It's a completely different goal, right?

You're not going to go out and do V2 efforts like well maybe you will fasted first thing in the morning if it's just fits in with your lifestyle but maybe you've had a big carbed in the night before but generally speaking you'd want to go into those V2 efforts well fueled carbed up but maybe if you're doing low and slow that's fine to do yeah so maybe that answers my next question would you think about it in terms of the glycemic demand of the session so if I'm doing a the stuff that just feels like it's actually viscerally ripping the glycogen out my muscles like last night I went out and done 12 one kilometer efforts with one minute gaps in them. You just you can feel that high glycogen demand in that session as opposed to I'll go on the Sunday spin with the road man. We've had podcast meetup sessions on Sundays with cruise 90 minutes to the calf have some food and the calf crew is 90 minutes home.

I don't feel like there's a high glycogen demand of that session. Is that a lens we could think about through thinking about what is the glycogen demand of each of these sessions? Exactly.

a really nice way to think about it. Of the two sessions you described, I know which one I prefer to do. So, um, but it's you're exactly right.

And anything that's anything that gets up to or above FTP, like a really like like good barometer to think about it, once you get above that, your the rate at which you burn through glycogen just becomes exponential. So, you know, you really can rip through it pretty quickly. So, um, it's a it's a good way to think about it, definitely.

So, if you were to, you've extensive experience working with pro athletes and I know you don't have as much of a foot in the camp of what your average weekend warriors are doing, but is there something that you think where you look at all the world athletes and you think they all have these habits around nutrition and I don't see these habits in Joe Public. the ones I think are most consistent and this is I would say this is this is a recent change in the pros which is I think is beginning to be reflected in uh in Joe public is is actually fueling their training well so actually kind of thinking a little bit more about do you know what maybe I will take a a gel out with I know I'm only going out for 75 minutes if you took a gel out training like I was driving for a French team in 2012 and I remember being in the break of one of these coupe the France races like 200k across gravel and stuff like being in the break thinking like I actually have a chance here today going back to the car and saying can I get a jail the manager saying no you've had your jail for today it's like it's probably still happening I have Steven Barrett from as later in the season the head coach so it' be interesting to hear an Irish guys perspective on French culture there and if that's I'm sure it's changed a bit but culturally they were a nation that under fuel for a long time. Yeah.

Yeah. And look, it was it was tied to a lot of those cultural and systemic beliefs in cycling as a sport, right? Like that's that's kind of continental Europe.

Cycling is homeland, right? So like we you know I I get where it came from and it's it's one of those things that I think like you can technology has moved on, right? bikes like all the kit has definitely got better, but I don't I don't think the magnitude of change that you've seen in the average power output and like the average speeds that the races are being done at now, like if you look at how quickly those have jumped, I I don't think there's a correlation with the the the bike kit.

like there's a function of the the way in which the guys and girls are training that's directly correlating to the ability to not only produce power at a greater watts per kilo but also sustain it for longer durations. So, and I I think maybe I'm biased, right? I'm a nutritionist.

I'm going to say this, but I think there's a huge element of how well they're fueling in training, which is now really be we're really beginning to see that translate into longer more just in, you know, you know, when you just look at some of those riders at the end of races and you're like, how the [ __ ] are you doing that? Well, did you see Pagatcha's data from the Dolphin seated just like 7.2 watts per kilogram for 22 minutes?

It's frightening. Frightening. So, and even a good snapshot of this was if you heard the Garan Thomas podcast last week, Garan Thomas, there's almost a snapshot because G is finishing up this season.

So, it's like a snapshot of two generations here. G obviously won the tour to France in 2018, but he was saying at his very best, best powers, best weight, that would have meant him doing 490 watts and his very best, he could have sustained that for eight to nine minutes. Pagas doing it not at his very best in a warm-up race for 22 minutes.

Yeah, it's it's like frightening. But the So I think that like so I started in World Tour 2018 and like a benchmark figure that you'd be looking at for a someone a GC rider would be if you can climb for 30 minutes at 6.2 watts per kilo.

6.2 6.4 four watts per kilo.

You you're probably in the ballpark of, you know, depends on who shows up and who's informed, but like you you'll be in the money for winning stages and maybe even, you know, maybe winning grand tours, right? Not anymore. No, domestics are doing that.

Like Jay Vines were on the podcast loads of times. Jay's doing those sort of figures plus. Yeah.

Exactly. So, and and honestly, like I'm I'm I'm so convinced that the the fueling training and how that's aggregated over a number of years is is a is a not the only but is a big driver to that and and like just just got sorry to come back to your question before like I think the the general public as they start to to absorb that and see it and feel it and we had a conversation about fueling you know grams per hour on bike. I I honestly think the I'd love to see some data on the average power output at a club ride.

Yeah. From five years ago and then five years in the future and see if it's shifted as you know that correlation of fueling fueling better during training has as well. I think by and large the move to better fueling has been a net positive.

There was a time especially when I was trying to make it as a make it as a pro riding coming up through the French ranks. Everyone they tried to turn everybody into a 62 kg climber regardless of your builds. Like I'm 6'3.

I was never going to be a 5 foot2 Colombian, but going out there, I'm walking around the 80 kilograms now. I feel like I'm pretty lean, you know? I'm not ripped, but I'm pretty lame.

And I was racing at 68 kg in France. And my director was pinching me. He's like And you were hiding crossons in the washing machine.

The whole culture. Really? I've never heard that.

Hiding washing machine on the bus. So, no. So, we had our apartment was above uh BU Lingerie.

So, percent of these crossons. What a horrible place to house bike riders. That's terrible.

Sorry. Go ahead. So, we'd go down and get our baguettes and our crossons in the morning, but the manager would come around like for a house check and then he'd come looking through the presses, make sure you had no bread or no cakes.

So, we'd have to take them all, put them into a pillowcase, stuff them into the washing machine, then put the dirty clothes in on top. So, they're like spot searches like the FBI coming on a ra. But around then, I had friends riding for BMC.

I'm not sure if you've heard this one before, but BMC at the time, I'm not sure if it was I don't want to retire the whole team with this, but individuals within the team were taking medication to decalcify their bones so they'd be a little bit lighter. Yeah. I I I do you know what?

It doesn't surprise me. I I haven't I haven't heard that directly before, but like the um Yeah. Yeah, when I as I say when I when I started 2018, I think it was coming off the back of some of the like I think some of the like the worst nutrition stuff was kind of over and they were sort of starting to like Vizma was already a big driver of moving to performance nutrition at that stage.

So like ask you was leading the leading the nutrition setup there and really beginning to move things forward. So um but you know when I came in you know it was like I I was you know like heard discussions of or heard things through the grapevine where it's like oh well can I get an arm sling for the offseason cuz if you just have your arm in a sling you get that the muscles. Yeah.

Exactly. So, you know, and and I was like, and it's actually it's interesting like you have the um uh Jonas Abraham from UNO um Yeah. who you know and and like Olaf the the coach there who's like actually when you look at the if you look at Olaf is the coach.

Yeah. Yeah. also has some some certainly has some you know is helping to direct some of the coaching staff there I think and set some um press excuse me set some direction towards like you know training philosophy and stuff you know they're like well look actually functional mass it is is like when you plot it it's actually really good for power output and durability and you're less likely to get sick you know and it's it's all these things that you kind of go I had this conversation with friends who were riding a continental a level in Belgium and they were like six one one friend in particular a really good training partner of mine over the years like 6'5 rider and he's down at like 70 kg 71 kg and you're trying to say to him it's just doesn't mirror the demands of racing in Belgium like you would be better off as an 80 kg rider who can blow it in the crosswinds because you're still not getting up a cat one at 70 kg like you're not going to be 52 kilograms you're 6'5 yeah but instead of that we we had everyone on like as a tiny little rider instead of saying hey there's different roles within a team like Ryan Mullen now is a you know good lad been on show a few times but Ryan's a great example of if you just niche now you can it needs all types of different shapes Ryan positions the leadout man that's his entire job to position the leadout man makes a really good living from it he's a legit world tour rider who's had contract after contract with just that and he's an 80 kilo plus rider but he can do 800 watts for a minute.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think there's like I don't know again whether it comes to maybe you you'd be better placed to answer this than I would. Maybe I'm going to ask you a question. Um, but the, you know, like with the specialization of rider positions now, like do you think that's more prevalent than it was before?

like you my understanding was it was like you'd kind of have the you'd have your you know your your rulers your your bigger guys who would just kind of do some grunt work keep the GC guys out of the wind on the flats you know like positioning that kind of stuff which I like I feel now that you have specific leadout men for certain you know depending on what the kind of sprint finish is equally you have I think the segmentation of it is increased I think before you were nearly dividing into leaders and domestics now you're dividing domestic into different brackets. Here's a guy who can ride the valleys well. Here's a guy we can use as a tool in the crosswinds.

But the interesting thing that I'm actually observing is the evolution of an athlete within that segmentation. So the athlete who used to be, you know, say a Raphael Micah at the moment is normally Pagacha's last lad. You know, when Micah hits the front, stuff's about to go bad for everyone else.

You see everyone else go, "Oh, fuck." Exactly. But as Micah loses that edge now, I think you'll watch him become the third man and maybe someone else will step up into that role and might evolve to the point where he's at the bottom of that segmentation where he's, you know, controlling early breakaways or he's doing bottles earlier in the day.

I mean, I was actually going to say the one that just popped into mind was um uh Wenard for um Simon Yates in the Jurro, the greatest domestique in the world. I like put him put him up the road. um you know that he was obviously in the break and then Simon got to him on the what was the name of the climb?

Finestra. Yes. Um you know like got to him and then there was some I saw some I don't know how true it was but like I hope it's true some mad numbers that he did 400 and something watts for 12 minutes or something.

I'm like, first off, like he's clearly he's clearly a very good bike rider, but also strategically like what a great decision that was actually, you know, who have we got who's probably strong enough that deep into a a grand tour that can go out in the break and still have a bit left in the tank to do this kind of job and then hopefully, you know, we'll we'll bring Simon up and and he'll make use of that. executed perfectly and climb and climbed it in 58 59 minutes like and everyone was abusing Freom years ago saying he was lit when he went up at 5 and a half minutes slower than Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And uh that was the I think that climb was the first time that they used SIS beta fuel when Froom did it. Didn't know that. Yeah, I think so.

So that was the like they had you know they had um they had people with bottles like every kilometer or something like that. Their nutrition equivalent split the Exactly. Yeah.

Exactly. So, um I think Jame James Morton would be the better better one to talk about that. I think he was there and and involved in the build of it.

We'll definitely get him on. I know David spoken about bringing him over to get him on. But what are we thinking on this?

Because when David, your co-founder in Hexus was on the podcast, if anyone hasn't checked that, I'll link it below because it's definitely worth going back and it's almost like a this chat's almost a continuation of that one. We talked a lot about the 90 to 120 gram an hour, but a lot of the comments came back on that going, do we know what this is doing to us long term? Because it's only started, do we have data on the effect?

Like you're saying the gut can regenerate every 5 days, but does that insulate us from the effects of it or is there effects of it? Yeah, it's it's a good question and I'll give you the value of my opinion because I'm not a you know, I'm not an epidemiologist. I don't I don't have unfortunately I don't have I don't know if there is long long-term data on it and again the way I look at it is is probably related to the I always take this back to the work that you're doing right so if you're if you're putting large amounts of carbs in but you're also burning large amounts of carbs every week fill up the tank empty the tank fill up the tank empty the tank that's a good thing generally speaking right and that keeps everybody metabolically flexible and healthy you're unlikely to get any uh metabolic diseases, that kind of stuff.

And to my knowledge, there's no evidence that that has any big impacts on your digestive tract. Um I think the one thing that might be interesting to look at is you get a sports dentist on and they can tell you whether it does anything to the the oral cavity, that kind of stuff. Again, not not my wheelhouse, so I won't I won't comment on it, but I'll uh happily come back on and throw eggs if a dentist does come on and throw some question bombs in there.

Um, but the I think that where the discourse comes and you've kind of seen this in historically in the shift in western diets is readily accessible carbohydrates that are hyper palatable. Great. Let's have loads of those because they're, you know, they're easy for me to get and they're delicious and, you know, my body processes them really fast so I feel hungry again.

But you don't have that big work empty the tank again. And that's what that's where I think the the kind of disconnect happens and that's where you get those not beneficial things. But for for me, I think if there's I think if you're using a little bit of nutrition periodization, so again, like I said, like I don't think it's high carb all the time, but it's when it's appropriate.

I think yeah, go high like if you're going after 12 uh was it 12 1k efforts? Um, if you're going after that, for me that's high carb. But equally, you know, um, in a couple of days time you're going out for a recovery spin.

Cool. Just have breakfast and and off you go or have a, you know, an omelet and off you go and and you'll be fine. And that creates two very different stimulus.

I know one of your big studies was this feel for work required. How does that sit against the idea of metabolic flexibility? You've heard a lot of and again we this chat off air.

I never know how to grade the experts on who's the credible experts and who's the not so credible experts or who has vested interests and stuff. But I've heard experts on podcasts talking about one of the signs for health is and I use the word health not performance because we talk about the world tour guys a lot and I often don't think they are what we should be emulating because if you look what they're optimizing for, they're optimizing for performance. Downstream of performance isn't always health.

from me and you, I think we should be optimizing for perform health and I think there is some performance downstream from health but not to the same degree as the other guys. So a lot of the health doctors I've listened to like I said Ronda Patrick who's very popular on podcasts she talks about the idea of metabolic flexibility being a cornerstone of metabolic health. How does that sit with the idea of fuel for work required or maybe explain fuel for work required so someone doesn't know what we're talking about?

Yeah, 100%. Um the the good thing is that that fuel for the work required is entirely designed to facilitate um metabolic health or metabolic flexibility which is great. So, fuel for the work required as a concept.

Um, hopefully it kind of comes back to, you know, my my line of thinking and and what I've been talking about so far. But, um, on days where you're doing a lot of work, fuel more. And on days where you're doing less, fuel less.

And on rest days, you know, maybe it's it's less again. And thinking slightly about what you've got the following the following day. So, you know, maybe there's like a little bit of prep going into tomorrow, but you're trying to align your energy and particularly carbohydrate intake with, you know, what you're doing in terms of exercise and and physical activity that day.

That's the that's the fundamental piece of it. So, instead of, you know, there is some um uh I'm just trying to think, you know, like that classic kind of recommendation of like 2,500 calories a day regardless. Exactly.

So, and and the problem with that is that okay, at the end of the week, you might still be in energy balance. So, you might not lose weight, you might not gain weight, but that that doesn't necessarily mean that that's metabolically healthy for you because on some days you'll be massively underfooled and on some days you'll be massively overfueled. So what fuel for the work required really tries to get people to think about is well actually can I just create some differences on those days and by doing that that actually facilitates what you know what what I would refer to as metabolic health.

your body's when when I think about it particularly during in the context of exercise for me that's my body's ability to to utilize fat and carbohydrates effectively depending on the intensity and the duration of exercise and um think of it like a dimmer switch. It's not on off. It's just it's always a dimmer switch and all you're doing is turning that dimmer switch up and down.

And you can do that by changing the intensity of exercise. So higher intensity exercise, you turn that dimmer switch towards carbohydrates. So more carbs and less fat.

Lower intensity exercise, particularly over a longer duration. As the duration increases, you're going to be slowly turning that dimmer switch more and more towards fat. Do you remember a few years ago uh when Freom was at the height of his power?

Now how much of this was smoke and mirrors, I don't know. James Morton again might be able to tell us, but there was a lot of fre getting up in the morning before a hard session on Mount Ta and an Instagram picture of him eating scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast. Yeah.

The underlying message that was sent out to cyclists was it's possible to move the threshold of where we burn fat. So, at the moment, if I'm entirely fuel and fat up to 200 watts, if I do enough fat adapted rides, I'll be able to ride at 250, 280, 300 watts, utilizing entirely fat, preserving glycogen for later in a race when I need it more. And this was kind of the story we were sold why Froom was so effective on final hilltop finishes, because he was preserving more glycogen.

Yep. Um, and the the fantastic thing is is that just out of shot there was a massive bowl of porridge. And also the the biochemistry of that just doesn't stand up.

So, um, I think I think Froom and maybe James was involved as well. I don't know. But I think Froom was um was was maybe he was the first influencer and he just didn't even know it um back in the day.

So um yeah, it's it's an interesting one. I I I think it was um a very maybe it was unintentional, maybe it was intentional, but I think it was a a a smart strategic decision on his part and I'm remarkably confident that um yeah, there was also a big old bowl of porridge just out a shot there. Is it totally flawed or is there any truth to the idea that we can change the the our ability to produce power as that fat track?

So, you you absolutely can and it is it's definitely trainable. Um, I suppose the the the sort of first point first thing to to point out is that um until you get many many hours into exercise, you will never be at uh 100% fat oxidation. In fact, you you'd almost uh you would never you'd never be at 100% fat oxidation because if you're if the carbohydrate oxidation process in your muscle stopped um the way chemistry works, it would never restart again and you'd die.

Okay. So, um, there is that. Um, that might not be entire I'm sure there's going to be a biochemist screaming at me there somewhere, but you know, you you you get the gist of it, right?

Um, and so when you start exercise, certainly for the first couple of hours, even if you've had a a highfat, low carb diet, and you're exercising at a low intensity, that dimmer switch isn't going to be 100% fat. Okay? There's always going to be um a carbohydrate component to it.

Now, in answer to your question, like, can you train it? Yeah, you absolutely can train it. Um, and so using things like fuel for the work required where your lower intensity rides are fueled with lower amounts of carbohydrates, not zero, not zero, but lower.

Um, you know, maybe you do some rides fasted if it's appropriate and contextually, you know, right for you and your experienced rider. Fine. And that, you know, that's a creates a slightly different stimulus again.

And so you you're training your body's enzymes and those metabolic processes that liberate and then burn fat as a substrate. You just what you're doing is you're just you could kind of in increasing the flux through those. And then as you get into you know and as that increases you as you increase your body's ability to do that um with training again what you're going to do is you'll see that the your you call it so you familiar with like a fat max people talk about that.

So like where the power at which you reach fat. Maybe explain it. I've done the fat max test but Sean Wakefield just stuck me on the rig like here's your fat max.

Sure. So fat max would be um you start at very low intensity and you gradually increase it very very very slowly much slower than a V2 max test. And basically what you see is um fat oxidation go up and then once it peaks and it will start to come back down again as the intensity continues to increase and essentially it's the power at which your peak fat oxidation occurs.

Right? So that will shift to the right and you so it will it will go you know you you can add watts to that number by uh diet and and training. Um and and there are kind of a number of reasons you might do that.

Again you know using more fat preserving carbohydrate as a um as an energy source a store of energy source in your muscles at low intensity very very useful. So, um, you know, the context being if you can, you know, ride all day, but then there's a steep climb to get home and you want to get you want to get up it a bit easier. That's going to be a lot easier if you've preserved a little bit of that that muscle glycogen in that ride.

And so, if I'm training and I'm so we've two, if you look staying with the kind of curve analogy, you have two notable points on a lactate curve. You've LT1, your first inflection point, you've LT2 your second inflection point. a normal training plan.

The underlying goal is can we move those curves to the right? If we're moving those curves to the right by virtue of just normally training is the fat max going to move in tandem with those more than likely. Yes.

So um just just general training will improve your aerobic capacity and you know you see even you know those we talk about these world athletes who are at you know monumental carb intake numbers their fat oxidation is still going to be prestigiously high because they've got great V2 maxes their LT1 and LT2s are pretty far to the right it's all connected um and you can make tweaks to that so you can sort of like um artificially raise it through diet but hats. I I I'm not convinced unless you're doing like across uh ride across America or, you know, one of the like 2,000k rides. Um unless you're getting into that kind of distance, I I'm not sure of the immediate benefit from a performance a performance perspective, if that makes sense.

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And what about intermittent fasting? It's got a bit of a tailwind in the past few years behind it. This 168 protocol, one of the reasons people will say it's cellular autophagy.

It's this kind of cellular cleanup. Another secondary reason might be that it compresses your feeding window. So you've gone from a 24 well maybe not quite a 24-hour feeding window, say a 14-hour feeding window down to an eight hour feeding window.

So, even if you're not super disciplined, hard to be in a massive calorie surplus in a condensed feeding window. My challenge with intermittent fasting has always been, especially when I'm training, is I can't find a good place to put that. Yeah.

Because I'm either, especially if I'm thinking through a lens of fuel for work required where it's like, okay, I'm either fueling for tomorrow's session or I'm recovering from today's session. Where does it go in my week? Is there merit to trying to figure out where to put that on my week or is it just something that I should forget about?

Good question. I might have to charge you for this answer. So it's a uh it's it's a it's a good test of a nutritionist that um so the uh I mean I think the 168 the way I think about it and again like tell me if this is reflect like your reflection as well is that it's it's a really convenient way it's an easy mental model to think about how to create an energ potentially an energy deficit.

Right. Yes. you just like it sort of removes some of the thinking, you know, it just removes cognitive load and nutrition's hard, right?

It's difficult to get your nutrition right. I'm a nutritionist. I don't I know for a fact I don't get my nutrition right and I've got no excuse.

So, you know, like all the time. So, it's it like it it's it's high cognitive load, right? And so 168 is just a really clear framework where you go, I'm going to do this and that and it's really easy to operationalize.

So, I think there's value in that if it's something that's beneficial for you and it fits in with your lifestyle. Um, you know, it fits in with your work schedule, the kids, you know, like training, what whatever it is. If if that's a framework that works for you, then then that's great.

The challenge as you say is how do you you know if you're if you're going to go for longer harder rides or if you're you know training's ramping up because you're getting close to a sportif or an event that you've got on how do you package good training and good fueling within that framework that that can that takes a little bit of figuring out but equally I guess what I would say is why don't you think about how how and where you apply it so maybe on your biggest training days that might actually be a day where you fuel kind of um you spread your meals out a little bit more and actually you kind of fuel on bike and you know you're less concerned about that specific framework because the goal of that day is to achieve quality work. But within some of the um lower intensity or lower total duration days that's probably fine to package into like a um a 168 type day. Yeah.

But I guess the challenge for a lot of amateurs is like you know I I still work with and coach a lot of amateur guys as well. So most people that are working a 9 to-ive job balancing some sort of conflicting demands in their time set their week up as Monday normally off the bike after a longer weekend. Tuesday some sort of interval session.

Wednesday you know cruisier or maybe a cadence session. Thursday your second hard session of the week. Friday either off for some sort of recovery ride.

Although Professor Siler will debate the merits of a recovery ride. He said it's like you're either riding or you're recovering. There's no such thing as a recovery ride.

Saturday, Sunday or longer uh distance stuff with the club or uh just long slow distance. So with that kind of setup and the fuel for work required lens, I struggle to know where to put that in because if I stick it in on Monday, which is my rest day, which is the least active I'm going to be all week, but I have my hard one of my hardest sessions of the week coming up on Tuesday. I always go into that feeling underfueled.

Yeah. Yeah. Wednesday, I feel like I'm recovering from Tuesday, but also preparing for Thursday's hard session.

Doesn't make sense there. Friday, well, I'm now I'm recovering from Thursday, but I'm also going into my two longest rides of the weekend. Yeah.

I need an extra day to stick this in. Yeah. Yeah.

True. Which it there is merit to this because this is again Siler spoke to me about this expanding your training week to 10 days. That's a good way.

First time I'd ever heard of it. Yeah, that's a good point. I've never thought about that either.

I've never played with it. Um Yeah. Or working in Yeah, I suppose.

is all working in longer shorter blocks. I suppose either extended to 10 or shorten it to three. Yeah, depends.

It depends which way you look at it. Yeah, it's a good point. And I think maybe that comes back to the maybe there's something to play around with like on bike fueling then.

So actually why don't you keep your meals within the on the weekday ones. Why not keep your meals within that if it's something that you're using like keep the main meals within the framework but actually if you know that quality of work is what you're going after let's look at how on bike fueling changes. Yeah, it's an interesting it's an interesting way to look at it.

But looking again through the lens of not performance through health, is it worth squeezing in the 168? Is there enough benefit in the fast to merit the disruption that's caused to a training week? I would always go back to if it if it works for you.

So my my lens on it isn't that 168 per se is particularly beneficial because for some people it really doesn't work. For some people it works. And that that's my I suppose that's where I come to as a point of separation.

I'm not hugely opinionated unfortunately on whether it's massively beneficial or massively detrimental because I think it it comes down to do you know what it might work for you one week and not next week. Yeah. Because and this is the problem for when you're not a pro alete.

Your schedule just isn't always dynamic. Yeah. Exactly.

So, it's one of those things I think if you know if and as I say, that's why I sort of started out with like if it works for you, then it's a great framework because it's a good mental model. But I think there's Yeah, I think there's there are there's a lot of different ways to achieve a strategic calorie deficit to lose weight or to create different metabolic stress in in and in and out of your training. Okay.

So we'll use that hypothetical training week, your average Joe training 8 to 12 hours a week with inside that sort of Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday. What is a better way for me to create a calorie deficit in this if I want to lose 2 to 5 kilograms? Yeah.

So uh I think the I mean use Hexus obviously um is the is the easiest way. We'll give you a very clear uh you know uh recommendation each day on how to do it. And even on that cuz we I definitely want you to answer that question.

I don't interrupt a different street with it. So, we just put a pin there for a second. But what I was shocked to use in Hexus is just how much you eat.

Yeah. And this is echoed by my friends around the world who just like their new job is like they're jaws as strong as they're qualified. The amount of eating they have to get through for 30 hours at the intensities they're riding y per week.

They said they can't believe the amount of fuel food, but they also can't believe that they're not gaining weight with that amount of food. I still haven't, if I'm fully honest, I still when I see the number on Hexus and I want to drop two kilograms, I don't know if I can deprogram myself from that French Yeah. uh lameier, that French apprenticeship.

Sure. Where I'm just like, but how like how can I eat 5,000 calories today, still lose weight and still lose weight? Like help me help me on this.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So the um and again uh I have observation and opinion on this, right? Um I would love to show you some really well-controlled metabolic uh study data to to back it up, but I'm I'm just I've got to give you my opinion on this. Right.

So the where I've seen this done over and over and over and over and over again, the exact story that you describe. I've I've never eaten this much in my life, but my skin folds are coming down and my power is going up. I've seen it a hundred times and the and I genuinely think I just need to commit.

Yeah. So, but I'll and I'll tell you and I'll tell you why. So, the reason that I think is that that there's an there's an idea of energy um of energy expenditure called the constrained or additive model.

Right? And so the constrained model says that when you um exercise your resting metabolic rate decreases proportionately so that um the cost of exercise doesn't take you above a total energy expenditure for the day. That's called the constrained model, right?

So your underlying metabolic processes slow down a little bit. That costs less energy. Or you have what's called the additive model, which is where RMR stays the same and you add exercise um the cost of exercise on top.

So total energy increases. what I think fueling properly and this actually ties into um world tour and now recreational people fueling better during training. I think the the shift into fueling better generally has actually re and again it's a sort of slightly loose u description but I actually think what we're doing now is that we're not we're either helping people to sustain what is a normal and healthy resting metabolic rate and so it's not being compromised at all because they're in uh a sustained and when I say sustained like weeks months you know energy deficit trying to lose weight the whole time not having enough carbs.

Um, you know, your the um hypothalamic pituitary axis in your brain is incredibly sensitive to carbohydrates and will release an entire array of hormones that change the metabolic processes inside your body and in your organs. Um, and so I I think by fueling better, what we're doing is is helping people to maintain, you know, healthy and normal and optimal underlying metabolic processes. And that's causing a is there a lag period?

Like if I go from like again it's that programming from living in France or maybe you know I'm watching too much TMZ pop culture or whatever. But if I want to drop weight for a race in so I'm going to do Badlands in September. Sarah is actually a better example because she's doing the exact same thing.

She's maybe inherited my bad habits compounded with her teenage years of bad eating habits. But if I wanted to lose weight for that, I'll just dial it on 1700 calories a day. Yeah.

Regardless of what training I'm doing, y and then I'll fuel on the bike, but I'll stay off the bike at 1,700 calories a day. And I know the weight will come off, but it feels like it gets harder each time. And with age, because it probably does.

Yeah. Is it a race to the bottom? That model.

At what age? As you age, your resting metabolic rate naturally decreases. So it will get it will literally get numerically harder every time.

55 having this conversation. I'm down at seven calories a day now. Yeah.

Um so yeah. No, it it it absolutely does. Um and so is there a lag point?

So yeah, you're right. It doesn't just it's not just overnight, but it's quick. Like the human body adapts pretty fast to most things.

So, you know, um, in answer to your question, like the how to structure this this week, honestly, and it sounds counterintuitive, but like start the thing I always thing I always go to first is like, are you fueling well on bike? Yeah, if you're feeling well on bike, um, and that doesn't mean like, we're not talking about optimizing for performance, but just, you know, are you considering whether you know you need to take some carbs on bike, um, or take some protein if you're going over 3, four hours, fine, whatever it is, like start there. And it's really, and it is so counterintuitive, I know, but fuel fueling better will help you lose weight.

Yeah, it's it's completely counter it's an absolute head scratcher. I know. I know David Dunn's more the behavioral change guy than you, but 100% he is.

Yeah. But what do you think around deprogramming someone like me or like Sarah who has this mental model of to lose weight, I need to restrict. There needs to be an element of almost kathartic suffering for me to get from where I am to where I want to go.

How do we reprogram ourselves to buy into this hexus model? It's not just a hexis model. It's prevalent across the whole world tour.

you guys, you know, the group you that came through uh the university in Liverpool have you've spread your wings and are in all the biggest sports in the world now from, you know, Premier League to the US sports. You've changed fueling entirely from this small group of disciples that James Morton built in Liverpool. How do you get that message to the masses that are still doing it wrong?

Yeah. Do do you know what? Um, I always think it's that um that honest reflection of someone who's done it.

There's not I don't think there's anything more powerful than that. I can sit here and tell you the science all day long, right? But actually, you know, I think it's one of those things that um, you know, and we can I mean, geez, I can we can we can go through and get some examples from, you know, from people we've worked with.

But when someone goes I remember so jockey research is where a lot of that stuff started in in Liverpool, right? And the jockeyies were going, I've I they they were like, you're going to cost me my career. I've never eaten as much in my life.

Like, you guys are, you know, and and and there was there was there was one guy who was like, I'm going to commit to this. And he was like, I feel phenomenal and I'm at weight. I'm not spending an hour in the sauna, you know, when I get to the when I get to the ground.

Um there's, you know, and that just propagated. And the same thing happened in the world tour, right? the you know it actually it probably started with Vizma they started fueling well combined with having a great roster of riders bright and then those lads were just [ __ ] flying a few years ago.

It's not like Vizma carrying weight like Greg Leone was on the podcast and he literally said to me this a quote from Greg he said Jonas is the skinniest man I've ever seen. He's like a prisoner of war. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Yeah. Um but I bet he feels well. I bet he does.

But his but his body's not in that his body's not in that compensation starvation piece. So, you know, a lot of people talk about it like, "Oh, I haven't I don't like I didn't feel hungry. I didn't feel like I was in a energy deficit.

" You can you can create energy deficits and still be metabolically healthy and start to lose weight, but it's the the problem is you need you need a little bit of help to do that. It's a bit of calculation there, right? And I'm I'm not saying that's easy because it's not otherwise everyone would do it.

It also slightly changes something I haven't liked for a long time. Food is so important to us. Not we're talking about food as fuel but if we trace the origins of food it's you know it's how you bond some of the best moments in your life% you know even the the blue zones are interesting on a tangent to this did you see this thing on the blue zones where you know what the blue zones are the the area for anyone doesn't know they're the areas with the highest concentration of centurions so Okanawa and Japan Sardinia in Italy and they scientists have spent a lot of time looking at what are the commonalities that link these but I've seen another one recently where the main thing that links these areas is fraud.

Oh, really? That's hilarious. Okay, good.

That there was massive amounts of reissuing of government ideas in most of these areas for different political or conflict type uh reasons through the years. So, a lot of the people that they're saying in Sardinia that are actually 120 years old, they're actually like 70. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Like, geez, you look good for 103.

You're like, okay. Wow. Right.

Yeah, that that's an interesting segue to it. But yeah, I must Sarah be a great case study and David's already uh volunteered to put her in behind into the pro version of the Hex platform. Be an interesting one cuz literally she went out yesterday and done those kilo efforts with me.

She's getting ready for Badlands. I came home and had like three turkey burgers cuz she's like, I need to cut weight and I've only got a couple of months to do it. Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. Uh, honestly, like it's that um it's creating, again, it sounds counterintuitive.

It's creating uh it's it's creating probably smaller changes than you think you need. So, the um uh h I'll have to check the the mental math on it, but if you have a flat white every day, I have a flat white almost every day if I can if I'm going near a coffee shop. I know, aren't I?

Extra shot though cuz scientist. Um, so but if I replace the so I have that with cow's milk. Um, so there's sort of rough circa 150 mls of whole milk in there, right?

If I replace that with a black coffee, I now remove do x calories on the on whole milk, you know, 3 5% fat, whatever it is, call it 20 calories. Now if I multiply that out by seven, you're looking at meaningful amounts of calorie reduction in a week. So, you know, that's I mean, call it 700 or 750 calories a week circa 100 depends on your body, but like call it 150 200 grams of mass reduction over a kind of week period.

That's just changing it from a flat white to a black coffee. So, you look at the just the the smallest changes that you can do. Um, instead of using olive oil to fry food, use like a an oil spray.

Or if you've got a good non-stick pan, you don't need a oil at all. It's a non-stick pan. That's kind of the job.

Air fryer. Exactly. So, you think about What's that Teflon coating in the air fryer deal, too?

So, don't even worry about Well, I mean, again, material science I'm staying well away from. But, um, conceptually, if you think if you remove 10 grams of, um, of oil from your day somewhere, that's 100 calories. But it's it's aggregating those small changes that that will create that will create a meaningful difference in your physical outcome.

We a really interesting one actually. So when so I did the um I spent a year at um Great Britain cycling in 20 February 23 24 for a maternity cover like helping those guys out. We had the worlds in Glasgow which was like it was the most successful worlds for the for Great Britain cycling.

they got 67 medals across AB and power whatever it was like it was it was great like great outcome but having the having the year buildup there and some of the incredible work that um Georgina Impson Davyy who was the the nutritionist who'd gone on maternity cover had done is um one of the it lived with me and it resonates to this day is that they don't use the term body weight because it's not factually accurate it's a it's that's an opinion it's body mass and they really move so what's the difference so like weight is a function of uh mass plus gravity. Okay. Whereas mass is is a is a unit.

It's a very specific way to classify. So how is that getting measured? Like displacement in so it's like it's the same thing.

It's not really about the it's not really about the way in which it's measured but it's about the thought processing going let's look let's look at your sorry we're not looking at your weight. We're looking at your mass because we're moving it into a very objective and less emotional state. Do you see what I mean?

Yeah. And that's interesting. That's kind of where I was going before I lost my train of thought with the blue zones thing because we for a long time attached a morality to food where we categorize stuff as good food.

We categorize stuff as bad food. And I should feel guilty because I've had bad food. And me and David talked about I was going to say I think David mentioned this exactly.

It's contextual, right? Yeah, it's contextual. And we got absolutely hammered in the comments for the last video for trying to say that Haribo is good food.

And we're like, well, in the right circumstances, it is good food. So, I want to double down on that. So, I get hammered in the comments again.

Uh the um one of the first things I I had to have an argument with the medical staff and the um a few of the heads of the team when I started in World Tour in 2018 because I was like, "Where's the Haribo? Let's get on the bus." Um, I I I had to dive in and do a review of what went into the what made how it was made.

All sorts of stuff. And I'm like, guys, this is this is functional food because they've just ripped through 6,000 calories and annihilated their glycogen and they're doing it again tomorrow. Yeah.

Like try eat that amount of glycogen from blueberries. Like you're eating 7 kg of blueberries after Yeah. Exactly.

So, uh, so we used to do a thing where um it was like a precursor to Hexus actually. We we we with myself and Nikki Strobble who's who's now at Israel, like we calibrated a system where we could make quite specific recommendations for each rider if they wanted to. It wasn't compulsory.

It was a this service is here if you want it. Um we'd know what the menu was because Nikki was cooking it and then we could make recommendations based on the work that they' done, their RMR, that kind of stuff in the day, right? And so you'd give someone the option um you know, listen, it's rice or risotto.

What do you want? And I I always remember um one of the riders um I'm sure I'm sure he won't mind me saying, Jack Bower, big Kiwi guy, super nice fell, like really cool guy. And he was like, "Man, I just I'm a bit done with pasta.

Can I have risotto?" Um and I was like, "Oh, are you are you shook?" So risotto rice absorbs five times its own weight in water.

Yeah. Versus pasta, which is only three times. And pasta has a higher density of carbohydrate anyway.

So you you're already there's already differences within, you know, rice and pasta. people think they're the same. They're not.

Um I never knew that. Just simple things to think about, right? And so, um and he was like, "It's, you know, can I have, you know, I'm going to have risotto.

" And I was like, I did the math on it and I was like, "Oh, man. You need like a kilo of rsotto. Like, I'm really sorry, but like to hit the cuz he's, you know, he's a big guy, super strong, had been just nailing it all day.

" And I was like, "Man, I'm like the like have bread and honey, have dessert, everything." in. I was like, "Orange juice.

Unless you want to have a beta fuel with dinner, the only thing I can get like the closest I can get you to is a kilo of rsotto." He was like, "Well, I'll have a good go." And like just I don't I don't know if he finished it, but he was like he was like, "Fuck, that's a lot of food.

" Do you think there's a danger in the idea of no food is good or bad? It's context matters. Do you think there's a danger in weekend warriors misconstruing that message and sitting at home watching Netflix eating Harry B going well the lad said no food is good or bad and missing the nuance to the conversation.

Yeah. Exactly. And fuel for work required like you know contextually appropriate like do you need a very dense source of carbohydrate that's readily digested when you're sat on the sofa watching Netflix?

No. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm sure it feels lovely.

But, you know, and there's a time and a place, and I'm not saying don't, you know, never do it, but it's it's contextually appropriate, right? When if you've finished your longest ride of the week and you're pretty cooked, you know what? Actually having some Harry Bow as part of your recovery in those in those first kind of couple hours afterwards, it's really going to help boost your glycogen restorage reynthesis rates and probably help you recover for the the next session.

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We used to think there was a glycogen re-uptake window straight after training. I remember hearing about this first and literally setting a stopwatch on my phone as soon as I come in the door saying I have 15 minutes here to get my glycogen back into me. So, it was things like I had friends riding for Team Sky at the time and they were using chocolate milk.

So, I started using chocolate milk. that we still believe there's a glycogen re-uptake window that's that time sensitive. Yeah, good question.

So, my answer is that it's uh there are a couple of biological elements that underpin why there is a potentially like a time frame to it. But the you know um biologically does it does it change from 29 to 30 minutes? No.

Back to your dimmer versus exactly. So if you're if you are low enough in glycogen, so if you empty the tank, um you actually have a period of what's called insulin independent glucose uptake. So your muscles are they crave glucose that much that they will absorb um sugar from the blood without the presence of insulin.

You don't need insulin to drive the glucose transporter to the peripheral of the cell to pull in glucose, right? that that's how like biologically de developed we are to absorb carbs and store glycogen. So, and that that window is kind of so that window excuse me that that happens at very very low muscle glycogen levels and once you get back to uh let's say 200 millm moles of um it's a really nebulous number.

Once you get back to like a a level of glycogen inside the muscle it then goes cool all right I've actually you know I've recouped a little bit and the rate slows down and then it kind of becomes insulin dependent and that's fine. So, you know, it's one of those things when the tank's empty, it fills up really fast, but then as it starts to get fuller, that rate slows down. Okay, now here's the big question.

Can I recover with a beer? Can you recover with a beer? So, I mean, it's a fermented food.

Maybe it's good for your gut microbiome. Not many. Um, can you recover with a beer or how many beers do I need to drink to recover?

I guess the question is maybe is there certain to couch it in sort maybe more scientific term in keeping with the rest of the podcast is there certain stuff that inhibits the carbohydrate absorption like will alcohol inhibit the carbohydrate content absorption and then on the flip side of that is there anything that aids the carbohydrate absorption like if I have a Coca-Cola which is obviously readily available sugar but it's paired with caffeine does that help the sure re-uptake yeah good good question so I mean on the um Yeah, on the on the beer front, I uh yeah, obviously being being flippant about it, but it's, you know, it it will um dampen your recovery rate. So, it it also, you know, um alcohol also reduces muscle protein synthesis. So, the the that kind of remodeling process will al I know.

Yeah. It's devastating, isn't it? Um because I heard Valver used to have a beer after trying it every day.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. He also had EPO. Well, yeah, there's I mean, yeah, there's other things in that locker.

So, um, you know, and I think, uh, I actually don't know the direct impact of like alcohol per se on glycogen reynthesis. I actually don't know if that's ever been done as like a research study. May maybe it has.

I'll try my hand up. Yeah. Listen, we'll it's 5:00 somewhere, isn't it?

So, um, you know, I So, I'm not 100% sure on that, but it it definitely dampens muscle protein synthesis. So, like the recovery process overall will definitely be dampened somewhat. and you know if you look at your Whoop data and stuff you'll probably have a worse night's sleep that kind of so so there's like compounding effects there right um and in terms of are there things that you can do to aid the rate of glycogen uptake so you are right readily available sugars in the in that kind of early window are going to be the things that create that really high rate of reynthesis um so that that's a good thing to go for you you are right like Coca-Cas Harry um you know any of those any kind of sugary foods are pretty good.

Chocolate milk is great because it also comes with electrolytes and protein and um it's a mixture of um sugars that will also go to the liver and the muscle. So like lactose and so lactose which is galactose and glucose stuck together. Um that will get that will go to the liver.

It will get separated. So some of the um carbs will get stored in your because you also have a store of glycogen in your liver. So that will begin to reynthesize and the the um glycogen stores in your muscle will begin to reynthesize.

Is there anything that blocks it? I'm thinking in terms of my a lot of time I'll come in from training and of the big Vitamix blender. You know the one you seen the infomercials for it?

You can blend a set of golf clubs. You stick them in blend your mobile phone whatever you want. Haven't tried it yet but just it's nice to know.

Like I love this kind of nice to know like my watch it's great for 100 meters in water. I'm never going to go to 100 meters wear my watch but it is cool to know if I drop it in the sink it's going to be okay. So, I know this blender has the power if I need to call on that power at any point.

But when I'm making my recovery drink after training, I'm kind of just going around the kitchen and throwing stuff in. I roughly know the amount of carbohydrates I want to get into it. So, I'm looking, you know, at sources like fruit, honey, or maple syrup, throwing stuff in like that.

Maybe a spoon of Nutella. But is there anything I shouldn't be putting into it? Like, if I start to put a scoop of ice cream into that with higher fat content, is that going to slow down the absorption of carbohydrates?

Yeah, you you nailed it. that that was that was going to be kind of where I'd go with that is as the fat content increases, particularly saturated fat, what you're doing is you're essentially slowing down the digestion process a little bit. So, and that will delay the rate of glycogen reynthesis.

So, it's not necessarily that that the fat blocks it per se, but what it will do is it will slow down the rate of digestion. So, that carbohydrate won't be available in your blood as quickly. for girls listening to the podcast, is there a mistake of using malederived research and applying that to female athletes?

Yeah, really good question. So, um I think in in some contexts or in a lot of contexts, yes, there is um for things like to to my knowledge for things like glycogen reynthesis um again because the recommendations are given in grams per kilo of body mass. So to really maximally drive glycogen reynthesis, you'd be looking at 1 to 1.

5 gram of carbohydrate for every kilogram of body mass per hour for the first two to three hours depending on how how big a session you were. So like 1.5 grams per kilo for three hours is what world tour riders would do.

like average Joe who's world tour male riders world tour male riders well or female actually because again because it's relative to body mass and generally speaking the female riders have lower total body mass so the carbohydrate amount scales appropriately um and so but you know for your for your kind of run-of-the-mill sorry excuse me that's a terrible way to phrase it for recreational riders because I'm very much at the bottom end of that you know you'd probably be at like one gram of carbohydrate for every kilogram of body mass for the first hour maybe 90 minutes um after exercise and that would be a that's a greater way to to sort of really drive good glycogen reynthesis but without massively over fueling and again because those recommendations are made on a gram per kilo basis um that scales more appropriately as body size changes as well um and so there's it'll be more I think it's going to be really interesting to see how um as actually do you know what the some of the on stuff is predominantly done in men um but there have you know the women have been involved in those studies since you know early 2008 when um the first glucose fructose type studies also started to to come out as well and so I don't think I don't envisionage there being a a huge biological difference in like on bike fueling but you know as a lot of people point out we need probably need to do more contextually appropriate research in in females yeah I'm sure menstrual cycle must play some sort of role in it as well. Yeah, I think there's um I mean I think there's a lot of um well I mean I say that actually I think there's a lot of um suggestion around how you treat a or how you respond to a symptom. So like a perceived symptom of um and again female physiology not um for a start I'm not a female like I don't have I don't have contextual experience of what it's like to have um different physical you know perceptual feedback loops across different stages of my menstrual cycle.

So, but you know, from what I've some of the great work that like Kirsty Elliot Sale does and and you know, and kind of researchers like that, it's it's actually we're looking at you know, nutritionally, what do if you see regular patterns that occur in your how you feel across different stages of your menstrual cycle? Then how do you use different different components of nutrition to kind of align with what you expect to happen? because of of a menstrual cycle can vary from flux from from one cycle to the next in its length.

So, it's not always going to occur on the same day. But, um, you know, there's I think there's certainly much better much better researched than and contextually contextually experienced people than me to to answer that. There's I think there's definitely it's the it's looking at the regular symptoms that occur and then what what kind of nutritionally can you do to to help support those to ground this conversation and bring back to some practical takeaways for people listening to it because it's been it's definitely been a a scienceheavy chat.

what are stuff that I should do right now if I'm someone coming into this and we use that you know two world views my old or old as in it was still a my predominant worldview until this conversation of I need to create massive deficit every day to lose weight and I'm not really nutrition is kind of an afterthought in my life I'm living my life nutrition is an afterthought to this new version Anthony 2.0 though when we think about setting up my new nutrition system. Am I taking supplements in this or are the supplements like they're named supplemental?

Are they an afterthought? Yeah, good good question. Uh I'm actually going to I'm going to say it's anti AI because we're you know we're 2 2.

0's old hat now. So um so I think there's um again there's probably a there's probably a function of like is it convenient and useful to you? I'm okay with.

So supplements are just that, right? They're supplements to a diet. If you can't get if you're inherently vitamin D deficient, supplement with vitamin D.

Most most people who live in the northern hemisphere would benefit from that. So and and that's that's fine, right? And I do think supplements are they are supplements to a to a diet.

So, you know, if you eat a um five to seven portions of fruit and veg of different colors and you you know, protein sources from, you know, legumes and um pulses, whatever it is, if you're, you know, vegan or animal sources, fish if you're, you know, um omnivore or pescatarian. Um you know, kind of you piece different foods together and they all have different useful ingredients, right? Contextually appropriate.

Um, but equally sometimes I think if it's if it's just not convenient to do that, it's fine to use a you know use use a supplement to support you wherever. Maybe I phrase that question wrong. Is there supplements actually and now that I think of it, David did give me three, so it'll be interesting to see if you have the same answer to this question.

Is there supplements that everybody should be taking almost regardless of these individual variances in diet? Yeah. Again, I think the one the most prevalent one that I come back to is is vitamin D.

You gave that one. That's that's certainly the the the most common one I think that comes up. I mean outside of that I I really I really step back quite a bit from it generally.

Like I I don't know if I could give you three that I would say everyone should take. I mean he threw in creatine. Oh yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

You could do that. And his third one which I don't take is fish oil. Yeah.

Okay. Again. Yeah, you could do that.

So the the creatine one whole probably wholly beneficial if you're exercising regularly. Um if you're doing if you do three, you know, like three sessions a week at your local gym class or there's a you know like you're a you're a healthy active individual, do you need creatine from a physical performance perspective? Probably not.

Some good news studies though around cognition and Alzheimer's. Exactly. Yeah.

So uh you know there might be a cognitive component to to creatine as well in which case again maybe that's something that try it and and you know try and have a little diary on how do you feel during the day. I think with creatine from what the studies I've seen on it there doesn't seem a downside to trying it. No no I don't I don't think there is.

I mean the you know a few years ago there was that uh or there was a bit of a narrative around well is it you know is it detrimental to your kidneys and processing and that kind of stuff which I think has largely been kind of disproved but also for a the sort of general person taking it now it's not how it was when it was done in in gyms for gaining mass. So you don't do a load phase where it's 20 grams a day just five grams. Exactly.

Yeah. So 5 to 10 grams a day is is generally fine for for most people and you can sustain that for for long periods of time. So um so yeah, creatine you could I guess I kind of I guess I've always thought of Yeah, I guess I've always thought of creatine as having like a Yeah.

What's it for? I don't know. I don't know.

I just listen to you guys. Well, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. So So we've set up kind of supplements for the guys. Again, I think a good way to think about them is what it's called supplemental.

A better way to think about setting up this new move to Anthony AI is focusing on the core of what we've talked about today, fuel for work required, a book we referenced in the conversation with David was Atomic Habits. And apart from the atomic habits book that I loved was the idea of when you have a big goal, actually forget about the big ball and break it down to its smallest constituent part. Can we create a habit change doing something small?

So through that framing, if I'm trying to go from my old worldview to the Anthony AI worldview, what's the smallest changes I can make to start creating this momentum? Yeah, good good question. Can I can I give you my lived example of this?

Please do. So um well actually what's a what's the sort of daily government suggested recommendation of fruit and veg intake per day? I don't know.

I'd say five. Yeah. So five five to seven portions of fruit and veg a day.

Right now, I of all people have no excuse for not getting that right. I know every reason. I don't know.

I know most of the reasons why every component of those is is good for me. Do I get five portions of fruit and veg a day every day? No.

Do I? [ __ ] So, like, and it's behavior, right? So, I realized that um so we have like a nice fruit bowl which we put fruit in in our in our house like each week when we go shopping.

And there there was apples there and I was just I was like they'd go a bit soft and I'd mush them up, put them in apple crumble or something and I was but I wasn't eating them. And one day my wife was like, "Oh, I'm going to I'm cutting up an apple. Do you want some?

" I was like, "Yeah, oh, thanks very much." And she cut it up, you know, like took the took it off the core and just cut it into strips, gave it to me and I was just ate it away whilst I was on the laptop. I realized that the act of crunching through an apple for some reason for me, I'm like, "Oh, that's too much hard I can't be asked, so I don't do it.

So now, every day when I go into the kitchen from the office, I cut an apple up and if I do that, I know for a fact that I'll eat it. And it's like I don't I It's that small a change. It's just a friction.

Correct. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know what And it's completely illogical and irrational. No, it's quite logic because if you think about you can use it both ways though, like Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. I've used friction in the past to defeat habits that are aren't very productive or useful.

Uh, a good example, I used to be an avid reader. I'd nail through a book each week and I found my self through the years going, I'm I'm really [ __ ] at reading. And it's because every time I was halfway through a page, I pick up my phone and start flicking.

Okay. So now I start creating friction. The phone goes into a different room, gets put into a drawer.

So now to put the book down, I got to walk into another room, open a drawer. So it's an example using friction the opposite way. You've taken friction out.

I've added friction. Yeah. Exactly.

And I think there's it's just it's creating really like honestly like like we said about the how to create an energy deficit. You it's you only need to make a really small change but aggregating it over time adds up. And I think that's the you know to David will be the best person to give you whether it's restructure the environment or whether it's motivate or you know any of those other components that go into behavior but like the you know it's it's creating the honestly the smallest change that I think is the is the best it's almost like you know if I'm going to go for a ride tomorrow morning Saturday morning is a good example for a club meetup spin Friday night my set of behaviors and habits are I check the weather forecast for the next day I lay out my kit for the next day I lay out my fuel for the ride for the next day.

I make sure my shramm batteries are charged, my hammerheads charged, everything's ready to go. So the next morning when I wake up, there's very little friction. It's easier to do it than not do it.

Yeah. And I think that's a good example of how could we take that routine and bring that into the nutrition world. So it's easier to live this new system than not live this new system.

Yeah. And I think there's I mean that that's one of the things that like we wanted to do with Hexus as well is like how much should I eat? Cool.

We'll remove a point of friction in in you know in in trying to understand what that is. But again it's it's reducing cognitive load. We we talked about it like at the at the top of the episode and um you know like if you can just reduce as much cognitive load.

I also think there's a you know you mentioned it before like there's a community thing there. Like I I I know one of the um uh one of the designers and and product managers who works for us like she has a really um active community group of of cyclists in London that she's she's part of interesting. And they talk about fueling on bike.

They talk about um you know like going into you know they go and do like they'll go and document um I think they're trying to um ride round or go to all the the top 100 pastry shops in London, something like that. Do you know what I mean? Like there's things like that where I think there's actually like a really a and it takes and don't get me wrong like it doesn't it's not just straight up easy.

Like it takes a little bit of work. But I think there's a community element to that which can help to you know every like why is Parkrun so successful? Because if you want to get a thousand people to run 5K on a Saturday morning, bring them all together.

Give them a fixed start time. Lay out the route for them. You know it's it's it's doing all those little things but it's bring people together.

But and I think actually if you use that idea of adding and removing friction from good habits and bad habits on the far end you can add friction to the bad habits around your diet. Like don't have a Uber Eats account. So if you do want to order a takeaway you need to pick up the phone and have that infuriating weight and back and forth exchange rather than you know the Amazon type model where it's like click it and it just arrives.

Taps. Yeah. It's like McDonald.

I had McDonald's on the we used Just Eater here and like McDonald's on it. It was just I seen it was just too easy. I just watching a movie like oh McFlurry it magically just shows up at the door and you're like did I really need that McFlurry?

Now I have the guilt about the McFlurry and the remorse. And it's the same for like it's the same when you go shopping like if you don't if you don't have the foods in the house. It's it's it's more difficult to um you know it's more difficult to to find and and eat foods that are not contextually appropriate for for what you're doing.

You've we've all heard that expression of don't go shopping when you're hungry. Yeah. Could you extend the same analogy to don't make dietary choices when you're sleepd deprived?

That's a that's a good way to think about it. I think there's a I mean you're naturally more inclined to go towards high reward sugary foods when you're when you're sleepd deprived. Um, you know, and there's there's there's good underlying biology for why that is.

Um, so yeah, exactly the same. Like I'd be interested to know what you were having for breakfast after night out at Roller Alive. It wasn't oats.

Uh, no, no, no it wasn't. I think it was tacos at about midday, but um, again, fish oils. I think we had fish those fish tacos maybe.

So, um, I think we've covered a lot of ground. Uh, for anyone who hasn't checked it out, I am going to make a solemn commitment to you. We're we're going to get you back on the podcast in insert time period.

Three months, four months, whatever. Very good. And I'm going to go all in on Hexus.

I'm going to actually use it. I'm going to park my, you know, French crazy dietary preconceptions and I'm going to say, "Okay, I'm going to eat more to get lighter and I'm going to be your case study for this." We'll do it.

So, really appreciate you flying across from the UK to sit with us here today. Massively, massively beneficial conversation for anyone who takes the time to dissect it properly and listen over and back. Awesome.

Yeah. Hope it was helpful. I think that's one of the it's one of the great things about being able to I mean it was one of the great things about having podcasts like this, right?

You can come and have these conversations and like if it helps people, awesome. Yeah, they're not easy topics. They don't lead themselves well to a 60-second Tik Tok or Yeah.

I'm sorry about that. Or a tweet. There's a there's nuance to it, though.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

That's brilliant. I love that there's a platform where, you know, you can go no time limit. Yeah.

And to discuss really complex topics with brilliant minds trying to explain constrained and additive energy expenditure in 60 seconds is difficult. So yeah, fair. Sam, thank you very much.

Really appreciate you. Good job. Cheers.

We have three long form podcasts every week. Some of them are 90 minutes or two hours long. And I realize you're busy.

Sometimes it's hard to cut through the noise and figure out the signal, figure out what the important parts are of these conversations. So, I've taken your feedback and once a week I'm delivering to your inbox a newsletter called the Saturday spin. It's a 4-minute read or less and it's going to break down the very best thing I've learned on the podcast this week.

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