I write this during my lunch break at work (yep – I’m back at socially distanced work – would know what I’d rather be doing). In my last post I discussed the general consensus of teenagers in sport, and how I believe there is a big misconception about them. This post takes things a bit further; nutrition.

I discussed the role of food when training and racing, and general exercise, and how during the years leading up to your 24th birthday, you body prioritises using the energy stores for growth. What when the growth stops? Do you continue to eat as you do (stuffing, but not really, your face), or do you adjust your proportions to adult sizes.

A simple answer, but one that I’ve tied with a concept from Hi-fi. For those of you that don’t know, Hi-fi stands for High Fidelity – really really good quality music – the kind of stuff that sounds like when you play it, it’s as if the band were in the room playing. Hi-fi uses a concept called garbage-in, garbage-out. The easiest way to explain this is; you have a sound system, and 2 discs of your favourite album, except one is scratched. Which one will sound better when played through the system? – the non-scratched disc. You try and make the sound better of the scratched disc by buying bigger speakers that claim “will make the music sound amazing” – but in actual fact, you’re just amplifying the sound of the scratched disc, not actually making the sound better, and this is how this concept ties in with training. Garbage-in, garbage-out (no, not that type) the “-out” of course is the quality of your training, your racing, and recovery.

The lockdown, for me, has been a blessing in disguise. An opportunity where I could really focus on training, and everything around it, nothing else (apart from a few days learning some new programs). As a peace offering (it’s a long, laughable story), my mum bought me the book “The Plant Based Cyclist”, written by Nigel Mitchell. I started reading it at the beginning of lockdown, and finished it within a week. I was captivated by it. The fact that it just pointed out everything I was doing wrong with my training.

When I was in college, I thought that you got better a cycling by eating carbs and having a protein shake after training. No accounting for weight ratios, and the amount of protein required for each person that accounts for body weight. Lunch was either a box full of couscous, or pesto pasta; with carrots, some hummus, and plenty of fruit – sounds healthy – but not really good for a cyclist (not from what I’ve food recently anyway).

Fast forward to living in Leeds, and I was probably eating enough to counter the effects of training, but the gains were slow, however, I was happy with them. I still had no understanding of food, and its major role with sport. Now in the present, and I’ve become obsessed and fastidious about what I put in my body – garbage-in, garbage-out. If you find my shopping, I’ll spend more time looking at the contents of foods, rather than picking stuff up and thinking “ooh, that looks nice” and bung it in the trolley. As a result, my training and gains have been completely turned upside-down.

As a result of reading this book, I learned a lot about the role of veg – protein content, carb content – what foods to eat and not to eat before training/racing. Opening a completely new door to training, I’ve finally honed in on an aspect of training which I have completely neglected, and as result, am making major gains – feeling stronger and fresher with each week.

I now have a food diary, which helps me identify whether I’m achieving my protein uptake each day, and the results are surprising and motivating. Some small changes (including pea protein powder in my overnight oats, using soya milk instead of oat milk, eating more quinoa, peanut butter, and cheese pittas) and I’m hitting those protein targets. It’s all well and good if you’re hitting your training targets, but if you’re not ensuring your body has the energy capacity to consistently hit those targets, improving that FTP, 5k, and 10k is going to be a big challenge.

To try and ensure I eat the right stuff for the right raining at home is a challenge, however, my parents have to habit of not eating lunch – easy win, focus on a big uptake during lunch. They tend to have porridge for breakfast, I like overnight oats – I buy my ingredients for breakfast – another 3rd of the day’s protein uptake. That leaves around 40g of protein left for the day. Well, post workout protein shake (21g), and a bedtime protein shake (to aid recovery best (21g)). Boom! Protein intake achieved – it’s that easy – well, in layman’s terms anyway – there’s a lot more to nutrition, however, I’m not a dietitian nor nutritionist – just someone who identified I gap in his training, and plugged it in in a cost effective manner.

This is the whole concept of garbage-in, garbage-out. It’s a case of ensuring what goes in is of high quality, and necessary to produce a great output. Buying a new bike, new wheels, new helmet etc will shout about how much money you have rather than making you go faster – believe me, constantly upgrading doesn’t make you go faster – that happens with training.

Don’t make that scratched disc shout louder, make that pristine disc sound better.