As a nutrition coach at Lidl-Trek, Stephanie Scheirlynck provides food that promotes performance and health. In this interview, she reveals the most important tips.
TOUR: What are the most important nutrition tips for amateur cyclists?
ScheirlynckThe first thing I would say is: get a bit organised if you want to adapt your diet to your training sessions. I think you need half an hour every week just to write it down or plan it on the computer. I want to train on Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday, then I have to buy this and that, and make myself that. So it's like a little meal plan.
TOUR: What should be the considerations regarding nutrition?
ScheirlynckPlan your meals wisely. So think about when you train and if you go to work, it might be better to eat pasta for lunch or take an extra snack with you because you want to train after work. I need a banana, for example, and then I can do my training session first to avoid post-workout cravings. Make sure you always start your training session well fuelled. But even if you've had a very good meal, there are some training sessions where you need to refuel. I would say that for any workout that lasts longer than two hours, you need exercise, drinks and bars or bananas or biscuits. If you do that, you come home and you're already recovered without needing anything. And if it was a really long workout, you can drink a recovery shake.
TOUR: So you eat beforehand so that you can train better and don't crash afterwards? Planned diet?
ScheirlynckExactly. It shouldn't be the case that you come home from training and then start eating biscuits and chocolate. Because then you really feel like you're hungry and need all that sugar. It should be more like I feel like eating something today. A piece of chocolate, but not because I'm empty or because I didn't feel good while cycling. No, no, simply because I feel like it and I want it.
TOUR: Pre-race nutrition: What should you eat the day before a tough race?
ScheirlynckCooked rice or pasta and not too many vegetables, not so much fruit, because it has to be low in fibre.
Nutrition during the race with gels
TOUR: There are more and more energy gels on the market with a very high carbohydrate density - does that make sense?
ScheirlynckYes. Scientific research shows that you can never eat as many calories in a race as you actually burn. That's also the reason why you train to be more efficient. When I graduated, 60 grams of carbohydrates per hour was the maximum and now we're already at 120 grams of carbohydrates. So that's double the amount of energy you can consume. That's a big difference. If they can train and digest and absorb that and someone else can't, then it makes a huge difference at the end of a race of five or six hours flat out. Everyone should prepare in training to absorb as much energy as possible.
Kristian Bauer
Editor
