Originally posted by Fooz
I can so share so share the pain here. I'm preparing for a stage race at the end of August, and it covers some nice tall mountains on the course. We're talking 7 stages in 5 days. I'm a big rider...a very big rider...1.87cm tall, heavy bone structure and all the wrong things for cycling 
To cut a long story short, I was 101.5kg's around 12 April 2004. I went to see a dietician at University of Cape Town's Sport Science Institute (Tim Noaks's domain *grin*). Anyway, we worked out the amount of calories I need a day, and looked at what I eat etc. My training is four times a week indoors on a Cardigus unit, using wattage & HR for 80mins a session (avg about 250w), and on weekends I don't do anything less than 200km's.
I haven't had a soft drink in 5 weeks, switched to skim milk, use the correct protien / carbo drink mixes, and generally lived almost the life of Kafka's Hunger Artist. Last week I was down to 96.6kg's and very motivated. The past weekend was a good one, with 71km's on one day, and 126km's the next day (including some decent climbing). I step on the scale, and I'm back up to 98kg's.
My question...how the *&^% does a person stay motivated if the results aren't there. I might as well go back to soft drinks, McD's and keep training....
"Correct" is something which I suppose is subject to debate. You can be correct in that you follow that docs advice to a T, but correct would be a diet that allows you to continue to progress, lose weight, and continue to get stronger. Clearly, something is not correct, otherwise you would be cheering, not complaining. I don't have the answers; I am searhing too. But some things I am discovering now are blowing my mind. One thing I notice is that you are now consuming skim milk. I bet that health pro has identified sat fat as the enemy, and this is why it is recommended. Well, if you drink skim milk, likely you will drink more of it than whole milk because it has a lot fewer calories per cup than whole milk. Just compare labels. You will see. On the other hand, the sugar (lactose) content per cup is the same (actually a little higher per cup with the skim because the fat is not taking up some of the volume anymore since it's removed). So what's the result? More carbohydrates in the form of milk sugar (lactose). You have thus increased your carbohydrate intake at the expense of your fat intake. This will cause you to gain weight, if not in the short run, in the long run it will. Some people can go years on a high carb/low fat diet and not gain weight. But as they age, the insulin sensitivity will likely decline to fight the increased glucose levels in the blood during all of this carb loading. The result is then insulin resistance and fat storage. In other words, the carbs you eat will then be stored as fat and to some extent burned off, but the fat on your body will continue to increase.
Anyway, it's a long explanation. If you want to read a really good article, check this out.
http://www.mercola.com/2001/jul/14/insulin.htm#
I wouldn't get into the supplements or anything. Just read what he says about diet. If you want to check up on this, there are many studies that describe the Atkins diet. This is basically what is being described here. The truth is, and this is the biggest thing that blew my mind, you don't need to consume carbohydrates to perform well in endurance or non endurance events. That's a myth. In fact, you will increase your insulin sensitivity (beneficial) if you minimize carbohydrate consumption. Carbohydrates should be thought of as evils which must be consumed with only the most nutrient dense foods. So you won't be able to avoid them entirely, but you will be able to dramatically lower them. You may wonder how you are going to get your calcium. Well, what about canned fish? You can eat the bones, and they provide a lot of calcium without all of that milk lactose you are consuming. I have a pressure cooker, and so I can easily eat chicken bones and pork bones. I don't need to drink milk to get the calcium. I don't eat beef bones though because of the very remote chance that there may be mad cow disease (I think this is really more caution than is probably justified).
Anyway, please read that article and more on this low carb approach. Maybe after you read enough, you will have some hints for me. Consider that although low carb may not make you faster in the short run, it will probably not hurt much even when you are adapting (I know this because I am improving my riding on the diet). But in the long run, if you lose 20 or more kg of body mass, that 250 watts is going to go a lot farther toward getting you down the road faster. On the flats, you will have significantly lower rolling resistance, and in the hills, you will have far less weight to tug up. The hill performance will see the greatest improvement as your weight drops.
If you have negative feedback about what I am writing about, I would appreciate that too. I am learning as well.
