Does Better Blood Glucose Stability Improve Body Composition in Cyclists?

Today, we explore one reason, of many, why cyclists overeat and gain unwanted body fat despite burning a large amount of energy through rides and races.

As previously covered, a large calorie deficit generates too many compromises in performance, well-being and appetite control.

If appetite management is poor, long-term adherence to a calorie deficit and consistent fat loss is unlikely.

Cyclists with high training demands will burn upwards of 800kcal/hour during intense training sessions.

However, if athletes aren’t fuelling in accordance to the demand of that session and have irregular eating patterns, then blood glucose control will be poor. I.e. volatile blood glucose dips and rises.

A large-scale study by Berry et al. (2020) assessed the blood glucose response of 1102 individuals after eating either a standardised or self-selected meal over 13 days (>100,000 meals of different macronutrient content across all participants).

Each participant wore a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) and also recorded hunger and energy intake for the remainder of the day.

Therefore, this study looked at the association between blood glucose stability and its impact on hunger and calorie intake.

Here’s what they found:

- Post-meal glucose dips were more closely associated with increased hunger.
- Post-meal glucose dips reduced time until the next meal.
- Post-meal glucose dips increased calorie intake at the next meal.
- Post-meal glucose dips increase calorie intake over 24 hours.

Although this study used a non-athletic population, valuable lessons can be applied to athletes.

Cyclists who overly restrict energy and carbohydrates will experience significant dips in blood glucose during/post sessions, likely increasing their desire to eat/overeat in the subsequent meal.

So..if we fuel the ride in accordance with it's demand, we not only improve performance, but have better hunger and body composition management too!

- Coach Chris