“The elite athletes I work with are finding that they need fewer carbs than they thought when they’re not going hard, but when they’re going hard and competing, they need more carbs than they thought,” Lim says. These are, of course, general recommendations, and CGMs may help you pinpoint what you actually need. That’s why athletes carefully plan their nutrition for training and events and are told to eat 30 to 60 grams of carbs-and 80 to 100 for racing-to keep their energy levels high. Once your glycogen stores run dry, you start relying on fat, which can go a long way, but it can only be used at low intensities, so you have to dial down the pace-sometimes dramatically-and watch your competitors roll away.
Fully stocked, you only have between 350 and 500 grams of glycogen (about 1,700 calories’ worth) of muscle and liver glycogen stores, so you need to keep fuel coming in if you want to keep turning your pedals. Both mechanisms give you the energy you need to perform. Meanwhile, the liver releases glycogen to raise your blood sugar. When you're working out at a high intensity, muscles break down glycogen (or stored glucose) for fuel.
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How to Nail Your Rides If You Have Diabetes Why should you care about glucose levels?Īnyone who’s ever bonked knows how important glucose levels are for your energy levels. Here’s the lowdown on what they can and cannot do. The UCI has banned them in cycling competition. Some experts are hailing CGMs as the gateway to better health for millions of Americans, who have high levels of chronic metabolic disease. The three biggest players right now are NutriSense, Levels, and Supersapiens (which is not yet available in the U.S.). Now companies are bringing CGMs to the masses to help them manage their blood sugar and metabolic health to hopefully avoid Type 2 diabetes and other chronic disease, as well as improve fitness and performance. For those with Type 1-especially athletes who exert themselves and have a high demand for blood glucose-CGMs were a game changer (and potential lifesaver). CGMs replaced the traditional finger stick blood test, which could only provide a snapshot of blood glucose at a point in time, while the CGM provides a full-length continuous documentary of your glucose levels. The disease makes managing blood sugar difficult and levels that are too high or too low put your health at risk. People with diabetes (especially Type 1) have used continuous glucose monitors (CGMs) to manage their blood sugar for years. (It also stores the information if you’re not near your phone.) Though there’s a five- or 10-minute delay between the blood sugar levels in your bloodstream and the levels in your interstitial fluid, research finds that the readings are very close. The transmitter sends that information to your phone, so you can read your glucose levels in real time. “If your cells are houses and your bloodstream is the highway, the interstitial fluid is the side streets the glucose travels along before it stops and enters the house, so an interstitial measure may be a better indicator of what’s happening in the houses or cells,” explains sports physiologist Allen Lim, Ph.D., founder of SkratchLabs, who has been testing a CGM for the past year. The needle registers the concentration of glucose in milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL) that is circulating in your interstitial fluid, which is the fluid that surrounds every cell of the human body. You use a special applicator to insert the needle and press the disc onto the back of your upper arm (it feels more like a tap than a shot). “ Nutrition can be such a moving target, but this lets me get as close as I can to the optimal solution for a given timeframe.”Ī CGM lets you see your glucose levels in real time.Ī CGM is a circular glucose monitoring apparatus about the size of a quarter that includes a hair thin needle and a transmitter that pairs with a companion app via Bluetooth. You hear all this advice about what and how often you should eat and that these special gels will make you go faster, and I’m always like, ‘Really?’ Now I can test that out myself,” he says. “I started using a continuous glucose monitor because I was curious about myself.
He’s currently preparing for a season that includes a 12-hour race in Florida, defending his national championship, and other ultras. That’s not ideal for Collins, who is the Six-Hour World Record Holder and the 20 USA National Champion in the 12-Hour Time Trial.
What Is Glycogen and How Does It Support Cyclists?
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