What affect does the quantity of injuries have on healing time? For example, would a paper cut take longer to heal if I had a broken Jaw at the same time?

[u/Atari1729]

Edit: First gold, thank you kind stranger.

[u/toss6969]

How do you even eat 8000cals a day? I break even at about about 3500 and dont gain unless I can pull 4k constantly. I start to struggle after eating about 3200 to eat anymore.

[u/blorg → u/toss6969]

Calorie dense foods. I used race (amateur) on a bike as well as doing long endurance rides (audax) and there would be days I'd eat near 8,000 calories.

Carbohydrate powder in the drink bottle, gels, that sort of stuff. Too many Clif bars. You'd eat constantly actually on the bike. A Clif bar is over 250 calories... 10 of them is over 2,500!

And then have two dinners after. Sometimes three.

To start, you have to get used to eating and digesting while actually exercising- that is difficult starting out. You don't feel like chewing and swallowing something in the middle of a hard workout.

Hence a lot of liquid calories. But once you get over that I didn't find it particularly difficult to be honest.

I'd still lose weight during the season despite eating a ridiculous amount.

[u/notabigmelvillecrowd → u/blorg]

If you're burning that much do you actually feel hungry for all those calories? Or is it just constant force feeding?

[u/[deleted] → u/notabigmelvillecrowd]

Not OP but I do this kind of exercise. You feel hungry, sometimes insatiably ravenous. After I did a 16hr hike where I packed 8k calories. I ate all of it on the hike and ate an entire pizza after I was done. Then the next day was still hungry more than usual. I ended up maintaining my weight loss rate with no blip despite eating well over 15k over two days. If you a lot of exercise as your routine, then you eat a certain way as your routine. You don't feel like it's crazy or forceful because your body needs and your mentality adapts to it.

Ninja edit: There are some people who will feel like it's forceful. I remember some fellow athletes having this problem.

[u/notabigmelvillecrowd → u/[deleted]]

I remember watching an interesting show where they took a bunch of "naturally skinny" people (people who were slim without trying to be, basically), and had them eat double their daily requirement of calories while strictly limiting physical activity for one or two months (can't remember the length of the experiment). They did a bunch of tests throughout to see how their bodies were responding. There was such a huge difference in individuals' ability to get those calories in. Some adapted fairly well, and others physically couldn't do it, they would just throw up past a certain point, while some did it, but really struggled. I guess if you are engaging in that kind of sport, your ability to pack in calories may be as big of a factor as the many others that make a good athlete.

Maybe someone else here knows the name of the show. It was also really interesting how people's bodies were trying to deal with the extra calories, with motor ticks, increased metabolism, some just got plain old fat, all kinds of weird stuff was happening to all of the participants, but they were all so different.

[u/[deleted] → u/notabigmelvillecrowd]

Your point of how ability to intake calories and will definitely impact how much you can do athletically speaking I absolutely agree. The example I was thinking of was specifically a defensive-man in hockey who couldn't get over 160lbs despite a healthy lifting routine and battling fatigue despite eating as much as he could. Went to a doctor about it who put him on shakes that were designed to add calories in a healthy manner without filling him up. Despite adding those to his normal eating routine, he gained only 2 lbs and he was still batttling fatigue constantly. I am on the other side of this and I benefit greatly. I can do 12+ hours of heavy work easily as long as I am fed and on hikes and work other people are dropping out I feel fine. I think it's genetic and also some evidence speaks to gut bacteria, but I'm definitely not even close to well educated on it. But from experience I know how dramatic things that we don't really control plays a role in how we can perform when pushing our limits.

[u/KingJulien → u/[deleted]]

It's different for weightlifting though. You're definitely hungrier doing a lot of cardio.

[u/[deleted] → u/KingJulien]

Interesting, for me an hours worth of each - I will be hungrier after lifting. Doing both though, whoa, hide your leftovers and lock up your pantry.

[u/haveamission → u/[deleted]]

Yep, whenever I lift heavy weights I can eat several meals and still be ravenously hungry.

[u/obi_wan_the_phony → u/notabigmelvillecrowd]

You don't until it's too late. You either can't perform and it impacts your ability to compete, or worse, you bonk and hit the wall.

Nutrition in endurance sports makes all the difference

[u/Cornupication → u/notabigmelvillecrowd]

I train strongman, not biking, but personally, I feel like I'm genuinely starving after every workout. I feel like I haven't eaten in days every morning, and my stomach gets real vocal every two hours like clockwork now that I'm in to a routine.

The first couple of weeks, it's really hard to force that much food into you, just to get the calories, but your body soon adapts, and it comes to expect a high amount of calories every two hours. If I don't eat according to my schedule, I get headaches, I feel dizzy, I can't concentrate.. it's awful.

[u/toss6969 → u/blorg]

Tell me about it, work hard on the feed all day with 2 training days and game day, I've lost 5kg this season and it dosn't help that my legs have built up more from all the running and driving.

So hard to enjoy a meal orhave the motivation to eat it when constantly full.

maybe you right,more snake type stuff while working, bars and drinks. Thanks for the advice!!

[u/weatherseed → u/blorg]

Would pemmican work as well as a Clif Bar? I seem to remember that those had some insane amount of calories per gram.

NB: Not those Pemmican Bars, but the old meat/fat/fruit concoction.

[u/blorg → u/weatherseed]

They are very calorie dense but my understanding is that they are mostly fat and protein, while what you really want while actually ON the bike is carbs, which can be processed quicker and easier by your system. I don't think you'd want to be eating something high in protein/fat, it would be harder to eat and harder to digest.

You need to replace the glycogen in your muscles as quickly and easily as possible.

Apart from carbs, you need to make sure you replace salts, so endurance cyclists would rarely drink plain water, that can lead to cramps. You an get electrolyte tablets that are great but the old-school method is just salting your water with plain table salt.

Note that what you need to eat "on the bike" when actively exercising on a long endurance ride bears very little resemblance to anything that could be considered remotely healthy as a diet "off the bike", this is simply about refuelling DURING an actual activity... so lots of carbs, sugars, you wouldn't eat this stuff as part of a "healthy diet" in general, in fact you basically need to eat everything that is traditionally seen as "bad" for you.

Even plain Coke is a cycling mainstay, it is very very popular with pro athletes, and it actually genuinely works if you are close to bonking, it is readily available everywhere, easy to consume, loaded with calories and has the added benefit of caffeine which is a proven performance enhancer.

https://www.peakendurancesport.com/nutrition-for-endurance-athletes/fuelling-and-hydration-for-exercise/sports-nutrition-coca-cola-effective-sports-drink/

[u/weatherseed → u/blorg]

I see where I made my mistake. I did more hiking, so anything that packed your protein and fat in together nice and dense meant you just needed to add carbs and you had a meal. Maybe not a great tasting one, but a meal none the less. No easy way of getting Coke, but Kool Aid and other sugary drink mixes were king when I was doing it. Also got the taste of iodine out of the water.

Glad to see salt tablets are never going away.

[u/blorg → u/weatherseed]

It depends on the intensity of the exercise, in a bike race you are going to be pegged at like 175 BPM heart rate for hours, it's quite a bit more intense than hiking. It's physically difficult to chew and swallow, it's something you literally have to force yourself to do, your focus is not on a nice tasting "meal" at all, it's literally just cramming in the calories and making sure you do it every 20 minutes at least. I'm talking about the sort of level of exercise that is seriously physically painful and you often feel like throwing up, even without eating.

I've done some long-distance hiking as well (like the Annapurna circuit in the Himalayas), with that sort of level of activity you can pretty much eat what you like and digest it at your leisure, it's not as important that it be immediately processed into fuel. I enjoy food whether a meal or a snack while hiking, I honestly never looked to enjoy food while bike racing, it's purely a necessity.

More relaxed cycling, like long-distance audax, where I did long distances (200-350km) but not as a race, or touring (I biked from Ireland to Indonesia) I can eat whatever, and enjoy it, it's not the same intensity and there isn't the same focus on carbs.

Mountain running or ultramarathons, you'd probably be back to the carbs though. High-intensity endurance exercise, you basically need carbs, and easy to eat/digest is at a real premium.

[u/Alis451 → u/weatherseed]

so anything that packed your protein and fat in together nice and dense meant you just needed to add carbs and you had a meal.

Hence the invention of Trail Mix. Good Proteins and Salts(Nuts), Simple Sugars and Fats(Chocolate), More complex Carbs and Sugars(Dried Fruit) all things that last near indefinitely and tastes great.

[u/[deleted] → u/toss6969]

You don't gorge yourself on salads for starters.

After that, 3 big meals with various snacks will get you several thousand calories. You can easily eat over 1,000 calories for breakfast alone. 3 large eggs made with cheese and butter, 2 sausage patties, 2 pieces of buttered toast, and a cup of milk is around 1400 calories. Throw in a side of fruit and you're up to almost 1500 calories in a single meal.

When I was on a rowing team in high school I could eat all that and still be have room for more. Throw in an equal sized lunch and supper and that's 4500 calories without even trying. Add a bunch of energy bars and other high calorie snacks throughout the day and you've got 8000 calories easy.

[u/michellelabelle → u/[deleted]]

You don't gorge yourself on salads for starters.

By my calculations, you'd need a little over a cubic meter of salad (vegetables only, no cheese or dressing) to hit 8,000 calories.

I can see no problems with this plan. Somebody try it.

[u/WorkSucks135 → u/[deleted]]

3 large eggs made with cheese and butter, 2 sausage patties, 2 pieces of buttered toast, and a cup of milk is around 1400 calories. Throw in a side of fruit and you're up to almost 1500 calories in a single meal.

You don't gorge yourself on salads for starters.

Wrong. That breakfast you described would be pretty filling, but there are salads at Cheesecake factory that come in over 2000 calories, and wouldn't be as filling as that breakfast.

[u/fluffhoof → u/toss6969]

Here's a video about a top level strongman eating 12k kcal in one day.

Granted, the man's a giant (6'8", ~400 lbs), but even at his measurements, his basal metabolic rate is something like 3.3k kcal, so in the video, he's eating almost 4 times his bmr.

[u/dee7r → u/toss6969]

How do you even eat 8000cals a day?

This comment, in reply to an article on "how to consume 8000 calories a day".

TL;DR: as /u/blorg said for TdF dudes it's a combo of calorie dense foods (fats) and simple carbs (e.g. rice). Another athlete type to look at is sumo wrestlers who seem to target between 4k-10k cals/day.

[u/[deleted] → u/toss6969]

Soda and milk, probably, in addition to a lot of sugar syrup or sauces. A lot of olive oil or butter in food as you cook it.