Reddit mentions: The best sports nutrition endurance & energy bars

Oh no I forgot to take the spoke reflectors off. And they aren't uniform. Noooooo

Anyway I'm pretty slow but I've seen some improvement. Todays stats: 2h 43m. 40.3 miles. Avg Speed 14.8 mph. I live in a very hilly city I might add but I still feel like 14.8 is slow.

I would love some input on my diet before/during todays ride.

Breakfast was a packet of instant oatmeal. Lunch was a caesar salad with 4-5ish ounces of cubed ham. Then probably 300 calories of just random snacks.

During the ride:

• 24oz bottle of water
  
  
• 24oz bottle of Gatorade Zero Berry (4/5 stars in regards to taste)
  
  
• 30 min: 100 calorie GU tri-berry (2.5/5 stars)
  
  
• 1 hour: 220 calorie Clif bar Banana Chocolate Peanut Butter (5/5 stars)
  
  
• 1h 40m: 100 calorie Honey Stinger Gold Gel (1/5 stars but it was unseasonably hot and I let this one warm up too much.)
  
  
• 2 hours: 160 calorie Honey Stinger Fruit Smoothie Energy Chew (5/5 stars)
  
  After I got home I still had legs enough to chase my little ones around for a good 15 minutes but that's pretty much just a cool down. I never felt hungry but I have been made very afraid of the bonk just from trying to learn. Is this too much? Too little? Is this a good pace of calories to get to 100 miles? I don't really have a goal time.... so I'll just throw out 7 hours.
  
  Also does anyone have any good recipies for food to eat during the ride? I hate cooking so it has to be dead simple for me to cook, but I would appreciate reading fancy recipes if someone would like to share.
  
  Thanks!
  
  Edit: Also congrats to Greg LeMond.

For the rehydration salts... I use RecoverORS. It's expensive for what it is.. but also the best I have found. More hydrating than even Pedialyte and more electrolytes than that and Gatorade or any sports drinks.

The SOL Bivvy weighs only 3.5 oz and packs pretty small. It looks bigger in pics then it is.

My favorite energy bars are Soldier Fuel - 3 year shelf life, ideal balance of protein, fat and carbs, give you TONS of energy, and also some of the best tasting out of all the energy bars (aside from maybe Clif, but those only have like a 6 month shelf life). They were designed originally for soldiers on the field that needed a quick boost (previously HOOAH bars), so you know they are loaded with nutrients, more so than the average bar.. and field tested by soldiers. They also have peanut butter flavor but I'm crazy for the chocolate. I have a problem saving them in my survival packs because I end up eating them as snacks. It's good they come by the case :). But then it's a good idea to actually LIKE the food you put in your survival kits. Nothing like food comfort in a bad situation. It's the little things.

Like I can suffer pretty bad from low blood sugar crashes. One of those things will keep me going for hours.

Bit over budget, but

Honey Stinger Waffle Variety Sampler Pack - 14 Waffles, 2 of Each Flavor https://www.amazon.com/dp/B011LI0UI6/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_1MQhAb7K27VK6

You can always pick up some singles instead of a variety pack. They're delicious and a great source of running energy for those who don't train fasted

Products like Clif Bar have lots of sugar, and it turns out that sugar helps enormously with creating a product that is shelf-stable. A chocolate chip Clif Bar actually contains slightly more sugar on a grams-per-calorie basis than a Hershey's Milk Chocolate with Almonds. A MealSquare is at about 1/3 that level. Considering added sugar only, an all-MealSquares diet easily beats the WHO and FDA targets for added sugar consumption, with only 20g added sugar per day. An all-Clif Bar diet would get you more like 200g added sugar per day, which is 4 times the FDA's target. (Let me know if you want me to show you the math.)

We're committed to selling people something that's actually good for them to eat, which means MealSquares are not currently shelf-stable, and we recommend refrigerating them as soon as they arrive in the mail. We're hoping that with better packaging we can eliminate the need for refrigeration in most cases. But we'll probably never get to the point where they would fit in to a gas station/vending machine supply chain. We may eventually create another product where we try to be as healthy as it's possible to be while also achieving shelf stability, but that's a long ways off.

I'm mainly sticking to a 2000 kcal IIFYM diet, 200C/58F/170P. I try to shoot for breakfasts and lunches which are somewhere on the order of 50g protein and 500 kcal (give or take) so that I can be slightly more flexible when it comes to pre-workout snacks and dinner.

Frequent breakfasts:

• Bison burgers (my favorite): 8oz bison is 380 kcal, 46g protein. I'll usually add some sort of onion/mushroom/bell pepper soffritto to it and have it with psyllium husk for satiety.
  
  
• Scrambled Eggs. I'll usually do something like 125g egg beaters, 7g butter, onion, and then add whole jumbo eggs to scale the recipe. The base of 125g egg beaters and 7g butter allows for a buttery flavor without significantly changing the macronutrient ratio of plain eggs.
  
  
• Protein pancakes (scalable): 85g 1% small curd cottage cheese, 85g 0% plain greek yogurt, 158g egg beaters, 22g whey (I use MyProtein Canadian Maple), 72g kodiak cake powder (can also cut this with coconut flour), 66 ml milk (I use 0% Fairlife), 1/3 tsp baking powder, 1/3 tsp vanilla extract. You need to blend or food process this to bring it together. Macros for the whole thing come out to 584 kcal, 56C, 6F, 80P. I then use Walden Farms Calorie Free Pancake Syrup; syrup is usually where the macros of protein pancakes gets crushed, so this syrup has been a life saver.
  
  Frequent Lunches:
  
  
• I find turkey sandwiches to be the most satiating option (usually do 6oz of turkey on toasted whole wheat bread). I'll usually pair this with some sort of snack like quest bars or BodyBuilding.com bars (the latter of which I think are the most palatable of all the protein bars I've found thus far).
  
  
• Large greek yogurt fruit parfaits. I'll do something like a pint of greek yogurt with 200g blueberries, strawberries, bananas, sucralose, etc. A pint of 0% plain greek yogurt comes out to 44-48g protein, 240-260 kcal. After adding tons of berries, it comes out to 48ish grams protein and 400ish kcal.
  
  Once I hit my protein, I try to throw most of my calories back into oats, since they are easy, cheap, satiating, and provide primarily glucose-based carbs (as opposed to fructose or galactose-based, which aren't as good at restoring muscle glycogen).

Clif's Builder's Bars don't have peanuts for the most part. (Avoid the "Peanut Butter" flavor.) The only downside to those, and pretty much all Clif products is they seem to have a fairly high sugar content. They are easy to find in a lot of stores. Target and Walmart sell them in boxes of 6 for around $10-$12 I think.

Another one to look at is Balance Bar Bare. Fairly high protein, no peanuts in the Sweet n' Salty Almond flavor. Hard to find in stores, but you can buy them on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Balance-Bar-Nutrition-Energy-Chocolate/dp/B000R8Y920

Millenium Energy Bars supposedly have a 5 year shelf life. Solider Fuel Bars have a 3 year shelf life.

Clif bars and Pure Protein bars appear to have reasonably okay ingredient lists and fairly cheap. Haven't tried them myself yet but I'm planning to.

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B007ZDRCF6/

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B01D9L0YLG/

this?

How about these Clif bars

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B07J1GRNNY/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_i_pp0XCbC417MRY

I'm showing deals that are the historically lowest price (or very close to the lowest) it has been on Amazon, using the site camelcamelcamel.

Meal replacements/Protein Powder

Soylent Coffiest Read to Drink Breakfast - LIVE ($27.30)

Orgain Protein Powder - LIVE ($18.49 for vanilla)

Vega products - Don't know when these go live. Can't find it for some reason.

Grocery

Milkadamia Macadamia Milk, 32 oz, Pack of 6 - 3:50 CT

Zing Nutrition Bar, PB Chocolate Chip, Pack of 12 - 6:05 CT

Taste Nirvana Coconut Water, 12 pack - LIVE ($17.88)

Kitchen

Philips Air Fryer 9220 5:20 CT

Instant Pot Inner Pot for 6QT - ($16.96 + tax)