Pop a zinc all winter because short term isn’t effective. Or at least doesn’t help much until after the cold is gone.
Cycling vitamins?
- Thread starter Dave Taylor
- Start date
The Kalmyk
Well-Known Member
Those damn excipients dominant pills keep you coming back for more. Or as you put it, “feeding the vitamin industry”.
Exactly, but if you going to do it, taking it for 10 days doing nothing.Those damn excipients dominant pills keep you coming back for more. Or as you put it, “feeding the vitamin industry”.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
Directly it won’t make up for lack of sleep but a nutrien/vitamin balanced diet indirectly helps sleep/rest. I’ll make a bloodwork appt.soon. I believe in a good multi vitamin. Is a cycling specific one better? Who knows.
I feel like things creep up on you. 5 hours longer + 20 min/night less sleep is no good. Does the increasing coffee dependance help this? Probably not. I don’t want to change the world but I want to improve.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
Hmmmm. I appreciate how strong you and @Mountain Bike Mike are but I have seen results improve drastically in long endurance events by taking supplements. Does no one here take a gu, beta alanine, NUNN etc? How about caffeine? Does anyone supplement with that?
Are we talking vitamins or riding food?
I see the connection you are making, gu is a supplement for real food for convenience while riding and a silver bullet vitamin is for convenience of not taking 10 different pills.
But yes, I have a clif shot, before my morning with 50-100mg of caffeine. But this is more for the sugar than the caffeine as my post ride coffee has 200-300mg? And I am about 50/50 having scratch in my bottle, but again, sugar. So yes, in that case I am supplementing getting sugar from something like fruit.
Dave Taylor
Rex kwan Do
I just feel that if you are an athlete that puts in 15 hour plus weeks you may need to replace things faster than normal food can.
Mountain Bike Mike
Well-Known Member
Dave... I take vitamins every day and I also use whey protein. You mentioned you didn’t want to take handfuls of vitamins so what works for me won’t work for you.
When I’m on the bike I usually stick to water for most of the year with the exception of when its time to crank up the intensity or do long rides.
For April - Aug, I’ll use nuun performance in the bottles... during long rides, I’ll bring a granola bar or fig newtons or raisins.... I prefer to sip the calories often rather than eat whole foods but there is a time when you need more than liquid calories.
You know the deal... each person figures out what works for them...
I do notice a difference when I incorporate more fruits and veggies over junk food... Just something to consider.
Yeah, I guess. Honestly, I don't pay attention to it that much. I know @Mountain Bike Mike used to wonder why I am not dead considering my protein intake is probably less than 50 grams day. I am sure I have deficiencies but without doing bloodwork often, I am not sure how you can even identify though and then monitor the level after a supplement is introduced.
Few thoughts on this:
1) Get bloodwork done, and get real bloodwork done. Actual hormone levels, Iron/Ferritin, B12, Cholesterol particle count. And go by ideal, not normal ranges.
2) Your diet should be where you get most vitamins/nutrients.
3) Blindly taking pills can be at a minimum a waste of money and potentially damaging.
#3 probably happens quite often. For instance I don't methylate B vitamins well. So for years I was taking multi-vitamins (and enriched foods) that were not good for my body. Worse than if I didn't take vitamins.
After learning about that, first thing I look at in anything that has vitamins is if they have methylated or non-methylated B vitamins. If non, then I stop right there as the product not just won't work for me, but if they cheap out on the B vitamins the rest of it's probably cheap crap.
For a MultiVitamin I take 1 Metagenics "PhytoMulti" a day. Serving size is 2. Again, it's only to makeup for basic deficiencies in my diet.
I take a ton of other things but those are specific to my blood work so it's irrelevant for anyone else.
@stb222 Have you tried VEGA products? I'm not a snack guy but got some of their bars awhile back as free samples. Ended up ordering some of their stuff as it all seems high quality and the taste was there.
1) Get bloodwork done, and get real bloodwork done. Actual hormone levels, Iron/Ferritin, B12, Cholesterol particle count. And go by ideal, not normal ranges.
2) Your diet should be where you get most vitamins/nutrients.
3) Blindly taking pills can be at a minimum a waste of money and potentially damaging.
#3 probably happens quite often. For instance I don't methylate B vitamins well. So for years I was taking multi-vitamins (and enriched foods) that were not good for my body. Worse than if I didn't take vitamins.
After learning about that, first thing I look at in anything that has vitamins is if they have methylated or non-methylated B vitamins. If non, then I stop right there as the product not just won't work for me, but if they cheap out on the B vitamins the rest of it's probably cheap crap.
For a MultiVitamin I take 1 Metagenics "PhytoMulti" a day. Serving size is 2. Again, it's only to makeup for basic deficiencies in my diet.
I take a ton of other things but those are specific to my blood work so it's irrelevant for anyone else.
@stb222 Have you tried VEGA products? I'm not a snack guy but got some of their bars awhile back as free samples. Ended up ordering some of their stuff as it all seems high quality and the taste was there.
SmooveP
Well-Known Member
I'm in this camp. If you think you have a deficiency, get your blood tested, then eat the foods that provide what you're missing. To take it a step further, I'd also suggest that RDA's and "deficiencies" are not an exact science.