By Ric Stern
It’s the weekend. You’re on the group ride. There are a few younger riders and you know the deal — it’s going to get fast on the hills, and you want to be dropped like you want a hole in the head. So the obvious thing to do is go on some sort of diet. Starve yourself until your mental fortitude goes down the drain. You feel like crap, your riding ability goes down the toilet, and you realise that as you age you simply can’t lose weight. So you live in this semi-starvation in-between scenario: failing to fuel properly, hating yourself when you eat, and never quite having the power when you need it.
There is a better way.
The less you weigh, the less power you need to go uphill — that part is correct. Look at the Tour de France peloton. Riders are super lean. The heavier you are, the more power you need, so the assumption is that to stay with the climbers you should weigh less and diet. But this isn’t the whole picture. There’s another lever you can pull rather than just losing weight: increase your power output. Nearly everyone can improve their fitness, even me, with 43 consecutive race seasons, I can still scrape a few watts here and there. If I can, almost anyone can.
A randomised controlled trial by Keay et al., conducted in competitive male road cyclists at category 2 level and above, found that improving energy availability over a six-month race season was worth 95 British Cycling points, while restricting it cost the same. Bone mineral density increased significantly in those eating more, and decreased significantly in those eating less. Crucially, the cyclists who restricted their intake did so believing it would improve their performance. It didn’t they reported fatigue, illness, and injury instead. A companion study by the same group established that low energy availability correlates directly with low lumbar spine bone mineral density in competitive cyclists, independent of training load. The message is clear: consuming sufficient energy allows us to train harder, perform better, and stay healthier, whether we race, ride for fun, want a Strava PR, or just want to beat our friends to the top of the hill.
This doesn’t mean overeating or eating anything. But a diet built around quality carbohydrates matched to your training, adequate protein for muscle repair and recovery, and a high plant content is the framework that works. Let’s take each in turn.
Carbohydrates
I know you’ve all heard of keto, Atkins, and high-fat diets, and someone will email me saying they competed on no carbs. However, presuming you’re not diabetic, the evidence is simply overwhelming: a diet of moderate to high in mainly unrefined carbohydrates provides better exercise performance and is linked to better long-term health outcomes. The Blue Zone diets Mediterranean, Okinawan are all carbohydrate-based. Your cycling, your weight training, your running or swimming: all best fuelled with carbs. This doesn’t mean reaching for Haribo or cake all the time though!
The carbs that matter most are those containing fibre: starchy root vegetables, squash, both types of potato, wholegrain pasta and rice, good quality bread, and colourful vegetables and fruit. The amount you need varies with training volume. For riders training regularly, carbohydrates should form the largest part of the diet roughly 4g per kilogram of body mass (0.06 oz/lb) on a rest day, rising to 8–12g or more for high-volume training or ultra-endurance events. A large review of masters athletes by Strasser et al. found that female masters athletes in particular consumed significantly less carbohydrate post-exercise than recommended, and that masters athletes as a group were consuming around 40% less energy post-exercise than guidelines suggest. The under-fuelling problem is real, it’s measurable, and it’s costing performance. Fuel the engine with quality carbs and you’ll train better, recover better, and support your immune health.
Protein
We’re not bodybuilders, I know. And for a long time it was assumed that endurance athletes didn’t need much protein. The research tells a different story. Endurance athletes require substantial protein, and as we age we become progressively more protein-resistant, meaning we need more to achieve the same anabolic response. Strasser et al. note that a protein-energy deficit can quickly lead to loss of muscle mass, strength, and immune function, consequences that are compounded in older athletes by the slower recovery and anabolic resistance that come with age.
If you’re plant-based, trying to lose weight, training hard, or simply on the wrong side of 40 aim for at least 1.8g of protein per kilogram of body mass per day. If you fall into more than one of those categories, aim for 2g/kg. This also applies if you’re perimenopausal or menopausal. High quality protein sources include chicken, meat, fish, eggs, dairy, legumes, seeds, and nuts. For those on plant-based diets in particular, a protein shake may be useful as hitting 2g/kg through whole foods alone without consuming very large quantities of legumes is genuinely difficult. Vegan athletes should aim to combine protein sources in roughly a 50/50 ratio rice and pea, maize and soybean to provide a more complete amino acid profile.
Protein should be consumed regularly throughout the day, roughly every 3–4 hours, in amounts of around 30g per meal, and should include leucine, the amino acid that acts as the primary trigger for muscle protein synthesis. There is some evidence that females benefit from consuming protein within 30 minutes of finishing training, while for males the timing window appears less critical.
The difference adequate protein makes is tangible. There are days when I feel like a sack of bananas and my legs are like jelly, and on reflection it’s usually when I’ve missed my protein intake. Athletes I coach report exactly the same.
Plants
Many of us grew up with advice to eat five fruit and vegetables a day. That guidance has now been superseded, or should that be super-seeded — by recommendations to consume at least 30 different plants each week. Plants include fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, legumes, tea, coffee, and yes, dark chocolate. These foods contain bioactive compounds such as flavonoids, polyphenols, and antioxidants that support adaptation to training, reduce inflammation, and benefit cardiovascular health.
On the cardiovascular side, a review by Barnard et al. found that plant-rich diets can improve plasma lipid profiles, reduce blood pressure, improve arterial flexibility and endothelial function, and may help reverse existing atherosclerotic lesions, all directly relevant to masters cyclists, for whom cardiovascular risk rises with age regardless of fitness level. Plant-rich diets also tend to reduce blood viscosity, which may improve tissue oxygenation during exercise.
The gut microbiome angle is also worth noting. Strasser et al. report that VO2max correlates with gut microbial diversity, and that masters athletes who train consistently show healthier microbiome profiles than sedentary older adults. Dietary fibre diversity eating a wide variety of plants rather than the same five repeatedly is one of the most effective nutritional strategies for supporting this. Fermented foods such as kefir, kimchi, and live-culture yoghurt also support gut health, though they’re not strictly plants.
Vitamin D
For most nutrients, food first is the right approach. Vitamin D is the exception. In the UK and at northerly US latitudes, obtaining sufficient vitamin D through sunlight alone — particularly in winter — is simply not possible for many people. Low vitamin D is associated with poor immune health, increased fracture risk, and hormonal dysfunction including low testosterone in males. The Keay RCT found that vitamin D levels increased significantly in cyclists who supplemented at 1,000 IU per day, with likely contributions to bone protection and immune function.
The evidence supports targeting a circulating level of 75 nmol/L, and for most athletes supplementing with 1,000–2,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day through winter is appropriate D3 specifically, not D2, which is less effective at maintaining serum levels. I take 2,000 IU daily through the winter months.
A word on bone health
Low energy availability combined with the non-weight-bearing nature of cycling means that bone health is a genuine concern for cyclists of all ages including males, and females and not just those females approaching menopause. The Keay RCT found that cyclists who restricted energy availability lost an average of 2.3% of lumbar spine bone mineral density over just six months a rate the authors compared to bone loss in astronauts on the International Space Station. The cyclists who increased energy availability and added skeletal loading gained 2.2% in the same period.
Insufficient fuelling, low vitamin D, and high training volume without resistance work creates the conditions for reduced bone mineral density. Sufficient energy intake, adequate protein, vitamin D supplementation, and strength training, which signals bone to increase its mass in response to mechanical load all contribute to protecting and in some cases reversing bone loss.
I know this from personal experience. A few years ago I undertook a structured approach: increased protein intake, carbohydrates matched to training demands, and added weight training. Before and after DEXA scans showed that I reversed my osteoporosis, lost body fat, and gained muscle simultaneously. The approach works.
Can you lose weight as you age?
Yes, but it requires a more careful approach than simple restriction. Maximise protein, match carbohydrates to your actual training load, and reduce fat intake modestly though not below around 10% of total energy intake. Crash dieting while training hard is the worst of both worlds: you lose muscle, compromise recovery, tank your immune function, and still don’t get faster.
The goal isn’t to be lighter. It’s to be more powerful relative to your weight and that comes from fuelling properly, not from starving yourself on the Saturday morning group ride.
Our nutrition calculator at cyclecoach.com/rbr will help you work out what you should be eating and how much. Happy to answer questions.
References
Keay et al. (BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 2019),
Keay et al. (BMJ Open Sport & Exercise Medicine, 2018),
Strasser et al. (Nutrients, 2021),
Barnard et al. (Nutrients, 2019)
Ric Stern is founder of CycleCoach and has coached athletes to World Championship gold, Commonwealth medals, and Paralympic podiums across 29 years.
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