MOST CYCLISTS ARE PRETTY CLUED UP ABOUT healthy food. What gets in the way is fatigue, stress, lack of time, hunger pangs and poor organisation. You slump home from work, then hungrily stab at a microwavable ready meal. You get the munchies and grab some crisps. You finish a tough ride, then annihilate the cookie jar. On workdays, these sloppy habits are often ascribed by nutritionists to “cognitive fatigue.”
A new study in the journal Current Biology, which used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to monitor human brain chemicals, found that after we spend a day engaging in hard cognitive tasks, such as during a day in the office, fatigue of the prefrontal cortex – the brain region linked to rational thought – leads us to make impulsive low-effort decisions for short-term gratification. Hello Big Mac.
But you can counter this midweek mental fatigue, and all the usual food challenges caused by a lack of time and energy, with smarter food planning and preparation. “Club riders have more knowledge of nutrition than ever, but what they struggle with is: how do you apply all this around a normal working day?” says performance nutritionist Nigel Mitchell, the author of GCN’s , who has worked with Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers). “You need good organisation and lots of time- and labour-saving processes.”
