Heartline Fitness

A surprising new approach to loosing weight and keeping it off, and riding longer and stronger than ever.
ONE OF THE LONG-ENDURING TRADITIONS at bike events of all stripes is the pasta dinner the evening before the big ride. After all, who doesn’t believe in the hearty, turbo-fueling quality of a whopping plate of spaghetti with tomato sauce?
As it turns out, the nonbelievers include a number of highly informed people, including Allen Lim, PhD, the brains behind much of Garmin-Slipstream’s training and race preparation. “There’s nothing nutritious about that,” Lim says. In fact, he has eliminated all processed wheat from the team’s diet, and at races has replaced traditional starchy foods with balanced, whole-food fuel such as rice cakes made with eggs, olive oil, prosciutto and liquid amino acids. If this creates the impression that Lim knows something you don’t, well, that’s probably true. His job is to make sure that, unlike the rest of us, his team doesn’t blithely adhere to old, counterproductive eating habits-habits that can lead to unnecessary weight fluctuation and diminished performance.
Here’s the good news. We’ve tapped into this new school of food science led by the likes of Lim to correct popular misconceptions about food, particularly about carbs and fat. Proponents of this new approach believe, for example, that a diet heavy in starch causes your body to burn sugar instead of fat, so you bonk more easily, often eat too much and end up overweight rather than properly fueled.
Even Joe Friel, who relentlessly advocated carbohydrates in his training bible series of books, has done a 180, turning his back on starches and relying instead on vegetables, fruits and lean meats as fuel. Consider this our effort to correct myths and misconceptions you’ve been exposed to over the years. Follow this advice, and you won’t just live lean. You’ll also be able to ride longer on less food and never bonk.