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to less carbs, much less carbs.

To be clear, my objective is not to eat more carbs. It's where my body takes me. 100+ miles per week on the bike has something to do with that. I'm willing to adjust. What would you recommend in terms of percentages.

And once I get to my weight goal, can I back off on the protein?

if your objective is to lose weight, then fuelling your body with a ton of carbs is going to be counter productive. You want to burn fat, not carbs...

I dunno about percentages/ratios as I've never used them

The main purpose of protein isn't in weight manipulation. I would rather say that you don't have to lower your protein intake at any point. Keep it around the 1.5-2g per kg of bodyweigth. Or around .75-1 g per lb of BW.

If you want to manipulate your bodyfat, taking some of the carbs away works easiest. I agree that your cycling takes lots of muscle glycogen, but I think you have to focus on one thing at a time. You can keep cycling, but if you want to lower the BF, lessening carbs is quite simple. In the worst case, it will most likely cut some intensity, but then again, your fat oxidation might improve during the process. Try to time carbs around exercise to make sure it will go to good use.

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Prove the impossible!

There are long endurance athletes who eat low carbs. Keith Norris and Mark Twight come to mind. If you don't know them, Google can help you out. These guys typically will go several hours a day on nothing but water. They don't hit a wall because there's no wall to hit. They burn fat from the beginning of the run to the end. (Keith cycles, Mark mountain climbs)

Here's a little story by Mark. It's not about low carb but shows what's possible with low carb. http://www.marktwight.com/discourse.php?id=5

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

I would still argue that you wont be able to hit peak INTENSITY with low carb eating. On a long term races that's not really a problem, but when thinking about more intensive and nothing ultra long, carbs are the best fuel in my mind. Or if we get accurate, the combination of the two is the best fuel for victory. You just have to have pretty awesome skill to oxidize fat to beat carb-loaded fueling system. Just on the sole fact how much better do carbs turn to ATP.

Still, we have talked about this before, and I'm not denying the low-carb racing theories. That's just a piece of my mind.

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Prove the impossible!

Thanks, guys. .75-1.0 g/lb. would have my target at about 130-5 g of protein a day. That's doable. My goal is 1600 net calories per day. We'll see how it impacts the riding.

Dub, I've been reading a lot of Peter Attia's work lately on cholesterol, and noticed he's experimented with ketosis as part of his fat loss program and that he's done some experiments with his aerobic performance as well. He does triathalon type stuff it seems. Notice that in addition to him burning more fat on long distance activities, his Anaerobic threshold also improved. He did lose some VO2 Max though.

http://eatingacademy.com/how-a-low-carb ... erformance

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Let thy food be thy medicine, and thy medicine be thy food.~Hippocrates
Strength is the adaptation that leads to all other adaptations that you really care about - Charles Staley
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Thanks TimD

A good read Stu, thanks. I thinks it's cool people do experiment with these types of things even though science might have something to say beforehand. I've participated in this kind of test as well, not as a subject, but as a tester. Only difference was, that it was on a treadmill. The changes in the tresholds and heart rates are quite large indeed. The fat oxidation had improved vastly. Like I said tho, it's clear that the balls to walls phase was indeed hurt, and the peak VO2 max was lowered. Fat cannot yet replace glycogen as the main fuel for high intensities. But I think this is an important test to show how unnecessary carbohydrates really are for the average folk with no intention to reach athletic greatness.

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Prove the impossible!