No sense of taste

[GPS]

After a long ride (600 for instance), I can barely taste food but if I eat even a mild curry, it feels like I’m eating the spiciest food ever.

This lasts for a few days and then I’m back to normal again.

Anyone else get this ?

My already poor taste in clothing is not affected.

[vorsprung]

Anyone else get this ?

no

after a long ride i simply eat all the food

[T42]

That happened to a friend of mine after PBP 1999, with the nuance that his sense of taste never returned.

[zakalwe]

That happened to a friend of mine after PBP 1999, with the nuance that his sense of taste never returned.

 

Is this a well-known condition?

[whosatthewheel]

In this day and age it would be an advantage... if broccoli and kebab tasted the same, anyone would make the healthy choice by default... no more sugar crave, no more saturated fat... what a bliss!!

[Kim]

In this day and age it would be an advantage... if broccoli and kebab tasted the same, anyone would make the healthy choice by default... no more sugar crave, no more saturated fat... what a bliss!!

I have a friend with no sense of smell, his food preferences are mostly texture-oriented.

[whosatthewheel]

In this day and age it would be an advantage... if broccoli and kebab tasted the same, anyone would make the healthy choice by default... no more sugar crave, no more saturated fat... what a bliss!!

I have a friend with no sense of smell, his food preferences are mostly texture-oriented.

sprinkle some nuts over some steamed broccoli et voilla... 

[T42]

That happened to a friend of mine after PBP 1999, with the nuance that his sense of taste never returned.

I should have said sense of smell, which is the greater part of flavour. He could still taste sweet, salt, sour, bitter and presumably umami on his tongue, so tended naturally to salty, savoury food and beer.

Not a good thing for healthy eating.

[mattc]

That happened to a friend of mine after PBP 1999, with the nuance that his sense of taste never returned.

 

Is this a well-known condition?

I haven't heard of it. And YOU haven't heard of it ... so I'd say no!

(There are many other causes of lost smell - ask Will Pom for one - so I suspect this isn't directly related to riding crazy distances. )

[JohnL]

I have had my tongue go a bit weird. Almost like I’d burnt it. I put this down to sucking in a lot of oxygen for long periods of time and it kind of drying out, but I could be wrong and I’ve heard others say sugary drinks can have a similar effect.

Cleared up after a few days.

[CrazyEnglishTriathlete]

My sense of taste is affected by long events.  I put this down to the combination of (a) trying to ingest 5000 calories a day whilst (b) not letting food digest properly, so that I'm often eating because my body needs fuel but isn't that interested in food.  Also, there's a tendency towards dehydration, also making it harder to eat/process food.  In winter events my nose tends to run constantly, which also has an impact on the mouth/taste buds. 

It recovers 2 - 3 days after the event.

I tried to cater for this when planning the catering at St Ives on LEL, where we had some highly flavoured dishes available on the returning leg.  The spicy chicken, in particularly, proved extremely popular, which would suggest that many riders' taste buds are impacted.

[hellymedic]

As I understand it, food seems less salty of your body is short of salt - that would be a physiological adaptation to help redress a deficit.
As we age, we get more sensitive to sweet things and less sensitive to spicy.

I had some MS weirdness in 1999 - half my tongue became insensitive to fizz and chilli - taste for other things was unaffected.

This situation did not last long and seemed too trivial and bizarre to take up a doctor's time.

I didn't do much Audax that year.

[Bianchi Boy]

My sense of taste is affected by long events.  I put this down to the combination of (a) trying to ingest 5000 calories a day whilst (b) not letting food digest properly, so that I'm often eating because my body needs fuel but isn't that interested in food.  Also, there's a tendency towards dehydration, also making it harder to eat/process food.  In winter events my nose tends to run constantly, which also has an impact on the mouth/taste buds. 

It recovers 2 - 3 days after the event.

I tried to cater for this when planning the catering at St Ives on LEL, where we had some highly flavoured dishes available on the returning leg.  The spicy chicken, in particularly, proved extremely popular, which would suggest that many riders' taste buds are impacted.

I get this feeling that for most people this is just the primal aspect of eating. When well fed you will be choosy and when in need of calories you will eat (almost) anything. So the taste buds get de-activated when in calorie deficit.

BB

[FifeingEejit]

In this day and age it would be an advantage... if broccoli and kebab tasted the same, anyone would make the healthy choice by default... no more sugar crave, no more saturated fat... what a bliss!!

I have a friend with no sense of smell, his food preferences are mostly texture-oriented.

My sense of smell deteriorated as my Rhinitis developed,
The majority of your sense of taste is smell based, I think the classic example is to blindfold someone, shove a clothes peg on their nose and then ask them to identify the difference between an Apple and a Potato (presumably the potato has to be appropriately cooked otherwise it's a bit obvious when it's been boiled to mulch).

If anything it's made my cravings for sugary food worse, because after the sensation of the chocolate melting in my mouth is gone I'm ready for more... and more and more and more because I can't bloody taste it so it's almost like I've not eaten.

Spicy food is one thing I do know I've eaten because my face feels like it's on fire... which I naturally want to calm down with chocolate...


The odd thing is, I generally know I have a cold coming on because I get a few days where my sense of smell comes back enough to notice.

[GPS]

Thanks for all your replies. I think sugar might be the culprit, so I'll try and alter what I eat on my next ride.

Ultimately I'd like to switch to using fat for most of my energy rather than carbs anyway, but it's not as straightfoward as just eating fat on a ride instead of carbs. There's a bit of prep to go through first ...

[fruitcake]

Off topic, I read some interesting ideas in a PBP blog that Alotronic linked a while back. The guy trained on an empty stomach to avoid exercising with insulin in his system. The absence of insulin allows growth hormone to operate more effectively so that he recovered faster, he said. He'd train in the morning and not eat until noon. IIRC for big rides he would eat normally. The guy completed PBP on an elliptical bike.

[simonp]

Off topic, I read some interesting ideas in a PBP blog that Alotronic linked a while back. The guy trained on an empty stomach to avoid exercising with insulin in his system. The absence of insulin allows growth hormone to operate more effectively so that he recovered faster, he said. He'd train in the morning and not eat until noon. IIRC for big rides he would eat normally. The guy completed PBP on an elliptical bike.

https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=6901

[whosatthewheel]

Off topic, I read some interesting ideas in a PBP blog that Alotronic linked a while back. The guy trained on an empty stomach to avoid exercising with insulin in his system. The absence of insulin allows growth hormone to operate more effectively so that he recovered faster, he said. He'd train in the morning and not eat until noon. IIRC for big rides he would eat normally. The guy completed PBP on an elliptical bike.

I admire people who can exercise so much control over their training and habits... I admire them but I also think they are a bit on the OCD spectrum

[quixoticgeek]

Off topic, I read some interesting ideas in a PBP blog that Alotronic linked a while back. The guy trained on an empty stomach to avoid exercising with insulin in his system. The absence of insulin allows growth hormone to operate more effectively so that he recovered faster, he said. He'd train in the morning and not eat until noon. IIRC for big rides he would eat normally. The guy completed PBP on an elliptical bike.

I admire people who can exercise so much control over their training and habits... I admire them but I also think they are a bit on the OCD spectrum

I commute to work and do breakfast when I arrive. Depending on mood this is anything from 7.5km upto about 20km. Longest I've done in a fasted state recently is 40km, which was in -4°C, after I discovered that the gas station on the map was shut.

Fasted training has a place, tho it's not easy for everyone.

J

[yanto]

Off topic, I read some interesting ideas in a PBP blog that Alotronic linked a while back. The guy trained on an empty stomach to avoid exercising with insulin in his system. The absence of insulin allows growth hormone to operate more effectively so that he recovered faster, he said. He'd train in the morning and not eat until noon. IIRC for big rides he would eat normally. The guy completed PBP on an elliptical bike.

I admire people who can exercise so much control over their training and habits... I admire them but I also think they are a bit on the OCD spectrum

I commute to work and do breakfast when I arrive. Depending on mood this is anything from 7.5km upto about 20km. Longest I've done in a fasted state recently is 40km, which was in -4°C, after I discovered that the gas station on the map was shut.

Fasted training has a place, tho it's not easy for everyone.

J

on the occasions that I cycle to the office (93km) and not had breakfast I've needed a BIG bowl of porridge and still been hungry the rest of the day, I don't like it.
 

[Kim]

I find hunger doesn't kick in until after I've started eating for the day, so that aspect isn't a problem.  It's that if I want to cycle for more than a couple of hours, I'm going to need fuel.

40km is easily achievable.  93km would require food or a substantial drop in pace.

[simonp]

Can do moderate intensity pretty well on an empty stomach. When rowing training on a Saturday morning requires me to leave the house by 7am to get there by car I could do a double session fine. Hard stuff requires fuelling or I can fail to finish due to legs being empty.

[quixoticgeek]

I find hunger doesn't kick in until after I've started eating for the day, so that aspect isn't a problem.  It's that if I want to cycle for more than a couple of hours, I'm going to need fuel.

40km is easily achievable.  93km would require food or a substantial drop in pace.

If you have not eaten, and you are in a fasted state, your body is going to be burning it's glycogen reserves. As discussed previously (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=106640.0), your body has about 2000kcal of glycogen stored. For most cyclists, this is about 80km worth (I work on the basis of 100km == 2500kcal for my food planning). However for most of the population, it is rare that we scrape the barrel of our glycogen stores, and as such we don't react well to depleting them beyond a certain level. Marathon runners and long distance cyclists talk about hitting the wall, and bonking, this is when we have got the glycogen tank down to zero, but if you are not trained, your body gets grumpy when you still have quite a bit left. Fasted training can be very useful for getting your body used to relying on glycogen, and if you really push it, you can get your body to go ketogenic. At which point you've got considerably more resources at your disposal, if you can make your body use it (1kg of body fat ~= 9000kcal).

I realised I'd become "one of those people", when gootube gave me a recommendation of a video titled something like "fuelling for a 100km ride", and my reaction was simply "Any reasonable breakfast and your body's normal reserves are enough to get you round a 100km ride without needing more food. Obviously, getting round 100km at an audax speed, vs your typical roadies' speed can require a slightly different approach, and to those who haven't put their body through it a bit, can't do that. On a 300k Audax in April, I started the day with a brownie, a packet of crisps, and a 500ml bottle of full fat coke. I had a small amount of chocolate at about 40km in. At the first control ~90km, I had a burger, fries, and a bottle of coke. At approx 150km mark, I was cycling along quite happily, singing. My singing was such that one local insect took it upon itself to sacrifice itself to the cause of silencing me, entering my mouth, hitting the back of my throat, and causing me to redecorate the RAVeL I was cycling along with that which I had eaten at the last control. Based on the state of what came up, digestion was still very much are the early stages, and minimal calorific value had been absorbed. Alas, having been put through this, my stomach said enough is enough. No more solids! I managed a 200ml bottle of coke about 10km later at the next control, followed 100km later by ~300ml of fanta, and a with some will power, a mars bar. I finished the 305km in 21:06. Over time, but pretty much running on fumes. I think I ate under 2000kcal of accessible calories (i.e. that which wasn't rejected by the body). For a total energy expenditure of about 7500kcal. With the lack of 'proper' food until noon the day after the ride, and my other training, I lost 1kg over that week, nearly all of it on that one ride.

Human bodies are capable of amazing things if you push them. But like most things, just because you can, doesn't mean you should.

J

[Kim]

I find hunger doesn't kick in until after I've started eating for the day, so that aspect isn't a problem.  It's that if I want to cycle for more than a couple of hours, I'm going to need fuel.

40km is easily achievable.  93km would require food or a substantial drop in pace.

If you have not eaten, and you are in a fasted state, your body is going to be burning it's glycogen reserves. As discussed previously (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=106640.0), your body has about 2000kcal of glycogen stored. For most cyclists, this is about 80km worth (I work on the basis of 100km == 2500kcal for my food planning). However for most of the population, it is rare that we scrape the barrel of our glycogen stores, and as such we don't react well to depleting them beyond a certain level. Marathon runners and long distance cyclists talk about hitting the wall, and bonking, this is when we have got the glycogen tank down to zero, but if you are not trained, your body gets grumpy when you still have quite a bit left. Fasted training can be very useful for getting your body used to relying on glycogen, and if you really push it, you can get your body to go ketogenic. At which point you've got considerably more resources at your disposal, if you can make your body use it (1kg of body fat ~= 9000kcal).

There's a secondary problem in that the brain needs energy too.  My general experience of glycogen depletion is that I become stupid (or if other people are around, irritable) long before it interferes with my ability to keep pedalling.  I'm much better at anticipating it these days^[1], but on a couple of occasions I've simply stopped navigating and followed the road on autopilot until reaching somewhere that forced a high-level decision.  At which point I'd stop and realise that standing up is hard and I don't know how I got there.

Obviously this isn't a safe thing to do on a public road, so I avoid it in the same way as cycling while sleep deprived.  As always, YMMV.  The good news is that unlike lack of sleep, you can fix it by slowing down.  I've ridden 100km on a couple of custard creams without trouble, but at 6 hour touring pace.


_{[1] Being fitter helps.  Usually it's because my stomach is full and my digestive system has gone on strike for IBS reasons, and I know I can't just keep riding at audax pace when that happens.}

[citoyen]

sprinkle some pork scratchings over some steamed broccoli et voilla... 

FTFY