'I ate Tour De France cyclist's 7,000 calorie-a-day diet - and I could not believe how much weight I put on'
The Tour de France is renowned as one of the hardest events across all sports. This year, 184 riders will spend 22 days cycling 2,074.6 miles (3338.8km) across France.
From blazing sunshine to torrential rain, they will pound their way up snow-capped mountains and wind their way down hair-raising descents, at an astonishing average speed of around 26mph (42kmh).
They will only have two rest days from the start date on July 5 until the ending in Paris on July 27. To fuel this remarkable feat, the cyclists - many of whom weigh as little as 60kg (9st 4lbs) - will need to eat huge quantities of food.
READ MORE: 'My wife thought symptoms were perimenopause - she died on Sunday'
READ MORE: Very painful symptom is sign you have new 'super contagious' 'Frankenstein Covid strain
How much food? Well, according to the , a rider weighing 70kg would need between 6,700 to 7000 calories per day during the competition.
Now, I love eating, so I decided it would be a good idea to try and eat the same diet over a day. However, rather than cycling 200km - the longest stage in this year's competition is 209.1km, which is a shade under 130miles - I decided to do it while sitting at my desk during a standard day working from home.
Also, while I am a keen cyclist, I do not weigh 70kg. In fact, weighing myself straight after waking up on the day of this challenge, I tipped the scales at 13st exactly. That is around 82.5kg, so an extra 12.5kg, meaning I would actually need to eat even more to maintain my weight.
Still, given that I was going to be behind my desk for eight hours or so, I decided to stick to around 7,000 calories which, as I was about to find out, was ample.
They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, which is fortunate because this one was big. It consisted of two pancakes with maple syrup, two pieces of baguette with two fried eggs, a bowl of porridge with honey, and one banana which would normally be eaten on the team bus on the way to the race.
This comes in at around 1,350kcals - the largest single meal of the day in terms of energy. Now, I do like a big breakfast, but this was way more than I would eat on a normal work day - in fact, on any day really. After my standard 20-minutes pre-breakfast walk which I do pretty much every day, I tucked in.
I have to say that it was absolutely delicious, and I wolfed it down in about 10 minutes. While all of those dishes are a perfectly suitable breakfast option by themselves, having all three at the same sitting felt a bit, well, wrong. But, once I munched them all down, I was feeling pretty good about myself.
The only blot on my copybook was the banana. Now, I am not the biggest fan of bananas anyway, but I completely forgot about it at breakfast time and it would return to haunt me throughout the day. I suppose I could have chopped it up and put it in my porridge, but that idea only occurred to me afterwards.
Breakfast (1350kcals):
- Pancakes with maple syrup
- 2 pieces of baguette with 2 eggs
- 1 bowl of porridge with honey,
- 1 banana
During the race, the riders will be eating and drinking almost constantly. During a tough, hot day in the Alps, riders can burn 10,000 calories and lose several litres sweat.
To combat this, teams make sure their riders are eating and drinking non-stop. The idea is that by doing this, you stay ahead of both dehydration and exhaustion, keeping your fluids and energy as topped up as possible throughout the day.
To achieve this, riders will eat around 2,500 kcals on the bike throughout the stage, while also drinking 1-2 bottles of isotonic sports drink per hour. In terms of food, it is between 1-2 bits of 'nutrition' every hour. This includes fruit, energy bars, rice cakes, and energy gels. I went for chunks of baguette - it is the Tour de France, after all - with jam or peanut butter, plus energy bars, and fruit.
And, in all honesty, it started off pretty well. Despite my vast breakfast, the baguettes went down quite nicely, and even the energy bars were not as sickly as I feared. It felt as if my body was mentally prepared for lots of food, so it had created extra space for the day - almost like that extra room you find for pudding at a restaurant, even when you are already full.
The problem I did have was with fluids. Having done a lot of cycling, I know how incredible energy drinks can be when you are exhausted. Trust me, when you are hot, sweaty, and tired, they are like manna from heaven. But when you are sitting behind a computer desk, already stuffed full of food on a still, muggy day, they are less appealing. Considerably less appealing, in fact.
I was targeting eight bottles, but after just one I simply had to switch to water. My stomach was having no trouble with the solid food, but it just would not play ball with the liquids.
In another cruel twist of fate, I had a plumber round fixing a new heated towel rail which meant the only toilet in my house was unavailable for several hours, meaning I spent a good deal of time sitting with my legs crossed. It was also then that I realised I had forgotten to eat the banana at breakfast, which was a further blow to my morale.
Food on the bike (2588kcals):
- 1-2 bottles of sports drink per hour (8-10 bottles in total)
- 1-2 portions of nutrition (fruit, energy bars, bread with jam or peanut butter, rice cakes)
Considering the average British man is advised to consume 2,500kcals a day - or 2,000 for a woman - calling a meal of 765kcals a 'snack' struck me as pretty amusing, especially have already consumed almost 4,000kcals. Still, that is what the meal plan called for and so, after a post-lunch walk, I was back in the kitchen.
As I neared the end of my working day, I tucked into 125g of white rice, a chicken breast weighing 150g, and some vegetables covered liberally with olive oil. Cyclists often struggle with stomach trouble during the Tour de France, as they are forced to consume vast quantities of high-energy food and drink day after day while also putting their bodies through incredible levels of stress, often in tough weather conditions.
For that reason, spicy or exotic food is often avoided as being caught short half way up a mountain with millions of people watching you on television is not a pleasant thought. This really showed on this meal, which looked very plain without some kind of sauce to accompany it.
Still, I was pleasantly surprised. I am so used to having a dollop of mustard, a splash of chilli sauce, or lashings of gravy with a meal like this that having it 'plain' actually made for a refreshing change. It tasted healthy, simple, and delicious, and I still felt pretty good.
Unfortunately I had fallen behind on the fruit front. Not only was I still neglecting my breakfast banana, but the two apples and one kiwi fruit I had also earmarked had fallen by the wayside. Weirdly, my body could cope with portions of cooked food, but as soon as I thought about snacking on fruit, my stomach just said no.
Post-ride snack (765kcals):
- 125g white rice
- 150g chicken
- vegetables with 2 tablespoons of olive oil
There are two reasons riders often have a decent-sized meal straight after they stop riding for the day. Not only is it essential to kickstart their recovery process the second they are off the bike with high-quality carbs and protein, but there is often also a sizeable delay as they travel by bus to their team hotel - which can often be an hour or two away.
So, after my chicken, rice, and vegetables, I left it a good few hours before sitting down for my evening meal at around 8.30pm. This consisted of the slightly weird combo of vermicelli noodles mixed with tomato soup, followed by 200g of white fish, 125g of quinoa, and 250g of grilled vegetables.
Don't worry pudding lovers, there was desert. It was meant to be homemade apple pie but, as I was pushed for time and could not find any apple pie at my local Sainsbury's, I had to make do with apple strudel instead. Unfortunately, I also remembered at this point that I had forgotten my protein shake, so it was washed down with what tasted like a slightly grainy chocolate milkshake.
Again, this was actually a really pleasant meal. The white fish in particular - I went for sea bass - was great and even the quinoa, which I rarely eat, was pretty good. Even the strudel went down easily. I considered going for some of the fruit I had ignored, but then remembered I was still not done for the day in terms of sit-down meals, so thought better of it.
Dinner (1090kcals):
- 1 bowl of tomato soup with vermicelli noodles
- 200g white fish
- 125g quinoa (uncooked weight)
- 250g grilled vegetables
- 1 slice of homemade apple pie (strudel in this case)
By this stage it was gone 10pm and approaching the time I usually go to bed. I felt pretty stuffed but not uncomfortably full. I had ditched any notions of eating the fruit at this point, and had managed four of the eight bottles of drink I was supposed to consume.
As I settled down on my settee to tuck into my pre-bed snack of strawberries, honey, yoghurt, and nuts, it seemed ridiculous to be eating even more and so close to going to sleep. But, yet again, I was amazed at how much I enjoyed it.
Perhaps it was because they ingredients were so healthy, or perhaps it was because I knew it was only for one day, but I scoffed it all down and could probably have managed more. Weirdly, the second I thought about more fluids though, my body again denied me.
Pre-bed snack (500kcals):
- 250g high-protein yoghurt
- 250g strawberries
- 1 handful of nuts
- 1 tablespoon of honey
I ended up going to bed at around 11.30pm, most definitely full but not at bursting point and with so much washing up in the kitchen, it looked like a bomb site. First, though, another trip to the scales. Incredibly, I now weighed 13st 7lbs (85.7kgs). That meant I had put on 3.2kg - a little more than half a stone - in just one day. I had been out for two walks, and had not even managed several pieces of fruit and goodness knows how much liquid too.
I then endured a pretty unpleasant night's sleep, sweating, tossing, and turning as I struggled to nod off. I then felt so full the next day that I did not even think about breakfast until around 11am, which is unusual for me.
In fact, even writing this three days after my experiment, my stomach still feels strange. I feel hungry at meal times, but stuffed as soon as I eat more than a few mouthfuls. I normally drink several pints of water throughout the day, but am having to force myself to have more than one, despite the warm weather.
As for the riders, what can I say? To consume this much while smashing your way through France at ridiculous speeds is not only impressive, but also shows you just how much energy they need to fuel themselves each day, as well as recover for the next day's racing.
Former winner Gareth Thomas said that riders also usually lose a good few kilos in body weight throughout the Tour as well, showing that even with these obscene meal plans, it is simply not enough when you are burning close to 10,000kcals a day. In short, I have even more respect for professional cyclists than I did before eating like one for a day.
Having said all of that, spending a day eating huge quantities of tasty, healthy food was actually a lot of fun. I would happily do it again - just not on a daily basis.