WHO THIS IS FOR
IS THIS YOU?
The rider trying to get leaner without losing power
You want to improve your watts per kilo but every time you restrict calories your performance suffers.
The cyclist who eats the same every day regardless of training
You eat a consistent daily intake and wonder why your body composition is not changing despite hard training.
THE ROADMAN VIEW
The Roadman view
Anthony came across the Fuel for the Work Required concept through Dr David Dunne and Sam Impey on the podcast, and it reframed how he thought about nutrition entirely. The old model — eat the same every day, run a general deficit — produces exactly the outcome most people complain about: flat training, poor recovery, and body composition that does not shift. The FFTWR model explains why.
The core principle is simple even if the execution requires discipline. Your hard training days are not the time to restrict. Those sessions need carbohydrate to drive adaptation — under-fuel them and you get a worse session, slower recovery, and less fitness gain per unit of effort. The restriction goes on the easy days and rest days, where your body does not need maximum glycogen availability to do the work.
What riders discover when they apply this properly is that they eat more on hard days than they ever did before, and significantly less on easy days. The total calorie balance across the week is the same or slightly lower, but the composition of the work improves dramatically. The sessions that are supposed to drive adaptation have everything they need; the quiet days create the deficit.
EXPERT EVIDENCE
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY
- Dr David DunnePerformance nutritionist to INEOS Grenadiers, EF Education, and Uno-X
The Fuel for the Work Required framework is how professional teams manage simultaneous performance optimisation and body composition in athletes. It avoids the performance cost of chronic caloric restriction by targeting the deficit to periods of lower training demand, where it causes minimal performance impact.
Hear it: World Tour Nutritionist - “We Got Weight Loss Wrong” - Dr Sam ImpeyWorld Tour nutritionist
The key insight is that energy availability — not total caloric balance — determines training adaptation. High energy availability on hard days protects the quality of the work and the adaptation it drives. Deliberately lower energy availability on easy days creates body composition benefits without touching the sessions that matter.
Hear it: Why Pros' 120g Carb Rule Fails Amateurs | Roadman Cycling
PRACTICAL APPLICATION
DO THIS WEEK
Label each day of your training week
Go through your weekly plan and categorise each day: hard session, moderate, easy, or rest. This is the skeleton for your nutrition periodisation. Hard days get high carbohydrate; easy and rest days get moderate to low carbohydrate. The categories drive the food.
Set carbohydrate targets by day type
Hard training day: 6–10g carbs/kg. Easy day: 3–5g carbs/kg. Rest day: 2–3g carbs/kg. Protein stays at 1.8–2.2g/kg every day. Track these for two weeks to understand your baselines before adjusting for body composition goals.
Keep on-bike fuelling at hard-day rates during sessions
On a hard training day, fuel the session itself at 60g+/hr as normal. The easy-day carbohydrate reduction happens in meals around training, not during it. The ride always gets what it needs.
COMMON MISTAKES
WHAT CYCLISTS GET WRONG
MISTAKECutting carbs on hard training days to reduce calories.
FIXThe hard session is where adaptation is built. Cutting carbs there reduces training quality and adaptation. The deficit must come from easier periods.
MISTAKEEating the same daily calorie total regardless of training load.
FIXA rest day should look meaningfully different from a five-hour ride day nutritionally. The swing between them — eating more on hard days, less on easy days — is the whole mechanism.
MISTAKEApplying the framework without tracking for a baseline first.
FIXMost riders discover they are under-fuelling hard days and over-fuelling easy days when they track for a week. Establish where you actually are before prescribing the target.
FAQ
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Where did Fuel for the Work Required come from?
Is Fuel for the Work Required the same as carb cycling?
Will eating more on hard days make me gain weight?
How do I know if my hard days are truly 'high carb'?
Does FFTWR work for cyclists who are not trying to lose weight?
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