FuelWise™
Stay energized throughout your session with the FuelWise™ fueling assistant. FuelWise™ includes three features that remind you to refuel and help you maintain adequate energy levels during your long sessions. These features are Smart carbs reminder, Manual carbs reminder and Drink reminder.
The Smart carbs reminder estimates your refueling need from your estimated session intensity and duration taking your training background and physical details into account, and adjusts the frequency of the reminders on the fly based on the actual intensity of your session. The Manual carbs reminder and Drink reminder are time-based, which means you'll get a reminder at manually chosen preset intervals, every 15 or 30 minutes for example.
Carbohydrates are ideal for fueling because they can be absorbed and converted into glucose quickly, unlike fat or protein. Glucose is the primary source of energy used during training. The higher your training intensity, the more glucose you use in proportion to fat. If your session is shorter than 90 minutes, you don't usually need to fuel with carbs. However, extra carbs may help you stay more alert and focused even during a shorter session.
Training with Fuelwise
To perform at your best, you need to maintain adequate energy levels and stay hydrated throughout a long performance. During a long race or training session you need to fuel your system with carbohydrates and drink regularly. With two useful tools, carbs reminder and drink reminder, FuelWise helps you stay hydrated and reminds you to refuel. The reminders can be especially helpful in ultralong competitions when fatigue kicks in and in adventure racing when you may forget to refuel because of other tasks such as navigating.
When planning how to fuel it’s important to remember that every athlete is different, which is why you may need to experiment with different products and portion sizes to find the optimal way for you to fuel. To see how different foods and fluids suit you, try them out during practice and start with small amounts. There are individual differences in how well an athlete’s body can take in carbs during performance. If you’re already familiar with fueling during performance, your body probably does a better job in absorbing the carbs. Digestion rate is always individual and can be improved by practice. If you are a heavy trainer, we assume you've trained your body to take in carbs during training.
Start a session with FuelWise
The FuelWise™ features (Smart carbs reminder, Manual carbs reminder and Drink reminder) are located in the main menu under Fueling.
When using any of these features the training session is started from the Fueling menu. After setting your reminder and choosing Next, you'll be taken straight to the pre-training mode. Choose your sport profile and start your session.
Smart carbs reminder
When using the smart carbs reminder, set the estimated session duration and intensity, and we'll estimate the amount of carbs you'll need for refueling during your session. When estimating your carbohydrate need for refueling, we take your training background and physical settings including age, gender, height, weight, maximum heart rate, resting heart rate, VO2max, aerobic heart rate threshold and anaerobic heart rate threshold into account.
The timing of the reminders depends on the portion size (carbs in grams) of your preferred sports fuel. During training, your watch will track your actual energy expenditure based on your intensity measured by heart rate, and adjust the frequency of the reminders accordingly, but the portion size of your fuel will always be the same during a session.
You should always bring along some extra fuel in case you get more frequent reminders if the duration of your session turns out be a little longer than you anticipated or if your energy consumption is higher than expected. However, note that the purpose is not to cover all the carbs that you use during a session, so don't be puzzled when you look at your stats afterwards and notice that you've used more carbs than you took in. Also, your body always uses fat storages as an energy source in addition to glucose, their proportions just change throughout your session.
Set smart carbs reminder
- In the main menu choose Fueling > Smart carbs reminder.
- Set the estimated duration of your session. The minimum is 30 minutes.
- Set the estimated intensity of your session. The intensity is set with heart rate zones.
- Set the carbs per serving (5 -100 grams) of your preferred sports fuel.
- Choose Next
After setting the reminder you'll see an overview of your selection. At this point you can still remove the reminder you just set or add a drink reminder. When you're ready to start your session choose Use now to go to pre-training mode.
When adding a drink reminder to a smart carbs reminder, you'll also get an estimation of your hydration need per reminder. This is based on the average sweat rate in moderate conditions (hydration need of 0,4 -0,8 liters per hour).
Take ( ) g carbs! is shown on the display and the watch notifies you by vibrating when it's time to take some carbs.
Manual carbs reminder
Optionally, you can simply set the carbs reminder to repeat at a manually chosen frequency of time with the manual carbs reminder. This could be your choice if you're an experienced endurance athlete who's learned their best fueling practices from experience. If you know from experience what works for you, the manual carbs reminder is most likely the best option for you.
Set manual carbs reminder
- In the main menu choose Fueling > Manual carbs reminder.
- Set the interval (5-60 minutes) of the reminder.
After setting the reminder you'll see an overview of your selection. At this point you can still remove the reminder you just set or add a drink reminder. When you're ready to start your session choose Use now to go to pre-training mode.
Take carbs! is shown on the display and the watch notifies you by vibrating when it's time to take some carbs.
Drink reminder
You should drink regularly - not too much at a time - during performance to make sure your body can take in the fluid. To make sure you stay properly hydrated throughout your session, you can set a drink reminder to repeat at a chosen frequency of time, based on external conditions and your own preferences. If the weather is hot and you're up for a high intensity session, you should set more frequent reminders. This is especially important if you’re not used to competing in hot weather.
When you're thirsty, you're already dehydrated, which means your performance level has already dropped. With drink reminder, you make sure you don't forget to drink.
Set drink reminder
- In the main menu choose Fueling > Drink reminder.
- Set the interval (5-60 minutes) of the reminder.
After setting the reminder you'll see an overview of your selection. At this point you can still remove the reminder you just set or add a carbs reminder. When you're ready to start your session choose Use now to go to pre-training mode.
Drink! is shown on the display and the watch notifies you by vibrating when it's time to drink.
Scientific background
Your capability to absorb carbohydrates is estimated from your training background (see the table below), meaning that if you’re an experienced athlete we assume that your familiar with fueling during training. Your training background limits the maximum amount of carbohydrates (grams per hour) that the smart carbs reminder can give you. This data is used to pre-calculate the relationship between your heart rate and carbohydrate consumption rate based on your physical settings (age, gender, height, weight, maximum heart rate, resting heart rate, VO2max, aerobic heart rate threshold and anaerobic heart rate threshold). The recommended carbohydrate intake rate is then adjusted up or down (within min/max limits) based on your heart rate data and the pre-calculated heart rate vs. carbohydrate consumption rate relationship.
