Sarah Storey: 'I have jam sandwiches passed to me when I'm cycling on the road'

The Paralympic cycling champion's diet secrets - and why her team once had to live on chocolate for a week
Sarah Storey riding a banana wheeled bicycle
Sarah Storey. Photograph: Levon Biss

Sarah Storey is a seven-time Paralympic champion. She began as a swimmer, but switched to cycling in 2005. She won two golds in 2008 and has 12 world titles in cycling. In 2010 she became the first disabled cyclist to represent England at the Commonwealth Games alongside able-bodied riders

"I can be in the saddle for six hours so what I eat is crucial. For an event like the end-to-end, where you're riding 90 to 130 miles a day for nine days, the fuel isn't just for that day, it's also to make sure you're not in deficit the next morning, so I eat protein every three hours and have jam sandwiches passed out from the support vehicle.

When I'm riding on my own from home I stuff my back pocket with bananas, protein bars, flapjacks, gels and brioche. On the longest rides I'll eat something every half an hour. My drink bottle is full of prohydrate – an electrolyte solution, and at the top of a climb I'll have a mix of prohydrate and Coke, for that balance of caffeine and sugar. In heavy training it's physically impossible to take on enough nutrition from diet alone so you do rely on sachets.

One thing that's changed in sports nutrition since I've been competing is the importance of protein. Cycling is much more weight orientated than swimming – you don't want to be carrying extra weight up a hill – so protein feeds the muscles but keeps them as lean as possible.

I've been an athlete for 20 years so healthy eating is ingrained in me, but that's not to say I don't enjoy a good curry – you just learn to spot the meals that will provide what you need. It's simple things like steering clear of the creamy sauces and getting lots of veg.

My worst experience food-wise was at the 1996 Atlanta Games. The queue in the village was three hours long so it was better to go to McDonald's than tire out your legs waiting. In the early days, before we had nutritionists to provide hotels with sample menus, we found ourselves at McDonald's more often than we'd want to admit. That's because it's the same the world over so you know what you're getting. I competed in Eastern Europe once and the food was so unrecognisable the whole team literally lived on chocolate for a week. You learn more as you travel more often, but sometimes any fuel is better than no fuel."

Sarah Storey is an ambassador for Links of London