Weight Loss help

auchmill

I know this is a cycling forum, but I wonder if cycling by itself is the best form of excercise to aid weight loss. Bikes are such efficient machines that you have to excercise pretty hard and for a considerable time to get any benefit. Somebody who is clinically obese isn't going to be able to excercise safely at a sufficient level to lose weight. Maybe walking or jogging should be included in an excercise programme.

But anybody who has a serious weight problem should take medical advice first.

2LAP

If a person is exercising at any given intesnity the energy expendature is the same no matter what the mode of exercise. The efficiency of the cycle means that for the same energy expendature the exerciser travels faster. Intensity is usualy described as a percentage of an absolute value (e.g. 50% of VO2 max or 50% max HR or 50% peak power) or can be determined as volumes of O2. 1 L of O2 used corresponds to about 5 Kcals and this is the same for all modes of exercise. So even though bikes are efficenet, energy expendature between exercise modes should be the same with only the amount of work completed being different.

Cycling and swimming are great forms of exercise as they non weight bearing. Obese people often struggle to jog due to the forces involved.

Always good advice!!!

pird6680

:I have been on a plan similar to Atkins since June 1. It is called Carbohydrate Addicts Lifespan Program. What it did for me was to completely eliminate my urge to eat large amounts of food. I lost 20 pounds the first two months and felt so good that I started cycling the first of August. I have now lost 30 pounds, and am up to a 60 mile ride on Saturdays. I do 3 other days of shorter duration during the week. If I eat lots of carbs my addictive appetite will come back.
You can say what you want about low carbs, but my blood pressure is in the 115/70 range-down from 140/90, and my cholesterol has dropped 25 points.
The only alteration to my diet on those long rides is an energy bar after the first 20 miles. I have not bonked 1 time.

auchmill

That may be true in lab conditions or on a flat track. In the real world it's easy to get on a bike and coast along thinking you're working hard when you're not, and for every hill you struggle up there's another where you freewheel down, doing no work.

The 50+ website suggests that for both "moderate2 and "hard", running beats cycling for calories burnt. I'm not knocking cycling, it's a great activity, but it's not the necessarily the best excercise for weight loss, though I take your point below about obese people.



Good point.

DurangoKid

Congrats on your weight loss! I did a similar program with Atkins and lost about 40 lbs total. I'm concerned about upping the carb for cycling and keeping my weight and insulin metabolism in check. I'm at the point now where I need to supliment with carbs to get through a long ride (2+ hours). I'm thinking an approach might be to get a number for the additional carbs necessary to ride on the flats and hills and compensate for that only. Or I could figure the work done to climb, say, 2300' feet, convert it to food calories and consume than much in carb. Anyone have numbers on wattage for riding at a given speed on the level? One could figure in the additional work for various grades, wind, etc.

I've noticed lately that several hours after too much carb, the insulin brings on lethargy due to hypoglycemia. I used to be a carb addict and I suppose I always will be a carb addict. I've been spiking my water bottle with powdered "sports beverage" for a little energy boost as I hydrate. I also stop for an "energy bar" break after an hour and a half or two in the saddle. I may have overdone it on the last ride because of the symptoms from the carbs I experienced.

Parenthetically, I have to wonder what kind of diet Jim Fixx was on before he died. If he was on a high carb diet, it might shed some light on his astronomic cholesterol levels. Thin and fit or not, high proportions of carb in the diet do contribute to high cholesterols. He probably had the wrong genes, too. Wasn't his cholesterol in the 400 range? Does anyone know if his book(s) promote high carb/low fat intake?

Anyway, I'd like to avoid Jim's fix by maintaining control over the carbs I use for training.

And now, the anti-Atkins flaming.....

__________________
A man that should call everything by its right name would hardly pass the streets without being knocked down as a common enemy. –Lord Halifax

2LAP

Ah, now I get it. Yes, you can be lazy when cycling, I love those downhills!

One way around this problem it to keep yourself out of breath or pushing on the pedals (used the latter with my mum who just likes to 'let her legs go round'). Another really good solution is to use a heart rate monitor (allowing you to maintain a constant intensity no matter what the terrain was).

2LAP

Sorry to keep banging on about this, but high fat diets also increase the amount of cholesterol in the blood via reverse cholesterol transport from HDL to LDL!

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mockie

Rsalazar,

There’s a lot of nonsense about fat and carbohydrate. First the fat. Fat is good. Eating fat does not in itself make you fat. More on this later. One should eat a variety of good fats. Good fats come from butter, meat, fish, and non-grain vegetable oils. Bad fats are from industrial processes used to harden oils into shortening or margarine. These contain the trans fatty acids that have been linked to serious health problems. When your body metabolizes fats for energy, good things happen to your blood chemistry and adipose tissue. Your bad blood lipids and cholesterols drop. Your excess body fat will also reduce.

The key is carbohydrates and the metabolic traffic cop insulin. Insulin processes carbohydrate first and fats second. This means that when you eat sugar and fat, e.g. chocolate, insulin directs your body to use the sugar for energy first. The sugar that doesn’t get used is stored as fat. The fat doesn’t get used for energy and gets stored away as fat. This causes fats and cholesterols to back up in the blood stream with the attendant health issues. Lowering your carbohydrate consumption to a bare minimum can force your body to start using fats, and proteins, for energy. At that point, the fat stored in adipose tissue starts to burn along with the fats you consume.

Insulin is the key. Cutting back on the carb is the only way to force your insulin to bring the fats on line as the energy source. However, there’s more to the story. Years of over consumption of carbohydrates can cause condition called insulin resistance. The excess levels of carbohydrate cause an overload of insulin that tries to keep pace with the carb. The receptor sites in the cell membranes eventually become less receptive to the insulin. This ups the insulin levels even more. At some point, the whole system starts to collapse and you become a type II diabetic. Worse still, chronically high insulin levels are destructive to your vascular system as well as other systems.

If you want to lose weight and keep it off you need to make some major changes to your life. Here are a few:

1. Eliminate all sugar in any form from your diet. This will turn you into a compulsive label reader. This is good. Don’t worry about what other cyclists will tell you about energy and bonking, etc. Your metabolism does not follow those rules. Worry about those things when you are in shape to race.
2. Eliminate grains in any form from your diet. This means wheat flour, oats, corn, etc. The starches from these foods affect you insulin levels in the same way sugar does.
3. Eliminate root vegetables from your diet for the same reason in item 2.
4. Eat green leafy vegetables and other low glycemic vegetables.
5. Berries are the only fruits you should eat. All others contain too much sugar.
6. Eliminate fruit juices. They are of negligible nutritional value and contain as much sugar as soft drinks.
7. Eliminate milk from your diet. A glass of milk has 14 grams of lactose, i.e. sugar.
8. Center your meals on protein sources such as beef, pork, poultry, fish, eggs, cheese, etc. Soy protein is problematical. It comes with some metabolic baggage. Soy and other legumes should be taken in small quantities. Nuts have good fats and protein, but are a little high in carbs. Include some good vegetable matter with lunch and dinner.
9. Be prepared to need extra fiber in your diet. Psyllium husk is great for this. Many other fiber products contain sugar. Read the labels.
10. Limit your total carb consumption to about 40 to 50 grams per day until you reach your desired weight. For this you will have to search for a table that shows the level of carbs in different foods so you can keep track.
11. Don’t starve yourself. If you fight hunger, you will lose every time. If you’re hungry, eat something from the list. Eventually you will learn to self regulate your eating habits. Meals will be more satisfying because of the nutrient density and abundance of protein and good fats. You will be less likely to over eat because you won’t be hungry.
12. Don’t worry about calories. Calories are a measure of heat. They don’t tell you squat about the metabolic processes at work. Diets that require you to count calories are based on starving you to lose weight. That’s why they fail. Hunger always trumps reason.
13. Be careful when you’re in restaurants and dinner parties. Ask to have the high carb items removed from your meal. Stay away from the chips and snacks.
14. When you reach your target weight, you can start to include other low glycemic foods and bump up your daily carb budget in small increments. Keep an eye on the scales and be ready to back off to maintain your weight.
15. Keep exercising. It takes both diet and exercise to stay fit.
16. Every day drink the same number of ounces of water as the number of pounds you need to lose. Hydration is critically important.
17. Expect to be on this program for the rest of your life. You have to be honest with yourself and answer the difficult questions.

This may sound familiar. It’s the Atkins program. It works. It’s based on sound scientific research. The Food Pyramid and diets based on restricting inputs are based on marketing. They make money for the promoters but they ultimately fail. I’ve given you some of the highlights. Read his latest book and go to the chat room

http://www.atkinsfriends.com/chat/java.shtml

There you’ll find answers to every question you can think of and lots of kind support. I’ve been on the program for over a year and I’ve reached my goal of losing 30 pounds and keeping it off.

stevek

I doubt gains have much of a real place in our diet. they are pretty much empty calories.
the whole low fat thing is bull as it was concocted as a marketing idea.
myself I eat fruits and meat and veggies and soem cheese and nuts.

2LAP

Actualy the high fat thing is not a marketing scam, but liked to epidemiologiocal data that suggests people who have high fat diets also have a high risk of CHD. The composition of the diet in terms of fat and CHO has very little impact on weight loss given that it is the balance between calorie intake and expendature that determines increases or reductions in body fat.

2LAP

Fat is needed in the diet, but excess fat can hardly be described as good!!! Check out the research on postprandial triacylglycerol metabolism as a starter (it is an independant risk factor in CHD and proportional to the fat contained within a meal). Eating fat does not make you fat and nor does eating carbohydrate or a mixture of the two; its an inbalance of energy intake v's expendature! Your body metabolises fat all of the time, so it is plain daft to suggest that when you metabolise fat your blood lipid profile changes for the better; with that reasoning everyone would have 'good' blood lipid profiles. Its actualy a bit more complicated than that a combination of diet, exercise and genetics.

Lowering carbohydrate to a minimum is dangerous! And insulin isn't such a bad guy, it perfroms a very important role! Given that fat is used all the time for energy, stating that 'fat doesn’t get used for energy' is simply not true. You should read what you write and think about it a little!

You are wrong again, exercise reduces the insulin response to a meal (both during exercise and rest). Exercise improves insulin resistance and sensitivity. And while overconsumption of simple sugars can suggest a reason for insulin resistance, it is a far more complicated than that (e.g. genetics, smoking, obesity, lack of activity and genetics again, etc. ). Again, the picture you paint is so simplistic that its wrong. CHD, insulin resistance and weight loss are very different issues; why are you talking about them in the same post? Very different advice would be given to people trying to lose weight than to people trying to change lipid profiles or CHD risk factors.

1. Plain wrong and dangerous, can you explain why you think the physiology of a recreational rider is different from a sedentary person or an elite athlete? Run out of glycogen you bonk, end of story. Also the Atkins diet doesn't eliminate all carbohydrate from the diet, so you are wrong again!
2. Duh. Sugar and starch are carbohydrates of course they raise your blood sugar!!!
3. Root vegetables... now you are being daft!!!!
4. Eating more veg/salad good advice! How do you determine the glyceamic index of food, given that it changes with so many factors (i.e. cooking, what is eaten at the same time, etc.).
5. Dangerous! Berries contain sugar too and thats why they taste sweet!
6. Look at what you wrote, no nutritional value? I don't think so!!!!
7. Milk, what about people that don't have lactase can they have milk?
8. Great lets eat lots of cholesterol and animal fat in our diets!!! Your advice gets better and better!!!!
9. Good advice except for the sugar bit.
10. You said no carbs, now you can have 50g please make up your mind!
11. What list?
12. This is the most rediculous of all, I don't think anyone will read this and think you are serious. Read it again and then go and read any primary school food book or graduate biochemistry book!
13. And have no friends!
14. Now you can have even more carbs! Though you couldn't have any.
15. Some sense at last.
16. How did you work that out, does that mean I shouldn't drink because I don't want to lose weight! You are getting really funny, I think I would die following this recomendation!
17. I'm sure that no one could maintain this for their whole life without becoming ill. This is also different from the Atkin's diet, given that it changes over three phases!!!! I think you should read your book again!

Evidence suggests that the Atkins diet works no better than any other diet and in the long term may even have lower success rates than calorie counting. Its also heavily criticised by mainstream science. Atkins is also a marketing tool, its actualy the whole point, how many books do they sell?

The food pyramid is a method of healthy eating and reducing intake a method of losing body fat. These are supported by science. Read some basic text books, no need to buy one, borrow one.

Well done on your weight loss, but the advice you provide is hardly healthy or supported by science. In the UK, health proffesional have been advised not to prescribe Atkins as it may be seen as neglegence and lead to legal action.

stevek

Adkins is calorie counting. I think reducing carbs is a very good thing.
The food pyramid is a joke what you think doctors came up with it? No it was inspired but corporations. Just like the low fat diet was an advertising gimmick.
There are way to many grains in the pyramid. Not enough veggies and fruits. Grains these days are just empty calories pretty much. Better to eat fruit if you want carbs.
There have been no real studies showing Adkins is bad or unsafe. There have been garbage about I of course.
Us Americans are so afraid of fat and it has a bad rap. But hell we are told to eat bread and pasta and other garbage all of the time.
Look at what we evolved eating. Insects meat we could catch fruits and veggies nuts and seeds. Not wonder bread and cereal and milk and low fat foods.
I think a diet in fruits and veggies nuts and meat/beans other proteins is a good diet.
Hell since I stopped eating grains for the most part I have great blood levels. And right now I am about 60 pounds overweight.

JAPANic

Is that a good advertisement for your ideas?

Re-post when you are your perfect weight!!!

stevek

You did not ask how much I used to weigh did you?
if you use your brains in eating it makes a big difference. Eating lots of grains leaves you hungry. they don't keep you full or provide very much nutrition. a lot of fat will keep you full a long time. sometimes too long.
I think we will soon find all the carbs we eat cause far more high cholesterol problems then fat does. I would have lost far more weight but I found I can’t loose weight without a lot of exercise. All I do is get weak and loose muscle.
Actually I think the best diet is a all raw food diet or mostly raw foods. Fruits veggies nuts all raw. But it is hard to get enough protein unless you use a cooked source you have to eat a lot of greens a day. I guess eating bugs would help (G) or raw fish. But a mix of mostly raw and cooked foods is a fantastic diet.
I felt fantastic and had huge amounts of energy on it. since then I have never been sick in over 3 years. Lost 4” off my waist and about 40 pounds. Some of the weight came back but none of the inches. If I start to get sick I just eat lots of raw fruits and veggies and it is gone.
It’s a hard diet if you cant get access to a lot of high quality produce. But it taught me to eat less food and how my body reacts to foods I eat.