Weight Loss help

redstorm

Having started cycling only recently(April) I have been looking to increase my knowledge about training and nutrition. The first thing that hit me was that the limiting factor on the bike was ME :-) I have read in books and possibly even in this forum that to get better performance I did'nt need to buy a full carbon bike, All I needed to do at first was shed some weight off of myself :-) When I started in april I was about 177lbs (my height is 5'11). Now in July my weight is 168lbs.

All I did to achieve this is, cut Soft Drink consumption, cut chips and lookalikes and reduced a little the portions I was eating. Coupled with an average of 150-250km of cycling per week did the trick.

However I did pay attention when my body was telling me to "Eat God damnit" :-) so sometimes I am forced to have a second supper after long intensive rides. In a sense I am still trying to understand the signs my body is telling me about it nutritional needs.

My conclusion is that the "watch your food intake versus your energy expenditure" makes perfect sense.

I plan to try and bring the weight slowly down to 160-165lbs range or until I feel it is enough.

One question I have though, Is it possible that when you start to train and loose a little weight, that if your weight goes from 175-170 you may have lost more fat then 5lbs because of a little muscle gain? I'm just curious. I have noticed that although my weight has stopped declining, I can still notice visible signs of fat reduction on my body? Can this be explained by an increase in muscle mass ?

thanks

alp!

2WheelsGood

Absolutely. And that's why the scale is a very poor indicator of body fat content. Scales are good for measuring dehydration, but that's about it.

__________________
Eric Konarske
http://www.leavethebox.com

DurangoKid

A rebuttal.

Atkins was originally designed as a dietary control for type II diabetes. The goal was to restore the normal role for insulin. Chronic high levels of insulin are a killer. The resulting weight loss was a welcome side effect. It turns out that a large proportion of people do not do well on a high carbohydrate diet. 60% of Americans are overweight or obese. One in three three-year-olds are predicted to develop type II diabetes in their lifetime. Americans eat more sugars and refined carbohydrate now than in any time in history. Obesity and vascular disease track the growth in carbohydrate consumption.

The Atkins program is divided into four stages. In the forth and final stage a person’s carbohydrate consumption is roughly equivalent to that of a person living 200 years ago. The reason Atkins seems so extreme is that the level of carbohydrate consumption we consider normal is in truth pathological. I encourage anyone to read Atkins books and then decide.

If you walk the aisles of a typical grocery store you’ll find that the high profit processed food are typically based around cheap agricultural commodities like soy, wheat, or corn. Sweeteners are also dirt-cheap. Agribusiness is getting rich while the rest of us are getting fatter. The destruction of the health of the population is an externality that isn’t considered in the corporate bottom line. Unhealthy Americans are unhealthy because it’s public policy, de facto or otherwise, to be unhealthy.

“So, what has this to do with cycling?” you may ask?

The web and bike shops are full of stories of people who are at a level of fitness that is atypical. They burn tremendous amounts of energy, eat lots of carbs, and appear fit and trim. This is fine for the minority of dedicated cyclists, but this minority is miniscule compared to the average Joe whose a little soggy around the middle and gets out of breath after a flight of stairs. Average Joe is a victim of corporate and government PR that has convinced him that fats are bad and carbs are good. He’s the target for the sugar salespersons.

One of cycling’s problems in the U.S. is that it is seen by many to be a hobby or an elite sport. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area where bike lines abound. The Bay Area is exceptional. When I travel one of the things I notice is the lack of bike lanes everywhere else. On the other hand, if bike lanes exist, they usually link neighborhoods with public schools. Cycling in the U.S. comes nowhere close to the popularity it enjoys in Europe.

Another problem with cycling is one I’ve seen right here in this forum. Those already in the sport intimidate beginning cyclists. Most of the advice to the novices seems to be geared toward winning the big race or not looking like a dork. I’ve seen people extol the virtues of some high carb concoction to some other person without bothering to ask what are this person’s fitness goals, level of fitness, dietary concerns, etc. There seems to be a one size fits all approach to cycling. For the good of the sport, we need to think in more broad terms. America needs more cyclists.

Personally, I haven’t been consistent with cycling over the years. I was more fit when I rode a lot. When I stopped riding, the pounds started to accumulate. When I started riding again, I couldn’t seem to lose the weight. I turned to Atkins only after investigating it for about six months. I refused to go on a diet only to fail. Been there, done that. Before losing 30 pounds, I had so much fat around my middle that I couldn’t breath properly when I was down on the drops. Now I’ve eased off on the more restrictive parts of the diet. I still have a way to go toward my ultimate fitness goal. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be an Atkins program for my level of cycling. I ride about 100 miles per week and try to keep my cadence up around 90 rpm. I need a boost on some of the longer rides but I’m suspicious of $4 bags of sugar goo. Speaking as a former carb addict, I’m off the insulin roller coaster and don’t care to get back on it. Maybe my insistence on avoiding sugar will keep me out of the competition. So be it. I’m 47 for crying out loud. Eating a pile of sugar at 27 is not the same as eating it when you’re 47. By the time you’re 37 it will catch up with you.

__________________
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

DurangoKid

Redstorm,

Weighing yourself can be a little maddening. Weighing every day can drive one crazy. Is it fat, muscle, or just a little water? Weighing, in my not so humble opinion, works best as a long term thing. Use it to track trends or detect major distruptions.

I was impressed with your diet tweeks. Regulating the excess carb is a powerful weight control tool.

redstorm

Hi DurangoKid,

I agree that taking your weight too seriously is not good. But I like to do it once a week at least to see whats going on :-) As for fat and Muscle, I was just wondering if my exitement was making me think I was slimmer than I really am or if their is a possibility that more fat was lost then the weight change showed because of some muscle gain.

Right now I am more concerned about not being too skinny, my Girlfriend has made it clear she does'nt want to date Skeletor :-)

As for the Diet, nothing really impressive, I think I might have been eating little bit too much food for the energy I was using. Cutting down on 2-3 500ml PEPSIs per day surely must have helped :-) Caffeine withdrawl sux tho :-)

see ya

kiwiboy

2lap,
Even many wholemeal breads are full of so much sugar and who knows what else.

I say buyer beware.

If one was to break down ones weekly food intake and worked out how much sugar fibre etc I am sure even the most health choices would look bad, allot of the low fat meals you can buy are bad news.


Look I try to eat a good meals but its hard when ones life is flat out walk down the supermarkets there is so much crap its unbeleivable.

Another good read if you are so inclined "to much medicine by Ray Moynihan this was a ABC television series in Australia and eurpoe. We are sold such lies nutrition is probably the biggest.

But hay if you have a Good diet by whos standards.

Good luck all I can say.

P.s I commonly look after people who are vegs with high cholesterol go figure????

Men who have been elite runners with major MI's scarey

kiwiboy

Health is a business, beware!!!!!

Harrow

This is going to be a very interesting case. The lawyer is the same guy who got the smoking companies. It might sound like a foolish case at first, but the argument is that McDonald's has been promoting their food as healthy for years, and now people have heart disease for eating a product that the manufacturer told them was healthy. I think Ronald will stop laughing soon.

DurangoKid

That suit, if it's the one I'm thinking of, was dismissed. It was brought on behalf of two obese teens. In effect the judge rulled that no one put a gun to their head.

There's a principle in law called an atractive nuisance. It consists of something that appears to be desirable but contains a hazard that one might reasonably not be expeced to understand or be aware of. E.g., to a youngster an old refrigerator might be a pretend rocket ship. One couldn't expect a minor to understand that there is no escape after the door closes and latches.

Now, consider McDonalds and their relentless PR campaign directed at minor children. Their restaurants, food, and characters are used to sell products to children who by law aren't recognized to be able to act in their own best interests. They are lured in with promises of fun and sweet-salty-fatty foods. As regular customers they become habituated to junk food. One might claim that it's up to the parents to intervene and regulate the consumption of junk foods. Explain this to a screaming 4-year-old and the distraught parents who just want to get a bite to eat and continue on their way. McDonalds has the economic clout to position their restaurants in high traffic areas and drive out other locally owned restaurants. They can saturate the media with messages.
Herein lies the rub. To apply the standard of attractive nuisance to McDonalds would be to open a floodgate of suits against all mannor of businesses that advertise to children. I have no problem with that. The sugar salesmen of the world should be drawn and quartered. It could prove to be a major economic hit against the agribusinesses that produce the feedstocks right down to the vendors that sell it and everyone in between. This is not likely to happen in a country where representative government means a government that represents the corporations. Some Scandinavian countries have sidestepped this issue to some degree by outlawing advertising to children. In years to come it will be interesting to see whose children are healthier. By recent estimates 1/3 of all three year old Americans will be type II diabetics in their lifetimes. McDonalds disclaimers ring hollow when one considers they have pitted the best minds in advertising against children. They know what they're doing. They want customers to be loyal to McDonalds from cradle to grave. With liberty and sugar for all.

2WheelsGood

Please tell me you aren't serious. So because these "distraught" parents don't want to hear their kids scream, it's McDonalds' fault that they eat there? If you can't keep your kids out of McDonalds, you should not be having children. Wow, sheer brilliance.

So tell me, since the list of things we're no longer responsible for has grown too long to print, maybe you could tell me what we ARE still responsible for. Anything? Anything at all?

I'll promise you this: no amount of screaming will get me to take my kid to McDonalds. I'll let him/her go there when they're 18.

The reason people's diets suck is because they don't want to be responsible for their actions. Simple as that. It's people like you who want to blame someone else (McDonalds, the "sugar salesman," etc.) that makes this possible. People like you are McDonalds' best friend. As soon as people stop blaming someone else and take responsibility for themselves and their children, McDonalds will go out of business with no help at all.

Yep, you just keep blaming McDonalds. I am curious, though. If their advertising is so brilliant as you say, and if we're really so helpless on our own, why don't I eat there? Hmmm. It must be my tinfoil hat.

__________________
Eric Konarske
http://www.leavethebox.com

DurangoKid

2WheelsGood,

Don’t get me wrong. I’m all for people getting educated, radicalized, and resolved to act in their own best interests. I’m not an apologist for parents who won’t lead by example and give in to every whine and pout. However, we must consider that not every child grows up in an environment that you or I would condone. We must also look at nutrition as a public health issue. Most importantly, we must look at the world as it is and not as we’d like it to be. Society as a whole should consider measures that encourage good nutrition. Corporations, McDonalds among them, clearly are working against the greater good for the sake of profits. The situation is that McDonalds is a resounding success because their advertising is so effective and pervasive. Expecting parents to stand up straight and make their kids conform isn’t working. McDonalds is a publicly traded corporation that is chartered by the state to operate. One would assume that the state is supposed to act in the common interest. Shouldn’t McDonalds, as an agent of the state, be held to the same standard? This would include matters of public health. I see no contradiction in requiring by law that McDonalds act in ways that promote public health, even if this means banning advertising directed at children.

We live in a media environment that is geared to selling our eyes to advertisers. The media are also obsessed by fairness as opposed to the truth. True or false doesn’t matter so long as there are two or more sides to report. Thus, fact is reduced to opinion. How is the ordinary person to decide an issue if all the discourse is bland and equal? Some news outlets have even gone to the extreme of rip and read journalism. It turns out to be more cost effective to repeat corporate PR copy as news. In this environment, how can one reasonably expect a person to make choices based on unbiased information? Even doctors aren’t immune to this onslaught. Most doctors get their information about new medicines from the pharmaceutical companies. One would expect a group of highly educated intelligent people would get their information from peer reviewed journals and such. However, the opposite is true. Profit seeking corporations have more to do with which drugs you take than the doctors themselves. Or, consider one of my pet peeves: the food pyramid. Did scientists or nutritionists develop it? No, corporate lawyers and lobbyists developed it at the behest of agribusiness. What is the layperson supposed to do? To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, you can fool some of the people all of the time and that’s usually enough.

Your line of reasoning runs akin to some form of puritanical Protestantism. It’s not a character flaw to be sucked into a corporate scam. Indoctrination usually trumps reason. Repeating a lie long enough and it’s as powerful as the truth. The challenge is to confront one’s assumptions and cast the lies aside. As C. K. Dexter Haven said, “You’ll never be a first rate person until you have an appreciation for human frailty.” Or something like that.

2WheelsGood

Label it how you want. It's called personal responsibility, but you'd rather call it something else so it's easier to brush aside.

I could argue with you on this until the end of time. It won't change anything. Your sad outlook on the human race makes you mistakenly believe they need to be taken care of. My view of man (and the view of the founders of this country) is much brighter--I believe that if he has to take care of himself, and is allowed to take care of himself, he will... no matter how many brilliant commercials he sees with a clown and a purple blob pushing super-sized fries.

__________________
Eric Konarske
http://www.leavethebox.com

DurangoKid

2WheelsGood,

I’m beginning to wonder if you read my posting. Where did I say that people must be taken care of? My thesis is that it is everyone’s responsibility to call out a liar and shut him up. It’s part of the social contract of do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Is it a crime to point out a serpent to prevent it biting someone? Are you advocating every man for himself? Is that how Lance Armstrong is winning the Tour de France?

You’re on very dangerous ground, sir. For the vast majority of human history we’ve lived in small cooperative groups that shared labor and the fruits of that labor. There are those pundits and ideologues that would have us believe that cooperation and sharing are a weakness and downright un-American. They have their agenda. Keep the unwashed hordes alienated and atomized. Make them a perfect target for corporate ideology and advertising.

Let me tell you a story about some little girls. Two of the girls were from the U.S. and two were from Central America. They were all of a similar age and intelligence. A scientist devised a simple board game wherein the girls could each win a doll if they could manage to move the marker from the center of a grid to her side of the board. They were allowed a limited number of moves and two sessions. The American girls squandered both sessions by one girl moving the marker toward her goal and the other moving it back. Neither of the American girls won a prize. The girls from Central America took turns advancing the marker toward one girl’s goal in the first session and toward the other girl’s goal in the second. Both girls won a prize.

Was one of the Central American girls taking care of the other? No, they live in a society that values cooperation and reciprocity. Every man for himself often leaves every other man with nothing. Cooperation and sharing fosters equality of outcome or true equality. Even Thomas Jefferson had to concede that there is no equality without equality of outcome. (That’s almost a verbatim quote.) The pundits and ideologues would have us believe that there can be no plenty without scarcity. Is that Orwellian or what?

Any further posting should be off line. We’re a bit off topic.

2WheelsGood

No problem. I'm done. You'll never get it. I could tell when you equated an example of genuine teamwork with making a company responsible for what someone puts in their mouth. I'm sorry that you somehow see putting the blame on McDonalds as some twisted version of teamwork. I do know for a fact that I don't want to be on your team--I can stay away from McDonalds without you holding my hand.

When will it end? When every company that provides a product or service that can be harmful when abused is run out of business? I hate to shock you, but that includes everything.... every... single... thing. Yep, even your precious bike will kill you if you abuse it. So after McDonald's has been taken care of, who will you go after next? You've got a huge job ahead of you. As a dietician I hope to be able to help put McDonalds out of business the right way--with education.

OK, I'm done. No need to continue this off-line; if you're older than 12 and you still don't understand the concept of personal responsibility, there's nothing I'll be able to do in an email message to help you.

__________________
Eric Konarske
http://www.leavethebox.com