weight loss

2chubby

Hi all- i'm a newbie on this site- this is my first post.

Im 23, 108KGs, just got back on my bike after a long lay off due to injury, arrival of 1st child and various other reasons!

I used to be around 90KG- and a pretty strong rider on the flats (struggled a bit with hills). Time off the bike and a new job sitting down most of the day have contributed to me piling on an excessive amount of weight.

To be honest im surprised my bike didnt buckle when i got back on it 2 weeks ago, but i have been working on sheer willpower alone to get me through my 2-3 rides per week.

I joined a club and ill be racing at the lowest grade in New Zealand (D), but i still dont want to make an ass of myself, ill be racing probably 1-2 times per month starting in about a month.

Would LOVE some advice on the best way to get rid of the extra blubber in a hurry- and if anyone else has had a similar experience in the past how they dealt with it, in the two weeks i have been riding i havent dropped even a gram after some pretty intense hill work.

My diet is pretty good, i eat 5-6 small meals a day, lots of fruit, wholegrains and protein with the occasional dessert and big meal on a weekend if i have been on a big ride.

ANY advice, diet, training, anything, would be appreciated and you can save the comments about being a fat bas**rd, i know all that. ITs time to help me- not kick me when im down!!!

tfstrum

Don't eat after 6:30 pm. Ride more

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NomadVW

Ride more works, but the "don't eat after XXXX" is a crutch. Eat whenever you want, but count every calorie in and out. Once you start counting calories and do it for a week or so you'll see every wasted calorie you are consuming and be personally forced to eat healthier and smarter.

Everything else I tried failed except this. I was 90kg in May 2005. Could not break 85 kg until this year when I really started counting calories and watched the weight drop.

Count calories, count calories, count calories. Everything else will be a fad and eventually fail you.

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Cycling Blog - Training with Power

Romis

I am exactly in this now. I could not break 66 kg ... especially it is strange that after really hard consequent two days (saturday 7 hours ride and sunday 3 hours tempo) my weight increased for ~ 1 kilo...
but, a question is how can you count everything if you eat at cafe, restaurant, not all the way at home where you can count each gram of pasta etc.? Or, must it be approximate calculation..

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doctorSpoc

for me, this is what seems to work...

1) MOST IMPORTANT... get out of the habit of eating until you are stuffed or just eating everything on your plate... eat until you are full and stop... save what's left over for later... seems simple but most people stuff themselves without even realizing it.

2) eat breakfast.. doesn't have to be huge but eat something... will stop you from feeling you have to binge at lunch... and real food, not doughnuts and coffee

3) eat more protein... i used to think this was hokum and would leave cyclists without enough room to eat the carbs that they need, but i have discovered, at least for myself that i probably was eating way too much carbs and not enough protein... repairing and building muscle and building back all those worn out red blood cells after hard training requires lots of protein.. i think the carb to protein guidelines need to be skewed more to the protein side than you see commonly recommended, at least while training hard

Edit - do not restrict your caloric intake while on the bike... this is counter productive and can lead to getting sick and poor, ineffective traing sessions...

daveryanwyoming

+1 on this advice. It's all about calories in vs. calories out.

I've just finished reading Advanced Sports Nutrition by Dan Bernadot phd, RD...... most of it was the same old stuff, but in his chapter on body composition he cites a study where two groups of athletes were fed the same number of calories per day and worked out to burn the same number of calories. Sure enough their weights tracked the same as calories in vs. calories out stayed the same between both groups. The difference is in when they ate. One group ate a few large meals and the other ate many smaller meals throughout the day. Blood glucose levels were monitored for both groups. The really interesting result is that the group with small steady eating throughout the day(and into the evening) maintained better lean body mass to body fat ratios. The large meal group sacrificed muscle mass for body fat and by the end of the study had higher percentage body fat across the board.

The researches postulate a theory that micro-starvations followed by micro-overeating encourages the body to break down muscles during the times when blood glucose drops(those mini starvations) and then encourages the body to store excess calories as fat following the big meals.

Anyway, he makes a very strong argument for eating consistently throughout the day and maintaining steady blood sugar levels if you're interested in developing or maintaining low percentages of body fat. I've been thinking about this a lot lately and make sure I eat a healthy snack in the evening and make sure I eat during every ride even short ones. The point isn't to fuel the immediate exercise, it's to make sure I keep my blood sugar stable to avoid the boom bust cyle he describes. My weight is staying stable since I'm still estimating daily calories and doing my best to balance them but they're more spread out throughout the day now.

Anyway, overall weight is definitely calories in vs. calories out as NomadVW describes, but if you buy into this study then the timing of those calories does matter.

-Dave

P.S. Romis, You don't need to be perfectly exact when counting calories. Sure it's great when you have a label that lays out exact numbers but most natural foods like salad greens don't give you an exact number. And you'll never get an exact number for how many you burn during exercise. Even with my power meter where I get an exact measure of energy I've got to use an approximation to convert to calories burned. Anyway, pay attention, read labels, use online calorie estimators for both those consumed and those burned during exercise and you'll get good at estimating calories. You'll never know the answer to the third decimal point so don't beat yourself up trying. Just developing an awareness of calories and portion sizes is a huge step forward. Stick with it and be patient. I dropped over 40 pounds in the last year while developing a lot more sustainable power on the bike and my racing has never been better. The key is to stay slow and steady(a pound to pound and a half a week for instance) and to take the long view. You didn't put all that weight on in a month or two so it won't come off that fast either but it can and will come off if you stay focused and don't try to rush it.

daveryanwyoming

Same for me, a healthy breakfast is key and portion sizes are really important. Never skipping breakfast and taking a smaller first serving at dinner were my two big changes last year and it was pretty darn painless.

That's cool that it worked for you, but I think it depends on your typical diet and what you're already getting in terms of protein. No doubt you need some and athletes need more than sedentary folks but an awful lot of athletes are chasing protein powder and amino acid supplements while ignoring carbs so I hate to push protein. No doubt protein is necessary for the reasons you listed, I just wonder how many meat eating westerners really need much in the way of protein supplementation?

Yeah I'm still amazed when I hear folks talking about long rides on empty stomachs to lose weight or even some books advocating starvation training. The study I cited above is a really good reason to avoid that approach.

-Dave

benkoostra

Here's what worked for me:

I cut my carbohydrate intake a bit and replaced it with protien. Exception: for the bike I still eat a large bowl of oatmeal before, and eat during the ride. This is just to keep from bonking and make the ride more enjoyable.
I also cut overall calories off the bike. I would eat half as much as usual, pause for a few minutes to see if I was really still hungry, rather than going on autopilot. This way I didn change my diet that much and still lost 35 lbs. I'm still losing, but more importantly, I feel better too.
another thing: I jog when riding isn't convenient. It's important to exercise everyday, even if it's a just a mile or two of jogging.
Oh, and watch out for alcohol. It's good, but so so empty.

2chubby

Cheers for the awesome advice, i've been checking out online calorie counters and all that jazz, seems like from doing some calculations to figure out my BMR (basal metabolic rate) that i need to consume about 2000 calories a day to sustain a healthy weight loss. Trouble with these things is they dont seem to take into account the fact that i could burn up to 500 calories (or more? I dunno) on a 2-3 hour ride.

Any thoughts on that? - should i include 500 more calories on a day when i have a big ride?
Just one more question- i've been getting killer headaches after i have finished my rides, i drink plenty when i ride so we can rule out the hydration issue, i'm not much of an eater though- could this be causing my headaches?

Cheers again for your feedback.

benkoostra

You should include the extra calories as part of your daily intake. If you're trying to cut say 250 calories per day (which is a good amount to go for) you would be tripling that by not including the 500 from riding, and 750/day is not sustainable for most people (certainly not me). BTW you are almost certainly burning well over 500 per hour while riding, assuming these aren't sight-seeing rides.
But don't worry about the food that you eat on the rides. They have a specific purpose, and unless you are going very slowly, you will bonk without some replenishment of carbohydrates. Concentrate on the rest of your diet. 2 or 3 power bars and some Gatoraid on a ride is not much compared to three slices of pizza and a beer.
I have no idea why you get headaches. Do you replace electrolytes with gatoraid or the like? Pure water is not the best for cycling, especially in the summer.

daveryanwyoming

Yep, that's just your basal rate or your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) you need to account for your other activities as well. Try an online estimator like this one: http://www.nutristrategy.com/fitness/cycling.htm

You should definitely be eating something while you ride and again when you first get home. It doesn't have to be much, but as they say "fat burns in a carbo fire" you need blood sugar and glycogen to fuel exercise. This could contribute to your headaches as could a lack of electrolytes as benkoostra pointed out. As could a poor fitting helmet, dirty sunglasses or a host of other possibilities.

Good luck,
Dave

NomadVW

500 calories per hour is actually pretty reasonable a number. Without a power meter the most accurate method I've seen and been able to verify is that you can typically burn 40 calories per mile traveled. This obviously varies if you're biking hills/descents a lot or doing intervals, but if I go through my power files to double check the data - a good overall average is 40 calories per mile.

Once you've started tracking your calories, you can pretty much "ballpark" your resting metabolic rate (RMR). BMR is a little trickier. I have an excel spreadsheet I use that gives me a good idea of how many calories per day I am burning that is NOT cycling. Based on my 7-10 day weight changes, my cycling calories, and my intake, it gets me pretty close to what I've had measured on equipment as my resting metabolic rate.

It's also been very close to this calculator, for me. You need to know your % body fat to get the best estimate of RMR.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calrmr.htm

(in the results, method five is the closest to mine when I have my % body fat)

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tfstrum

He doesn't sound like he's starving himself and he asked. I don't see a problem limiting intake after a certain part of the day. Why does someone need to eat dinner at 9 pm if they can eat ~ 6:30 or 7 pm. He's not body building. If he was I'd say eat protein, like chicken all day. I've heard of guys that wake up to eat and then go back to bed.

He wants to lose weight. Eat healthy and limit your intake.

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A person without an opinion is fairly safe, but seldom heard

Biking-Momma

Another thing to keep in mind when counting your calories is to take in to concideration what those calories contain. Are they empty calories like a bunch of fried bread or calories from a healthy salad.

I put myself on a 1200 calorie a day diet a year ago and even had days where i only had 900 calorie days(I honestly wasn't trying to). i continued to gain weight. Why? Because the carbs in those calories were screwing me up. A few doctor's appointment's and I quickly found out some stuff. Since limiting my carbs to good healthy carbs with occasional indulgences. I have lost 60 pounds.

I'm not saying cut out carb's, but maybe be more selective with the carbs that make up your calorie intake .