weight loss during rides

Anonymous

I seem to drop 4 or 5 lbs on an moderately good ride, 70 miles or so with a few climbs, is this normal ? I tend to put the weight back on over the next few days.

pbt150

How much do you eat/drink during your rides? Are you trying to lose weight through your training, and do you think you'd consistently put weight on week-on-week if you didn't have your rides to get you back down?(I.e. you eat a lot but your riding burns it all off?)

Try weighing yourself without any clothes/kit on before and after a shortish ride (1hr) at your steady pace without any food/drink to work out how much you're losing through sweat.

You'll be burning a fair bit of fuel during your ride (1g carbs = 5 kcal, 1g fat = 9 kcal), so depending on what you're trying to achieve with your training and how hard you're riding, this will contribute to your weight loss. However this is not a particularly massive contribution to your weight loss as you only start with about 300g carbs in you, and fat contributes about 3,500 kcal per lb. I'd guess most of it is water...

brownbosh

Its only water. Drink more as your performance is being adversely affected with that kind of fluid los.s

Blonde

I agree that this sounds like dehydration. You need to replenish your water level more during he ride, not just afterwards. It also helps if you start well hydrated so don't neglect yourself the day before a ride. - take a bottle of water everywhere with you and take a drink every 15 minutes, that should see you right. If you don't use owt but water in your bottle whilst riding consider using some rehydration salts such as Nuun or Zym or even simply just adding some cordial - you'll drink more if the fluid tastes less of plastic bottle!

prawny

When the glycogen in your muscles is used you drop weight too, that with any fluid loss is going to add up to a couple of pounds probably, more if you've got huge horse legs!

ColinJ

On a warm hilly 200 km audax I would drink about six 0.75L bottles of carbo drink plus maybe two 0.33L Cokes. I would eat 2 or 3 sandwiches, a banana, a piece of flapjack and/or cake, maybe even have a gel or two later on if was flagging. Despite all that, I'd get home 6-8 pounds lighter than when I set off.

Most of that loss is due to dehydration so most of the weight goes back on over the next couple of days as I rehydrate, however I can also feel a noticeable fat loss round my waist. A pound or so of the weight loss remains after rehydration - that's mainly fat.

If I did that ride of yours, I'd lose about the same amount of weight as you. It would be mainly water, but about half a pound of it would be fat.

bahzob

brownbosh wrote:

Its only water. Drink more as your performance is being adversely affected with that kind of fluid los.s

Not necessarily. I regularly lose several pounds during a ride. No noticeable degradation in terms of performance and I know (from trial and error of forcing myself to drink/eat more) that for me at least eating/drinking too much can also have a big adverse effect.

So I think for this topic as with so many other things it aint the case that one size fits all.

OP does not say if noticed performance suffered during ride or not. If not then I would say dont worry unduly. As an experiment try drinking a bit more each ride and see if performance gets any better and/or weight loss is less.

(PS Other side of coin is that over one weekend last Oktoberfest I put on 16lb! fortunately it came off in a week or so..)

Alex_Simmons/RST

bahzob wrote:

brownbosh wrote:

Its only water. Drink more as your performance is being adversely affected with that kind of fluid los.s

Not necessarily. I regularly lose several pounds during a ride. No noticeable degradation in terms of performance and I know (from trial and error of forcing myself to drink/eat more) that for me at least eating/drinking too much can also have a big adverse effect.

So I think for this topic as with so many other things it aint the case that one size fits all.

You may "get away with" insufficient hydration and food intake for longer days in the saddle on the day, however it does nothing to improve your recovery and performance on subsequent days.

Recovery for tomorrow starts while on your ride today.

fatbee

Prawny is right. If you've used up any or most of the glycogen stored in your muscles and liver, a considerable amount of water will have gone with it, at a ratio of between 2 and 4 to 1, water to glycogen. This phenomenon is one of the reaons that people lose "weight" so dramatically at the start of a low carb diet like Atkins. This water loss is different from and in addition to, dehydration in the conventional sense, which may be a factor too.

bahzob

Alex_Simmons/RST wrote:

bahzob wrote:

brownbosh wrote:

Its only water. Drink more as your performance is being adversely affected with that kind of fluid los.s

Not necessarily. I regularly lose several pounds during a ride. No noticeable degradation in terms of performance and I know (from trial and error of forcing myself to drink/eat more) that for me at least eating/drinking too much can also have a big adverse effect.

So I think for this topic as with so many other things it aint the case that one size fits all.

You may "get away with" insufficient hydration and food intake for longer days in the saddle on the day, however it does nothing to improve your recovery and performance on subsequent days.

Recovery for tomorrow starts while on your ride today.

My post ride recovery is fine as well thanks.

If anything, over consuming food/drink during/after ride has a double whammy of making my recovery worse as well.

I'm not saying it will be the case for everyone. That's my point, what works well for one person may be disaster for someone else.

fatbee

"I regularly lose several pounds during a ride. No noticeable degradation in terms of performance "

bahzob, if you lose several pounds in one ride, it's unlikely that much of it will be fat or lean tissue, and very likely that it will be the water attached to your used-up glycogen molecules, just as I suggested. Because, as you say, if it were largely just water from normal dehydration, then you would indeed experience a noticeable drop in performance.

There's an eating regime used by some "natural" (i.e. drug-free) bodybuilders, called CKD or "cyclical ketogenic dieting", in which the athlete alternates between high-carb and low-carb eating. It'd be buggerall use to a competitive road cyclist I reckon - the muscle boys have their own reasons. But the interesting bit is when they switch from low-carb to high, right after a very intensive gym session, they can experience a "weight" gain of 6 or 7 pounds in a few hours!

Alex_Simmons/RST

bahzob wrote:

My post ride recovery is fine as well thanks.

If anything, over consuming food/drink during/after ride has a double whammy of making my recovery worse as well.

I'm not saying it will be the case for everyone. That's my point, what works well for one person may be disaster for someone else.

Where did I say over-consume?

chill123

as already mentioned above sounds like you need to take on more fluids. this is something i used to stuggle with too. now i sometimes set a little alarm on my wristwatch to beep every 15 mins and take a few sips every time it does. if you a\re thirsty you are probably dehydrated...

bahzob

Just completed a 3.5 hour 95k/1000m climbing level 2 ride (194TSS, 207W/229NW, HR average 137 (73% of MHR))

Drinking only when thirsty (which I have found by experience to be the best guide for me) I got through about 600ml of sports drink. I had this thread in mind so I when I finished checked my weight, I was 4lbs lighter than when started. (161>157lbs). However as far as I could all my lights were green, ride felt easy, HR low and only 2% drift, able to put in some efforts when needed throughout the ride and I feel fresh and ready for new years eve..

So to OP which asked "I seem to drop 4-5lbs on moderate rides, is this normal?".

Cant say if it is normal or not for the general population. Can say people differ: some people need to drink a lot and dehydrate quickly, others (like me, maybe like OP) don't.

Question is does if affect your performance? If answer is no then don't worry about it, to the contrary count yourself lucky.