Does cycling/leaness make you look older?

tommy_tommy

This year, in preparation for road racing and hilly sportives I cut down the number of long miles I ride but upped the intensity of my training, I also cut all the sugary carbohydrates, from my diet and added more low GI carbohydrates good fats and proteins. As a result, I dropped about 10 pounds in weight to around 10st 3 at 5ft 10.

My cycling has improved significantly and I am riding hills really well, However; I have a dilemma. My wife, family and friends say I look ill and look as if I have aged rapidely in the last year. Due to their constant nagging, I am now at point, where I have almost decided to ditch the cycling and join the gym and put on some muscle.

However, I cannot say, if the biggest improvement in my cycling has come from the weight loss (improved diet) or the more intense training. I now thinking of trying to gain around 12lbs in weight, is this likely to be detrimental to my cycling performance? I am considering mixing weights and cycling, increasing my body weight and maybe changing from hilly events to flat/short crits and 10mTT's. Is weight such an issue in these events.

Does anyone have experience of building and weight whilst still taking part in some form of cycling.

Infamous

I do cycling and a bit of a weights program. I doubt it would slow you down that much, unless you intend to hit the roids and become a pro bodybuilder. why 12lbs though? sounds arbitrary.

I find that the strength really helps when standing and pulling on the bars, also the stronger core definitely helps. The hard parts are when you are tired from riding, it can be tough to then get the motivation to lift some weights, also it takes a lot of persistence, you're not going to look like a rugby player in a months time. Just like cycling, it takes a long time of continuous training.

I avoid any leg work though, it can put a lot of strain on the back (squats/deadlifts) and can make you take time off the bike.

neeb

Just speculating, but I suppose common sense would suggest that if you are losing a significant amount of fat then your skin might be a bit looser and could show wrinkles more... All the evidence though is that being skinny, even very skinny, is good for your health and your life expectancy provided you are otherwise properly nourished. There's a big gap between what people think looks healthy and what actually is healthy in western society, because the norm is to be fat and unhealthy and the ideal of what looks good (i.e.unnaturally developed upper body musculature in men) is so dysfunctional.

Obviously adding 12lbs to your weight is not going to be good for your cycling if you are already cycling fit, even in the unlikely event it is all muscle (unless you manage to put it all on your legs Chris Hoy style and only do track sprinting!).

Do you feel healthy, i.e. alert and energetic on a day to day basis and not prone to infections? If so I would resist the pressure to conform to the 21st C industrialised society "normal" body image.

LittleB0b

of course it could be that you have got older...


Sometimes natural changes seem to happen very fast

phreak

I guess it comes down to how seriously you're taking your cycling. I cycle for fun, I realise that I'm not ever going to be a pro so it seems odd to me to take it as seriously as a pro would to the extent of dieting and all that specifically for it. Hence I still have the swimmers physique of my youth and weigh in at 60kg in my 5'5" frame. Doubt I'll ever be the best cyclist in the world but I climb better than many and enjoy it. That'll do for me.

The idea that skinny adds to life expectancy is one thing but it's also been shown (I think) that pro cyclists reduce their life expectancy such is the strain they put on their bodies. They do it because its their job. It's not your job so putting this hobby of ours into a bit of perspective is no bad thing.

BeaconRuth

tommy_tommy wrote:

My cycling has improved significantly and I am riding hills really well, However; I have a dilemma. My wife, family and friends say I look ill and look as if I have aged rapidely in the last year. Due to their constant nagging, I am now at point, where I have almost decided to ditch the cycling and join the gym and put on some muscle.

No! Don't do that! You're obviously not ill, you're strong, fit and healthy. Maybe your family and friends could learn to appreciate your fitness, health and vitality instead? Neeb is right IMO.

However, I cannot say, if the biggest improvement in my cycling has come from the weight loss (improved diet) or the more intense training......

Probably a bit of both.

............... I now thinking of trying to gain around 12lbs in weight, is this likely to be detrimental to my cycling performance?

Yes it probably will be detrimental.

I am considering mixing weights and cycling, increasing my body weight and maybe changing from hilly events to flat/short crits and 10mTT's. Is weight such an issue in these events.

It's less of an issue than in hilly events, but if you are well-suited to hilly events and riding strongly why change? Not all women find muscley, well-built blokes attractive......... some of us find a lean, fit, strong cyclist much much more appealing.

Ruth

tommy_tommy

Thanks for the replies. A few comments:

1. All the people that have mentioned my appearance and raised concern for my health are strangely those who take no exercise and eat the usually high fat/salt/sugar diets. Work colleagues, family.

2. If i was ill would I have been able to ride 85 miles with 10,000m of climbing in 5 and half hours last weekend?

3. I often ask myself why I take cycling seriously even though i am not that good and my age means my best days are behind me. I am a perfectionist by nature and what ever i do i try to do as best I can. Should I just cycle around for fun with no goals or targets to aim at?

4. I played rugby in my younger days and had to eat continuously and lift huge weights to hold my playing weight at 13 stone. My slight frame is certainly more of an advantage in cycling and its far easier to be naturally light than unnaturally heavy.

5. Cycling to work saves me 70 pounds a month in fuel. Joining the gym will cost me 35 a month. Net loss 105 pound/month.

Am I taking myself out of handing in this gym application?

zammmmo

Mate, don't give into peer pressure from couch potatoes - what do they know anyway (now your wife is a different matter but she should understand if its important to you). My view is give cycling a really good go - keep the weight down, and see what results you get. Mabye in a year or two your motivation will change to something else - you may want a new challenge. I've been through many phases like this with different sports when I feel I'm 90% 'there' with the results I could achieve and frankly it gets boring to go on.

If you do cycling (not racing) for please, you could put some weight back on. I think it would be a shame for you not see what you can do having done the training and having kept to a strict diet. Put vanity (I take the points above about Western perceptions - but I do think people look better with a degree of fat on their face, but a ripped body does look good) aside - if you were going out on the pull then I'd tend to agree with your mates (to a degree) but I guess you are not?

Relax.

Tom Butcher

The weights aren't going to put fat on your face - which is probably what people are judging you on. 12lbs in fat will make you look more like you used to - but it'll stuff your cycling - really your choice but I'd love to be back to the kind of weight where people asked me politely at work if I was OK.

I think a lot of it is just the change as much as anything - you look different - if you'd always been super thin nobody would think you looked ill - I mean we all must know some very lean cyclists (or others) and they don't look ill to us because that's just how we've always known them.

BeaconRuth

tommy_tommy wrote:

1. All the people that have mentioned my appearance and raised concern for my health are strangely those who take no exercise and eat the usually high fat/salt/sugar diets. Work colleagues, family.

What a shame they can't celebrate with you your ability to ride a long way over very hilly terrain at a good speed, instead of undermining your confidence about how you look. As Neeb said earlier, the conventional idea of what is an ideal weight is probably a relatively unhealthy weight. A bit of excess flab, a roll or two of fat over a tight belt, big shoulders and a broad chest from having a thick layer of sub-cutaneous fat to make a guy look bigger and hence feel better about himself???? :shock: .............. these things are the norm. Are they good? NO!

Ruth

Blonde

Answer to post title = No. The opposite is in fact true. It's pretty well documented that the majority of the public seem to view those who are overweight as looking older than their biological age whilst those who are lean as seen as younger as well as more attractive. You only have to watch something like "10 years younger" on the telly, to see that. Regarding facial age; of course wrinkles appear with age, and they can look more pronounced if you have less facial fat to plump them out. However, not smoking and keeping the sun off your face earlier in life will help prevent some of that. Wear a sun visor or peaked cap and use a good factor 30 sunblock in summer. Of course it's not how you look that's really important anyway - it's yer insides what counts, and you're probably already aware that yer insides will be effectively "younger" than that of sedentary people too, so you've no worries there either. Heart disease, diabetes, and other weight related diseases are less likely if you are eating well and exercising regularly. Your wife should be pleased anyway, as even your sex life will be better than that of sedentary people... provided you aren't totally shagging yerself out with excessive bike mileage of course...

phreak

There are cases of people becoming too thin though. There was one show or other with a fatty and a skinny who were both unhealthy weights. The skinny lady was a marathon runner who no doubt ran her marathon races well but was incredibly unhealthy. By all means be lean and mean but if an amateur cyclist starts looking like Michael Rasmussen then for me that's just as bad as someone being over weight.

According to the dreaded BMI then the OP seems to be ok, with a BMI of 20.5 but I think its dangerous for us to say that any kind of skinny is healthy as too thin is just as unhealthy as too fat.

alp777

tommy_tommy wrote:

2. If i was ill would I have been able to ride 85 miles with 10,000m of climbing in 5 and half hours last weekend?

I would say you were superhuman if you managed to do the above. Are you sure it wasn't 10,000ft?

richa

Think the problem stems from perceptions and changes in your appearance.

Some of my friends think shouldn't lose any more weight. I am 5'10 & 13st. But they had gotten used to me at 15st. I look a little different now. If I had always been 13st we wouldn't be having the conversation.

The same applies to you. If you are sure that you are healthy and stong at your current weight and like the way you look then stay as you are.

Pretty soon they'll be used to it and will have adjusted their perception of what you look like.

jamespiggot

Last year one of my daughters told my wife I was looking too thin and not well. The problem is that as I get older (53 years old now) any weight loss does show first in the face. My fat percentage was around 12% at the time so certainly wasn't that skinny. The end result was I ended eating more and put on some weight. It does show when climbing, but hey I can make it up on the descents. You can see the effect on Armstrong's face now he is older, looks pretty ravaged at times, bit like a Rolling Stone. Does what you eat make a difference? Maybe adding some more fat to my diet would fill up my face a bit, or standing on my head would help the fat migrate from my ar*e to my cheeks (cheek to cheek!).

nmcgann

phreak wrote:

There are cases of people becoming too thin though. There was one show or other with a fatty and a skinny who were both unhealthy weights. The skinny lady was a marathon runner who no doubt ran her marathon races well but was incredibly unhealthy. By all means be lean and mean but if an amateur cyclist starts looking like Michael Rasmussen then for me that's just as bad as someone being over weight.

According to the dreaded BMI then the OP seems to be ok, with a BMI of 20.5 but I think its dangerous for us to say that any kind of skinny is healthy as too thin is just as unhealthy as too fat.

I saw that program. The marathon running lady wasn't eating enough to support her training, but once she increased her intake and was onto a healthier diet she started doing better in races. I can't remember if she actually put any weight on though?

Neil

zammmmo

Two things:

1. I think its quite possible to have different amount of fat, relatively speaking, in different parts of your body. I suffer with this - although my fat level is about 13% my face carries proportionately less fat so people always think I'm thinner than I am. :evil:

2. Pro cyclists do seem to age prematurely - I think that is partly due to the effort level they put in, maybe free-radical damage and sun damage to the skin. Interestingly enough though, the ones that then blimp out a bit seem to look more their age. Indurain looks allright whereas some of the guys who have become directeur sportifs who have stayed skinny, definitely look old for their age. I'd say it was a price worth paying - look at all the great (and not so great) experiences they will have had.

prb007

Tommy - you didn't mention how old you ACTUALLY are?
Umpteen years of being out in all weathers, too much UV, associated
facial contortions on climbs, etc, will make us ALL look old before our time, I'll wager.
In the same boat - I'm training for two events this year - the VTT Portes du Soleil (MTB) and the Dragon Ride (117m sportive) - two very different events, only 2 weeks apart.
I'm 6'4" tall and 100kgs (nearly 16st in old money), but FEEL better than I have for years, just for riding more (new MTB helped), have lost 2kgs (mostly fat, I think/hope) but with a bit of weight training haven't lost too much lean muscle mass - the holy grail of fitness training - I think I've gained lean body mass - but everyone at work is asking me the same question - 'are you ill?', because I have few more lines in my face than I did in January (I'm 44, btw).

tommy_tommy

I am actually 42 so quite old. I am also entered for the dragon ride. I have read a few articles on oxidization and free radical damage from endurance training in relation to aging and feel their maybe an element o truth in this theory. I have trained all year round for 15 years and completed in everything from Iron man triathlons, MTB enduros, marathons, road racing and sportive in all weathers, so I should expect to look old. Would I trade these experiences for a more youthful look. No.

I am now going to continue with my current training keep to my diet and current weight and get under 6 hours on the dragon ride.

neeb

I am actually 42 so quite old.

Ha, that explains it. I'm the same age as you (and pretty much the same weight).

I reckon nearly everyone starts to look noticeably older at 40-45, and it seems to accelerate as you head towards 50... It's a bummer, but not much you can do about it...

The oxidation / free radical thing is very, very complicated and still not completely understood in vivo. I can't remember the details but I read something once about the metabolic differences between energy burned during exercise and energy burned in other circumstances, and there is a different "mode" utilised by the enzymes of the oxidative respiratory chain when they are running at full pelt to satisfy large muscular energy requirements that protects against free radical damage more than when they are "forced" to run due to excess energy from food and no energy demands from the muscles. In the first case everything is mostly ticking along smoothly while in the second the system gets "backed up" so to speak, which is when the most damage happens. So you get more free radical damage from consuming more energy than you need than you do from eating more and burning it at the same time. But it's more complicated than that, and depends on individual metabolism to some extent.

BeaconRuth

tommy_tommy wrote:

I am actually 42 so quite old.

That's strange! I'm 40 and I'm quite young.

Ruth

shogunsteve

tommy_tommy wrote:

This year, in preparation for road racing and hilly sportives I cut down the number of long miles I ride but upped the intensity of my training, I also cut all the sugary carbohydrates, from my diet and added more low GI carbohydrates good fats and proteins. As a result, I dropped about 10 pounds in weight to around 10st 3 at 5ft 10.

My cycling has improved significantly and I am riding hills really well, However; I have a dilemma. My wife, family and friends say I look ill and look as if I have aged rapidely in the last year. Due to their constant nagging, I am now at point, where I have almost decided to ditch the cycling and join the gym and put on some muscle.

However, I cannot say, if the biggest improvement in my cycling has come from the weight loss (improved diet) or the more intense training. I now thinking of trying to gain around 12lbs in weight, is this likely to be detrimental to my cycling performance? I am considering mixing weights and cycling, increasing my body weight and maybe changing from hilly events to flat/short crits and 10mTT's. Is weight such an issue in these events.

Does anyone have experience of building and weight whilst still taking part in some form of cycling.

How dissapointing that some people cannot give you positive comments.

Although I cannot comment completely as I cannot see you, if you are eating healthily and within your requirements for your gender/energy spent then I cannot see why its a problem.

I think its very easy for people who are overweight or unfit to start making these kind of comments, but the reality is its how you "feel" that matters.

As long as you are eating enough and feel fine then I think you deserve praise and you shouldnt change your ways.

Keep up the good work as it sounds like you have done something none of your peers is capable or willing to do.

liversedge

Pfffffffffffffft. Spits out Tea. 42. OLD!?!?!?!?

neeb

Yup, 84 is old, 42 is just-about-still-young. That's what I tell myself anyway!

I reckon middle age starts at 60, as that's about half of maximum life expectancy.

Aggieboy

neeb wrote:

Yup, 84 is old, 42 is just-about-still-young. That's what I tell myself anyway!

I reckon middle age starts at 60, as that's about half of maximum life expectancy.

Are you a Vulcan!!

sampras38

In response to the OP I sympathise with you completely as I've had the same comments. I've gone from 15st 8 to 12st 9 due to hard bike training and a strict diet, and I've had the "you're looking gaunt" comments. And you're right, they are usually said by people who are pretty in-active. It bothered me to begin with but I soon realised a lot of it was either eny, or just ignorance. And I totally agree with whoever said some people assume that a full face is a fit face. Another rider also said to me recently, that nowadays, a lot of society is getting bigger, and when they see someone going the other way they don't know how to handle it. Personally I'm the fittest I have ever been and can quite comfortably do 70 mile or so rides at speed with plenty of climbs. I'm extremely proud with my fitness levels and couldn't care less what others think now. My wife supports me and that's all I care about.

And I'm also doing the longer Dragon ride in June.

jgsi

So what are you gonna do...?
I too get remarks about being too skinny.. I can't wear my favourite Haka t shirt on its own 'cos it makes look beanpole.
But I am 15% bodyfat .. 188cm and 82kg and happy enough for getting under the hour for 20 miles...
if you change to shorter races.. don't the 'bigger' guys tend to come to the fore in these events as it is about raw power....?.. I stand corrected if too much a generalization.

prb007

I am now going to continue with my current training keep to my diet and current weight and get under 6 hours on the dragon ride.[/quote]

Strewth - I was hoping for 7hrs, optimistically - see you at the start line, but maybe not at the finish!!!!!!!!!! It'll be my first century, so if I finish it at all, I'll be chuffed!

dennisn

In the FWIW column if you take a close look at the faces of world class endurance athletes you will notice that the majority of them probably look 10 or 15 years older than
their same age counterparts who live in the real world(so to speak). This is due to the amount of stress that they put their bodies through and lots of exposure to the elements.
To put it bluntly, you can't do those things to your body without it showing up as wrinkles
and the other signs of aging. Not that they are less healthy, as this is not the case. It's just that all that stress is going to show.

Dennis Noward

neeb

In the FWIW column if you take a close look at the faces of world class endurance athletes you will notice that the majority of them probably look 10 or 15 years older than
their same age counterparts who live in the real world(so to speak). This is due to the amount of stress that they put their bodies through and lots of exposure to the elements.
To put it bluntly, you can't do those things to your body without it showing up as wrinkles
and the other signs of aging. Not that they are less healthy, as this is not the case. It's just that all that stress is going to show.

Yup, it depends on what you think "old" looks like, and "close" being the operative word. Personally I don't think wrinkles per se make someone seem old, whereas being feeble and unhealthy does. There's a difference between the age you would guess someone is by closely counting the wrinkles and the age they come across as. The latter is more important and is to do with vitality, complexion, the way they move, how alert they are... and exercise is definitely going to help these!

Blonde

Must be a male thing. Conversely, if you're female and lose weight, it's only ever commented on to say how great you look, even when you are, in fact, ill...