1 year into commuting and I'm heavier than I've ever been

Headhuunter

Weights don't do much for CV health and energy burning, he just needs to get out on the bike more and spin and perhaps thrown in some running. Weights will just add or tone muscle.

prawny

Headhuunter wrote:

Weights don't do much for CV health and energy burning, he just needs to get out on the bike more and spin and perhaps thrown in some running. Weights will just add or tone muscle.

I lost 2.5 stone from 3 days a week weights, You have to eat loads to add muscle. I can't be bothered to dig out a specific study but it's a fact that working out with weights burns calories for hours after you've finished excercising.

Check out the fatties on bodyforlife.com just don't buy into the 12 week BS

Greg T

Headhuunter wrote:

Weights don't do much for CV health and energy burning,

Actually weight training does raise metabolic rate post exercise significantly so you win both from the expenditure during and the afterburn later.

It's also different from the bike - you adapt rapidly to the load you place on your body so you need less and less energy to perform the same exercise.

Like other Greg says bike riding is efficient and also you get more efficient the more of it you do both technique and fizzyology.

You should mix up your training to shock your body and increase the training return per session.

I don't - obviously - as I can't be bothered.

Headhuunter

prawny wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

Weights don't do much for CV health and energy burning, he just needs to get out on the bike more and spin and perhaps thrown in some running. Weights will just add or tone muscle.

I lost 2.5 stone from 3 days a week weights, You have to eat loads to add muscle. I can't be bothered to dig out a specific study but it's a fact that working out with weights burns calories for hours after you've finished excercising.

Check out the fatties on bodyforlife.com just don't buy into the 12 week BS

You're probably right that doing weights burns some energy, but CV exercise like running, cycling and rowing is far more efficient at this. Any exercise means you continue burning energy for up to 30 mins after finishing and generally raises the rate of your metabolism, but CV exercise is more efficient at this than pumping iron.

Headhuunter

Greg T wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

Weights don't do much for CV health and energy burning,

Actually weight training does raise metabolic rate post exercise significantly so you win both from the expenditure during and the afterburn later.

It's also different from the bike - you adapt rapidly to the load you place on your body so you need less and less energy to perform the same exercise.

Like other Greg says bike riding is efficient and also you get more efficient the more of it you do both technique and fizzyology.

You should mix up your training to shock your body and increase the training return per session.

I don't - obviously - as I can't be bothered.

But I'm pretty sure that CV exercise is better at raising metabolic rate than weights. Yes, cycling is very efficient but for that very reason you have to push it harder and get your heart rate up higher, if you're able to comfortably cycle at about 15mph for example on a certain route then try to push it to 17 or 18mph and yuo'll be burning more. Efficiency is irrelevant, it's overal effort put in that's important. I do weights at the gym simply in an attempt to bulk up, I'm not expecting to lose fat from it and would not choose between a bike ride or a weights session to burn fat.

prawny

I'm not going to disagree, because

A. I'm fat

and

B. I got a C in GCSE PE

But if he's already doing a fair bit o cycling, a bit of cross training might be good. Running is so ghey and to be fair a big black man running around the streets at night might make old folk nervous, round my way anyway!

Headhuunter

prawny wrote:

I'm not going to disagree, because

A. I'm fat

and

B. I got a C in GCSE PE

But if he's already doing a fair bit o cycling, a bit of cross training might be good. Running is so ghey and to be fair a big black man running around the streets at night might make old folk nervous, round my way anyway!

If running is "ghey", then he should try rowing perhaps, or try a team sport like basketball, football etc that involves a lot of legging it up and down a pitch and increasing the heart rate

Greg T

Headhuunter wrote:

Any exercise means you continue burning energy for up to 30 mins after finishing and generally raises the rate of your metabolism, but CV exercise is more efficient at this than pumping iron.

Another issue primarily dealt with by cardio/aerobic training has been the problem of body fat. If you want to burn off body fat, you go for a run or jump on the stair stepper. And the body does use fat for fuel during cardio/aerobic exercise, provided the exercise lasts for 20 minutes or more. However, weight training can also be used for burning off body fat. Dr. Dennis Sparkman notes in a Men's Workout article that "any exercise that is done continuously for more than 20 minutes will burn fat. However, aerobics will only burn fat while they are being performed. They lack an `afterburn.'" A long aerobic workout will elevate the body's basal metabolic rate (BMR) for about 30 minutes, then it returns to where it was. On the other hand, strenuous resistance exercise (especially weightlifting) can elevate the metabolism for much longer--as much as 24 hours longer. This is the "afterburn" which consumes so many calories.

Depending on its duration and intensity, a good endurance (cardio/aerobic) workout will elevate your metabolism for anywhere from 1 to 6 hours. After a 1-hour weight-training session, by contrast, your metabolic rate will remain higher for a full 24 hours, thanks to the huge caloric demands of rebuilding muscle tissue.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0675/is_6_18/ai_67372501/

roger_merriman

how about trading in the Giant in for a fixed/SS give you more of a work out. do try some longer rides, go hunting winterfold and whitedown both good work outs, find out what your good at and weak at, i'm not terribly fit nor tend to ride fast. but i know how to climb fairly steep hills i climb winterfold with out need to get out of the saddle etc.

symo

Just from your original post DDD. You appear to be eating crap. Stop it. Less subway it's full of fat, limit non-healthy food to just one treat meal per week. I am losing weight rapidly now, and it has cost me food that was slowly killing me. Life is short enough. Less Chinese takeaway its full of MSG.

Get thee to ASDA get frozen spinach, frozen peppers, frozen chopped onions some turkey, some canned lentils, canned beans of lots of varieties, canned tomatoes. These are my everday foods, I microwave leftovers at work.

Headhuunter

Greg T wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

Any exercise means you continue burning energy for up to 30 mins after finishing and generally raises the rate of your metabolism, but CV exercise is more efficient at this than pumping iron.

Another issue primarily dealt with by cardio/aerobic training has been the problem of body fat. If you want to burn off body fat, you go for a run or jump on the stair stepper. And the body does use fat for fuel during cardio/aerobic exercise, provided the exercise lasts for 20 minutes or more. However, weight training can also be used for burning off body fat. Dr. Dennis Sparkman notes in a Men's Workout article that "any exercise that is done continuously for more than 20 minutes will burn fat. However, aerobics will only burn fat while they are being performed. They lack an `afterburn.'" A long aerobic workout will elevate the body's basal metabolic rate (BMR) for about 30 minutes, then it returns to where it was. On the other hand, strenuous resistance exercise (especially weightlifting) can elevate the metabolism for much longer--as much as 24 hours longer. This is the "afterburn" which consumes so many calories.

Depending on its duration and intensity, a good endurance (cardio/aerobic) workout will elevate your metabolism for anywhere from 1 to 6 hours. After a 1-hour weight-training session, by contrast, your metabolic rate will remain higher for a full 24 hours, thanks to the huge caloric demands of rebuilding muscle tissue.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0675/is_6_18/ai_67372501/

This must be right and I'm no expert but if you cycle at about 60-70% of max heart rate you'll be burning fat and you are likely to be out cycling for longer than you might be doing weights (well I usually am anyway).

Perhaps it's correct that doing weights means you continue to burn energy for a while afterwards, but from personal experience I would not say that in total you are not likely to be burning as much as a full length club ride. I certainly know that when I get back from a 70 miler through Kent I'm starving and need to stock up and continue to munch through the day, if I do a weights sesh I drink my protein drink and all is well with the world...

http://www.brianmac.co.uk/fatburn.htm

Paulie W

symo wrote:

Just from your original post DDD. You appear to be eating crap. Stop it. Less subway it's full of fat, limit non-healthy food to just one treat meal per week. I am losing weight rapidly now, and it has cost me food that was slowly killing me. Life is short enough. Less Chinese takeaway its full of MSG.

Get thee to ASDA get frozen spinach, frozen peppers, frozen chopped onions some turkey, some canned lentils, canned beans of lots of varieties, canned tomatoes. These are my everday foods, I microwave leftovers at work.

Re-read the original post: these were old habits replaced by healthy eating...

Totalnewbie

http://www.britmilfit.com/

I consider it much harder exercise than pedalling from traffic light to traffic light, which is no longer difficult, let's face it. And it's fun, in a masochistic kind of way. Very sociable and quite a laugh. Pushes me far further than the gym ever has. And some of the instructors intersperse the training with the odd game/race etc, so you get to indulge that SCR competitive spirit from time to time...

Oh, and the blue groups (beginners) have a ratio of about ten women to each bloke, not that I think such a statistic would sway you...! :roll:

Mackerel is an admirable choice of fish Blondie. Just perhaps not for breakfast, eh

Greg T

Headhuunter wrote:

I certainly know that when I get back from a 70 miler through Kent I'm starving and need to stock up and continue to munch through the day, if I do a weights sesh I drink my protein drink and all is well with the world...

Yes - Quantity has a quality all of its own.

If you were just to do one hour of training the biggest bang for your buck would probably be weight training in terms of total calls consumed over 24 hrs.

However - you can't weight train for five hours straight as you are doing your long runs - your total cals will probably be higher just due to the length of time you are doing it.

So - if you want to turbo charge your weight loss and don't have five hours a day to train then perhaps the most effective thing you can do is resistance training.

Of course your weight may go up as your muscle mass increases - however your % body fat will hopefully come down.

Headhuunter

Greg T wrote:

Headhuunter wrote:

I certainly know that when I get back from a 70 miler through Kent I'm starving and need to stock up and continue to munch through the day, if I do a weights sesh I drink my protein drink and all is well with the world...

Yes - Quantity has a quality all of its own.

If you were just to do one hour of training the biggest bang for your buck would probably be weight training in terms of total calls consumed over 24 hrs.

However - you can't weight train for five hours straight as you are doing your long runs - your total cals will probably be higher just due to the length of time you are doing it.

So - if you want to turbo charge your weight loss and don't have five hours a day to train then perhaps the most effective thing you can do is resistance training.

Of course your weight may go up as your muscle mass increases - however your % body fat will hopefully come down.

Your previous quote seems to fly in the face of this, however as a runner a cyclist and gym attendee, I would say the biggest bang for your buck would be to run for an hour. I think even a 1 hour ride at a decent intensity leaves me feeling more in need of food than a weights session and it's not as if I only do light weights or go to the gym for short periods. I tend to spend and hour, hour and a half at the gym when I go. Anyway that's my experience...

Greg T

Headhuunter wrote:

[Your previous quote seems to fly in the face of this, however as a runner a cyclist and gym attendee, I would say the biggest bang for your buck would be to run for an hour....

Train as hard as you can for as long as you can seems to be the order of the day....

jimmypippa

This liink might be interesting:

http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/healthyweight/yourbodyshape/

What is your waist measurement doing?

The most amusing individual example that I know about was Jonah Lomu, who weighed 17 stone, and had a 28" waist. Triangle man.

DDD, why don't you get yourself a full sus mountain bike with knobblies, cycle in a waterproof jacket all year, and ensure your rear brake is constantly rubbing...

Greg T

Greg T wrote:

If you were just to do one hour of training the biggest bang for your buck would probably be weight training in terms of total calls consumed over 24 hrs.

I thought about this in the age it took me to get home battling the headwind.

The conclusion is that I've no idea and I was shooting from the hip - big time.

Resistance training is a metabolic rate increaser - it does raise MR for longer than CV (apparently).

However the intensity of effort is wide open and I've no idea how many cals you'll expend in your weights session and how many will be consumed afterwards.

So looks like we are back to training as hard and as long as you can again... No shock there.

I'm starving by the way.

greg66_tri_v2.0

Greg T wrote:

I'm starving by the way.

Cheer yourself up. Have some ice cream. A whole tub.

Seriously. A mate who's a doc (good job no one round here knows anyone medical, else I'd have this checked up and thrown back at me in no time) reckoned that as a one off, eating a ton of ice cream was no worse than eating a bowl. Something to do with the fact that there's a limit on how much your body can ingest of particular food stuffs in a given time. So if you scoff a whole tub in one sitting, you can't ingest all the fat from it before it passes on through; some gets chucked out undigested.

I've found that if you do that every evening for six months, you'll end up quite fat though.

AndyManc

Once you have conquered your commute your body will not need to burn the calories it once did.

I'm the same, not losing weight, my commute is p easy and yet I still eat loads, as I've said in other posts .. jam butties and chocolate biscuits

Want to loose weight ? , visit the gym 3 or 4 times a week, have an good overall workout, it works, I lost 2stone, stopped going , and put 1stone back on :oops:

So back to the gym for me.


.

rally200

DonDaddyD wrote:

. I want to be lean and quick not bulkiy and muscular... I feel dissapointed...

Cycling doesn't work.

DDD don't sweat it mate
the grass is always greener...

I've gone sort of "wiry" - and despite being slap bang in the middle of the "OK" section of the height/weight charts struggle to convince family and friends that I haven't got an eating disorder.

be careful what you wish for.. (& other assorted platitudes)

lost_in_thought

Greg66 wrote:

Greg T wrote:

I'm starving by the way.

Cheer yourself up. Have some ice cream. A whole tub.

Seriously. A mate who's a doc (good job no one round here knows anyone medical, else I'd have this checked up and thrown back at me in no time) reckoned that as a one off, eating a ton of ice cream was no worse than eating a bowl. Something to do with the fact that there's a limit on how much your body can ingest of particular food stuffs in a given time. So if you scoff a whole tub in one sitting, you can't ingest all the fat from it before it passes on through; some gets chucked out undigested.

I've found that if you do that every evening for six months, you'll end up quite fat though.

This is true. Further detail is wholly unnecessary.

The last sentence is also true, and truer yet when applied to Doner Kebabs.

roger_merriman

i haven't had a donna kebab in years, must be more than 5 now.

DonDaddyD

This morning - as in right now after the commute - I've eaten a banana and an apple.

Still I've never felt so unfulfiled in my life...

Is this what my life is going to be like from now on, empty and always hungry...

(Also yeah the commute doesn't work anymore but its a great way of maintaining fitness as oppose to getting fitter).

Tomorrow I'm buying porridge.

Rich158

Do the porridge thing, and apple and a banana on their own aren't great recovery foods, and will leave you feeling horribly hungry mid morning.

And yes, when I'm commuting and training I'm constantly hungry

Greg T

Rich is right.

If you are eating less then you have to eat the right stuff at the right times to avoid feeling like death and suffering on the bike.

I know this as I felt like death and suffered on the bike just last night.

il_principe

DDD - sod the gym, other sports etc. These will cost you more money. You've just spent a load of wedge on some lovely carbon, now you need to get out and ride it. By ride it I don't mean commute and I don't mean 2 laps of RP, I mean proper long weekend rides - 60+ miles, building up to 80/90. Combine this with a few weekday morning rides 15/20 pre commute and you will see a difference - both in body fat and in your fitness/ability on the bike.

You are ideally positioned to take advantage of the Surrey Hills - either pop your bike on the train at Wimbledon, or better still just ride out - Crocknorth, Winterdown, Ranmore, Boxhill etc are all out there waiting for you, take advantage of them while the weather is decent enough, otherwise it'll be winter before you know it.

I'd suggest setting a Sportive as a goal, perhaps this one:

http://www.kentcyclosportive.co.uk/

It's on the 13th Sept so leaves time for some good training. Either way, set some mileage goals - it's important to have something to aim at.

Rich158

or how about this one I did it last year and it's fantastic. I'm signed up again this year

tailwindhome

Why not join the Commuter Stats thread for added motivation?

Also someone's sig quotes The Cannibal

Don't upgrade rides, ride up grades

Headhuunter

Il Principe wrote:

DDD - sod the gym, other sports etc. These will cost you more money. You've just spent a load of wedge on some lovely carbon, now you need to get out and ride it. By ride it I don't mean commute and I don't mean 2 laps of RP, I mean proper long weekend rides - 60+ miles, building up to 80/90. Combine this with a few weekday morning rides 15/20 pre commute and you will see a difference - both in body fat and in your fitness/ability on the bike.

You are ideally positioned to take advantage of the Surrey Hills - either pop your bike on the train at Wimbledon, or better still just ride out - Crocknorth, Winterdown, Ranmore, Boxhill etc are all out there waiting for you, take advantage of them while the weather is decent enough, otherwise it'll be winter before you know it.

I'd suggest setting a Sportive as a goal, perhaps this one:

http://www.kentcyclosportive.co.uk/


It's on the 13th Sept so leaves time for some good training. Either way, set some mileage goals - it's important to have something to aim at.

I'd agree with this, if you've got a decent bike, use it. Join London Dynamo, they operate in your neck of the woods, they'll have you biking to within an inch of your life, especially in summer when their top riders will be trying to get miles in to train for racing....