Food intake & weight

Coldcorn

Morning,

I've had a read through a number of topics and nutrition articles on this site, but could do with more personalised recommendations without taking the time off work to see a nutritionist or such.

So basically I cycle to work and back 5 days a week. It's a 30 mile return journey in and out of London, however i've noticed dramatic weight loss since I started doing this a month ago. I've generally always been pretty slim and have done a fair bit of cycling back at uni (half year ago).

Since Feb, my weight has reduced form 79kg to 65kg and I'm not really sure how to maintain the weight now. (My height is 5ft 10") My usual day consists of:

Banana + Green tea before cycle

Large bowl of waitrose essential fruit muesli at work.

Homemade pasta dish + generally fresh veg in it.

Afternoon snack of granary bread with peanut butter.

 Various cups of herbal tea + water throughout the day and a large(ish) dinner when home after my commute back.

Any futher suggestions other than just increasing the size of my portions or perhaps eating different foods in the day? Any feedback is appreciated!

Cheers

Conrad

dgstewart

Are you sure? I would check your scales first. I doubt you've lost that much in one month, as that's about 1lb per day (79-65 = 14kg, then 14*2.2 = 30.8 lb), which would be dangerously quick, and difficult.

In theory losing 1lb in fat requires about 3500 cals deficit. Your round trip commute of 30 miles is likely to burn around 1000 cals, give or take a bit, maybe more if its hilly. Your food intake is hard to judge, but based on what you say, I would guess it's not more than 2,500 cals - depends on portion size.

It would be worth tracking it accurately with a food diary (read labels, put it in a spreadhseet or just write it down), even if just for a week or two to get an idea of your intake. If you don't want to lose any more weight, then you will need to eat more to maintain that level of exercise, or you'll run yourself into the ground.

Several suggestions come to mind:

1) Drizzle some olive oil over your pasta - good healthy fats from olive oil and calorie dense. Maybe also some grated cheese on your pasta - taste and calories!
2) Snack on some nuts and/or seeds. Again good fats/nutrients and calorie dense.
3) Make sure you eat enough fruit and veg. You mention veg on your pasta, but no mention of fruit. You need to eat lots of both when exercising this much as your body needs nutrients. Only downside is fruit and veg are not calorie dense and can be quite filling, so it's a balance.
4) Maybe some carb drinks during cycling or recovery drinks afterwards to top up intake. Chocolate milk is an excellent recovery drink, and very tasty.
5) As you say, up the portions a bit too if need be.
6) Eat cake?!

Don’t make too many changes too quickly; try one or two things at a time until you get a handle on what you need.

Coldcorn

Thanks for the tips, will try a few more things throughout the day. Yeah, unfortunately the scales are correct. I've checked this across 3 different scales because I couldn't quite believe the dramatic weight loss at first (Home + 2 different Boots machines).

I'm hoping it is going to settle down at around the 65kg mark as I don't really want to loose much more.

The route isn't that hilly, however when I am out of central london, I try and increase the pace by a fair amount (cruise at around 18-22mph if traffic/lights permit).

Thanks for the suggestions anyhow, and will see how I go introducing some more variation into my diet slowly.

Cheers,

Warwickshire Whizzer

Coldcorn wrote:

Yeah, unfortunately the scales are correct. ,

Have you double checked you haven't lost a leg somewhere?

smithy1.0

Coldcorn wrote:

I'm not really sure how to maintain the weight now.

Easy. Eat more. Put peanut butter on everything. Eat lots of chocolate. Pies. Cake. Or simply more good stuff if you want to keep it healthy. !Doesn't sound like you are eating an especially large amount to me, for 30miles per day.

Jeff Jones

I eat lots of chocolate to maintain weight - it works and tastes good.

briantrumpet

Jeff Jones wrote:

I eat lots of chocolate to maintain weight - it works and tastes good.

So I'm not the only one then! Although I'm partial to very dark chocolate (Terry's Bitter Chocolate of distant memory was one of my favourites), at the moment Co-op are doing the 230g bars of Dairy Milk cheap - I can eat a whole one of those in one session, if I'm feeling naughty.

I eat like a horse, especially in the evening, but my weight stays pretty stable at 73kg for 6'.

Hmm, let me see, what might I eat in a day?:

Morning:
Bowl of muesli
Banana
Mid-morning cake (if I'm lucky)
Lunch/afternoon:
Cooked school lunch, with pudding (three days a week during term-time)
Large snickers
A couple of hot cross buns (optional)
Evening:
A large plateful of something ricey or pasta-ey, with a fair portion of something meaty
Something chocolatey
Possibly something puddingy
An apple or two
A litre of fruit juice
Possibly another bowl of muesli (depends if I feel peckish).

That gets me through 150-250 energetic miles in a week, and quite a lot of moving around - I hardly ever sit down during the day. But I guess I'm good at burning off energy too.

amaferanga

You must look very different from what you did a month ago and presumably none of your clothes fit any more? 79kg at 5'10" is quite chunky, where as 65kg is pretty (very?) lean. Perhaps your scales are reading right now (so the same as the Boots scales) but were over-reading massively before?

You probably need about 1000kcal extra on top of what you ate before you started commuting. An extra 1000kcal is actually pretty easy to consume by just increasing all your portion sizes and adding a couple of extra snacks. Simple as that.

But I still can't get my head around how you can lose almost 1lb a day with just a 30 mile commute. 1lb a day equals calorie deficit of ~3500kcal per day and assuming you have weekends off then its even more surprising. Even if you were to have only lost half a lb/day then it'd be heck of a lot if you were just eating normally and cycling 30 miles.

Jeff Jones

briantrumpet wrote:

Jeff Jones wrote:

I eat lots of chocolate to maintain weight - it works and tastes good.

So I'm not the only one then! Although I'm partial to very dark chocolate (Terry's Bitter Chocolate of distant memory was one of my favourites), at the moment Co-op are doing the 230g bars of Dairy Milk cheap - I can eat a whole one of those in one session, if I'm feeling naughty.

I eat like a horse, especially in the evening, but my weight stays pretty stable at 73kg for 6'.

Ditto - I'm at 69-70kg @ 6'0 and have been fairly stable for the past 6 months despite doing rather a lot of riding (11000-13000 kJ (~ Cal) / week according to my power meter).

I start with a bowl of porridge + milk, yoghurt, banana and honey, then during the day I'll eat 5 x muesli bars, 1 x daim bar/other chocolate, 2 x apples, ham, cheese and tomato baguette, more chocolate if I'm hungry, then get home and have a pre dinner snack (bread and butter or cheese) followed by 3 x bowls of e.g. pasta + sauce, 2 x bowls of ice cream (low fat of course...) with another 50-100g of dark chocolate. Or white chocolate. Or any chocolate. Plus cocoa if I'm extra hungry.

It seems to work.

Phill Thom

I too am struggling to keep weight stable, and I eat like a horse.. I have gone from 17 stone 8 pounds down to 16 stone dead, and thats in 7 monhs. I am not sure if thats normal weight loss or not. I cycle hard 3 or 4 times a week, any advice again on how normal that amount of weight loss is would be gratefully accepted.

sagalout

In all seriousness if I lost 14kg in the space of a month or so I'd go and see the doctor

SBezza

If you were massively overweight I could understand a large drop in weight initially, but to sustain 1lb a day is some going, even if you cycled 3,500 worth of calories a day and kept your food intake the same, the body will just compensate for that sort of weight loss.

I am trying to lose a little more weight, currently 70kgs at 5'8", but no matter what sort of energy I use on the bike, and how little food I eat sometimes, it seems stable at that. Perhaps it is the Snickers bars I eat on the bike, or the other chocolate I eat of it . I did lose some weight last week, though not in the most desirable way, at least it has stayed off.

Headhuunter

I really wouldn't lay into the processed fats and refined carbs in an attempt to get your weight up as some people here suggest! Bad fats are bad fats and refined sugars are bad whatever and will cause spikes in energy. Neither of these are good whether you're underweight or not. Instead as someone else suggested, eat nuts and seeds, good oils on past like olive oil and slow burn carbs like oats and cereals, wholewheat bread etc and yoghurt etc. You don't seem to eat meat - are you veggie? Perhaps your body would appreciate some protein to build muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat so should help you bulk up. I really would not start chomping through cakes and Mars Bars... Definitely not the way to go. Just increase intake of the healthy stuff.

meanredspider

That does seem a dramatic weight loss and, if correct, I'd suggest you do see your doctor as it could be related to something relatively serious (diabetes & cancer are two that immediately spring to mind) - not worth taking a chance.

Your diet does seem short of good fats. I think 1000cals for 30 miles is a bit of an under estimate unless you ride like a granny but it no way begins to explain the loss you've experienced.

I've sat in hospital for the last 3 weeks and, apart from climbing 7 floors via the stairs a few times a day, I'm completely sedentary. I've being using the Livestrong app to track calories and allowed myself 2000 per day (at 90kg) and the weight's coming off me. I'm at least a notch in on my belt and my jeans will come off without undoing them.

Measure your intake and look to exceed expenditure. But worth getting some medical checks IMO

keef66

Well I've lost nearly a stone since Christmas due to:

1) putting on 5 lbs over Christmas
2) eating a bit less since then. Not a massive reduction in volume but being more choosy re fat and sugar content
3) cycling a bit more. Still only 2-3 outings a week, maybe 40 miles in total.

I've gone from a post-Christmas weight of 11st 5 lbs to 10 st 6 lbs this morning. Height is unchanged at a lofty 5' 6".

So if you had a bit of weight to shed, I can believe that an initial loss of a pound a day is feasible given your level of exercise and healthy but low calorie diet.

If you continue to lose it at the same rate though, I'd be round the doctors sharpish. You'll have disappeared entirely before the year's out!

Keith47

Headhuunter wrote:

I really wouldn't lay into the processed fats and refined carbs in an attempt to get your weight up as some people here suggest! Bad fats are bad fats and refined sugars are bad whatever and will cause spikes in energy. Neither of these are good whether you're underweight or not. Instead as someone else suggested, eat nuts and seeds, good oils on past like olive oil and slow burn carbs like oats and cereals, wholewheat bread etc and yoghurt etc. You don't seem to eat meat - are you veggie? Perhaps your body would appreciate some protein to build muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat so should help you bulk up. I really would not start chomping through cakes and Mars Bars... Definitely not the way to go. Just increase intake of the healthy stuff.

+1

There are so many healthier ways to gain weight than poisoning your system with refined sugar, and you won't get the peaks and troughs of energy levels that simple refined carbohydrates cause either.