how many calories am i burning?

Triangle Kebab

Just wondering if anyone knows of a good online calorie calculator, i have found a couple of them but im not sure they are very accurate. I did 31 miles at an average of 14.4 mph yesterday in 2hours 9 mins both of these online calculators came back at 2474 calories burned, even taking into account that i am heavy (17st6lbs) this figure still seems very high to me. Is there a rough guide to how many calories an hour i am burning while cycling?

gavbarron

I usually use a very rough guesstimate of around 5-700 kcal per hour depending on effort. Wouldn't expect to see 1200ish per hour even if racing

team47b

I would also think about 5-700 per hour

But this is not the same as 500 calories eaten. You will be burning glucose from the food you just ate, glycogen and fat in different proportions dependent on effort used. More effort more fat burning.

Triangle Kebab

i thought 500 ish kcal an hour was about right, thats what i have been working on anyway. I've only been back out there riding seriously for a fortnight, so i have a long way to go to loose the 3 stone that i need too (doctors recomendation). Any tips on how i can help myself achieve this?

gavbarron

Just keep at the riding and keep your diet as clean as possible. You can't out train a bad diet

schweiz

I'm 13 stone or there abouts and I burn around 700-750 cal an hour on an undulating ride. An hour of racing is around 1100 or so. I ride with a power meter so those figures are not just based on estimates of the amount of work that I've done.

team47b

Eat less and ride more.

Reduce the size of portions and cut out the crap from your diet, eat more fibre (veg), drink more water, avoid can drinks and alcohol. It is easier to eat less than it is to burn more. Start a food diary so that you can see where you have been going wrong. Reduce your carbohydrates, avoid all simple carbs, eat brown bread, brown rice, brown pasta these will keep you fuller for longer, avoid potato, white bread, pastry. Get a turbo/rollers to fit in more rides per day. Become vegan (my little joke). 3,500 calories is about one pound of fat, so it's only about 147,000 calories to loose, so eat 500 calories less per day, 4 hours riding (min) per week should take about 6 months

Other than that, just have fun on your bike

Pross

Great advice above. It's not easy but when you see the weight going it makes it easier. Plan what you are going to eat in advance. I'm on a fat blast with a fitness trainer at the moment and it's amazing how much better you can eat when you have to post pictures and details on every meal on a Facebook group and get stick from someone if you break the rules (or even take an easy meal option without breaking them!). Lost 4lb last week but eating lots of healthy food.

Schoie81

Re, keeping a food diary - if you've got a smartphone, download the myfitnesspal app (I think there's a website you can use too if you haven't got a smartphone). You can log every single thing you eat each day, set yourself a calorie target for each day and it'll show you how you're doing during the week, it'll even work out what your calorie intake should be to help you loose whatever weight you want to use. You can search for foods and it has the dietary info for them and you can even scan barcodes off packets which makes it dead easy. You can also add any excercise you do which is taken into account in your daily calorie counter. I'm not vouching for its accuracy, and it takes some discipline to keep up with it (I gave up after a week, miss one day and its hard to remember everything you ate and that mucks up your weekly progress check) but its a good way of visualising what you're eating.

As for calories burned - have a look at runkeeper (its not just for running!) again there's a smartphone app which'll track you by GPS so will give you distance, speed, elevation etc... and also give you a calories used figure. I've often wondered how accurate this is, but going on what others have said above, it looks to be pretty much along those lines - around 650 per hour but it does vary - it gives a lower figure for an hour on the flat than it does an hour with lots of climbing. If you haven't got a smartphone you can enter your cycle route online manually and it'll do the same.

Druidor

Endomondo is my program of choice for tracking my activity/exercise & it links to Myfitnesspal.

Mikey23

Plus one for food diary. Can't really see the point of calorie progs and am baffled as to how they might provide any kind of meaningful information

Geoquads

team47b wrote:

Eat less and ride more.

Reduce the size of portions and cut out the crap from your diet, eat more fibre (veg), drink more water, avoid can drinks and alcohol. It is easier to eat less than it is to burn more. Start a food diary so that you can see where you have been going wrong. Reduce your carbohydrates, avoid all simple carbs, eat brown bread, brown rice, brown pasta these will keep you fuller for longer, avoid potato, white bread, pastry. Get a turbo/rollers to fit in more rides per day. Become vegan (my little joke). 3,500 calories is about one pound of fat, so it's only about 147,000 calories to loose, so eat 500 calories less per day, 4 hours riding (min) per week should take about 6 months

Other than that, just have fun on your bike

Very nice post. My past life, was as a gym owner/trainer and your post covers almost everything that needs covering.
A couple of other things worth considering:
1. Muscle mass. I know that a lot of muscle will hinder you in many aspects of cycling, but it doesn't pay to lose muscle if aiming to lose bodyfat. Muscle keeps your metabolism going at a decent rate. So I advise some calisthenics twice a week (press ups etc) for the upper body. It's very hard to put on muscle, so I wouldn't worry about getting too much of it.
2. If limiting your diet a little and exercising a lot, I suggest taking a mulitivitamin/mineral 2-3 x a day. If your body is craving a certain mineral or vitamin it will make you hungry for foods that contain that mineral. In the old days pregnant women often craved coal (true) not realising that their body was depleted of something that the coal had.
3. I also suggest having a higher calorie days once a week. I'd even suggest having a cheat night. This will keep you sane mentally and it helps stop your body going into starvation mode if always on low calories.

Good luck!

Triangle Kebab

thanks for all the replies, there is some really good info here, i am going to really make the effort to eat more brown bread,rice and pasta. I have started using the myfitnesspal app and it seems like a really good idea, and as for a high calorie day once a week, that will be known as fat Friday!!! just out of interest i have set up the myfitnesspal and its giving me a figure of 1640 calories a day, is this a sensible amount or is this to low??
thanks

team47b

Triangle Kebab wrote:

i am going to really make the effort to eat more brown bread,rice and pasta.

:shock:

IMO 1640 calories a day sounds OK on non cycling days, you may need to fuel rides over an hour and a half though, also remember to eat protein to carbs at a ratio of 4:1 within 30 minutes of completing a ride to replenish your glycogen stored in your liver and muscles, try to time the end of a ride to coincide with a meal rather than eat extra to do this.

Best of luck and report back with your progress

Schoie81

team47b wrote:

IMO 1640 calories a day sounds OK on non cycling days, you may need to fuel rides over an hour and a half though

If he's using myfitnesspal and entering his excercise on there as well as food, it takes that into account. So say he did a hour on the bike and burnt 600calories, it'd increase his 'allowance' to 2240calories for the day.

As for 1640calories a day - try it and see how you go. I think if its really hard for you to stick to that figure then there's more chance you'll give up with it. If you find it really hard to stick to that amount then up it a bit (you can chance it in the the app). Obviously it'll take you longer to lose the weight you want to lose, but if it stops you giving up altogether then its worth that extra weight.

Almost all the female members of my family have been on various kinds of 'diets' at some point in my life, and usually haven't kept up with them. It seems obvious to me that these diets cut out ALL the stuff they shouldn't eat, but that that food is also all the stuff they enjoy eating. I personally think you're much better cutting out SOME of the stuff you shouldn't eat rather than all of it, it'll make it easier to stick to while you lose the weight, and easier to stick to in the future so you don't put it back on again!!

I lost around 3 stone in about 18months - wasn't a really conscious effort to lose weight, as I wasn't that bothered about it, but I did it by making only small changes to my diet and not that i'm lighter, I'm glad I lost it. (although you need to start putting some money away for new clothes!! ) Good luck with the weight, and think how much easier the climbs will be! Enjoy the cycling!

Triangle Kebab

just as a quick update, i have been using myfitnesspal for a week now, also been going out almost everyday cycling for around 2 hours a time. I weighed my self this morning and i have only loast about half a pound, is this normal? is it a case of i am building muscle before i start to lose fat?

cougie

I'd give it a bit longer. I've lost 12lb in 6 weeks using MFP. The calorie calculator for cycling definitely overcounts - which is odd as the running one seems pretty accurate. If you've been going off their calories burned - I think you could be fooled into eating too much.

Aside from that - its a great app. I don't see how you can successfully diet without monitoring your intake. Its a high tech food diary.

Pross

1640kcals sounds OK for a general non exercise day. I put myself down as sedentary as I'm office based which gives me around 1300kcals to lose 2lb per week. I then log any exercise I do and the calories consumed then are either additional weight loss or bonus food! The last couple of weeks I have been regularly consuming less calories in a day than I've been expending on rides and have been having single figure grams of fat without any problems (riding up to 2 hours) although I did increase this last weekend when I was due to race.

rpherts

Triangle Kebab wrote:

just as a quick update, i have been using myfitnesspal for a week now, also been going out almost everyday cycling for around 2 hours a time. I weighed my self this morning and i have only loast about half a pound, is this normal? is it a case of i am building muscle before i start to lose fat?

My weight can vary as much as 1.5kg over the course of a week, mostly all due to hydration. Measure it over a period of at least four to six weeks.

If you ride 10 hours a week you will burn 5000-6000 calories, which is about 1.5lbs or a bit more, which is fine. You don't want or need to lose weight faster than that. That's a stone in just under ten weeks.

marylogic

I love seeing how many calories I've burned after a ride, but if I'm being honest with myself I just use them as an excuse to eat more :oops:
While I was losing weight earlier this year I tried to ignore the calorie count on my garmin, and just eat a bit more good quality protein and carbs after a ride without going overboard. If I felt hungry I'd eat a little more, but not necessarily as much as I'd burned up.

If you think about it unless you're going flat out, most of the calories you burn when you're out riding will be fat so you don't need to replace all of them. If you eat soon after you exercise you'll avoid problems with your metabolism slowing.

fatsmoker

Geoquads wrote:

team47b wrote:

3. I also suggest having a higher calorie days once a week. I'd even suggest having a cheat night. This will keep you sane mentally and it helps stop your body going into starvation mode if always on low calories.

Now that is excellent news. Does it include beer and kebabs?