Weight loss

What's the question!?

You'll lose weight very quickly if you start riding 3-4 times a week and eating healthily. How much and how quickly is an unanswerable question, it'll depend on so many factors.

Remember to rest and recover too. Just as important! Don't do too much too soon.

pushingnatural wrote:

"Eat food, mostly plants, and not too much of it" - Michael Pollan.

This is incredibly true, if you follow a primarily plant based diet (I'm not suggesting all out vegan), supplemented with eggs, fish and some meat and carbs used intelligently after exercise you can't go far wrong.

So not a primarily plant based diet at all then really...

What's the basis? Volume, calorie count?

pushingnatural wrote:

When eating a plant based diet and partaking in daily exercise it's often hard to over eat, so unless you were experiencing weight gain on a plant based diet I'd advise eating to hunger.

Depends on what is classed as plant based food.

If we're talking simply leaves and legumes then it will be almost impossible to over eat. Your digestive system would be shouting in protest as such high volumes and the fuel content would be on the low side. If however it extends to fruits, vegetables, pulses, nuts, grains, seeds, fungi, etc and whether these must sit in their raw state or allowed to be processed then it's a different ball game entirely.

My advice would be to not to go on some pursuit of intentional/deliberate reduction in calories. Making the assumption that you are over weight through a combination of lack of exercise and/or poor diet I would simply implement clean eating by cutting out processed foods, starch and gluten rich foods, bad fats and refined sugars.

Stick to basic food sources:

Lean protein sources such as chicken and white fish.
Quality carb sources like brown rice, bulgar wheat, quinoa, sweet potato.
Leafy greens and fruit with thin skin.
Vegetables that have good fibre content.
Good fat sources such as oily fish, nuts, avocado, coconut oil, eggs.

I would keep the quantity or volume of food eaten the same for two reasons:

1. If you starve yourself then energy levels will drop off, you'll feel constantly hungry and generally will have a greater tendency to fall off the wagon early on.

2. Eating clean foods will tend to hold fewer calories than processed food alternatives. You will feel fuller while consuming less calories thus giving the effect of dieting without the stigma of being on a diet.

Once you get into the routine of eating cleaner foods and the added exercise you can then look to make tweets to what you are eating. It may mean more or less foods, more greens and vegetables etc...

Just looked at that PushingNatural website, £45 for a 7 day nutrition plan. Fuck that. Not convinced on the "comprehensive dietary analysis" either.

Interesting. What if you have just had a massive sugary meal? Or is it down to the exact 'zones' of training.

Pet subject for me too, since i've been trying to battle the bulge so long and the bike is a key ally.

As others have said for the first couple of months you might be best just worrying about building up a basic level of fitness before thinking about weight loss.

Two basic facts -

1 - cycling burns about 600 calories per hour in my case (5ft 10inch male, mediocre ability)
2 - 1 pound of fat contains about 3500 calories

so it's going to come off slowly long term, you could expect to loose 1 pound sustainably every 6 hours or so of saddle time, if you didnt eat any more

The next thing you need to bear in mind -

3 exercise, of the stuff that gets your heart pounding and breathing slightly faster, burns mostly carbs.

4 - walking, and sedentary "keeping yourself alive" type activites consume mostly fat.

5 - Your body only stores about 800 calories worth or therabouts (it increases with training, but not that much) of carbohydrate - once the stores exceed that level, it gets converted to fat. When you depete it completely through cycling, you hit the dreaded "bonk".

This means you are not going to be able to burn that 1pound's worth of calories in one mammoth sunday ride. You'd either bonk out, which is bad because a) you might crash the bike in such an addled state b) after the carbs are gone, your body starts breaking down muscle protein to get the energy to keep going, ie. loss of lean body mass , which you don't want! The only way you'd manage the distance safely is to constantly top up with energy gels and sports drinks - ie taking on additional calories, which is somewhat self defeating

You'll need to split the program it into at least 4 rides to achieve a 1 pound a week of weekly weight loss, and ideally spread them out as best you can across the week to give your carb reserves a chance to recover inbetween.

Finally, i used the word "long term".

In the short term, you might see some huge losses, this is the "crash diet/low carb diet syndrome".

Basically, carbs are a much less space efficient way of storing calories than fat. The molecule itself stores half the energy for the same amount of weight, but it also attracts a load of water molecules wheras fat is insoluble. The upshot of this is, that after an unrefuelled 2-3 hour ride to exhaustion, i loose 3 or 4 lbs in weight over the course of the ride no matter how much water i drink. This is because my carb reserves have gone, 1lb, as have the 2-3lb of water molecules they attract. It provokes a "wow" moment when you step on the scales, but after a couple of meals it all comes back!

Don't be too dispondent if the weight loss seems slow - it's real weight loss, it is fat rather than water/carbohydrate reserves, and unlike the quick gains of the crash diet/faddy diet crowd, it will tend to stay off. It actually takes a long time to acquire all the fat we have, so it takes a while to come off!

The main thing is, find as many ways you can to make it fun so you stick at it. "No pain no gain" is nonsense , i'd rather say "no loss without lots of hours in the saddle"


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last year i managed to get down from 18 stone to 15 and a half by doing about 10 hours/week cardio in the gym over 18 months or so. The problem was, i work 4 days on , 4 days off 12 hour shifts, so was doing all the training on 4 back to back days, while eating my own, healthy food, then getting 4 days at work with no exercise and unhealthy, stodgy canteen food.

The amount i could burn on those four days off was limited by the amount of carbs i ate on those four, which wasn't huge as i was trying to loose weight. I'd bonk at the end of every session and do daft stuff, like wander into the cleaner cupboard thinking it was the changing room, loose my car keys etc. Then on my 4 days at work i'd be feeling faint and lightheaded and ravenous on day 1, refuel my carb reserves entirely on this first day, and over the next 3 everything i ate would turn to fat.

Now i've started commuting by bike so i'm atually getting exercise on the days most of the food is eaten, it works much better.

Riding just before or just after a meal is a good policy...