Originally Posted by
Roody
That's very good advice. And it brings up the idea that exercising doesn't help much with weight loss. It's great for your health, and it'll make you look better and feel better. But if you want to lose weight, you basically have to eat less. If you use exercise as an excuse to eat more, you'll gain weight. "Fit & Fat."
Ummm...hmmm....
I disagree with some of this. Exercise burns calories. Generally, if you burn more calories than you eat you lose weight (unless, maybe you are adding muscle mass while losing fat for a period of time). Also, if you are going on rides longer than two hours or so you had better take some calories along for the ride (I like Cytomax bananas and fig bars) or you will bonk on your ride and won't feel very good
. I have found that 200-250 calories an hour works fairly well for me on rides longer than 2 hours. Maybe a little more on century or longer rides although I don't really have the long distance stuff totally dialed in (I ususally don't eat enough). YMMV
I think a better way to state this is that you need to manage your calorie intake appropriately based on your exercise level and nutritional needs. I eat more calories on training days than I do on off days. Just because there is a need after intense or long training to have some sort of recovery nutrition and on bike nutrition on longer rides. If I don't have some sort of recovery nutrition I will get ravenously hungry the rest of the day and will tend to over eat. Again YMMV.
I do agree, however, that if you use exercise as an excuse to eat more, weight loss success will be slowed down or stopped (been there
). Generally, if you exercise mostly in an aerobic zone and don't build a ton of muscle mass if you eat about 3500 calories less than you burn (over time) you will lose one pound. The trick is to try to get an accurate as possible count of calories consumed and expended. That takes a little work and a little estimating. Most programs that count calories over estimate the number of calories burned for exercise. Although I have had some under calculate as well when they are based on time and average speed if I am doing a lot of hill climbing.
I also agree exercise makes you look and feel healthier. I feel great. And now it isn't about losing weight. It's about being healthy. The weight will take care of itself over time. So my goal now isn't necessarily to get down to a certain weight it's to acheive certain fitness or performance goals.