Training & Nutrition - Im beating a ded horse but.... ATKINS AND CYCLING?!?!?!

Ok, its not THAT cold here where I live around 45* during the days now but I still cant handle the cold. I have not ridden in 5 months. Yes, I fell off the fitness wagon. I purchased a new Trek 1000 and later in 2004 sold it and now I have a brand spanking new Trek 1500.

Since I wont (not cant) ride in this weather, I thought maybe try to shed some poundage by do a little atkins diet until at least March and then ride like crazy and go forward with my planned diet which is 1500 cal a day subway, cereal and chicken and tons of water yadda yadda.

I weight 222 and in 6 months got down to 196 by doing the 1500 cal per day and hammering subway and staying away from fast foods and soda.

Ive been on atkins 10 days and lost a measly 4 pounds. I feel like crap and have NO energy. Let me get this straight, no matter what I do, if I do not exercise, I will NOT loose weight no matter how I eat. Either my arteries are going to clog from this diet or I am gonna have to revert back to the 1500 cal a day thing.

Im currently 206 pounds and almost out of the clydesdale section. With 3 kids and a full time job, I cannot make time to go 9 miles to the gym. I have a large torso and chicken legs (lol) and thats the worst to try to be a cyclist. However, I need to exercise and the only kind I will do is ride a bike. I hate running.

As soon as it warms a little, I will hit the peddles, however, this atkins has got me thinking. yes, I have "de-swelled", my neck and face look visably different in the mirror, my gut is not all bloaded from the sodas and I feel better. To be honest, This June is our annual "friends" beach trip where several of us (6 couples and kids) take a trip to the beach for 7 days and I really dont want to look like the staypuff Marshmellow man this year like in the years past.

Im not obese, I am a identical replica of Nascars tony Stewart, 5'10" 205 and wear a 36x30 pants.

Is 175 attainable by the middle of June????

Thanks people, I enjoy these forums and the ideas you all have.

:)

Yes you can lose 30 pounds by mid-June with Atkins.

And gain back 40 by next February! :)

Go for it if you want, but I think it's a waste of time. Get back on your bike! Eat a balanced diet, just consume a little less food.

Have you thought of using a trainer?

<Rant on>

Subway is fast food. I hate how that Jared story makes people think it's health food.

1) It's a whole loaf of bread; why is that considered normal?
2) Preserved deli meats are not fresh or healthy.
3) Slapping some lettuce and a tomato slice on it does not make it count as a veggie meal. Hamburgers have this too.
4) Then cover it with some fatty sauces and cheese and a bunch of salt (like most do).
5) Don't forget to eat chips and pop with it as sides.

<Rant off>

Don't go full atkins but cutting out junk carbs like white bread, chips, cookies, candy etc always helps. Any other carbs you eat should always be whole or multi grain.

<Rant on>

Subway is fast food. I hate how that Jared story makes people think it's health food.


It can be. It depends on what bread you choose and what you ask to put on it. You can actually eat something (relatively) healthy at McDonalds if you choose right.

You can actually eat something (relatively) healthy at McDonalds if you choose right.
True. Like the salads with grilled chicken and Newman's low-fat balsamic vinegar dressing, fruit and yogurt parfait, fruit salad with yogurt and walnuts, grilled chicken sandwiches with salsa instead of mayo, lowfat milk, unsweetened iced tea or even coffee. They all taste pretty good too.

Subway is fast food. I hate how that Jared story makes people think it's health food.

it's pretty much documented that jared didn't put mayo and ate the lean sandwiches with no cheese. no one could lose weight eating a bunch of enriched white bread, mayo and cheese.

there is one thing that will drop your fat quickly


ride 5 times a week, 1 hour duration, at high rpm (100-120)
and ride at just below lactate threshold. it should be sweat fest
but easy load on the legs.

Guaranteed to burn fat fast. atkins can go to hell, forget that crap.
just stay away from bagels, sugary soda, sugar in coffee. just drink
water and eat normally...staying away from extra bread when you can.
but don't go full atkins that is just rude to the body. eat chicken pot
pies. and ride.

Well, I used to get 2 double cheesburgers, a Large FF and a Large coke so Subway has to be better than that for me.

My regular Mcd's Lunch was.....
1980 calories
83 grams of Fat

Now, subway
foot long Sub melt....
810 Calories
23 fat grams
And an Aquafina

source... nutritiondata.com

there is one thing that will drop your fat quickly


ride 5 times a week, 1 hour duration, at high rpm (100-120)
and ride at just below lactate threshold. it should be sweat fest
but easy load on the legs.

Guaranteed to burn fat fast. atkins can go to hell, forget that crap.
just stay away from bagels, sugary soda, sugar in coffee. just drink
water and eat normally...staying away from extra bread when you can.
but don't go full atkins that is just rude to the body. eat chicken pot
pies. and ride.


there ya go!!! :)

Eating at subway, picking one of the healthier choices they offer, skipping the mayo and getting lots of mustard on it to make it edible, may not be 'healthy' according to some, but its a LOT better than going to McD's and getting a couple burgers and fries.

I cant stand brown bagging it to work for lunch. I eat out every day. Subway is one of my choices and its fine :)

Eating at subway, picking one of the healthier choices they offer, skipping the mayo and getting lots of mustard on it to make it edible, may not be 'healthy' according to some, but its a LOT better than going to McD's and getting a couple burgers and fries.

I cant stand brown bagging it to work for lunch. I eat out every day. Subway is one of my choices and its fine :)


don't need to skip the mayo.


and for MCD's.....always always skip the fries but there is nothing wrong with 2 hamburgers
or 2 cheesburgers. I often find myself doing this for lunch and I am still losing weight and gaining
endurance because I am doing a crapload of below-lactate training. doesn't matter what you
eat as long as you eat 4 or 5 times a day, keep it small (don't pig out) and do not drink sugary
stuff unless you are actually on the bike. using whey shakes as a nightcap does wonders too.

something about taking protein at night, your body uses it more effectively and you wake
up thinner. all this is relative....

Oh btw, I eat my subs plain. I hate mayo, must, salt, oils, etc. Just gimme the bread, meat and cheese and Im good.

don't need to skip the mayo.

and for MCD's.....always always skip the fries but there is nothing wrong with 2 hamburgers
or 2 cheesburgers.....

I disagree but there is already too many flame fests going

From what I undersatnd, Atkins wouldn't help much if you are getting exercise every day or so. It seems low-carb diets are for people who don't get any regular exercise, as the carbs turn to sugar if you don't burn them eventually turn to fat.

If you like to follow a plan, take a look at Weight Watcher's new "Core" plan. The wife does WW every Janurary, but this year she brought back info on this core plan, and it had a logic I could follow, so I've been joining her. Basically, eat 50% fruits & veggies, 25% whole grain, and 25% protien. Outside of those basic parameters you have a certain number of "points" to work with, and it's really a good reference to understand just what an impact the different foods have on your body. You get extra points to work with for the exercise you do during the week.

I'm in NC, and don't typically ride under 45* either. I got a trainer, and hooked the bike up to a Cateye GameBike which hooks up to a PlayStation 2, and when it's too cold I play "Downhill Domination" or "Gran Turismo 4" for an hour or two. The time flies and when I'm done it's not as taxing as the same time spent on a bike outdoors, but much more than I would do on a trainer by itself. On the trainer, just listening to music or watching TV, 15 min of riding would feel like 1 1/2 hours; no question to me that the GameBike helps me get a better workout.

Between the WW and the GameBike, this year has been my most successful for weight drop. Last year (without either - just biking in season) I dropped 15# and put 5# back on over the holidays. This year (in 6 weeks) I've lost 16#, and it's been really regular; even on the "bad" weeks I'll drop a pound.

I dropped 25 lbs since christmas, went up 5 inches on the belt,
and all I did was:

a lot of spinervals aero-base builders
no more bagels
cut sugar soda, cut sugar coffee, cut gatorade (except on-bike)
...and eating more hamburgers and pot pies than usual. skipping
a lot of rice and pasta I used to eat. I eat carbs after rides and
of course will carbo-load nightly before teh big event, whatever
they may be....

my endurance is going up and weight is coming off. I owe it
to below lactate training.

Atkins is a joke.

Atkins is a joke.... and bankrupt!



From what I undersatnd, Atkins wouldn't help much if you are getting exercise every day or so. It seems low-carb diets are for people who don't get any regular exercise, as the carbs turn to sugar if you don't burn them eventually turn to fat.Yes, but a careful distinction needs to be made here. It's excess carbs that's not burned off that's converted to fat. Same thing with excess protein and excess fat as well. The real problem is the volume of consumption, eating more than you burn, that's the real problem. What's really causing the weight-loss for these couch-potatos who don't exercise is actually "low calories". If you counted the calories they ate when they went "low-carb" it was certainly much, much less than before. They lost weight by eating fewer calories than they burned off. It's easy to point the finger at carbs, but I'd take a whole-grain plate of pasta with tomato-sauce with a side of veggie-chilli over a greasy steak any day!



Is 175 attainable by the middle of June????Most definitely. I went from 245 lbs to 185 in 2005 by eating less than I burned off. My daily intake was anywhere from 2000 to 6000 per day. It varied from about 50% carbs on the short recovery days to over 80% carbs on the high-mileage days. Originally I wanted to lose the 100 lbs I gained during this past decade of decadence in one year, but I ended up losing way too much muscle and wasn't getting fit and fast as quickly as I can at that kind of a burn-rate. So I slowed the weight-loss down in order to improve fitness and strength faster. I'll be dropping that last 30-35 lbs by June too. :) :)

However, you don't have the hours and hours of workout time available like I do. So... I'd recommend consulting a coach on a customized program for you to maximimze fitness and weight-loss. There's an S-shaped curve and rapid weight-loss in the beginning won't hold for the long-term. If you focus on fitness first, you'll end up with higher long-term weight-loss and it will be more permanent.

Here is a rule I have learned to live by and respect.

"small disciplined changes over a long period of time will reward the largest dividens"

Loosing weight too fast will effect your exercise and cycling abilities. Get on your new 1500 and ride. Make some small but significant changes to your diet like dropping simple carbs (soft drinks, most juices, candy bars, white bread) and add more fiber, veggies and fruit. You don't have to stop eating to loose weight. Be disciplined over time and you will get there and it will be more permanent.

thanks u all!

Oh btw, I eat my subs plain. I hate mayo, must, salt, oils, etc. Just gimme the bread, meat and cheese and Im good.Ok, with the limited time available, you can try to squeeze in 30-45 minutes of biking every day. Right after work is usually good, time that you would've spent reading the paper or mail or watching-TV or checking BikeForums. Try the following workout every day for the 1st four weeks:

DAY 1-28
5-minutes stretching
10-15 minutes warm-up on the bike
30-40 minutes brisk steady pace
5-minutes warm-down
5-minutes stretching
eat your low-fat Subway after the workout

Try tracking all your meals in an online tabulator like fitday.com (http://www.fitday.com). It does a really good breakdown of your meals and crunches useful numbers like percentages of carbs/proteins/fats for you. Aim for a 500-calorie deficit per day for a 1-lb/week weight-loss rate. Good luck! :)

update:

atkins is over, I almost passed out of no energy today, screw that.

update:

atkins is over, I almost passed out of no energy today, screw that.
Hate to hear that but you have not been paying attention:
Ride More!

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=166201

thx, id read all that, 72 here tommorow, gonna hit it hard of course after a bananna and a huge glass of gatorade lemonade :)

Eat 1500 calories a day, burn 500 off on the bike, my body burns roughly 1500 a day just living so screw it, Ill let nature do the rest.

*Getting up from the computer to go get an apple and a bananna*

LOL:)

The idea is to burn fat while exercising that. But fat can't be metabolized without carbohydrate, which is why you feel like you have no energy. You have no energy.

Atkins is for sedentary people. You are not sedentary, you are an athlete, and you need to eat to fuel your body.

My advice:

1) Try to do longer rides rather than shorter ones. You want to be out there long enough to get your body to have to pull fat out of your fat stores. Short rides will only get the easily-accessible fat, which you'll replenish.

2) You need carbs during your workout to burn the fat if you're riding longer than an hour. Something like 100-200 calories per hour, depending on your intensity. Find a good energy drink that you like (I like accelerade), and use it.

#2 is really key. If you have the carbs when you ride, you'll be on an even keel when you get back, and will be able to eat normally. If you don't, you'll be really hungry after a 2-3 hour ride, and it's really easy to overeat.

I generally try to be calorie neutral on non-workout days, and (when I'm trying to slim down), carry a little calorie deficit on days I work out.

Others have already talked about what kinds of things to eat. Think unrefined as much as possible - whole grain, brown rice, vegetables, etc.

thx :)

I'm curious about the comment that Atkins is for sedentary people...I went from 195 to 160 lbs. on Atkins about 3 yrs. ago...and have kept if off no problem. At the time I wasn't exercising hard, but I did manage to move around just a bit.

Seems like during the initial phase of Atkins, one couldn't do heavy exercise but after that if you were exercising hard you would be able to eat more carbs and still lose weight...don't really see any issue with compatibility.

You critics out there...have you read the book? Have you tried it?

OP...how carefully have you followed the book? They do discuss fatigue and possible remedies. But over the first two weeks Induction Phase, follow the diet and walk briskly for 20 min a day...you should be fine....

If you're done with Atkins...cool...just be sure that as you go back on carbs you avoid crappy carbs like white bread, pasta, sugar, etc.

Just because you and others have lost weight on Atkins, doesn't mean it's a good/healthy way to modify your diet. I'm not a critic, as much as I was trying to address some of the baggage that goes along with the program. I wanted to point out who would benefit most from applying Atkins principles (sedintary folk). Let's face it, exercise on top of any diet is going to have the benefit of more weight loss (or less weight gain) than the diet alone.

The diet I follow has it's own shortcomings. I don't eat any nuts right now, for example. I recognise that nuts are good for me, and plan to eat them again once I've acheived the drop in weight I'm looking for. There's no magic bullet for ridding the fat, you have to choose the best plan that works for you... if you're not going to stick with it, then no diet plan will work for you.

If you want to go Atkins, then have at it. But when it's not having the effect you desired come back and reread what the people here, much smarter than I, have explained about it's shortcomings. I for one am not going to sit down and read a book, and question myself on how thoroughly I've read it, when the basic principles seem flawed and contrary to logic, right out of the gate. On the other hand, if I never reach my goal weight, I might have to reconsider...

I'm curious about the comment that Atkins is for sedentary people...I went from 195 to 160 lbs. on Atkins about 3 yrs. ago...and have kept if off no problem. At the time I wasn't exercising hard, but I did manage to move around just a bit.

Seems like during the initial phase of Atkins, one couldn't do heavy exercise but after that if you were exercising hard you would be able to eat more carbs and still lose weight...don't really see any issue with compatibility.

You critics out there...have you read the book? Have you tried it?

OP...how carefully have you followed the book? They do discuss fatigue and possible remedies. But over the first two weeks Induction Phase, follow the diet and walk briskly for 20 min a day...you should be fine....

If you're done with Atkins...cool...just be sure that as you go back on carbs you avoid crappy carbs like white bread, pasta, sugar, etc.You are saying to exercise drastically less (20 minutes walking) in order to lose weight. Sorry, that sounds crazy.

Why not eat a balanced diet that allows you to exercise?

You are not making a very good case for Atkins!

On the "atkins for sedentary people" comment...

Many riders have "hit the wall" on a long ride once or twice (once is enough). This happens when you deplete your carbohydrate stores, and the amount of energy that you can create is severely limited.

If you do something like Atkins, you're close to this state all the time, which means you can't really be effective.

I do think some sort of carbohydrate modification is a decent approach, but I don't think Atkins makes much sense. That much fat and protein aren't good for you. I'm somewhat close to South Beach for my non-riding nutrition, but when I get near the bike I need the carbs. Carbs before and during, then carbs afterwards to replace my carbohydrate stores.

There's a lot of information about this in Carmichael's "Food for Fitness".

You are saying to exercise drastically less (20 minutes walking) in order to lose weight. Sorry, that sounds crazy.

Why not eat a balanced diet that allows you to exercise?

You are not making a very good case for Atkins!

Sorry, I didn't make my point well....I do not believe that heavy exercise is compatible with the induction phase of Atkins. IF ONE WANTS TO DO ATKINS (for whatever reason--right or wrong), I think it makes sense to go easy on the exercise for those first two weeks....after which time as carbs increase, so, too would one's ability to exercise regularly.

Just seems like this forum attacks whenever Atkins is mentioned...After a few weeks on Atkins, anyone who is exercising hard will find that they can be eating a decent amount of carbs and still lose weight...the idea from my own experience and according to the book is that everyone's carb intake will vary depending on a number of factors: i.e. how fast they're trying to lose weight, how much they exercise, their own physiology, etc.

Bottom line is that it's perfectly reasonable to focus on carbs as being a key contributor to poor diet....my problem with Atkins is not carbs, but their disregard for fats ("good" or "bad")...enter South Beach--and now, you've just got a healthy diet that can be easily modified for exercise and weight control.

hey, its all good, I didnt intend to cause a flame war. I just didnt like that funky feeling I got in the induction phase. Ive lost 12.5 pounds since this thread was generated. Riding everyday and eating the right foods.

Good luck all

Sorry, I didn't make my point well....I do not believe that heavy exercise is compatible with the induction phase of Atkins. IF ONE WANTS TO DO ATKINS (for whatever reason--right or wrong), I think it makes sense to go easy on the exercise for those first two weeks....after which time as carbs increase, so, too would one's ability to exercise regularly.

I think you made your point well, I just don't agree with it. :)

Considering that this is a cycling forum, I don't think that diets that decrease one's ability to cycle are going to be a big hit.

If you're done with Atkins...cool...just be sure that as you go back on carbs you avoid crappy carbs like white bread, pasta, sugar, etc.

Pasta is bad for you? How so? Please explain, in detail.

Ive lost 12.5 pounds since this thread was generated. Riding everyday and eating the right foods.


Dang, Baby! You don't do thing's halfway do you? That's 2.5 lbs per day? Gotta say, I'm not sure that's healthy either... :rolleyes:

lol

good one, since feb 1st.

dang, thats a crack diet!!!!!

I weighed feb 1st, then started counting. lol

sry to mislead


lol 2.5 pounds per day, lil much? ehehhe

C heath, good for you, keep at it, it will all come off

I live in Milwaukee and you know how winter can get nasty here, I am also not able to ride in 40* temps.

I have a fluid CycleOps trainer which I ride about 20-25 miles a day (about 1:04-1:22 hours/day), I do that about 4 to 5 times a week, it really helps if you don't have too much time, I just go to the basement put the TV on and go, not too much time wasted, I have no problem keeping my weight steady in the winter.

I don't know if this might be something you want to try for next winter

Good luck

Just got off the trainer myself. Im eating good foods, taking in minumum fat and calories and execising. Isnt that what all the pros said is the best way to get fit and feel good?

I Should have listened along time ago.