General Cycling Discussion - Biking and gaining weight!!!

I've been reading many messages here about people's losing weight after picking up biking again... And that scares me!!! I'm new in this biking thing, but I want to GAIN weight! Is that even possible? I'm 5'6'' but only weigh 120 lbs. Now, you might say that it's a climber's weight! But I don't want to look like Tyler Hamilton. I want an Eric Zabel look. Of course, weight lifting is crucial, and I'm doing that, but would biking offset whatever gains I might make from weight lifting?

If you are a bean-pole like me, then cycling, like any excercise, will help you gain weight and put on muscle . The weight loss only works on people with higher body-fat.
Cycling won't turn you into Mr Universe, you need weight training for that, but adding muscle bulk just to impress the girls will make cycling harder. You will have to haul that bulk over every hill.
Lance Armstrong became a better cyclist by losing the upper body muscle that he developed as a swimmer.
If you are cycling for fitness as opposed to fun, then you probbaly need to cross train with swimming (for flexibility), weights, running, or some other sport.

cdc28p,
Yes, it is possible to gain or maintain body mass while cycling. It simply means that you have to go against the grain of the "high-activity level, low-calorie eating" that so many people in our culture try to aspire to.

I know of an intense cyclist who was losing weight when eating an average of 6000 calories a day. Perhaps he might have needed 7000 or more calories a day just to maintain his current weight.

Diet books often think of exercise as something that one does 3 times a week for 30 minutes at a time. These books don't even take into account people like cyclists who can just keep going hour after hour after hour....

EAT MAN, EAT!!

You lose weight when you burn more calories than you take in. Since biking burns TON of calories, you may have to eat ALL DAY LONG :)

But, make sure you are eating the right foods (not m&m's and ice cream). You may want to consider using a weight gainer supplement - and definitely a meal replacement shake - so you can up your calories.

Hope that helps!

Servus!

Need to bulk up? You can have some of mine! I pray that someday I'll need to gain weight as opposed to losing it!

Count your blessings!

Yes you can gain weight, but your best bet is to gain muscle. You have to have some fat to burn to make muscle...Thus you gotta eat, eat, eat! Such a burden I know, but it's the price you pay. ;)

Pizza, chocolate, all the good stuff...and plenty of it!

Enjoy it dude, it is a RARE lifetime opportunity for most to be in your cycling shoes!!! :D

Originally posted by AlphaGeek
You have to have some fat to burn to make muscle...

I am curious to know why you say that?

Sucks doesn't it?
I'm also a grid-dodger, if I turn sideways I become invisible. But like they say, count your blessings. At least we don't have extra baggage to carry up those hills, which means you should be able to fly up them. If you do marathon races like me then this is where most of the time is made up.

I weight train 2-3 times a week to keep up some degree of upper-body strength and am lucky to be able to eat what I want without gaining a gramm. It all depends on your riding style. Pantani and Zabel are totally different riders with different physiques, one is a hill-climber the other a sprinter.

Use what you have got to your advantage as it is not always greener on the other side of the fence. It could be worse.:)

Originally posted by MtnBikerChick
I am curious to know why you say that?
I don't mean that you have to BE fat to make muscle, but the body needs the extra mass to create muscle from. If one is skinny now, you must eat like a machine to get enough "fat" to be transformed to muscle. Fat to muscle can happen constantly, so that you never look like a barge. ;) :p

I will talk to some of the doctors around here and try to get the terminology correct, but I read it in a book somewhere? Yeah, right! :D

I hate to be argumentative....

but fat will never turn into muscle and vice versa.

Muscle is seperate from fat by a connective sheath called the epymysium or fascia. Fat is located outside of this sheath, making the two entirely seperate.

MtnBiker is correct.

Fat to muscle conversion never happens, because fat is stored energy. nothing more. Your body oxidizes fat when there is a calorie deficit. Like Mtn said (or did I say that? ;)) muscle and fat are completely separate, because of the epymisium that is located in between them. Even if they were not separate fat could not be turned into muscle because....

1. Muscle can only be built with protein. Fat can't be used as protein.

2. Muscle growth (i.e. protein synthesis) is fueled with Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP), and ATP is created with glucose, and because of stuff I don't feel like explaining (I will, if you insist), fat cannot be converted to glucose.

In summary, extra fat holds no benefit in gaining muscle.

Hey, you know something? I'm built like a beanpole too, and I love it. Now, I eat absolutely heaps (so much that someone once said I'd "be as big as a house before I was 20" -- Didn't happen) so there is nothing wrong with my health.

I just love being able to drop all of my friends on the hills.

Chris

Originally posted by MichaelW
If you are cycling for fitness as opposed to fun, then you probbaly need to cross train with swimming (for flexibility), weights, running, or some other sport.
I agree with Michael W. The best way to add weight (and be healthy) is to exercise. Weight training may be the best option for this.

Aerobic exercise, however, is necessary for proper cardiovascular fitness. Weight lifting will give you beautiful muscles, but cycling/running/swimming/skiiing/walking will make your heart strong and give you endurance (and the muscles you get from these aren't bad, either!) ;)

The ONLY way to gain weight is by eating more, not exercising.

pistolwhipped says: bucket of chicken. Tie it to your handle bars. Eat at will.
Downside: Dogs and flies will chase you more often.:dance:

Originally posted by pistolwhipped
Downside: Dogs and flies will chase you more often

Eat these too.

And if all this advice doesn't work, you can always join the circus!

You are 5'6" and weigh 120. That doesn't sound so skinny to me. We Americans have a distorted view of ideal weight, tending to the heavy side. Or like Billy Crystal once joked, " Its not how you feel, but how you look that's important" If you feel strong, and don't bonk alot, then you are fine. I am 6' and weigh 140. 8 monthes ago I weighed 195. All my freinds say I look too thin, but what they can't understand is how good I feel, especially my back. It's how you feel, not how you look.;)

Um, 6'0 140 is pretty skinny :)

Originally posted by TheSupremeBeing
Um, 6'0 140 is pretty skinny :)

I'm 5'9", with a small frame. My "ideal" weight is supposed to be 144-148 according to the tables from 10 years ago.

To gain, you are going to have to eat more. To gain muscle, instead of fat, you are going to have to eat more, and do load bearing, non-aerobic exercise. Weight lifting, push-ups, ab curls, pull-ups, power yoga, rock climbing, and other things like that will build muscle.

Adding muscle while you're young will help you maintain a lower body fat when you get older. It's common for young skinny types to add body fat as they get older, since they start with less muscle. You lose muscle faster as you get older. This muscle burns calories, even while at rest, so when it's lost, the body doesn't burn all the fuel taken in. A good regimen of weight-bearing exercise will help avoid that trend.

Jonathan

I forgot to say.

6'0", 140 [b**is[/b] pretty skinny, but it can be very healthy.

Jonathan

Originally posted by Pat O'Malley
You are 5'6" and weigh 120. That doesn't sound so skinny to me. We Americans have a distorted view of ideal weight, tending to the heavy side. Or like Billy Crystal once joked, " Its not how you feel, but how you look that's important" If you feel strong, and don't bonk alot, then you are fine. I am 6' and weigh 140. 8 monthes ago I weighed 195. All my freinds say I look too thin, but what they can't understand is how good I feel, especially my back. It's how you feel, not how you look.;)

With 5'6" and 120 lbs, my body mass index is 19.4. Yours is about 19.0. The recommended index is from 20 to 25, I believe. Of course, weight does not determine one's overall health, but I would love to look a few pounds heavier.

Firstly cdc28p,

I want apologize about the "join the circus" statment made earlier. At 6'-2" and 155lbs. I'm in your boat also. Mabey we could join together, some kind of routine or something.

Web MD lists the break point for being underweight at 18.5, so you are above this.

You had mentioned wanting the Eric Zabel look. In real life a biker looks very strange, kind of like King Kongs legs, heart, and lungs on Pee Wee Herman's upper body.

Be careful what you wish for.

Eat wisely and train broadly.

I'm sick of people telling me what I should or shouldn't weigh. Many people think I have some kind of eating disorder when they see my physical appearance. That is, until they see just how much I actually eat, then they tell me that I'm gonna be obese or something. What a load of total crap!

I'd just like to see how many of these FRC's trying to tell everyone what to do can ride up hills faster than me. I'll bet there will be none of them (or at least, very few). I judge my health level on how I feel, not how some guy thinks I look.

It's about time they got a life of their own and stopped trying to control the lives of everybody else!

:thumbdn:

Chris

Chris,

Sounds like you've been down this road before.


Originally posted by Chris L
these FRC's

Freaking ****** Chicken's?

Frosted Rice Crispies?

Frozen Rotten Cannibles?

Fat Rich C***s.

:D

Here in the progressive USA, fat is where it's at!

The Conventional Wisdom is that being fat is better than feeling guilty for it. (This could be fun, after all, I'm on BikeForums. Fat chance of getting any serious criticism here!)

Then again, it's also fashionable to join the spa, try the next great diet and/or drug, or spend some dough on another, better exercise machine.

But please, don't ever ride a bike! You may permanently lose every excuse for self-pity, especially the fat. Then you will lose all your friends, too! Oh, no! :eek:

Stay with Conventional Wisdom and Pop-Culture fads. That way,
you will be "where it's at" for your entire life! ;)

I tried to be "where it's at", but by the time I rode there, "it" had moved. :cry:

Chris

The other day when I yelled at a guy to move his VW bug, which was parked in the bike lane, he shouted back, "Relax, Fat Boy."
Now, I'm not skinny, and I've shed quite a few pounds since I
got serious about riding, but this really bugged me. I was racking
my brain for a retort, but of course he was blocks behind me by the time I came up with something. I did notice on some slang dictionary that "Fat Boy" is actually a compliment in the biking world, but I forget what the meaning was. He was not being complimentary. He was a toothpick. I could have cracked him like a wishbone over my knee. Sometimes I fantasize about being an undercover policeman. I would have hauled his *** to jail.

You will lose weight.

I remember being young and thin and having family and friends (people who really knew me) say, "You need to eat more, you're too thin".

Now that I'm nearing 40 (how did I get here?) family and friends (people who I thought knew me) say, "How do you do it?".

It's Magic.

Originally posted by Palafo
I did notice on some slang dictionary that "Fat Boy" is actually a compliment in the biking world, but I forget what the meaning was.

I don't know the exact meaning, but that would probably by "Phat" instead of "Fat." As in, "Hey man, Phat bike," would be a compliment (learned this from a recumbent list).

Kevin S.

Everyone at work used to look at me like I had a tapeworm, after I was cycling to work for a while. They were waiting for me to confess some kind of serious malady. Never happened.

Funny thing is, at 5'5", I still average a higher body weight than Chris L., who is 6' tall. And he's not the only one.

"2. Muscle growth (i.e. protein synthesis) is fueled with Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP), and ATP is created with glucose, and because of stuff I don't feel like explaining (I will, if you insist), fat cannot be converted to glucose. "

Fat will be converted to ATP, about twice as much ATP per gram as glucose.

Fat has 9 Calories per gram while carbs have only 4. Carbs will be converted to fat if you eat enough of them, while at the same time shutting down the fat burning machinery in your body.

Fats can be burned to make muscle.

I think one mistake a lot of people make is to eat too much protein and think that they will make muscle with it. Too much protein will damage your body as it is broken down by the body to make glucose, the waste products either being ammonia or urea.

My advice is to not worry about what your weight is, you should eat a balanced diet with the major goal of being as healthy as you possibly can. Do not try and change your weight one way or the other to fit into a percieved "better" body type.

Think in terms of fitness. For example, is your endurance good?