Clydesdales/Athenas (200+ lb / 91+ kg) - Push it hard or nice and easy?

I am finally getting serious about losing weight and I am going to stop drinking for awhile which I am 100% positive that is why I can't lose weight. A recent night found myself and my roomate going through 4 bottles of wine with dinner in between, no bueno. Add in the wedding on Friday, shooting in the desert with an iced down keg handy on saturday and sunday, the 4 bottle night, and then finishing off the left over champagne on Tuesday with the newlyweds, I am pretty sure my weight problems are only slightly related to my food choices but probably more related to my beverage choices. Let me point out, I don't drink soda and I rarely eat fast food any more.


To get down to it, I recently changed jobs from a place that afforded me about a 15 min bike ride to one with about a 30 min bike. If I ride to work that ends up being about an hour of exercise a day. The question I have is should I push it and go fast every day, or should I take my time and be more concerned with keeping a decent pace but not pushing it too hard? I am about 280 lbs and 5'11. I have been around 280 lbs for 6 years now. Have never dropped below 275 and never gone above 295.

For maximum fat burn, you'll want to keep the heart rate around 65-70% of Max HR.

Th8is is computed by the equation 200- (Your Age)*0.65= max aerobic HR. Any higher and you go anaerobic and this slows down the fat burning metabolism and switches to protein burn because the muscle fiber actually starts breakdown at that point and recovery from anaerobic exercise actually increases muscle mass from where it was before.

The answer that will yield the best results is: both.

Ride it easy some days, ride it hard other days, or alternate on the same day. Even better, one day a week, ride it hard for 1-2 mins and then take it easy for 1-2 mins.

And btw, just to dispel some myth/clear up some foggy info: riding at 65-75% of MHR will yield the highest percentage of calories burned, but riding harder will yield more calories burned, and therefore more total fat burned. The scientific data is out there, and Google will get you to it.

As an aside, mixing guns + alcohol = really crazy idea, especially around other people doing the same thing. Most drunk people manage to hurt themselves at some point with no greater weapon available than the ground. Throw in a couple .45s and you're asking for an artificially shortened lifespan. Don't get me wrong, I love them both. I also like swimming and electronics, but I don't mix those either.

If you stick with it, you'll soon find yourself finding ways to extend your rides, especially on the way home, until an hour a day is just the warmup, and then you start your "real" ride.

Listen to kandnhome, but one caveat to consider. At 5'11" @ 280+lbs, you're a big boy. Doing hard core cardio workouts may be a bit much right now.

My recommendation would be to cut your caloric intake down to 1500-2000 cals a day of nutritious food (skip the ho-ho's and instead eat a salad with chicken breast), ride 5 days a week, do strength training 2-3 times a week (muscle mass increases your basal metabolism - this is good), and stick with it. You'll hit a few plateaus along the way, don't let them discourage you. Also, remember the body adapts so every now and then you'll need to mix it up (switch to jogging for a month, or hiking, or start doing intense intervals, etc).

As for the 5 rides a week, my recommendation would be to just go out and ride for right now, work on saddle time. You really need to ride at least 90 minutes (at zone 1/2) to burn enough glycogen that you start getting the fat stores. Maybe work in a few intervals on the rides, but honestly I suspect just climbing a hill would probably be an interval for you right now. You'll probably want a HR monitor just to keep an eye on things.

After a few months you can probably start punching out intervals once or twice a week, which will help your overall fitness, and burn more calarories (quick, what's better, doing a workout where you burn 1000 calories in an hour, or 500 in an hour?).

Also, please get a complete physical done before starting out. Talk to your doctor about where you are and where you want to be, and maybe have a stress test done so you have a solid idea of what your safe training zones are. And don't get discouraged, remember, it took awhile to put that weight on, it'll take awhile for it to come off too.

I've gone from 260-something down to 185 in the last 17 months, mostly by dogged determination. It's not been easy, and I've hit a few walls, but I've managed to stay focused, not get discouraged, and push through them -- if I can do it, anyone can.

Listen to kandnhome, but one caveat to consider. At 5'11" @ 280+lbs, you're a big boy. Doing hard core cardio workouts may be a bit much right now.

My recommendation would be to cut your caloric intake down to 1500-2000 cals a day of nutritious food (skip the ho-ho's and instead eat a salad with chicken breast), ride 5 days a week, do strength training 2-3 times a week (muscle mass increases your basal metabolism - this is good), and stick with it. You'll hit a few plateaus along the way, don't let them discourage you. Also, remember the body adapts so every now and then you'll need to mix it up (switch to jogging for a month, or hiking, or start doing intense intervals, etc).

As for the 5 rides a week, my recommendation would be to just go out and ride for right now, work on saddle time. You really need to ride at least 90 minutes (at zone 1/2) to burn enough glycogen that you start getting the fat stores. Maybe work in a few intervals on the rides, but honestly I suspect just climbing a hill would probably be an interval for you right now. You'll probably want a HR monitor just to keep an eye on things.

After a few months you can probably start punching out intervals once or twice a week, which will help your overall fitness, and burn more calarories (quick, what's better, doing a workout where you burn 1000 calories in an hour, or 500 in an hour?).

Also, please get a complete physical done before starting out. Talk to your doctor about where you are and where you want to be, and maybe have a stress test done so you have a solid idea of what your safe training zones are. And don't get discouraged, remember, it took awhile to put that weight on, it'll take awhile for it to come off too.

I've gone from 260-something down to 185 in the last 17 months, mostly by dogged determination. It's not been easy, and I've hit a few walls, but I've managed to stay focused, not get discouraged, and push through them -- if I can do it, anyone can.


All really good advice. Especially the part about focusing on time. Don't worry about how far/fast your going for now. That'll come later when riding for 2 hours is no problem. For now, it's all about time spent exercising.

And hills are absolutely intervals for the first few months. Stupid gravity, keeps weighing me down ;)

Also, if you're feeling like a monster is trying to rip it's way out of your stomach keeping to 1500-2000 calories/day you're not eating enough bulky stuff. Nutrient dense food is the devil to a big guy trying to lose weight. You have to switch to eating in what I call an "evolutionarily stupid" way. Yeah, your natural cravings tell you that you need to eat nutrient-dense foods (i.e. meats, fats, sugars) but historically those foods were scarce -- which is why you crave them. In our society, it's easy to get these things -- but that doesn't mean we should.

Raw vegetables are bulky and take a long time to digest, so they are ideal weight-loss food. If you vegetables taste like crap, it's not you -- it's the mass-produced, genetically-modified, trucked-in from 1000mi away crap they're selling at your supermarket. Find a farmers market if you can (it'll be cheaper there too, I bet) where you can get truly ripe, organic (or at least fresh) fruits and veg. If you can't find that, find a "whole foods" style supermarket (e.g. Fresh Market, Wild Oats, whatever is local). You'll be amazed at how good properly grown and harvested fruits and veg taste.

Also, if you have time (and not everyone does) you'd be amazed how much good food you can make yourself -- and you have total control over what goes into it. Lasagna doesn't have to be greasy and bad for you, nor does a whole host of other foods. They can be what you make them, and with some practice, your food will taste better and be better for you than restaurant food (which is largely sub-standard, imo).

The other thing to eat, especially whenever you feel like eating something sweet, is whatever form of whole grain you like best. I've found that real rolled oats (not the instant kind) are delicious and they kill my craving for sweets. Just sprinkle in a teaspoon or two of sugar in 1/2 cup of oats, prepared, and you've got 200 calories that will stick with you, and give you good, lasting energy.

Stick with it, and you'll see the results. Once you start seeing the weight come off, though, don't think you can go back to eating deep-fried cheeseburgers and the like. It'll come back even quicker than it came off. I've made that mistake too many times.

Good luck, and good riding!

I just ride at the speed I feel like riding at :D

But seriously, I agree with the guy that said both. My reasons are because:

1) Nice and Easy=Endurance building.

2) Push it Hard=Speed building.

It's a lot easier to get the speed up when you have the endurance to do it. Plus, if you switch it up randomly on your body, the body won't be able to adapt. If it adapts, you're likely to plateau in your weight loss.

Cutting down the alcohol will really speed up the weight loss. That's what did it for me.
I'm a homebrewer, so there's always beer around my place. Usually heavy ales with really high caloric content. Two of those pints a night while I'm working on my evening paperwork, and I really started packing on the pounds even when I was riding longer routes and pushing harder. I cut out the evening pints and replaced them with water or Crystal Light, and the pounds came back off pretty easily.

I lost 100 lbs with diet and what eventually became running. I used a heart rate monitor and the treadmills at the Y, since outdoor activity where I lived was very weather-limited.

The training technique I used is probably not as all-around healthy as the interval training these cats are advising, but it worked very well. I watched my heart rate and tried to get it up to a squeak over the upper cardio range (because I wanted not just to advance my cardio health but to build muscles). I kept it there for the duration of the workout.

At first I did this with a brisk walking pace and a lot of slope, by the time I'd reached my goal weight I did it by running about 5 miles in 35 min. I would describe the process as gently pushing it--but as your speed builds you'll feel more like you're pushing it.

Good luck, I can think of no more enjoyable way to lose weight than biking. Oh yeah, your ass might hurt at first from the saddle. That will pass within a week.

You mentioned that things are changing so that your 15 minute commute would change to a 30 minute commute. Tell more: are you currently commuting on a daily basis, 15 minutes each way? Are you also doing rides of longer duration? How often and how long, and at what intensity?

If the 15 minute daily(or less) commute is the current extent of your biking, I'd suggest initially taking on the 30 minute ride at the same pace or an easier pace. Do that for a week, and see how that goes. If you get to Wednesday and you're dying, you might think about easing the pace or taking a day off; if you get to Friday and it's a piece of cake, it's perhaps time to think about upping the intensity.

Thanks for the information guys. And no, there was no mixing alcohol with the guns. We kept them seperate.

Despite my weight, I am actually in pretty damn good shape. I had a recent physical including blood work out and the only things out of whack were related to my weight. BP was fine, cholesterol was fine, and everything else was pretty normal. I snowboard a lot, as well as surf.

My commute now is 30 minutes each way but I have been pushing it really hard and by wedesday I am dying. It sounds like I need to start slowing down a bit and taking a bit more time to get to work.

What you can do is push it hard one day, take it easy the next. Use the 30 mins as interval training, then the next day as a recovery ride. If you push constantly your body won't recover and you're going to have not as much fun.

First I make you look tiny at 375 (360 as of today), and now that Storm is 2/5 of his former self I might take board big guy. I think it depends on motivation. Don't do so much that you won't or can't do it again. Consistency is more important than intensity in my opinion. You don't want to injure yourself, and if it is too painful without great motivation you will go back to your old ways.

Do whatever works for you, but just keep doing it. My biggest problem is working up to something in a big way, hitting a stall point in my motivation, and then simply quiting. So, at your current pace will you keep riding? If you upped your pace would you sustain stress injuries or be so fatigued that you give up? You might up your pace and feel like the wind.

Thanks for the information guys. And no, there was no mixing alcohol with the guns. We kept them seperate.

Despite my weight, I am actually in pretty damn good shape. I had a recent physical including blood work out and the only things out of whack were related to my weight. BP was fine, cholesterol was fine, and everything else was pretty normal. I snowboard a lot, as well as surf.

My commute now is 30 minutes each way but I have been pushing it really hard and by wedesday I am dying. It sounds like I need to start slowing down a bit and taking a bit more time to get to work.
Alternate.....easy..then hard. You do need recovery time or all you do is break down muscle tissue. (You'll actually gain muscle weight from the repair process!). If you alternate, and concentrate more on base for now, when you start doing intervals, it'll be easier for you top do.

For now, just have a ball and build your base, and if you feel the need for speed, then yeah, have fun@! If not, it's perfectly OK to poke along as well! It's not a race after all, it just a fun way to get to work and other stuff.:p ;)

I will give alternating from high intensity and lo intensity a shot. Sometimes I just feel that I have to be huffing and puffing to get any benefit but when I huff it and puff it I am dead the next day with a 5-8 minute drop in the time it takes me to complete the same distance.

Riding my bike is a blast, I am having fun, getting exercise, and not burning gas at the same time (my jeep only gets 11mpg:eek: ). For me, its not a matter of motivation, i think its primarily a matter of the quantity of bad stuff going into my mouth, namely alcohol. I have motivated myself to exercise i just haven't motivated myself to feed the machine properly, namely stopping the consistent heavy drinking. Quickly, getting there though.