"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Losing weight during season

How would you recommend going about doing this?

Heavier breakfast and then gradually eating less through the day? Or is that something that's dependent on when you're riding?

I'm trying to drop 8-10 pounds in the next 6 weeks. I think it's doable if I eat right.

I'm probably going to be between 4500-5500 Kj a week on the bike.

I currently weigh about 155ish and I'm 5'10. I've weighed as low as 135 at this height, but my weight used to stabilize around 140-142.

I weighed 145ish in the spring, and have gained about 10 lbs since then. Some of that is muscle, but I'm pretty sure that I can lose atleast 5 pounds without any significant issues.

I guess I do need a scale though, huh.

How much are you riding?

How much are you riding?

4500-5500 Kj a week. That's about 5k-6k calories a week.

I don't know how I've been gaining weight. I'm pretty sure that I'm not eating 10 days worth of food over the course of a week. Even then, I should be breaking even.

Beer is a good place to start. Trying eating healthier as well. I bet you don't have to do much.

Beer is a good place to start. Trying eating healthier as well. I bet you don't have to do much.

That's the thing though.

I don't drink much beer. 5 beers in a week is a lot for me. I do more Gin and Tonics than anything else.

As for food, I cook most of what I eat.

Breakfast, I normally eat a medium sized bowl of granola with 2% milk. Maybe a banana or OJ with it. Sometimes, I'll have less granola and have some eggs. Some days a pbj.

Lunch, normally a sandwich of sorts. Whole grain bread, slice of cheese, some veggies, 3-4 slices of lunch meat. Some mayo and mustard.

Dinner, pasta and whatever meat+veggie mixture I've made for the week.

Dessert is a weak spot, but then I only get maybe 400-500 calories top from it on days when I go overboard. Otherwise it's a cookie or two after dinner (300 cals).

Not sure what I'm missing...

Oh. Sports drink and clif bars/pop tarts while riding and maybe a pbj on some days before a long ride.

I guess I could start eating dinner earlier, but I normally finish my rides around 8 and start eating around 9:30.

I have dropped 5 lbs the last few weeks. I eat plenty after a ride but fast in the mornings on days I'm not riding. If I am riding, I'll eat moderately in the hours before and then eat more than usual while on the bike. I'm actually in a race period right now so I spend a lot of time off the bike and not eating much, seems to work ok for me.

W/kg has gone up across the board, so I don't think it's hurting much :)

I have dropped 5 lbs the last few weeks. I eat plenty after a ride but fast in the mornings on days I'm not riding. If I am riding, I'll eat moderately in the hours before and then eat more than usual while on the bike. I'm actually in a race period right now so I spend a lot of time off the bike and not eating much, seems to work ok for me.

W/kg has gone up across the board, so I don't think it's hurting much :)

I'll start by eating less for breakfast and lunch.

I keep baby carrots near me if I get the munchies at work.

Thanks for the input.

That's the thing though.

I don't drink much beer. 5 beers in a week is a lot for me. I do more Gin and Tonics than anything else.

As for food, I cook most of what I eat.

Breakfast, I normally eat a medium sized bowl of granola with 2% milk. Maybe a banana or OJ with it. Sometimes, I'll have less granola and have some eggs. Some days a pbj.

Lunch, normally a sandwich of sorts. Whole grain bread, slice of cheese, some veggies, 3-4 slices of lunch meat. Some mayo and mustard.

Dinner, pasta and whatever meat+veggie mixture I've made for the week.

Dessert is a weak spot, but then I only get maybe 400-500 calories top from it on days when I go overboard. Otherwise it's a cookie or two after dinner (300 cals).

Not sure what I'm missing...

Oh. Sports drink and clif bars/pop tarts while riding and maybe a pbj on some days before a long ride.

I guess I could start eating dinner earlier, but I normally finish my rides around 8 and start eating around 9:30.


gin&tonic = beer

at least in terms of weight gain

gin&tonic = beer

at least in terms of weight gain

:seriousfistedfacepalm

perhaps we'd be better off beating our heads against the wall

T. Boonen sticks to gin & tonics and cocaine.

That really helped him in this year's Tour de France too.

Try making oatmeal (not instant) instead of granola. Granola tends to be pretty fattening and usually loaded with sugar or corn syrup. Lose the eggs, unless they're hard boiled...which they're not. They're usually cooked in butter and the yolk is all fat. An occasional egg white thing is fine, but you're talking weight lose not a weight that maintainable. Mayo? Serious? I'd get rid of the cheese also until you got where you wanted to be. Your dinner is too vague for me to say anything. And desert? ****. If I started there and worked backwards I'd never have replied again.

So g, how do you feel about Wendy's Chocolate Frosty desserts during the racing season?

http://www.hamburgers.ph/products/Frosty.jpg

Well, I eat what I want but I'm not trying to lose weight. Typically I eat extremely low fat and then allow myself leniency on Sunday nights after racing. I don't think I ever get more than 5 pounds over my best race weight. Though this winter I am going to explore getting five pounds lighter for next year.

http://www.drakesyodels.com/images/YBYWCC.jpg

I've been having variations of this same talk for nearly thirty years.

parents' friends: you're in really great shape
me: thanks
parents' friends: maybe you can help me with my diet. I want to lose some weight.
me: sure. I'd be happy to. Here's how I eat....
parents' friends: :wtf:
parents' friends: but when do you eat chocolate cake? Weight Watcher's has chocolate cake on their diet.

Beer is a good place to start. Trying eating healthier as well. I bet you don't have to do much.

i try and save beer for the evenings. it doesn't taste very good with granola.

I've been having variations of this same talk for nearly thirty years.

parents' friends: you're in really great shape
me: thanks
parents' friends: maybe you can help me with my diet. I want to lose some weight.
me: sure. I'd be happy to. Here's how I eat....
parents' friends: :wtf:
parents' friends: but when do you eat chocolate cake? Weight Watcher's has chocolate cake on their diet.

lol so true. people always ask "When is your cheat day?" and "What can I eat unlimited of?". I give up there.

Try making oatmeal (not instant) instead of granola. Granola tends to be pretty fattening and usually loaded with sugar or corn syrup. Lose the eggs, unless they're hard boiled...which they're not. They're usually cooked in butter and the yolk is all fat. An occasional egg white thing is fine, but you're talking weight lose not a weight that maintainable. Mayo? Serious? I'd get rid of the cheese also until you got where you wanted to be. Your dinner is too vague for me to say anything. And desert? ****. If I started there and worked backwards I'd never have replied again.

:lol:



ps to RTC - here's a diet i once tried that worked like a charm: get a girlfriend who's macrobiotic, and eat with her all of the time.

I typically eat a small bowl of oatmeal in the morning, eat 1 clif bar around noon, then around 3pm when I hit the crash, I mix up a bottle of Clif Recovery (really anything with protein) and sip on that until I'm off work and go to my ride.

I typically eat a small bowl of oatmeal in the morning, eat 1 clif bar around noon, then around 3pm when I hit the crash, I mix up a bottle of Clif Recovery (really anything with protein) and sip on that until I'm off work and go to my ride.

Is this all you eat?

Is this all you eat?

and of course dinner

What worked for me:

Eat big in the morning. Train mostly in the morning.
Eat several small meals throughout the day. Eat my last meal 3 hours before bedtime.
Take one day on the weekend and eat what I want.

When I started cycling and especially racing I went from 210 to 164 (where I currently sit).

This off season I will drop another 5-10 pounds - mostly upper body muscle right now - and try to hold it if my energy and power doesn't plummet.

Try making oatmeal (not instant) instead of granola. Granola tends to be pretty fattening and usually loaded with sugar or corn syrup. Lose the eggs, unless they're hard boiled...which they're not. They're usually cooked in butter and the yolk is all fat. An occasional egg white thing is fine, but you're talking weight lose not a weight that maintainable. Mayo? Serious? I'd get rid of the cheese also until you got where you wanted to be. Your dinner is too vague for me to say anything. And desert? ****. If I started there and worked backwards I'd never have replied again.

+1

The other general thing to consider is just to stop eating sooner whenever you're around food. When I lost my weight, I used 33%smaller bowls of oatmeal, eliminated one of my lunch sandwiches, eliminated Oreos completely, didn't get a plate at dinner and just ate the kids' scraps (which I normally eat anyway). Use smaller plates at meals and don't fill them up.

On the bike, make sure you're fueling for anything longer than an hour. After intervals, I haven't quite figured it out yet, but it seems like adding 40-50 calories for every continuous minute above 5' power was pretty close for me. Gotta replace the glycogen.

You'll be on the edge with respect to calories, and when you're on the edge, it's just a matter of time before you fall off. Just recover from it and keep going.

Also, just stopping the weight gain is a good first step. If you go to a class reunion and see the formerly hot chicks who started gaining just 2 lbs a year, it gets bad. It's fine when they went from 123 to 125, but ending up at 163...

I would recommend taking the first week as a transition period if you think you might fall off the wagon. Just alter one meal each day. Start with breakfast changes, and move toward dinner until your whole diet is overhauled.

and of course dinner

dinner?

http://base.cygnuspub.com/images/Products/AUTM/2009/Jul/300x300/ClifBarCompa_ClifBuildersbar_AUTM_0.png

for me, alcohol really, really packs on the lbs. a week of vacation where I ate sensibly, rode a little, and drank lots of beer and wine, and I came home nearly 7# fatter than when I left. happens to me every year. especially if its during the racing season when the physiological cost of every effort is greater, even though it requires less kJ (i.e. race efforts hurt more and for me require more recovery than a long slow distance or SST or FTP intensity based workout, even though less kj are burned/hour).

i've found it nearly impossible to lose weight during the racing season, restricting calories compromises recovery too much. So, I just wait until I'm done racing, or when I start base again in november/december timeframe.

really, if you're riding as much as you state, at your age you shouldnt need to do much other than eat sensibly at meal time and when you pour alcohol down your gullet, do it in moderation and only enough to get yourself laid. ;)

just eat less. its really that simple. if your performance suffers eat more.

last summer i lost over 20lbs in a 2 month span and increased threshold power.

here's another diet plan:

instead of this :beer:, drink this -

http://www.therefrigerator.net/features/food/images/seltzer.jpg

I'm so lazy I have a seltzer maker so I don't have to carry the bottles

www.sodaclub.com

i should get one of those for the 'jam.

they don't have selzter there, only 'sparkling water.'

anyway, i like a can of seltzer. perfect beer placebo. :innocent:

A few weeks ago, a friend was making drinks using vodka, and seltzer. It was 0 points on her weight watchers thinger. She was quite proud of herself. They weren't bad either.

Ok

Sigh. One can fuel their body like it's a long haul truck, the family station wagon, a street sweeper, or the beer mobile. They all have their purposes. Race cars generally use different fuel though.

Sigh. One can fuel their body like it's a long haul truck, the family station wagon, a street sweeper, or the beer mobile. They all have their purposes. Race cars generally use different fuel though.

Dude, I wasn't saying that I drink them all the time haha.

I don't drink that much, even when I'm in school...

'dude' you asked the question. I'm the one with veins showing on his intercostal muscles.

'dude' you asked the question. I'm the one with veins showing on his intercostal muscles.

That almost sounds nasty. Keep that muscle hidden, K?

gin&tonic > beer

at least in terms of weight gain

Fixed

(and I've got lots of anecdotal experience to confirm that.)

My team giving us cards for free burritos any time we want was probably not the best way to keep our weight down.

Good thing I can't get heavier even if I try. Impossible.

My team giving us cards for free burritos any time we want was probably not the best way to keep our weight down.

Good thing I can't get heavier even if I try. Impossible.

Why do you keep adding to the list of reasons why I don't like you?

This is reason #9.


;)

Good thing I can't get heavier even if I try. Impossible.

Just wait. I was exactly the same way when I was in college. The metabolism will change. Not that you can't stay lean, you will start to hang on to anything extra you eat.

Just wait. I was exactly the same way when I was in college. The metabolism will change. Not that you can't stay lean, you will start to hang on to anything extra you eat.

yep. i've never been a skinny minnie but when i was in my early 20s I could party 3x/week, eat pizza or mac and cheese with cheesy fries, cheese burgers, and drunken late night ben and jerry's binging whenever I wanted, just work our more, and I never gained any weight (working out then was mostly weight lifting and stairmaster/running stuff).

However, at the tender age of 24->25, my metabolism started changing as I started sitting more (office work) and I had to watch the intake. Now, pushing 40, I do more aerobic exercise than at any other time in my life, and I've gotta watch the intake carefully.

ZeCannon - be warned, you're time will come, mark my words, it'll come.:50:

yep. i've never been a skinny minnie but when i was in my early 20s I could party 3x/week, eat pizza or mac and cheese with cheesy fries, cheese burgers, and drunken late night ben and jerry's binging whenever I wanted, just work our more, and I never gained any weight (working out then was mostly weight lifting and stairmaster/running stuff).

However, at the tender age of 24->25, my metabolism started changing as I started sitting more (office work) and I had to watch the intake. Now, pushing 40, I do more aerobic exercise than at any other time in my life, and I've gotta watch the intake carefully.

ZeCannon - be warned, you're time will come, mark my words, it'll come.:50:

Don't be so sure....I'm 46 and weigh 145-150 at 70.5" and I eat and drink pretty much whatever I want and as much as I want. If I don't ride at or do any exercise at all...I balloon:rolleyes: up to about 160-165 and if I just watch what I eat and ride more I drop to about 138-140.:thumb:

Don't be so sure....I'm 46 and weigh 145-150 at 70.5" and I eat and drink pretty much whatever I want and as much as I want. If I don't ride at or do any exercise at all...I balloon:rolleyes: up to about 160-165 and if I just watch what I eat and ride more I drop to about 138-140.:thumb:

You suck

;)

So:

Breakfast is usually a mixture of granola and raisin bran with millk. That's about 400ish calories.
An egg is 90 calories, and I cook it in olive oil or vegetable oil not butter, so maybe 100. Didn't eat one today.

The lunch sandwiches I make are around 500-600 calories if I put in mayo. I buy an assorted lunch meat pack, and bologna is fatty while ham/turkey are not. Still, that puts the total to around 1k Cal till after lunch.

When I head home, I eat about 300 cals before I ride (pbj) and maybe another 300 on the bike if it's over a 2 hr ride (1.2k KJ).

I guess I eat 'too much' at dinner then...

In the last 3 months, I've done from 19k-21.5k KJ. So I'm not sure how I'm not losing weight when I'm riding so much. I didn't think it's possible to eat that much haha.

Don't be so sure....I'm 46 and weigh 145-150 at 70.5" and I eat and drink pretty much whatever I want and as much as I want. If I don't ride at or do any exercise at all...I balloon:rolleyes: up to about 160-165 and if I just watch what I eat and ride more I drop to about 138-140.:thumb:

How much will you weigh the week after I friggin kill your skinny ass?

Don't be so sure....I'm 46 and weigh 145-150 at 70.5" and I eat and drink pretty much whatever I want and as much as I want. If I don't ride at or do any exercise at all...I balloon:rolleyes: up to about 160-165 and if I just watch what I eat and ride more I drop to about 138-140.:thumb:

That's the thing though, I didn't need exercise. When I gave up racing and cut the volume to just screwing around one or two hours/week, I could still eat a large pizza for lunch, the column of oreos, ice cream, big chunks of cheddar, Froot Loops and Cocoa Pebbles, etc. And I still weighed 165 lbs (at 6'4"). That only lasted another year or so, then one day I realized I could no longer see the veins on my calves... another 7 years and I was 220 lbs. Then I had to stop eating whatever I wanted.

I weighed 145ish in the spring, and have gained about 10 lbs since then.

If you sweat a lot, much of that could be water weight. I sweat at a high rate and tend to get dehydrated in the heat so my body overcompensates in the summer.

But if you have fat to lose, the scientific approach would be to actually measure the calories and keep track of them.

Afterbuuuuurn. Grab a $10 resistance band from a sporting store and tear up that upper body. That and a tabata interval before noon will have you on fire for the rest of the day.

Counting calories is an outdated 80s approach and says nothing of the quality and timing of your food.

Don't be so sure....I'm 46 and weigh 145-150 at 70.5" and I eat and drink pretty much whatever I want and as much as I want. If I don't ride at or do any exercise at all...I balloon:rolleyes: up to about 160-165 and if I just watch what I eat and ride more I drop to about 138-140.:thumb:

With me the transition occured right at 46 years of age, so watch out!

eh you guys are just trying to scare me :)

My dad is 57 now and weighs the same as he did when he used to be a pro trackie. Granted he lost some Guad, but he's still thin as hell. Same with my Grandpa (almost 80). I look exactly like both of them, so I'm hoping I get the skinny forever thing too :thumb: I figure since they gave me the giant nose (sorry, aerodynamic nose), they owe me one.

Eating healthy for me is just about feeling good, not keeping weight down. When I eat crap, I feel like crap and I ride like crap. With how much I ride I tend to be behind on calories most of the time anyway.

Plus I'm poor and food is expensive. That probably helps.

This is really on the high end of how much you can or should lose in 6 weeks. You are talking about a deficit of 500 calories a day. You are going to be 1 angry dude.

Also what about rides specific to burning fat. LONG and easy (boring).

When I tried to lose weight I couldn't. When I stopped caring I did. I would not worry about counting calories, as much as controlling the food you do eat.

If you eat anything that would fall under "garbage" just stop eating it. Mayonnaise is one of the worst things you can eat. 2% milk? Try skim milk.

i love cookies myself, and eat them with no guilt during or after rides. Cookies @ night is not ideal.

I do not follow this " don't eat 5 hours before bed" thing. How do you expect to eat if stomach is going nuts.