Training & Nutrition - Can I lose weight this way and be alright?

I met a cyclist in my club today who lost 100 pounds in the last year. He says the secret is to ride at a comfortable rate ( Not casual, just not killing yourself) for as long as you can. He said he did 8-9 hour rides going 100 - 150 miles depending how he was feeling. He would do these rides a few times a week.

He told me to bring 1 fruit for a snack and drink only water for the rides.

" If you consume 1000 calories a day and ride like this a few times a week, you will be at a giant calorie deficit. This forces your body to take the energy it needs from the rest of your body, fat and muscle included. You WILL LOSE MUSCLE, but you will also lose fat at an incredible rate. It's not the healthiest method, but it works well. You can build the muscle back once you lost the weight"

He lost his weight this way, and then once he was at his desired weight, he started eating regularly again and built back his muscle.

Is there truth in what he's telling me, or is he just pulling my leg? I get the long rides = burning fat, but I don't know if I believe the whole killing yourself to lose weight idea..

1000 calories per day and riding 8-9 hours per day a few times a week? Who comes up with this stuff? Do you think you could pull it off? I know I couldn't.

And what happens when (if) you reach your goal weight through starvation and riding 3 centuries per week for a year? It's not like you've been learning to eat "normally" or healthfully during that time. You will have been severely restricting calories while doing extreme exercising.

Anyone who actually knows anything about this stuff recommends the same thing; that you not restrict calories to less than -500 of what you need per day. A weight loss of 1-2 pounds per week is considered healthy. More the 1 pound per week than 2. Riding three 100-150 mile rides in a week there should be no reason you would even NEED to restrict calories that drastically.

I really don't get why people do things this way. People should really look at this stuff in the long view and see for what it should be; a process towards building a lifestyle of solid fitness by exercising vigorously and developing eating habits that are more healthy, but also sustainable over the long-term.

My 2 cents.

1. Riding at a comfortable rate ( Not casual, just not killing yourself) for as long as you can ... is the Long Steady Distance pace. You ride at the fastest pace you can maintain for 8 or 9 hours. Good for losing weight, good for getting those base miles, and good for long distance rides.

2. If you consume 1000 calories a day and ride like this a few times a week, you will be at a giant calorie deficit. ... ummm .... no kidding. If you consumed 1000 calories per day and did nothing in the way of exercise you'd be in a huge calorie deficit ... adding in 2 or 3 centuries a week would indeed put you into a giant calorie deficit. And yes, you would lose both fat and muscle. The body would try to get the energy it needs to keep going from somewhere.

So yes, it doesn't surprise me at all that this person lost weight. BUT losing weight that way increases the chances that the person will gain the weight back again when he returns to "normal" eating, and when he gets tired of doing all those centuries, or goes through an injury, or when winter comes, or whatever.


If you're looking around for ideas to lose weight, start increasing the amount of exercise you do (maybe you want to start riding one 8-9 hour century per week, plus shorter rides during the week) and take an honest look at your diet and see what you might be able to change to bring the calories down a bit without feeling too deprived.

Yes, I also give some tips for weight loss, you can also join the gym otherwise do exercise at home it will really help you to loss your weight you can also do yoga this is really give you flexible body and also helpful for burning your calories.

Being a cook I see this stuff all the time. My biggest peeve is the Atkins (self digestion) diet. This rings right up there with the weird ones...

Always someone willing to kill themselves to loose a few pounds...

I just wanted to know if this was too insane to be plausible. I personally don't have the determination to pull this off. I love food too much :)

I just wanted to know if this was too insane to be plausible. I personally don't have the determination to pull this off. I love food too much :)

It is plausible that you would lose weight if you did that.

And sometimes it seems that some people need a "jump start" to the whole weight loss thing which exercising a lot and eating little provides. Some can gradually increase the exercise and gradually make diet changes, but others need to feel like they are on a mission. The whole business of losing 1-2 lbs per week can get very frustrating and demotivating, especially when a person is very obese. Sometimes seeing a larger weight loss (i.e. 5 lbs a week) in the beginning can help a person stick with it and see that the efforts they are putting in are worthwhile.

And some people need to be told that this is precisely what they need to eat, and this is when they need to eat it, and this is what they need to do for exercise, and this is when they need to do it ... something very structured ... in order to be able to stick to something that will help them lose weight.

Perhaps your friend is one who needed to "jump start" his weight loss, and needed to follow a very strict set of rules, a very strict program, in order to lose weight. Given that he had 100 lbs to lose, maybe that was what worked for him.

Personally, I wouldn't go around recommending eating that little. Riding 2 or 3 centuries each week is great, but 1000 calories per day is a bit low even for a completely sedentary person. If you were riding 2 or 3 centuries per week, you could consume1500-1800 calories per day, quite possibly even up around 2000 calories per day, and still lose weight. The weight loss would be more gradual, but probably a healthier way to go.

sounds scary to me. your body needs more than just "calories" to keep going. Vitamins, minerals, amino acids, protein, fats, etc. for repair and functioning of all the innards. Cutting your intake down that much might short-change you on these other building blocks.

Yes, you will lose weight this way. No, you will not be all right.

On a side note, I think that Long Slow Distance to lose weight is BS. Look at a randonneur - what do you see - big belly. Look at a racer, what do you see - skinny person. Of course there are exceptions, but that's the general pattern.

Doing centuries you need a lot of food to fuel the ride, and that's fine, and then you get home and you are starving and eat everything in the fridge, thinking you just did a huge ride and "deserve" it. This is probably happening at 3 in the afternoon. You're usually hungry again after not too long and eat dinner - a second big meal. If you have the discipline, you can eat a light meal and lose weight doing long rides, but it's really hard.

ON the other hand, do a shorter, hard effort, you don't eat much during the ride, you come home, have a normal meal, and resume your day.

MOre to the subject, it's hard to imagine sitting at my desk on 1000 calories a day, let alone riding a century. And definitely would not be healthy.

DO NOT DO IT. Muscles burn more calories than fat. Keep the muscle. Get a bike computer that tells your calorie burn and keep a 2000 calorie or less diet. Ride the rides a couple of times a week. Count every calorie. Eat plenty of protein. Learn everything you can about nutrition and weight loss. Start with the links below. They will really help.
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=108359701

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/forumdisplay.php?f=16

On a side note, I think that Long Slow Distance to lose weight is BS. Look at a randonneur - what do you see - big belly. Look at a racer, what do you see - skinny person. Of course there are exceptions, but that's the general pattern.


Some randonneurs are heavy ... most of the ones I've seen are not. But then the average age of randonneurs is 49, so most randonneurs tend to be a bit older and as people age it can sometimes be harder to lose weight.
(http://www.randonneurs.bc.ca/galleries/gal_2003/pbp.html)

Personally, when I was into randonneuring quite extensively, I had trouble keeping weight on. I dropped well below the normal weight for my height. I wasn't really watching what I ate, and did have some of those 'eat everything in the fridge' experiences, especially after a brevet, but I still lost weight.

Where I found it difficult was when my cycling tapered off for winter. I'd keep eating how I was used to eating, but wouldn't cycle as much ... and I'd gain weight. And that will be the difficulty the OP's friend runs into as well. Doing 2 or 3 long rides each week is fine for a while, if but a person gets burned out, or gets tired of riding in all weather, or incurs an injury, or whatever and can't ride for a while ... that person runs the risk of gaining back all the weight lost.

You can lose quite a bit of weight by riding long distances and not really hammering.

Losing weight is all about pounds lost = (calories burned - calories consumed)/3500

When many people exercise, they increase their calorie consumption by more than the calorie burn.

The trick is to exercise and be disciplined in your calorie consumption. I once spent 2 weeks on a tour in the western mountains which had about 80 miles per day and a bunch of climbing. Plus, we were camping so you had to do quite a bit of walking to get to set up your camp, go to the privies, the showers, and get food. I was careful with my intake. I ate a bunch of carbs to replace my glycogen stores daily but I was careful on fat consumption. I lose 10 lbs in 2 weeks and never felt like I was doing anything much. However, most people gained weight. Not only did they stuff their faces at the 3 meals provided, they went into town after getting off the bike and had the biggest cheese burger, fries, drink and sundae that they could find.

The "diet" you mentioned seems to be too extreme for me to think that it is a good idea. The diet radically restricts calories. The human nervous system requires about 500 calories of carbohydrates per day. Nervous tissue can not burn fat. If you do not take in carbs, your body will take apart protein to make carbs (mostly muscle). Keep it up long enough and your body will take apart the heart muscle. That is generally what kills people who get involved in extreme diets to lose weight.

Now doing the same thing and being a bit more relaxed on the intake end would probably work just fine.

Doing long rides like that and only eating 1000 calories a day would probably put you into ketosis. There are many complications from that, but it may not be so bad when viewed in the consequences of never losing the weight.

I'm also skeptical that 1000 calories a day is something you'd stick to for more than 3 years.. which is what it would take to keep the weight off.

How long did it take you to put the weight on... was it gradual? The trick to losing it is the same process but in reverse.

OK, I just lost 100 pounds myself and I can tell you it was not thanks to some wacked out weight loss plan your buddy told you about.

Here is how I did it. I eat 3 very good meals a day just stay away from junk and eat plenty of fruits and veggies. I rode 8-10 mile every night and a 25 mile run on either Sat or Sun. There is no need to go crazy the weight will come off. I eat either chicken, fish or pork for dinner and sometimes a burger on the grill with a baked potatoe and lots of veggies, but I stay away from bread. I eat lots of fruit during the day bananas, apples, peaches and melon. I snack on raw carrots, and celery and drink tons of water. Do that for about 8 months and see how much you drop. No snacking after dinner NONE! You need to stay away from the bad things like butter, and salt. Hey treat yourself once per month and go to dinner but keep it reasonable. Hey, I love to eat, but I love to live even more.......

Severe calorie deficits like you are talking about cause your body to search for fuel sources.

This is what is available and depending on what those food calories consist of, fat and muscle may be reversed in order of what gets used first.

Food
Glucose Stores
Fat
Muscle
Internal Organs

If you don't eat enough food, your body uses glucose. If you run out of glucose, you start buring fat. If you run out of fat or you burn calories faster than your body can process the fat, you start consuming your own muscles. If that is not enough to fuel the calorie deficit you start consuming your own internal organs.

Yes, you want a calorie deficit but not so much you start eating yourself from the inside out. A high protein diet will minimize the muscle loss of a low calorie diet. But if the deficit is too great(depends on the person) you could end up killing yourself. If you have a lot of weight to lose, call a doctor and nutrititionist so you can be monitored carefully.

This spring a friend of mine basically did this for his base. His goal was to lose weight while building a base.
He was able to do it for a couple months but then basically burned out. It is stupid to do.

Let's say you are overweight and biked 7 hours, that's at least 3500 calories. If you are taking it easy then up to 60% of that may come from fat reserves ( 2100 ) the other from glycogen and lean body mass ( 1400 ). Combine that with eating 1000 calories a day and the math is clear, you will be eating yourself alive but you will lose weight like mad.

The scary part is that just dropping 500 calories a day compared to maintenance + riding 7-8 hours a week in total and you can probably lose 50-100 pounds safely and with little risk to your internal organs.

I have lose just about 50 pounds in 6 months with a combination of dropping 500-1000 calories/day, 2000 miles on the bike, and some strength training. I didn't have to starve myself either.

In the past year and a half I have lost 40 lbs and several inches, even my feet seem to be smaller. I am predisposed to obeseity and lost my father at 59 due to multiple problems including type 2 diabetes. I digress.

I have changed my lifestyle during this time, going from working at a carwash to being back in a bike shop. The job market here is bad but, the best times I've ever had was working in a shop. I've not done much to change my diet other than cut out most sweets type stuffs and processed snacks. I drink plenty of water, mostly carbonated flavoured kind with 0 calories, with the occasional cola or tea. I try to eat handfulls of dried fruits and nuts for intermitant snacks instead of chips etc. Really very little change.

The big change came simply from riding. I live 6 miles from work and we ride 23 miles every morning, then I usually ride home. Add these to longer weekend rides and I'm doing 300 miles a week, which is 40 miles a day, or 12 hours a week. This is way doable for anyone, in my opinion. Most people watch tv or play on the interwebs that much when they could be riding (me included).

So to finally answer your initial question, that just seems like a way bad way to lose weight, even for the morbidly obese.

btw- One can have other problems creep up when doing even moderate loss. Acustomer that I personally sold two bike to this year recently came in to check in, sort of. I didn't realize we had not seen him since May or so, he had a stroke in June. He was losing weight, gaining fitness and rewarding himself but, he had already created health risks that he didn't know about yet. Now he has it all under control and has had to to a break from riding and will be back later for a road bike.

On a side note, I think that Long Slow Distance to lose weight is BS. Look at a randonneur - what do you see - big belly. Look at a racer, what do you see - skinny person. Of course there are exceptions, but that's the general pattern.

Doing centuries you need a lot of food to fuel the ride, and that's fine, and then you get home and you are starving and eat everything in the fridge, thinking you just did a huge ride and "deserve" it. This is probably happening at 3 in the afternoon. You're usually hungry again after not too long and eat dinner - a second big meal. If you have the discipline, you can eat a light meal and lose weight doing long rides, but it's really hard.

ON the other hand, do a shorter, hard effort, you don't eat much during the ride, you come home, have a normal meal, and resume your day.



I think you have this completely backwards. Training at high levels of intensity depletes your glycogen stores and they have to be replaced - this is what can trigger ravenous eating, and is one reason why racers need to be highly disciplined about what and when they eat. Long steady (NOT slow) distance rides burn fewer calories per hour but burn mostly fat rather than glycogen and are less likely to trigger uncontrolled eating.

I think you have this completely backwards. Training at high levels of intensity depletes your glycogen stores and they have to be replaced - this is what can trigger ravenous eating, and is one reason why racers need to be highly disciplined about what and when they eat. Long steady (NOT slow) distance rides burn fewer calories per hour but burn mostly fat rather than glycogen and are less likely to trigger uncontrolled eating.

I agree, this is part of the so called "Fat burning" zone (another thread). In general the higher the intensity the shorter the activity. You won't get much faster if you don't train hard, but if you train long enough at a moderate effort then you will be able to string out an activity(burn more calories) which otherwise would have depleted you far earlier. It is similar to the scenario between walking or running, you burn the same calories per kilometer but, with the walking your typical person can cover more distance which means more calories burnt(over a longer time period though).

I think you have this completely backwards. Training at high levels of intensity depletes your glycogen stores and they have to be replaced - this is what can trigger ravenous eating, and is one reason why racers need to be highly disciplined about what and when they eat. Long steady (NOT slow) distance rides burn fewer calories per hour but burn mostly fat rather than glycogen and are less likely to trigger uncontrolled eating.Uh, that's why you eat on the ride. Take the food that you'd normally be eating anyway if you weren't riding that 8-9hr century, and eat it on the ride.

It really all comes down to total deficit = calories in - calories out. If you take 8-9 hours to burn off that 3000 calories, you'll still lose the same amount of weight as if you did it in 5-6 hours. The actual mix of carbs versus fat used doesn't really matter, it's the overall deficit that counts. Speed only affects how far you can go before exhaustion. Going too fast means you won't be able to burn off the total calories needed to generate the required deficit.

So the most efficient method in terms of time & effort is to go at the fastest steady-speed that you can maintain the entire distance to burn off the required calories. The more fit you are, the faster you can ride that 100-miles and the more calories/hr you can burn off. Unless you really want to spend the 8-9 hours doing it, I would much prefer doing it 5 hours and spend the rest of my time doing more exciting and enjoyable things.

Uh, that's why you eat on the ride. Take the food that you'd normally be eating anyway if you weren't riding that 8-9hr century, and eat it on the ride.

This reply has nothing whatever to do with the point I was making. And if you think a long steady ride involves taking 8 hours to ride 100 miles, you're living on a different planet from mine.

ask him to show you the scars from the bypass surgery. jkg. had a coworker who dropped a 100lbs from surgery. can not eat much. not much energy either.

This reply has nothing whatever to do with the point I was making. And if you think a long steady ride involves taking 8 hours to ride 100 miles, you're living on a different planet from mine.The way to avoid the post-ride munchies and binge (regardless of what type of ride you did), is to immediately take in 1.0-1.5g/kg of carb-protein recovery drink (4:1). The magic window is within the 1st 30-minutes after a ride where you can move glucose across the cell walls very quickly, even without much insulin. This recharges your system as fast as possible for another ride the next day. Also the higher blood-glucose, insulin and leptin levels signal the brain that you've got food in your system and you won't feel hungry.

The 8-hour 100-mile ride is posed by the OP. I'm just saying that you can do the same ride in 5-hours and burn off the same amount of calories (actually more) and lose the exact same amount of weight loss. The percentage of fat versus glycogen burned during the ride doesn't make a difference in weight-loss.

The 8-hour 100-mile ride is posed by the OP. I'm just saying that you can do the same ride in 5-hours and burn off the same amount of calories (actually more) and lose the exact same amount of weight loss. The percentage of fat versus glycogen burned during the ride doesn't make a difference in weight-loss.

I agree, as long as you eat similar amounts. And I agree about the importance of getting some carbs and protein into your system immediately after a workout. But in my experience, burning off 1200 calories in an hour is more likely to provoke uncontrolled eating than is burning off the same number of calories in two hours in zone 2. In the former case, most of the calories will have come from glycogen stores and the body demands that those stores be replenished. And there is a lot to be said, especially for newbies, for spending most of one's time in zone 2, it builds a good aerobic base without exhausting them.

This reply has nothing whatever to do with the point I was making. And if you think a long steady ride involves taking 8 hours to ride 100 miles, you're living on a different planet from mine.

Yes ... for some of us (like me, for example) 10 hours to ride 100 miles is a lot more realistic!! I would be thrilled to ride 100 miles so briskly as to finish it in 8 hours!!

Yes ... for some of us (like me, for example) 10 hours to ride 100 miles is a lot more realistic!! I would be thrilled to ride 100 miles so briskly as to finish it in 8 hours!!

But it was not always that way - and it won't be long before you're back to your best, I hope...

But it was not always that way - and it won't be long before you're back to your best, I hope...

No, but the fastest centuries I've ever done were 6 hours under absolutely ideal conditions ... an 8 hour century used to be a nice comfortable century, until a few years ago when a 9 hour century became a nice comfortable century, until the last 15 months when a 11 hour century became a nice comfortable century, and 10 hours was a brisk, strenuous century. :D

I'd really like to get back to a 9 hour century this coming season.

The way to avoid the post-ride munchies and binge (regardless of what type of ride you did), is to immediately take in 1.0-1.5g/kg of carb-protein recovery drink (4:1). The magic window is within the 1st 30-minutes after a ride where you can move glucose across the cell walls very quickly, even without much insulin. This recharges your system as fast as possible for another ride the next day. Also the higher blood-glucose, insulin and leptin levels signal the brain that you've got food in your system and you won't feel hungry.


Yes. It does not curb hunger though. Also, the article is missing a few points.

But here is why you should do this:

-Normally you want to avoid simple carbs/sugars as they need limited or no digestion. Starches and grains with fiber must be digested. Only sugars can be absorbed from the small intestine to your bloodstream.
-Since these carbs move into your bloodstream very easily, they cause an insulin spike.
-insulin regulates many functions: one being the increased uptake of glucose into the liver, fat cells, and muscle tissue. This is achieved by insulin affecting the function of glut-2 receptors that allow glucose to pass through a cell membrane.
-In a sedentary condition, any extra sugar not used is stored as glycogen in liver, a tiny bit in muscle, and the rest is converted into fat (triglycerides) and stored in adipose (fat cells).
The reason is insulin greatly affects glut-2 receptors in fat cells in a resting state. Insulin also blocks the breakdown of triglycerides stored in adipose cells. This means if you eat a sugary meal before you exercise you ablate the ability to burn fat (fat must be released as fatty acids broken apart from triglycerides to be able to be burned).
-that is why complex carbs are preferred during a resting state. They don't cause as much of an insulin release. This is key.

Now why you should have sugar after training:

1. After training, especially prolonged intense activity, there is a massive depletion of glycogen in muscle tissue and your liver. Your body's primary goal is to replenish this store-at the cost of muscle tissue. If you don't pump sugar into your bloodstream your body will breakdown muscle tissue (protein) into amino acids. These amino acids then get converted into sugar by your liver (by a process called gluconeogenesis). This in what you want!

2. Weight training and intense sprinting and cycling increases the sensitivity of glut-2 receptors in muscle tissue. This means now the shift is made that when insulin is pumped into your blood more of it will have an effect on muscle tissue and your liver than on fat tissue.
This is one big reason why sugar does not seem to promote fat gains when taken after training.

Now the muscle building:

1. After intense training, various genes suddenly become more active. There are certain factors that regulate how much a gene will be read (transcribed) to make a protein product (translated). Training induces the increased activity of certain genes that regulate hypertrophy (skeletal muscle growth).

BUT THIS IS A VERY TRANSIENT EFFECT- It only last about 45 minutes.

2. So, in this 45 minute window your body is a revved anabolic biochemical state. If you supply your body with a large dose of amino acids (especially leucine) right away after training, then these over-active biochemical pathways use those building blocks to increase muscle growth.

IF YOU DO NOT SUPPLY THOSE AMINO ACIDS DURING THIS WINDOW THEN YOU MISS OUT ON ADDITIONAL MUSCLE GROWTH.

3. Eating whole proteins such as chicken or beef after training is not ideal. These proteins take hours to be digested.

There is a push for chocolate milk as a recovery aid. This is partially correct.
Milk contains 2 main protein groups: casein (80%) and whey (20%). Casein, the main protein component of milk, is a very slow digesting protein. Whey, in a purified form, is extremely fast digesting. So milk an ok recovery aid but there is a much better choice.

4. Your best protein after training would be whey for these reasons:
-fast digesting
-contains a high amount of leucine
-contains a group called glutamylcysteine that is rapidly converted into glutathione in muscle tissue (potent antioxidant)

Putting it all together:

1. You must fuel your body immediately after training.
2. Choose a mix of simple carbs and whey protein
(fruit juice or Gatorade along with a scoop of whey protein). Vanilla is best.
3. Take a bigger dose of antioxidants such as vitamin c and e after training to reduce any additional cellular damage created when you exercise.
4. Limit fat intake as much as possible in your post workout meal/drink
5. Never drink whey protein in water. You waste it, as your liver will rapidly convert the amino acids into glucose as you are in a hypogluconic state.
6. Eat a regular meal about an hour or so after your post workout drink.
7. Stay away from sugar and refined carbohydrates the rest of the day. You don't need a protein supplement in a sedentary state - real food is preferred here.