Inpd

Hi All,

Love cycling and am now within 5 pounds of my high school weight so I want to go for it! But this could apply to a whole bunch of other situations (like I'm guessing over the holiday period I'l put on 5 pounds!)

So how should I go about doing it? The last 5 pounds took months to lose.

Should I:

With respect to riding:

a) Daily hour fast rides
b) A few really long rides where I pace myself
c) Ride on flats or climbing
d) Something else?

With respect to eating:

a) Low-carb (kind of hard if I do b) above
b) What should I cut out?
c) Something else?

10 Wheels

Cut out sodium.

My wife lost 18 lbs just watching TV and dropping salt.

indyfabz

Burn more calories than you consume.

bassjones

As to riding - mix it up. Do a one hour fast ride once or twice a week. Do an HIIT ride once a week. Do longer, endurance paced rides a couple of times a week. Mix in some weight training

low starch works for me and riding. Get your carbs from fruits and vegetables, not grains. Drink water. Heck, for 5 pounds, do a juice fast.

JamesRL

Take it from someone who dropped 60 lbs, it does get harder the longer you go on. So it isn't just a matter of continuing to do what you've been doing.

You need to increase the intensity. Try adding some hills, push yourself a little more.

sstorkel

Do a, b, and c.

I lost a lot of weight by doing hour-long fast rides during lunch 3-4 days/week followed by longer (2+ hour) but still brisk rides on the weekends. Weekend rides usually had at least one or two good climbs. Your body adapts to exercise very quickly, so it's important to always be pushing yourself to go faster and longer. Weight loss is all about creating a calorie deficit. The harder you go, the more calories you burn. You may be more efficient at burning fat calories when you ride at a slower pace, but you'll burn fewer of them. At least that's the way my body works.

Low-carb devotees will tell you that it's the perfect dies for longer rides at a moderate pace.

Personally, I found that 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% (healthy) fat worked well for me. I kept a journal of everything I ate along with the associated carbs, protein, and fat. If I didn't know the calories in something, I didn't eat it. I also tried to cut out simple sugars (candy, sodas, etc) as much as possible.

Inpd

That worked well when I was 245 and i quickly dropped to 200 but since then its been tough going (now at 185).

As @JamesRL says you just can't keep on doing the same thing.

I ordered a cheap time trial bike for short 1 hour fast sprints. I'll try @sstorkel plan and seem how that goes for 2 weeks.

Phil_gretz

Cut all refined sugars from your diet, including HFCS and all forms of corn syrup. Just say no.

indyfabz

Check out the laws of thermodynamics.

gandrimp

I realize anything is a good reason to buy a bike, but wont a lighter bike make it easier to not work so hard, and therefore make you actually lose ground?

Drew Eckhardt 

No. Your workouts should be defined by how long and how hard - 3 x 10 minutes as hard as possible, 1.5 hours at 95% of lactate threshold heart rate or one hour power, 4 hours at a conversational pace. Going farther in that time doesn't change their impact, although the cooling breeze may be a bit better.

The actual speed impact also isn't that much - a 200 pound rider on a 15 pound bike is only 2.3% faster up the steepest hills than they are on a 20 pound bike. With the same aerodynamics the difference on flat ground is too small to measure. With acceptable tires under .004 Crr, 5 pounds is less than 0.8W at 20 MPH average out of about 200W on flat ground. With +/- 2.5% accuracy that's not enough for consumer power meters to notice.

Black wallnut 

Simply put no.

You need to burn 3500 calories more than you eat for each pound you wish to lose. Ride more, ride harder a couple of to a few days a week while eating less overall will likely drop weight.

rawly old

Ride 30 miles without hydrating?

Darth Lefty 

CliffordK

I lost a bit of weight this summer. Got close to where I had been in High School (about 10 pounds). Then decided it wasn't healthy to loose any more weight and terminated the diet.

Anyway, make sure your goals are realistic considering changes to your body over time.