LAE

3 weeks of 20 miles a day for each working day plus a few extra and down 4-6lbs.

Can't say I'm not a little disappointed, although my legs have improved and become more solid but I did have a slight twinge today in my troublesome tendon so I think I'm approaching my current limit. 400 seems to be the mark.

I will see this week how it goes and do some weights to see if that helps, I've kept my diet pretty constant so I'm thinking I'll add the weight lifting in to next months schedule and see what results i get. Should be a nice comparison.

Looking at the numbers and percentages of what I eat fat, carb and protein I've noticed my protein isn't as high as I'd like and my fat is higher than I'd like, I think my carb intake is at its lowest possible manageable limit. I think I'd like to see a 60/30/20 split (C/P/F) and see what happens. If nothing else it'll be interesting.

I was wondering what you guys do for recovery when you have limited time, Friday usually is my most tiring day and sat and sun as rest but I'm finding myself being increasingly tired on the following mondays.

Cya folks

bigfred 

1.5-2 lbs/week sounds like a very healthy loss rate to me. It's exactly what Mrs. Fred and I were aiming for when we began our diet and return to a healthier lifestyle. Slow and steady loss improves your chances of keeping it off.

chasm54

Agree with Fred. Losing a bit less than a kilo per week is ideal. And bear in mind that even if you are pretty heavy, it's unlikely you'll burn more than about 40kcal per mile. At 100 miles per week, that's about 4000kcal or not much more than a pound, all other things being equal. So if I were you I wouldn't be disappointed.

If you are riding c.100 miles per week and resting at weekends I'd say you are getting plenty of recovery. being a bit tired is a natural consequence of adjusting to a new, higher level of physical activity. I'd suggest that making sure you get enough sleep is more important than anything else at this stage of the game.

LAE

Sleep, almost forgot about that. I work at 4:30am so what with the euros and general evenings sleeps been harder to come by than I'd like, 6hrs a night mostly.

I agree totally about the rate, I think I'm more disappointed at the work put in vs results to be honest.

chasm54

When you start exercising after a layoff, your need for sleep goes up. In my case, from getting by on about 6 hours per night I suddenly needed 7.5. That rebalances after a while - I now sleep about 7 hours - but it is important to get enough.

As for being disappointed about work vs results, welcome to reality. What we often forget is just how inactive most of us are most of the time. People expect a few hours in the gym to make up for sitting on their arses 90% of the time. But the numbers simply don't add up.

LAE

sadly that seems to be the case. Also in the grand scheme of things one month isn't that long tto judge results, I'll keep at it and try different things.

I shall try get some extra sleep I think, to be honest it's needed. I just about manage on 6.

CraigB

A recent article on recovery in Bicycling magazine says that most people don't put the same kind of planning and care into recovery that they do when they plan the active portions of their training. Not only is sleep absolutely fundamental, they also say that the best results come from super-easy recovery activities. Cross-training can be effective if it targets different muscles, but if you're doing recovery rides they need to be at "embarrassingly slow, let-your-grandmother-beat-you" speeds. That's hard for me to do psychologically for some reason. If I'm not pushing myself on a ride, I feel at some fundamental level it's a waste of time. Yesterday I made a deliberate effort to get past that, and did my best to maintain a high-rpm, low-speed ride for 20 miles or so. I think it helped, especially since the day had already included a 3 mile run and some yard work.

LAE

I have a treadmil at home so some light walking might do me some good, i cant stand walking slow or moving slow outside, i like to get where im going as fast as i can and as you said it feels like wasted time so if i can get that sorted at home it'll be more of a stretching type activity. Sleep is something ill have to work on a bit more, i need to get better at sleeping early i think.

I could maybe incorporate some slow rides in with my nephew or mrs, kill 2 birds with one stone so to speak.

chasm54

Something that works for me is to train alone, but recover in company. I have a couple of friends who are enthusiastic recreational cyclists, do a bit of touring but are not remotely into racing and training. They typically ride quite decent distances, but at about 11 - 12 mph. So I tend to fix to go out with them, and just poodle along at their speed, having a chat. I make that a recovery day and plan to do an interval session or a tempo ride the day before.

chefisaac

sleep and for recovery, I eat fruit and some protein. But for longer rides in distance or hill work, I recover with chocolate milk.

TrojanHorse

That's exactly what I do. i did manage to go for a recovery ride one time this year and kept my HR in zone 2 the entire time (difficult with the hills near me) but usually i want to go blasting off. If I wanted to go slow I'd take up jogging. Kids are also great ballast when you need to go slow.

As for 3 weeks and 4-6 pounds, that's pretty decent! Be aware that you will plateau at some point and you just need to keep at it as more of a lifestyle thing than a "diet" or "program".

Good luck!

MadCityCyclist

That's a pretty good distance each week. I'd say with that type of daily workout you will need more sleep time. Especially if you use the weekend for rest but you're still tired on Monday, that should tell you something.

As far as the weight loss, don't get lost in the numbers. You are probably adding muscle, which means more weight, but it's a good weight. The more muscle you have, the more fat you burn given the same amount of exercise. Routine exercise also drives blood, water, plasma, lactic acid, and other things into the muscle which adds to the weight but which is more or less temporary.

Give it another week or two, and then start changing the workout for added weight loss. The body gets used to repetitive exercise and adapts to it, meaning you'll eventually plateau and only lose 1-2 pounds per week if you keep the same routine. The same thing happens to weightlifters & muscle growth, their muscles plateau and don't grow as much as before, which is why most body builders and other serious weightlifters change their routine every 4-6 weeks. Consider trying to get to work faster, or take a more challenging route with more hills.

Drew Eckhardt 

100 miles a week can be about 3500 actual (extrapolating from power meter measured Joules) Calories and one pound. Looks good to me.

A pound a week is still 50 in a year. 2-3 is 100-150. That's a whole (small) person!

RoadTire 

That's a lot of miles and disipline to ride each day! Good for you! I think I'll go with the already posted "don't get lost in the weight...loss..." or something like that. Muscle is heavy and I would hazard to guess you are really building leg muscle.

Would following size loss be better? Overall you should start losing size, pants will fit better for instance.

szewczykm

I use My Fitness Pal and it helps me to be completely honest with calorie intake. But really I think the important part is that there are other measurements you can track besides weight. As long as I'm making waist size improvements, I don't care as much about the weight.

I recently came across an old article about dieters who eat 18 ounces of yogurt a day losing significantly more weight than those who don't. Also, the weight is lost more in the belly area and ALSO it helps improve recovery after exercise. Something about the balance of protein and calcium and some other stuff. Here is one article about it.

https://www.fitnessmagazine.com/recip...its-of-yogurt/

Obviously, I can't compare my progress with and without it, but I can say that I'm coming close to 20 pounds lost this month, an inch and a half around the middle, and I feel very strong. I don't know if it was the cool weather this evening, but I had a stronger ride tonight than I have ever had and I feel great.

Oh, I started at 332lbs, I'm 6'2" and 41 years old.