Cognitive

New Clyde-pony here, 224 lb, need to get to under 200... Started cycling nearly 2 months ago, slowly building from 3-4 miles a day to 8-9 now. I'm doing around 8-8.5 mph on relatively flat ground, bike trail. If I go slower, like 7.5-8.0 I can ride all the way to California and back, I do not get tired at all. No sweat, funny pains, etc. But I need to get to the magic 10/10, i.e. 10 miles at 10mph.

First we have the logistics - as I mentioned in another thread, half of my 10 miles is on extra wide pavement with the usual bumps and up/down cutouts for peoples' driveways and the like, occasional traffic lights... The other half is a cycling dream trail (Monon Trail in the northern Indianapolis area).

So... What should I aim for, longer distance and build stamina at slower speeds or or try for higher speed? should I do more inclines to get my rear end to work harder?

Any suggestions?

Black wallnut 

To lose weight you need to burn more than you eat. Riding hills will burn more calories. Suggest you focus on higher cadence and embrace the hills. Higher cadence will lead to faster speed. Also extend your ride to 1.5 hours. Try not to over compensate with food. Track your calories and establish goals that will let you lose weight. AT least a couple days a week ride until you are nearly out of breathe and keep it there for 20 minutes to start adding a minute or two each time until you are up to 40 minutes.

tjkoko

You also want to elevate your heart rate to your target heart rate (aerobic and second wind) and keep it there for at least a half an hour to elevate the percent fat that is being burned. Checkout this article for the age-based calculation.

Willbird

I have decided that losing weight benefits my cycling more than cycling benefits my weight loss :-).

Might sound convoluted but to me losing boils down to controlling calorie intake.

i treat cycling as a benefit to my cardiovascular system.....and to my mental well being :-)

tjkoko

Losing weight benefits your longevity and self esteem.

Cognitive

OK, this makes sense then. I can extend the ride to 90 minutes in 5-10 minute increments (the engineer in me, incremental is best :-)). When we're talking hills here we're not talking Kentucky, of course (I'm in Indiana) but there are plenty of ups and downs - our city is laid out such that the east/west roads (and trails) are usually flat and the north/south roads (and trails) are inclined. So I have a good choice of more challenging terrain!

I appreciate the mental benefit a lot more than I appreciate the physical benefit. I'm not experienced enough to do everything automatically on a bicycle, so it takes a bit of mental focus to avoid the bumps, check ahead, scan for other cyclists or pedestrians, cars, etc. This really cleans my mind of most anything, not a small task.

Shimagnolo

^This.
I never saw any weight loss at all, even doing up to all-day rides.
Only when I worked on restricting calories, and cutting out all junk foods, did I lose weight.

RISKDR1

I would recommend adding weight training to your routine with an eye towards gaining muscle. Adding muscle mass in order to lose weight may sound counter intuitive but it is part of what you may need to do. First, muscle takes up a lot less room than fat of the same weight. Second, muscle cells are like engines that burn fat even when they are idling. The effectiveness of this added weight training depends on your current body fat percentage and your age. I found that I had a pretty easy time adding muscle when in was in my 40's and early 50's. I am 69 now and it is much more difficult and I find that cycling is not very effective at helping me lose weight. If you are one of those guys who is big but have low body fat I am not sure how to help you lose weight without sacrificing muscle. That can lead to a drop in metabolic rate. Not good.

One of the things you want to be careful of is not to lose muscle mass while cycling by dieting to a starvation level. It won't get you where you want to do.

SwampDude

I've dropped 35 pounds this year by biking at least 3 times each week, doing 15 to 30 miles each outing, and by following a well known weight loss plan that emphasizes journaling everything one eats and drinks. I believe the conventional weight loss wisdom that says diet and exercise produce the best results.

My bike ride intensity is based on holding an aerobic heart rate over most of my mileage. I do "embrace " hills to increase heart rate for short distances, and I sprint when the spirit moves me if terrain is essentially flat. My heart rate monitor is an essential part of my cycling gear.

My guiding mantra is "This is a tour, not a race".

bbeasley

Reads like you want to increase your fitness on the bike and lose weight.

Ride lots, mostly fast

Eat often mostly green

Lvlbiker

I agree and would add that riding with more effort burns calories so hills at a slower speed might burn more calories than flats at higher speeds. It's been said on here before that you lose weight at the dinner table and build fitness on the bike.

digibud

It would be easy to treat yourself to extra fun calories and make no gain but if you combine better eating habits, portion control, and lengthy aerobic exercise you'll lose weight and gain aerobic conditioning. I've lost 95lb and gone from a very sore butt after 1mile to a 130mi solo and regular rides of 30-50mi anytime I want with an occasional 70mi ride thrown in when time allows. In fact, I no longer technically qualify as a "clyde" but after a long life as a 285lb guy, I'll always be a clyde in some sense. Good luck and remember to always push the effort and keep it fun or it won't continue as a part of your life.

salreus

I agree about not being able to lose weight from riding your bike. I have lost 39 lbs since Apr 29th and started riding end of May. I can honestly say my trend of weight loss did not increase when I started riding but actually decreased. I have lost about 10 lbs a month for the last 2 months and lose the other 19 in the first 3 weeks. Personally to me I like to be on the bike as long as possible. If I push too hard, I lose all my energy and can't go on, but If I do slower like you said, you can ride forever. Trying to go even an extra 1/2 mile hr average takes so much more energy. If you do want to start riding at 10 mph, the quick and easy way would be to replace your fat tires with skinny ones. That increased my average over 1 mph alone.

Dave Cutter

The most common mistake most exercise newbies make is doing too much too soon. Take your time when it comes to increasing and or modifying your routine. Enjoy the cycling for cycling's sake. Have fun (and ride lots). An active lifestyle is a great and healthy thing!

I use a calorie counting app on my phone. Often times there is one or two "eating mistakes" that causes a person to gain weight. Finding the foods/snacks/treat/whatever in your diet that made you gain weight might be key to losing the now extra pounds. You might find that skipping the fancy coffee drink on the way to work, or switching from a burger for lunch to a lunch salad... is all it takes to drop the pounds.

chasm54

I'm going to disagree with those who say that cycling won't help you lose weight. On long tours I have lost weight while eating and drinking whatever I wanted, usually at the rate of about a kilo a week.

However, when on tour I'm on the bike for maybe 30 hours per week. Not practicable for most people who have to work for a living.

Build your time on the bike. You'll get faster as well as increasing duration. And it will help with your weight-loss programme, but only if you are both knowledgeable and self-disciplined about what you put in your mouth.

GravelMN

Much of the current literature points to interval training as the most useful for weight loss and performance gains. This can range from intense highly-regimented programs like Tabata to just throwing in a series of sprints on your regular rides.

Nutrition and rest are equally, if not more important than the type of exercise. You cannot out train a bad diet, you can always consume more calories than you burn. Get the quality and quantity of the food you consume under control and any exercise will only improve your results.

Kevin in TN

I can't agree with the sentiment that riding doesn't help for weight loss. Certainly if you have an out-of-control diet, riding won't help nearly as much as getting your diet in control. But that's a far cry from saying that riding doesn't matter for weight loss.

In my experience "Calories in" and "Calories out" are both very important. It's true that it's easier to get results the "Calories in" part, but exercising is not insignificant for weight loss.

In the book "Ride Your Way Lean", which contains high volume, interval-based training plans, the plans peak at about 10 hours per week. That's almost 2 lbs per week weight loss from "Calories out" alone. Couple that with a good, moderate diet ( -500 calories per day under maintenance ) and it can be almost 3 lbs per week, which is a very good rate of weight loss.

CommuteCommando

+1

Ride hard enough so that you are breathing harder, but not having to breath through you mouth. Doing this at too low of a cadence will cause muscle fatigue much faster. Spinning so fast that you feel almost no resistance will have a similar effect. For me 85-90 is a good endurance cadence. If you do not have a cadence sensor try singing to yourself a song with the right tempo. The Bee Gees "Stayin' Alive" is one example. "The William Tell Overture" is another.

downtube42

Keep it fun, otherwise you will quit.

Sometimes fast is fun, sometimes far, sometimes suffering is fun in a twisted way. Sometimes slow is fun, sometimes hills but other times flats.

But to lose weight cycling, you have to keep cycling; that takes fun.

tjkoko

Again, your second wind, that's where your metabolism has reached aerobicity, the body is consuming more oxygen than it needs at the current rate of cycling, where the amount of fat burned is way elevated.

kf6pfk

Cut your calories consumed by 20 to 30% of your BMR, give your body a few weeks to switch over to optimize fat burning, then the longer you ride, the more you lower your net calories consumed. Expect 1 to 2 lbs per week depending on how much you ride. Note that as you lose weight your BMR will go lower and you'll have to adjust for that. Be patient, it takes a long time, so however you decide to cut calories, it's best to try to make it a habit.

The amount of time you spend off your a$$ is what matters to lower your net calories consumed. It doesn't matter how you do it.

jsigone

Are you riding on the sidewalk? I wouldn't want to go much faster than you are now. Its more dangerous up there. People, kids, dogs leashes, cars backing out.....yah

Roopull

Just a qualifier...

I lost 70 lbs over about 12 months. When I got down to 159, my wife said I looked "sickly," and my best friend asked if I'd been checked for cancer. I have since put on a few pounds so I don't freak people out.


When I saw I had man-boobs, I knew I had to do something.

Diet... I quit drinking anything with sugar in it. I have a physically demanding job, and found I would drink 1.5 gallons of Gatorade in the Summer. I don't even want to think of the calories in that!

My wife is a fantastic cook. I'll go back for 2nds or even 4ths if allowed. So, after I finish my 1st plate, I put my plate in the sink. We've always eaten healthy foods, I have just always eaten a whole lot more of it than I should.

Riding/exercise.

If you can carry on a conversation, you're not really exercising. Exercising means your heart rate and respiratory rate are elevated. Ride faster, but not so fast you're killing yourself. If you can swing the cost, get a heart rate monitor... the kind with the chest strap. The ones that are just on your wrist are garbage. Most of all, ride in a way and place that is fun. If you find yourself dreading riding, you won't ride. If I didn't enjoy riding, I'd probably do no exercising at all.


I'd never stopped riding, really, but gotten very slack about it after my 1st son was born.

Good luck.

JohnJ80

Exactly right and my experience as well. I use LoseIT (loseit.com) app on iPhone and then Cyclemeter on the iPhone tells me the calories burned taking into account speed and ascent. Using that, I can, without a whole of trouble, drop about 1.5-2lbs per week. If I don't do that, it's pretty easy to gain weight even with exercise.

J.

Wilfred Laurier

when choosing between speed and distance
to encourage weight loss
my choice is
neither

elapsed time
and number of outings
are what you need to maximize
as well as improvements to diet
like
cutting back on whatever your food kryptonite is

for me
if i can go five or six days per week
that i dont buy and devour a family size bag of chips
and get a few longish rides in
then my weight will continue going down