Excelsius

Personal experience: just because you're riding a bike does not mean that you're getting good exercise. Because I travel all over LA, I have been part of various riding groups. There is a pattern - those who are overweight, never keep up with the group on the hills. Sure, one might argue that they don't keep up because they are fat, but that's a fallacy. An overwhelming theme I have seen is that people who do not lose weight when they ride almost always choose the easier road. For example, they will skip rides that are hilly or long. They will join slower groups rather than push themselves to be part of the fastest groups possible. Or they will stroll leisurely up a hill and only be reunited with the group at a lunch stop. Everyone can pretty much ride a century, but if your average is 13MPH and includes a whole lot of stops, is that really the type of grueling century most of us have in mind? Then there are people who first join a club and are overweight, but you can see how hard they try to keep up with the fastest group. Without exception, these hard working few always end up losing the weight becoming regulars in the club.

When I first started riding, I thought that everyone who was overweight was a beginner. It took me months to figure out what was going on. I have myself lost over 20lbs and it was not easy. I used to come home after my Saturday rides and be in so much pain that I lied in bed the entire day. Only if you're making that sort of effort and not losing weight can you justify genetics. The problem is that physics still wins because if you're burning so many calories, you are guaranteed to lose weight even if we assume that you maintain your unhealthy diet. Changing your diet is also part of your commitment to exercise and health, but if you don't lose at least some sizable chunk of fat once you start riding, you're doing it wrong.

BarracksSi

Ya know, at a music clinic put on by the Canadian Brass when I was in college, one of the kids asked Charles Dallenbach a question about why tuba players were typically fat. They were wondering if it was for lung capacity, or just a culture difference ("Two tuba players walk past a bar... Hey, it could happen! ), or something else.

He said that when the body takes in a lot of oxygen -- such as when playing tuba -- it "thinks" that it's done a lot of exercise, and signals the brain that it's hungry and needs to eat more food. But, of course, playing tuba for a while is really not that taxing, and never burns as many calories as the player wants to eat afterwards.

I always feel hungrier after a long ride, just like I feel hungrier after a concert or a few hours of rehearsal.

pallen

While I agree with him, I don't think it absolves the obese of responsibility. Everyone knows you shouldn't drink a lot of sugary drinks and eat lots of processed food. People generally know what's healthy and not healthy. He's right about the low fat trend. That did a lot of damage and screwed up a lot of people's ideas of what they should eat. But still, it comes down to people eating stuff they shouldnt and too much of it.

Machka 

+1

I lost 13 lbs recently, and one of the main changes I made was to eat a bowl of veggies for 4 lunches each week ... just veggies, no butter, no sauces of any kind ... instead of eating processed meat and cheese sandwiches and other stuff like that.

The other big change I made was dropping the chocolate and evening snacking.

Grumpy McTrumpy

I haven't tried it for a concert under lights, but I have practiced while wearing my HR strap.

It never got to 80.

bikerjp

The horror.

bikerjp

I must be out of shape. Mine jumps to 100 just getting ready for a ride. Maybe the body just knows what's coming.

xn7

the fat is for cushioning in case of a crash.. duh. life > looks.

tadawdy

Never heard this hypothesis, but you'd have to test it to convince me. Exercise is very metabolically different from playing the tuba.

I wonder whether healthy people who breathe high-oxygen mixtures eat more calories afterward? Sounds like an interesting experiment...

bisiklet

Tactically agree, strategically disagree.

I'm not going to say anything about genetics, metabolic rate, energy input/output ratio and all. They're already well known by everyone.

What I'm going to point out as the most effective thing (genetics aside) you can do for lifelong slim body is that, you need to shrink your stomach. Filling your stomach with "light food" such as vegetables or no-nutrition artifical foods (we call them "hardboard" here) is one of the worst methods to lose weight. This method keeps your stomach large, actually enlarges it even more. And the moment you leave your tormentous diet, you're again tete-a-tete with your ever large stomach. As long as you have a large stomach, you will need to eat waay more than what you actually need. This is a closed circuit. The more you eat "hardboard" (much eating with less energy intake) the larger your stomach will get, the more hungry you'll feel, the more you'll need to eat. Break that chain!

That means you need to leave the table half-full while slimming; and "nearly full" from then on. Treat the pleasure of feeling %100 full the way you'd treat feeling "loaded" with some intoxicant (nicotine, alcohol, etc). Just like smoking or alcohol, you need to "quit" getting full.

With a small stomach, you will feel full with just a fraction of what a fat person eats. A small stomach will not let you eat much. It's impossible. You will explode. But, and this is a very important BUT, if you start leaving the table getting full (counting on the fact that you eat drastically less anyway) then you stomach will start to enlarge 0.01% each day, and then you will find that you need to eat more and more to feel %100 filled. Don't do that. Eat whatever/whenever you like, but never to the point of feeling full. Do it life time. Adopt this as a lifestyle. After a while you'll get accustoned to feeling half-full all the time, and gradually forget the pleasure of feeling 100% full. It's like quitting alcohol or smoking. Back it with some moderate but regular sports, and then you're done: lifetime slim and healthy body.

So, instead of going after no-nutrition foods (aka stomach enlargers), I would've gone after nutritionally rich ones, so that I would leave the table hungry but still get sufficient nutrition and energy.

The keyword is "shrunk stomach".

idc

Agreed on both points, but eating right is very different to saying "calories in, calories out, end of story". And eating right can be difficult if there are more insidious factors at play, such as the vast majority of of bread containing HFCS, or if you believe him, that metabolically, fructose is basically alcohol without the intoxication. There's a difference between avoiding sugary drinks because you think "oh, there's a lot of calories in that, i'll have to ride 10 more miles, lol" versus "oh, that stuff forces my liver to go crazy just to metabolize it whilst generating uric acid and vldl as byproducts" or even "sugar causes heart disease". The food and pharmaceutical industries have gone to great lengths to create and market and sell products to reduce cholesterol levels, etc. in the name of preventing heart disease but some of the evidence presented suggests that sugar/HFCS is the real culprit.

I also agree it doesn't absolve the obese of responsibility, but it's also doesn't mean that if they've tried to lose weight and failed, that it's completely their fault, or that others should judge them in that way, which people often do because they believe in "calories in, calories out" (and then they themselves might restrict their own intake unnecessarily in fear that others may judge them similarly). Also, if you are poor and everything you eat is built around a diet of processed foods due to financial constraints, then it may be really difficult to avoid bad food. I'm well enough off and moved to the USA 5 years ago but I still get annoyed at how much HFCS is in everything. I live in a nice suburb, and it is a challenge to avoid sugary and processed foods, especially for my kids.

justkeepedaling

I got so out of shape, not biking for a few months destroyed my fitness, probably lost 30-40 watts, Lol. And gained 7 pounds Too much damn vacation

EnellCH

It's actually quite simple:

1) Track your daily calorie intake (use Lose It or similar app) and be Honest. Set your goal at around 2,000 NET Calories per day to lose about 1/2 lbs per week (as example for for average size / middle age male)

2) Vary your calorie intake day to day with some highs/other lows still making sure to hit the weekly total (to avoid getting body into starvation mode)

3) Add on serious milage on the bike each week including varied terrain rides and varied intensity. Bonus...now you can eat more and still hit #2 on a net calorie basis.

This is it, really. No more, no less..but for many, easier said than done. Works a charm for me and i can easily maintain my weight following it.

EnellCH

PS...Easy is relative. It requires a lot of sacrifice and need to find healthy food options and say no to plenty things. That's the motivation to ride more, eg a 40mile ride allows to buy a pack of ice-cream for the week, another 30miles or so allows having a few beers...and so it goes..

EnellCH

+1..Bring water only. For any ride less than about 40 miles or so, no need for any food or sugars..just eat normal food before and after.

radshark

Amen. Keep it up kids!

bisiklet

Put another way, my main target would be shrinking my stomach, and weight loss would come later on as a side effect. So much so that at first I would even tolerate putting on a few kgs -due to nutritionally enriched food- so long as I'm able to shrink my stomach.

revchuck 

This might be better stated in terms of time rather than miles, since experienced cyclists might do this in less than two hours, while noobs might take three. Also, experienced cyclists will be better at burning fat rather than carbs for energy. Two hours would probably be about right. In hot weather, add electrolytes regardless of whether sugar is added.

Also, a Clif Bar and two 24 oz. bottles of Gatorade is about 600 calories. I burn more than that on a 25 mile ride, even with the new algorithm that Garmin uses. If a cyclist were to go through this much for a 25 miles ride, s/he'd break even or better in terms of calories burned.

Perp

But chips are so yummy! I don't always get the "Bad" chips. I get a lot of baked ones (although my last bag were ms vickie's). I'm trying to cut down my chip intake as my hours of training get lower during winter - but still losing weight, I'm in the high 140s now. When I was in high school, I was really bad and had McDonald's twice a day (Mon-Fri). Now, I can't remember the last time I've been into a McDonald's or other junk fast food places.

But really, minus my weakness to chips, I follow a healthy diet. I used to focus on trying to gain weight, but now my focus has turned to getting stronger / faster.

Jwink3101

I am with you. I lost 100lbs biking and eating better and I am net still losing but one of the reasons I bike is so that I can be a bit less strict with my diet. While it can certainly be quantified (BMI, etc), being fat is often relative to whom you compare. Also, being healthy overall is significantly more important than not being fat (within reason of course!)

RussellM

I think you all are missing the point here, as was clearly stated in a post a few pages back! The growing obesity of America is directly related to the misconception of global warming and the fact that the environmental factors that supposedly "cause" it also cause a genetic adaptation to our basic genetic structure causing people to gain weight. If this were true, then these people's argument that the human generated pollutants causing global warming also is causing people who eat very responsibly to dramatically gain weight.

Well your in luck. Global warming is a hoax! Yep you heard it right. Its not real. The data is coming from flawed and inaccurate temperature readings, and ignores the areas of the world that are actually showing thickening glacial ice! So never fear, this conclusively proves that it is not environmental contaminants mutating our genes that cause obesity! We can all rejoice now, because if its not our genes than maybe it is something we could possibly influence by eating less!

Resources worth considering in this debate!

Here is some info, cooling? warming?

An endless wealth of excellent information, don't let the site name fool you, its good data!

Where are these temperature readings coming from?

dwellman

The body likes to stay where it is. If you try to push it it pushes back. Takes self control and accountability to persevere.

For many, if not most, that primarily exercised to loose pounds, the adaption phase is long over and we must find a different exercise or cut calories further.

What's weird for me is I've gained about 20 pounds from my lowest low but I'm actually faster (running) than I was just a year ago

dwellman

Fructose.

Enough said.

pallen

Yes, that will definitely work. You can eliminate a lot of the calorie tracking tedium though if you just completely get rid of any added sugar and eat mostly vegetables.

Standalone 

I've read that high fructose corn syrup is actually 55% Glucose. Crack for your cells.

People got wise to this and started spreading the word. Now the industry is changing the name to "Corn Sugar" and saying that the human body "can't tell the difference." Some of my the kids where I teach have brought this up. So the campaign is working.