BigK75

Hey Guys:

I wanted to get your thoughts on getting to the ideal weight for next year. I am currently 37years old, 6'4", 205lbs and I am looking to get to 180-185lbs for next year so that I can be more competitive in the rides that I enter. I am riding a lot but I have seemed to hit a plateau and stayed at 205lbs for the last 4 months of so. I can see I still have a quiet a bit of fat to lose and I have been at 175 before so I know I can get there again. Its about to get cold around here and I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on losing the extra 20-25lbs for next year. I find that with riding, the more I ride the more I eat. It doesn't help that I like to partake in the finer spirits/cerveza if you what I mean Any have suggestions for losing that last stubborn 20lbs?

Claude

BillyD

Diet and exercise, with diet being the most important factor.

Yes changing your eating pattern is the hardest thing to do, but if you want it bad enough you have to make the sacrifices. Soon your body (and mind) will become accustomed to the regimen.

Beer has a lot of calories, cut that way down. Sorry. Also cut back on bread and starches, they just get converted to sugar and stored on your body.

I'm your same height, and since spring when I weighed 215 I've dropped below 200 lbs, simply by following the above regimen.

AK404

If I could type out an incoherent gargle of rage, it would be here because I do enjoy a pint or two of beer sometimes, and my diet sums up to "a little hungry is okay, avoid bread, and don't eat so much meat." Any suggestions on what kinds of beer are okay to stick with, or is a pint or two not too bad?

surgeonstone

Hunger is your friend, embrace it, learn to enjoy the hollow feel of it, seek it before any meal and when you come upon the antidote for hunger, consume it slowly and with true appreciation. Really as a society we have forgotten what hunger is. We are so overfed and over-snacked that real hunger never enters the picture. This a very recent phenomena. It is why we have become such an obese nation. I have a glut of patients that are so fat, they cannot even move, they are confined to enormous beds in a nursing home at the age of 50. At one time people such as this would have been the curiosity of a traveling circus. Now they have become so commonplace we don't even get upset about it.

Gege-Bubu

Stop eating after 6pm

QuietLegs

The above people are correct: it's all about diet. Exercise is important for a number of health reasons, but for weight - it's all about calories in and calories out. If you aren't watching what you eat, it's too easy to just maintain the same weight, no matter how much exercise you do.

I've dropped 65 pounds in the last year. (5'8", roughly 210 to start, down to 145 now.) The first 55 of that I earned with lots of cycling, weight training, some running, and slowly and methodically reducing my calories. I didn't do it all at once. I slowly and methodically cut back on how much I ate, increased the amount of vegetables and fruits I ate throughout the day, and made sure I always had a good breakfast.

The last 10 pounds I've lost in the past 3 weeks after about 2 months of plateauing at 155. These last pounds I've lost by really carefully monitoring my calories and cutting out night time snacking. Or at least keeping them to a minimum

Those last hard pounds to lose - and i'm still losing mine - really require mental and time investment. You can't go in this half-assed. You have to actually want it badly enough to make sacrifices.

Figure out your basal metabolic rate, use the exercise multiplier (1650 x 1.65 for me, so roughly 2700 calories a day), and then eat 500-1000 calories less than that. On normal days, I eat 1900-2000 calories. On cheat days, I'll eat my maintenance calories. Likewise with cycling days, when I've already burned over 2000 calories in only a few hours.

Honestly, it's really not that hard to maintain this level of calories. Sure, I miss indulging in ice cream or third helpings of pasta, but I rarely feel hungry. I eat breakfast at around 9-11am (i make my bagel last), and I'm full till 2pm. I eat lunch (protein shake), and I'm full till like 4-5pm. Then I eat a banana and/or apple or two, and I'm good till dinner. I have 900 calorie dinner with lots of vegetables, meat, and some grains, and I'm stuffed till I fall asleep. It's working pretty great for me.

Velo Dog

What everybody else said, with a small addition that worked for me: I've found that exercise is really important, maybe more than diet. I'm your height, and a few years ago I ballooned to 250. I was a newspaper reporter, and the university here did a "celebrity" weight loss thing with me, some TV people and some of their coaches. The deal was that we'd try to lose 10 percent of our body weight and see how it affected cholesterol, glucose, all that stuff. To keep track, they gave us a computer program called BalanceLog (no longer available, but there are similar ones) that recorded intake and exercise. It was fiendishly accurate, and revealed a lot of stuff I didn't want to know, like that I was snatching 250 calories a day from the candy dish on the secretary's desk.
Too late to make a long story short, but I lost 45 pounds and gained big improvements in all the risk factors. Of course you have to work from both directions, but for me, it was always much easier to burn another 500 calories on the bike than to cut 500 calories out of my diet.

Machka 

Don't drink your calories. Drop the coke, fruit juice, beer, other alcoholic beverages, sugar and cream in coffee, etc. I've been able to drop weight simply by switching to water and black coffee.

Save your calories for solid food, which is more filling for longer periods of time.


BigK75 ... when you say you are riding lots, what do you mean?

I find I have a better chance of losing weight if I ride regularly 5-6 days/week, and if I do a variety of exercise ... be active as much of the day as possible. That might include going for a walk around the office at 10 am and 3 pm during coffee breaks rather than sitting down and having coffee with everyone. I'll go for a relatively lengthy walk at lunch. Then, of course, cycling after work and longer rides on the weekends. And doing other things like weightlifting, going out canoeing, spending a day cross-country skiing, etc. can all help.

"They" say you're supposed to exercise (moderately - walking, recreational cycling, etc.) at least 60-90 minutes a day. 90 minutes a day if you really want to lose weight. 90 minutes a day is 10.5 hours/week. For me, when I'm trying to lose weight, that's the minimum amount of exercise I need to do.

znomit

And before 5:59

Also see if long slow rides don't leave you hungry. That worked well for me. Protein shakes after a ride suppresses the urge to eat everything in the house and dial for pizza.

doctor j

6'2" 160 pounds; down from 225. No alcohol, no sweets. My diet is somewhat standardized. I eat the same breakfast every morning, oatmeal, flax, oat bran, honey, and some nuts. Lunch is a bowl of soup and some bread. There is a little variety with dinner. Because my diet is somewhat standardized, I can add a little here and there if I get below 160, or I can cut back a little on dinner if I'm too far above 160. This works for me, YMMV.

Good luck.

rvk5150

More or less what they said...BUT; in my opinion you have to reward yourself once in awhile. Also; some great info in the Nutrition portion of the forum.

We went on vacation to Jamaica in July, when we came back I had the next day off and weighed myself...I was 225! That is the heaviest I have ever been in my life. I had already committed to purchasing a bike before the trip but I had a heart to heart with my wife and she committed to dieting with me (she hardly needs it) even though she had no issue with my weight.

I use Myfitnesspal (www.myfitnesspal.com) as a free site to track calories and set goals; it has millions of food already programmed in so as long as you have a rough idea on quantity you can very easily track what you are eating. I am happy to say that as of a few minutes ago (my weekly weigh in is Saturday morning) I am 187!!! My goal for this first time is 180...after we will see what to do next. Furthermore I had my yearly physical and for the first time in my adult life my cholesterol was under 200; it was 171.

I am 32, 5'8" and now 187..still too heavy but getting better. I ride 5-7 times a week thanks in much to some great advice and encouragement from family, friends, and this forum. I eat a standard breakfast every morning (cup of my favorite dry cereal Puffins), standard lunch (bowl of soup and one serving of sea salt and pepper rice crisps from Trader Joe's), and a reasonable dinner. As the group said I try not to eat/snack after 7 PM (6 is not realistic because of when I get home from work).

The other nice thing is logging exercise...I try to ride a minimum of one hour per day and depending on speed that burns a significant amount of calories.

What I was trying to say earlier is you have to reward yourself once in awhile; easier for me because I generally do not like sweets...regardless usually Friday/Saturday nights we reward ourselves with a late night snack while catching up on our recorded tv or baseball or whatever....I think you have to let go once in awhile or you might go crazy. Meanwhile because of the ride as previously mentioned I am still under my daily calorie goal because of what was gained.

To lost an average of two pounds per week at my age/weight/height and moderate movement at work I am limited to 1,500 calories per day.

Campag4life

Good post. I have an uncle who just passed away at age 80. I believe he basically ate himself to death. Had to be 100 lbs overweight.
Obesity is so common that it is skinny cyclists like us...I am 6'1" and 185 and many believe I am long and lean...that look out of the ordinary when reality is we are fit. I hope to lose another 5-10 lbs. I like to to eat and as you adroitly write, I need to relearn how it feels to be hungry.

Campag4life

That's impressive...quite a weight loss.

Campag4life

Maybe what I need to do. I rode 60 miles last evening and when I got home, all I did was eat.
Any suggestions for a type of protein shake that suppresses appetite?
thanks

Campag4life

I personally don't think so. If I were to ascribe a ratio, I would say its 75% diet 25% exercise. If you stop eating, you will turn into a skeleton.
My girlfriend has been on a weigh loss kick lately and has lost 25 lbs eating weight watchers. Early in the summer she rode her bike about 3 times a week and in the last couple of months, not at all. She continues to drop weight because of her revised diet...exercise hasn't changed things.

surgeonstone

Clearly exercise is good and important but you are absolutely right, diet is the critical issue. There were no marathoners and no fat people at Auschwitz.

surgeonstone

I love history and one thing that cracks me up is the Civil War re-enactments. They have all the equipment down pretty well though a bit too neat and clean. The trouble is they are all way way too obese. Check out the historical photos and you will not find even a mildly overweight soldier from private to general.

Biscayne05

Eat tons of fiber rich foods. That's my tiny little secret when cutting weight.

I don't know how your day goes diet-wise (mine's pretty balanced), but I finish the day by having Fiber 1 cereal.

bkdelux

Wow, I know this phenomenon. My sister is a nurse, very smart, recently completed masters, yet is so fat it's absurd. I love her very much but just simply can't understand her addiction. She even failed with the lap band, because her desire for food pushed her to eat in spite of the size of her stomach. What's really interesting is the psychology behind it, she uses phrases like this to describe food or eating:

Orgasmic
I'm starving
It's to die for
If I don't eat I'm going to die

Yes, she has issues, saddens me to say.

Rowan

Neither were there on the Burma railway, but they also were on a miniscule diet and had to work their guts out under direction of manically sadistic guards.

I'd suggest diet and exercise were indeed parts of their scene.

One of the things I found interesting in observing people over the past 40 or 50 years is that the war veterans who came back emaciated to the point of being walking skeletons never became overweight, but rather maintained a rather proud and statuesque physique for the rest of their lives.

I should apologise if the references offend some people and I do feel uneasy discussing it like this. But I've often thought of these POW victims of war crimes when there are fat and obese people making excuses with "big boned" and "large framed" and "can't resist the temptation", or "I like showing off my curves".

Maybe they need a history lesson or two to put things into perspective.

Rowan

Personally, I don't know how you can put up with the smell...

surgeonstone

The diet allowed and sickness suffered by these men allowed a level of work, per individual, that was less than productive and permitted success only through disregard of life and replacement with other unfortunates. Just finished a book by a jewish rabbi called " To the Kwai and Back" by one who suffered through and survived. The atrocities and cruelty were what kept my WW2 vet father from ever purchasing a thing from Japan until the day he died. Never heard him say a disparaging thing about them, just quietly made a decision to avoid ever supporting that particular nation. Interesting that he saw many, many killed in the European theater but held no such disregard for the Germans.

surgeonstone

Another very interesting fact is that those that did survive such starvation, when peer matched with those that did not, had a marked survival advantage. In other words if you lived through the starvation then went on to smoke, drink, gain weight and suffer the same diseases as one who did not, that period of starvation, even if only for 2 years, conferred a marked increase in longevity.
Seems starvation or semi starvation can actually be good for you.
One thing I do notice in my nursing home rounds, if you are morbidly obese you are likely under 60 years of age. If over 80 you are likely very, very thin.

Rowan

Obesity is not necessarily a new phenomenon.

On a bus tour of Edinburgh, we passed a statue of a former king. We were told the statue was particularly flattering because the king was in fact as wide as he was tall when the statue was created. Artistic licence, I suppose.

Worship of food was something that the rich and wealthy could do because they could do it while someone else did their manual work for them... probably even training to ride a boneshaker bike

surgeonstone

When involved in caring for others, the sights and smells of blood, vomit, pee, poop all fade into the background, replaced with the process of working for and on others. You just stop paying attention to it.