kring

I am looking for a little fitness advice. I am 1 year into a weight plateau. I feel like I am still fat and would like to drop some more weight, but still struggle. So this is a request for some recommendations on what I can do.

Here's my exercise: 2500-5000 calories a week in cardio (if weathers nice I bike 100 miles, if it's not, I use my cyclops trainer or running on treadmill)
I do light to moderate weights 2-3 times a week 40min each time.

I am 33 yrs old and stuck at 185-190 lbs. I've gone for 3 different opinions (all free) on body fat and they all come up with 21-22.5% body fat. I do have a very large frame.

My food consumption is 1500-2500 calories a day, very health well balanced diet consisting of 20g fiber minimum, 2 fruits, 5 servings of veggies, lots of protein, carbs are under what I feel is good control (oatmeal in morning, 2 slices grain bread at lunch, 1 slice at dinner) pasta is maybe 1x a week, never fast food or microwave meals, all fresh. worst thing I do is have 200-300 calories in candy or ice cream a few times a week.

I have been told that I'm in a good ratio, but I still feel like I could drop 10 and lbs easily.

What do you recommend to get through this platau? and be able to keep it off by reasonable means. I do have one limitation, basically, I can't exercise anymore, it takes up too many hours already.

So do I need to exercise differently? or change the diet?

I will probably work with a nutritionist, but I'd like to really try this on my own without the added expense first.

colombo357

Change the light to moderate weights to high intensity, heavy weight.

Seems like your body is not burning anything when you're not on the bike. Real weight training should help with that.

And don't focus too much on the scale. The mirror is a better way to figure out how well you're doing. If your legs are cut but the rest of your body is a bit soft, then there's hope for you.

dino250gt

I agree with columbo. Sounds like your body has just gotten used to your workout routine. A change to high intensity weights, even for a short period would help. I'd add some other cross training as well. Maybe some running, backpacking, skating, etc. Anything to start using those overlooked small muscle groups really does payoff.

ftsoft

I didn't really start to lose weight until I was doing 6000+ miles every year. After 5 years of that, I really can't eat enough during the summer to gain any weight. When I cut back my miles during the winter I gain 5-7 lbs, but I have to be a little more careful with what I eat.

Frank

MI-Cycling

I wouldn't touch heavy weights. I'd focus more on losing the fat...at 21% you are very high, regardless of how large your frame is. I'd start mixing in some running. In the off-season, maybe throw in a 5k or two.

Lay off the protein too. You should have 2:1:1 of carbrotein:fat through training and maybe a little higher on the carbs in the 3-4 days leading up to a race.

cyclezen

If you are roundabout 20+ % body fat, then you can work that down without much effort (given no sig. system prolbems). 15% ain't very hard, 12% is doable without too much in considerations (for men - for women it is diff.).
My guess is that your caloric intake estimates aren;t accurate enough. At 1500 to 2500 varying per day, you should be droppin weight. Especially if you do 5000 kcal in a week. At 2000 Kcal/day you should be somewhere near break-even and any additional you burn should lead to weight loss.
The weight training will burn minimal calories unless your working a hard circuit workout. Your cycling will burn some kcals, depending on intensity and duration (miles-time).
How are you coming up with your cardio caloric expenditure?
My guess is if you really do an honest eval of your intake for a day or 2, you'll find the extra calories.
How you intake calories during the day will also have an effect. If you tend to some late in the evening snacking, cutting it out will make weight loss a lot easier.
The body has a fabulous 'conservation' method, and if you run a deficit for a day or 2 and then take just a few extra calories in after that, the body will find a way to get back to the 'established' weight. You really need to have a concerted and CONSISTENT deficit from day to day, for a longer period, for the body to not compensate and rebound back up.
That's the hard part for all of us.
I've been riding most of this year at about 8 lbs higher than I have been for a few years, and now dropping the extra weight is proving difficult. Mostly cause I haven't bought into what I know I need to do to drop that weight.
Today's lardass performance on the weekly hammerfest may have finally put me mentally over that complacency.
Like I said, until you start droppin under 12%, the weight loss isn't really complicated.
As for determining Kcal burn on the bike, at your weight, a mile (on rolling terrain) done at 15 mph should burn about 25-28 Kcals, 17 mph = 30-34 Kcals, 18 mph = 38 to 40 kcals. Use computer calc'd avg, not what you 'perceive'. When it comes to stuff like this, our perception is always way off.
I know winter is just around the corner, but get out as often as you can. ANd when you can't, the stationary resistence bikes at most gyms can be great torture devices. Try to get a solid cardio workout of 1+ hours at least 4x a week, and more if you can swing it. Tame the intake. Once you hit your 1st 'goal' keep goin, cause its easier once you've got the body to be in weight loss. Go to your next weight 'goal' and then a little bit more, cause the body will have some 'bounce back'.
Keep up the weight work. Unless you're planning a pro ridin career, 'real' muscle mass is all good. Problem with 'weight training' is it accentuates appetite, which is unrealisticaly balanced by the actual kcals burned in weight trainings workouts. Keep the Kcals under control, even on weight training days and you should okay on not rebounding after those days.

Good luck to both of us for droppin the excess. I'm aiming to drop at least 6 by T-day - now stated, I better start workin on the lard-butt...
Gonna be hard for me, since I'm barely doing 100 miles a week for the past month and really don;t wanna do any more for the coming couple months. Guess I just gonna have to back away from the snack bag

El_Scorchio

muscle is heavyier than fat.


forget the scales

kring

Cyclezen: here's my info:

I'll do a detailed calorie intake sheet this week, it's possible it's more, I am only rough estimating. I will comment back with my details. I went from 230 to 190 in about 9 months, then as I mentioned it's been about a year at this 190... the weight did come off steadily during the loss, and even at that time I wasn't doing the same caloric burn, I've improved considerably.

your second comment on Consistency makes sense... I will drop 5 over the course of a week and then gain it back quickly, it's like my body has the memory you are talking about and it does everything it can to get me back, I hit 182 about a month ago so I took a week off sine it was a 8K calorie burn week and next think I know I was back at 190 in 5 days. it's a yo-yo between 185-190.. I think this may be something significant that I need to be a little more consistent...

I measure my burn by a polar F55 heart rate monitor. I ride avg heart rate at 165-170 and max 190. I'm in a very hilly area in Central/northern Connecticut, I do moderate hills since I have yet to find a flat within a 20 mile radius of my house. Most my weekday rides are 1 hours and I cover 16-20 miles. on the weekends I'll either do a 35-40 in 2 hours if I did well during the week, if I had to skip a ride or two I'll do a 60 mile ride in just under 5 hours since I need to pace myself a little more. On the 1 hour rides I'll typically burn 700-800 calories according the the HR monitor.

I'll keep up the weights and go a little heavier, I've had a few other people tell me the same thing, and that should burn calories even after the workout stops. And since it's getting cold I'll try switching up and doing some running rather then stationary.

A few have mentioned that maybe I'm running to high a heart rate and that my body isn't burning fat, I'm out of the fat zone? any thoughts on that?

Again, thanks everyone for the comments.

And Good luck Cyclezen!

cyclezen

Seems you have the right info coming in. The Polar is prolly good and close on the info - 700 to 800 Kcals for about an hour on terrain like western Conn is prolly right, could even be higher.

I think you'll find more good info when you do a real close tally of intake for a few days.

Seems a quick thread scan shows other related threads, like the one about 'Body fat'. 12% has seemed like a break point number for most men. Above that and reasonable personal maintenance will get a guy close. Gettting below 12% takes a lot more knowledgeable and PRO help and tracking to drop the body Fat without a major hit to power, strength and endurance.
The period and composition of nourishment has a real impact on that effort. There's huge sciecne behind all this - well worth puttin the head to.

Just a view, but maintaining a heart rate at or near the AT/LT is good to do if upping the AT is a goal. And usually it is. Doing it too often over a training period - like every ride during a week or 2 - isn't allowing enough recovery.
165-170 for a young guy who can hit 190+ is prolly right there at AT.
Or it might just be reaching a bit over. Only you could know that based on doing an AT test and/or how you feel after a few days of ridin that way.
The 'fat' zone thingie seems to have been depricated in modern training thought. The body will really use a number of energy sources at any time. Initially, glycogen stores form the majority of enegry sources, especially under increasing intensity. When glycogen stores get low, fat and protein catabolization increases.
My method has always been to do the higher intensity work during the early part of a long ride workout, while glycogen stores are at their highest.
Then reduce intensity as glycogen drops and alternate stores are used more. You want to burn fat but not at the expense of heavily catabolizing proteins as well (highest protein source in the bod is muscle...). I'm not aware of the latest modern studies on metabolism under low glycogen levels, so I might be all wet.
But in the face of contrary info, on any 60+ mile ride where I can control the effort, I do most of the high intensity stuff before the 1st 40 miles and then moderate in stages as the distance/effort/time extends.
A brief rest period and well spaced nutrition (not over-eating while or after riding) changes that a bit.

Would be interesting to read what you do come up with on a daily Kcal count...

ericgu

Two thoughts...

I think the polar overestimates calorie burn - or, at least, my 720i seems to overestimate for me.

I do think that riding too had can compromise your training, but I don't think that it's the major factor. Though I do think that riding hard all the time isn't a great thing to do.

You don't mention your on-bike or recovery nutrition at all. If you keep your glycogen topped up and get a good recovery drink, that can do wonders to keep you from getting too hungry.

I also suggest trying to ride in two-hour blocks rather than one-hour blocks - you will get more efficient fat utilization.

MI-Cycling

I'm switching to Garmin for both HR and computer units, but I have a Polar s610i for HRM right now and a CS200cad for the bike and notice there can be quite a discrepancy between the two with regard to calories burned. The s610i seems to always be higher. The 610i is pushing 3 years old and the CS200 is only about 6 months old. I wonder if they use a different algorithm or what. Although, the 610 also might factor in VO2Max, which is something you can adjust, whereas you can't in the cs200.

kmac27

Heavy weights will just make you bulk up which doesn't seem like what you want to do. You should do supersets and circut training (it boosts your metabolism and also burns calories much faster) a superset is where you workout say your biceps and after 10 reps of biceps you do 10 reps of triceps for 3 sets of 10. But you can vary it of sets and reps obviously. If you use circut training for your stomach you will not believe how fast you cut fat. I have an athletic body and still tried to get a 6-pack after doing a circut on abs for only a week and a half my abs are starting to show already! Inbetween sets take 2 minutes or enough time until you are fully rested for the next set, it will also help your gains in weightlifting.

MI-Cycling

Try working with resistance bands, the stability ball, and Bosu...there are a ton of great things you can do with those that will not only build muscle, but also help with balance and flexibility.

kmac27

resistance bands suck, if hes been lifting weights bands won't do jack.

kring

OK, I did 3 days of detailed calorie intake... it was 2100, 1900, 2400. I went based off of the markings on each product. and for the homemade food I used the site https://www.nutritiondata.com to estimate.

I noticed that when I have my polar wireless strap on in the gym and do treadmill for 30 min. My f55 will say I burned like 300 calories, while the life-fitness treadmill (which is detecting my heartrate through the strap) says I burned 230. quite a discrepancy for both systems having my weight entered and the same heartrate. maybe I'm not buring as much as I thought...

At the gym I've completely changed up my exercise this week and going forward, using the ball and all sorts of resistance exercises suggested by a trainer at the gym. My core is on fire like it's never burnt before, even muscles in my hip that I never knew I had were soar...

I'll keep at this consistently for the next few weeks. To summarize: I'll keep the 1800-2500 calories intake and keep a minimum of 2500 calories burn a week minimum. I've switch from pure cycling to a 50% treadmill, 50% weights and resistance exercises, during which I try and maintain between 140-160 heart rate.

We'll see what happens after two weeks with this change-up.

If anyone wants to view my intake xls sheet I can post it.