mkirby

I am going to start racing next year, and i want to lose 8 - 10 pounds in 5 months. Right now I am 5'11 and 170 lb's. I was wondering if people could post actual lunch/dinner time meals that they eat when they are trying to maintain weight or lose weight for racing. Thanks!

mkirby

oh and I should mention, I do ride/train 5 or 6 days a week. I am sure that increasing the intensity of those rides would also help, and I do plan on doing that. Just curious about nutrition.

ukmtk

I'm 5'11" and currently weigh 152 pounds [I have dropped about a pound a week for the last 20 weeks]. I have muscular legs and relatively skinny arms. I'm mostly bone and muscle (still a bit of fat around the stomach). When trying to lose weight I do the following. I don't actually race - I cycle for fun. I just wanted to be in better shape.

I have muesli + skimmed milk for breakfast.
I have an apple or banana for lunch (I normally exercise after light lunch). Or I sometimes have toast and honey.
I have a cooked dinner. My wife cooks sensible meals. We have 2 or 3 vegetables with potatoes, some meat or fish. Or spaghetti bolognese. Or pork + rice. Either way we have a relatively sensible dinner.

To treat myself I'll have a biscuit + couple of sweets in the evening. At weekends I'll have a cake and maybe some beers. There's no point making yourself completely miserable.

C_Heath

1200 good calories per day and ride your bike. 120 oz. of WATER per day.

UmneyDurak

1200 is a minimum for a sedentary middle age woman.

Now for something more useful. You can use online calculators to see what you need to maintain. To that add calories you burn through exercise, and subtract ~600-800. That should give you a descent deficit for a healthy weight loss. As for diets limit/avoid processed foods, veggies and fruits are good, so as legumes and lean proteins.

OP how long are your rides? This is kind of important. As for training look in to "base training" there are tons of books on it, and tons of posts if you search here.
UD

AcornMan

You don't say your age or your gender, both of which factor in to your daily calorie needs. A 35-year-old male with your current height and weight needs about 1730 net calories (calories consumed minus calories burned) per day to maintain that weight. Losing 8-10 pounds in five months is a very modest weight loss goal, amounting to only about half a pound per week. That can easily be achieved by reducing your net calories by about 220 per day (just an estimate - use a calorie calculator to identify a more accurate number), which is an almost trivial amount.

As for meals, it doesn't matter where the calories come from. One calorie of ice cream or french fries is exactly the same as one calorie of tofu or carrot sticks. To lose weight, all that matters is that you are burning more calories than you are consuming. So, eat what you like. Just make sure you end up with a net loss of calories at the end of each day and you will lose weight, plain and simple.

mkirby

My rides from this point through the fall/winter will be a 45 miler and moderate pace with the club once a week on Sunday, and a skills training type ride once a week (cornering, pace lines, hill climbing technique etc) with the club, and probably 2, one hour long interval sessions a week at home on the spin bike, and one 1 - 2 hour long indoor easy spin.

I have heard of base training, but its hard for me to comprehend how that would help me lose weight. Wont I burn more calories going all out? And more calories burned = more weight lost?

mkirby

I am 34, male. I am sure this question has been asked many times before, but how will I know how many calories I am burning on a 2 - 3 hour modest pace ride, or in a 1 hour interval training session? I have heard 500-600 an hour? Does that sounds accurate?

UmneyDurak

Well loosing weight is not just about exercise it's also about proper nutrition. That is why it is important to figure out how much you are burning just in daily life first. After that you can figure out how much to eat to create a healthy deficit. To estimate calories you burn through exercise you can use a Heart Rate monitor. So you do burn more calories at higher intensity, but then doing high intensity training each day is not sustainable and counter productive.

Racing is not just about loosing weight, it is also about endurance, and being able to sustain high power output for different time intervals. Think of it as a pyramid, the base training forms the bottom of it. The bigger the bottom the higher you can build the pyramid. So during "off season" most people build the bottom of the pyramid, and then increase intensity closer to the racing season. I know this is a bit disorganized. I highly recommend reading a book "Cyclists training bible." It will answer a lot of basic questions about training.

UD

ironhorse3

If you are generally healthy and not on potassium sparing prescription medicines, the following is often useful to make sure you get more potassium, micronutrients, and less sodium in your diet as well as appropriate amount of calories.

2 to 3 of the following with each meal (7 to 9 per day):

1/2 cup of vegetable like spinach, broccoli, tomatoes, black beans, pintos, sweet potatoes, carrots (minimally nutritious ones don't count, like green beans, corn, peas).

1/2 cup of fruit like bananas, oranges, melons, berry blend, plums, pineapple.

Look at your protein intake and use whey protein supplement if you want, lean meat, chicken, salmon or sardines.

Avoid corn oil and other omega-6 oils in the diet, if possible. Instead use monounsaturated oils (extra virgin olive oil).

If you are trying to lose weight, I would eliminate (as far as possible) grains like wheat, oats (heresy?), corn, rye etc. They don't provide any advantage above and beyond what you get from the above diet except B-vitamins, which are actually fortified with most grain products. The fiber from the grains, should be replace by looking at the fiber in your dried beans, fruits and vegetables, and maybe taking a fiber supplement if necessary (to get 25 grams per day on average). I would get the vitamin fortification with a multivitamin taken 1/2 tablet, twice daily.


However, if you are on a ride and trying to supplement calories for your energy needs (during the ride), the above does not apply. They you should get plenty of carbs including grains, because they're a good energy source.

hemprider

Breakfast- 4 pounds of fruit (watermelon, apples, plums, oranges etc.)

Post ride drink- 10 dates, cup of water, cup of frozen blueberries, 2 tbsp hemp protein powder

lunch- 1/4 pound of sprouts either on homemade onion bread with avocado or in a salad of almond nutbutter and raw cold-packed honey (both topped with plenty of tumeric), handful of nuts to snack on.

pre dinner- 2-3 pounds of various fruit or 1/2 pound of dates

dinner- same as lunch


This is my usual daily routine, stick to something like this and the pounds will literally melt off of you

UmneyDurak

UD

danarnold

There's only one thing I can think of that you can eat all you want and it gives you pleasure and no calories.

aeiadart

I tend to eat a bagel in the morning toasted with light whipped cream cheese(Are bagels a good thing to be eating when trying to loose weight?) at or before lunch time i tend to snack on fruits or veggies depending on what sounds good and then i ususally go on a ride, I usually try to go balls to the wall and do as much climbing as sweating as i can in a 1-1/2 hour ride. I then come home and if im hungry i will eat a protein bar, whether it be power bar, lara bar, cliff ect... but if im not hungry i will drink loads of water and weight it out until i feel the need to eat. As for dinner i kind of play it by ear but some times i make chicken or tuna salad with fresh cut tomataos and sprouts with spinach and a peice of bread. I try to eat earlier in the evening than later that way it can digest properly before bed time and so i can wake up hungry and eager to eat. This is a great thread, keep the suggestions coming, i hope mine helped a little.

mkirby

Thanks. But I'm not gay. not like there's anything wrong with that.

mkirby

Thanks for clarifying the whole base building thing. I think doing more base builing in the off season (less intensity) might actually help in weight loss. Maybe then I can eliminate some of the carbs I generally need for harder intensity rides. Then maybe in late winter start upping the carbs when I start upping the intensity. Or am I way off