CollarBones

I'm going to grad school in about a week and I won't have class before 4pm. This means I can RIDE! I've been at a desk job for the last three years and I want to got from fat to Cat 4 in the next 13 months. I've got the training part under control - I was doing 150 miles a week 3 years ago. However, I need the math for weight loss.

Assuming flat terrain, benign wind, 190 pounds and a neutral diet (grad students can't afford to eat out ) how many miles does it take lose a pound at when commuting around 13mph and when training solo 18-20mph?

univox

This calculator will be just as accurate as any other answer you get here.

fatslowbiker

0 if you take in 3500 less calories than you're burning

gregf83 

Roughly 100 if you don't eat any additional calories.

Pat

I would figure about 70 miles to burn a lb of fat. Depending on the source, you get between 30-60 calories per mile. So the error bars on the estimate are 33% which is not exactly encouraging.

LesterOfPuppets

I've heard it said that fat burning begins in earnest after 50-75 minutes (depending on the person) of aerobic exercise. If that's true, I'd go for a few 2 hour + rides per week. Flat land solo ride without too many red lights you should be able to get in 36 miles in two hours. Maybe just round up to 40 miles if you're looking for training routes to map out.

I've no idea how many 2 hour rides it would take to burn a pound of fat, but 3 of those a week should get you in shape without overdoing it. Maybe 2x 2hr rides and one 4 hour per week on top of commutes if it's not too much.

Dan The Man

I would say about a 80 miles. But you probably couldn't maintain much of a pace burning only fat. You can't burn fat fast enough to cover all of your power output during a bike ride unless your power output is very low to begin with. You will also be hungry and eat more. So depending on how strict you are with your diet, it probably takes 150 miles to lose a lb of fat on low calorie intake diet.

gbiker

What is Cat 4?

CollarBones

@gregf83 & Dan the Man:
The number I had in my head (from God know's where) was 110, gross of Gatorade and bananas.

@gbiker:
Cat 4 is a racer designation for the US governing body of cycling. It's the 2nd lowest classification. From what I understand it's easy to be a mediocre Cat 4 with if you have some dedication, and that's is vastly better than Cat 5 where every race ends in a heap of mangled bike.

Brontide

Weight loss and fitness are two independent variables. While you may see some correlation it's not as cut and dry as miles/pound.

abdon 

Long distance cycling is the worst possible way to consistently lose weight. After a few weeks of several hour rides your body will begin to fight you to keep every ounce of fat it can.

In July I rode well over 600 miles, training for a double metric (200km, 125.5 miles), plus gym time. I lost 3 pounds and change. This month I'm optimizing for weight loss (no ride longer than an hour) and with a lot less effort I have burned five pounds so far.

tallmantim

You don't need to burn the fat on the bike - you just need to burn calories.

Your body will manage from fat reserves for the rest of the day if it has to, making a withdrawal from the "fat bank" if it needs more energy while off the bike to keep the motor running. As long as you are not doing anything that will make a deposit in the "fat bank", you will eventually run it down to a level you are comfortable with.

I can tell you from experience that going on long rides, when your body starts to burn fat because you have used up your glycogen reserves it is NOT fun - it hurts and you're slow.

But yes, 1 pound of fat is 3500 Calories (which equates ~ to 3500KJ). 100 miles per pound is a good estimate to run with - I have measured the expenditure of energy on longer rides with a power meter, and for me it came out to about 50 Calories/KJ per mile - but that was a high intensity hilly effort and I am 210-220lbs. 35 Calories/mile should be good enough.

As an indication of the top end of efforts go for elite athletes - I have Chris Sorenson's power file from one of the TdF stages. He burned 5233kJ for the stage of 126 miles - so about 42 Cal/mile. He's 62kg however. LOL - if the TdF guys kept a regular diet during the race, they would lose about 30lbs! (So Chris would go from 62Kg down to under 50!)

LesterOfPuppets

I hear ya. I never starve myself on the bike. I munch carbs on the regular. For a 2 hour ride, I'll often get through a sleeve of Fig Newtons.

Machka 

If 1 lb = 3500 calories, and if you burn 500-600 calories per hour ... then it would take 5.83 to 7 hours to burn 1 lb, assuming you didn't eat anything in that time.


If you are riding more than 2 hours in a row, and are consuming 200 calories, for example, per hour while riding, then you'll be burning 300-400 calories per hour, and it would take 8.75 to 11.6 hours.


So how many miles can you cover in those time periods?

Brontide

That's over 1000 calories in the fig newtons alone before any other food or drink! ( the fat free shave a few calories off, but not many since they changes the serving size to make it look like it's healthier ).

electrik

You definitely want to eat during that 7hrs though, your body will cannibalize proteins to burn that fat... losing muscle mass is bad and will hurt your performance over time.

LesterOfPuppets

Sounds about right. I figure I burn about 1000 calories per hour on a brisk two hour ride.

Actually about 770 a sleeve of newtons.

Machka 

Yes, if you did that 7 hours all at once. But it occured to me that the OP might be asking about several rides ... like if he rides an hour a day for a week, might he be able to lose 1 lb. In that case you wouldn't eat on the ride, and you wouldn't eat anything extra before or after the ride.

This may be why riding regularly during the week, and then long rides on weekends works much better for me to lose weight than just riding long rides on weekends.

umd

Are you huge?

LesterOfPuppets

Not even close to huge - 5'6" 145lbs.

If y'all think a half pound of fig newtons is a lot to eat on a two-hour ride, you'd be disgusted by my diet on a 7 hour solo century (6.25 hour ride time, .75 hours eating time ).

umd

Then it is extremely unlikely that you are burning 1000 calories an hour at that weight unless you are very, very fast.

Edit: rough power calculations would put you at about 290W, good for about 24mph in the drops, which seems unlikely if it took you 7 hours to do a solo century... I'm close to your weight and burned about 800 cal/hr for a moderately hilly 5 hour solo century.

chasm54

Er, umd, look again at post #17. He said he thought he burned 1000kcal every TWO hours. Sounds about right.

umd

"I figure I burn about 1000 calories per hour on a brisk two hour ride"

colombo357

He wants to get pet cats, 4 of them apparently. Crazy SOB, can you imagine the dander..

colombo357

He's from Canada and probably burns Canadian calories.

Either that or, "they say that because he's from Canada, he is slow, eh**********".