jim p

Drop back in from time to time and let us know how your weight loss is progressing. Just reporting your progress will give a little incentive to do well. You will also get more encouragement as you travel on your journey.

mr_pedro

+1 on the comments that you should look at what you eat first and then add in some exercise like biking to help keep the weigh off and get in shape.

I was about 25 lbs overweight and I drank no sodas at all and hardly any junk food. We cook at home starting from fresh food, but still my diet was not good because I was eating too many calories. I lost about 22 lbs in the last 3 months but mostly from starting to count calories and eating less/ making better choices. After a while your appetite becomes smaller and you can let your hunger guide you, combined with still making the right choices.
I actually only started biking after I lost most of the weight. I can now go out for 2~3 hours and average 18~19 mph, burning 2000~3000 calories, but you shouldn't count that exercise as pure weight loss, because you need to eat more than normally after such rides. Losing weight and keeping it off will come from dietary choices you make every day, year after year for the rest of your life.

Nickie

Thank you for the kind replies, I've made some progress I've lost 6lbs since I posted this! To be honest, I've only cycled once (for an hour) since I've posted, simply because of the delay in ordering a new bike online. I consume no more than 1350 calories, which is my recommended intake, which I'm having no difficulties with. I've been logging everything onto MyFitnessPal which has been great and has really helped me keep track of everything, thanks for that suggestion!

Thank you to those of you who believe I can do it, and to those who don't? Well, we'll see in a few months time...

NCbiker

Very good! Keep doing what you're doing.

mr_pedro

The goal of 1350 Cal seems like the bare minimum you need. The way it was calculated was probably something like this: a female with your weight and age consumes 2400 Cal per day with minimum activity levels. To loose 2 lbs of fat per week means a 7000 Cal deficit, so 1000 Cal deficit per day gives a 1400 Cal diet.

Now there are a couple of crucial assumptions here that you need to understand:
1)The 2400 Cal is from a very mild activity level. If you start exercising every day this goes up and you need to eat more to compensate.
2)We are assuming all the weight loss comes from fat, that is what we want, but you will also lose muscle and other lean tissue.

With this in mind I would give you the following tips for your journey:

- Don't get to focused on weight, there are many reasons for short term fluctuations that might get you over enthousiastic/discouraged and become counter productive.
- By all means weight yourself regularly if you want, just don't measure your success from the result of the scale.
-Adopt a healthy life style with regular workouts, count calories and aim for a 10%-20% deficit when losing weight.
-Don't forget the protein.

DEW21

Nickie, I began a weight loss program about 2 years ago. I started at 204 lbs and am currently at 155. The only advice I can give you is be consistent in your exercise routine. I bought a treadmill off of CL for $150 and used it for 35minutes first thing in the morning 6 days a week, this way I didnt give my brain time to think of excuses not to exercise. I lost 1 pound a week and my goal is 150. The last 5 has been a problem and Im now thinking my body wants to be at 155. Good luck!

sevenhills

This is often said to occur, but we have fat reserves and muscle is only lost in extreme cases. Unless you can show me some facts?

starjag

How tall are you? My body seems to like 155lbs as well. I am 5'7".

DataJunkie

Mine did as well until I tossed simple carbs for a few months. Then it seemed to like 140 @ 5' 10" until later in the season when I deliberately let it increase to 150 ish.

DEW21

I'm 5'6"

mr_pedro

I learned that from reading around the web, including scientific research, and I don't get the impression that this is controversial at all. What you should keep in mind is that if you are extremely overweight, than almost all weight loss will come from fat regardless of what you eat. As you start to become leaner it is not only about having a calorie deficit but also you need to start doing a little weight training and keep the protein consumption high enough to ensure it is mostly fat your loosing.

From my own experience, 5 years ago I lost about 20 pounds from following a FAD diet that was mostly about calorie restriction, I did not exercise or watch protein intake. At the end I bought new clothes, but within 2 or 3 years I was back at my old weight. Recently I have lost 20 pounds again, but now I am exercising more, some cardio mixed with weight lifting and I am making sure to eat enough protein while loosing weight. The result is that I could fit in my old clothes a long time before I lost the 20 pounds and at the moment my old clothes are actually a bit wide. So my explanation is that while I now weigh the same as after the previous weight loss, I should now have more muscle and less fat and therefore a smaller size. Like I said before I attribute this to the combination of keeping up with protein intake and modest weight training while eating at a calorie deficit of 10%~20%.

Doohickie

One mistake I made was to assume that I had to power the engine- that, because I was riding my bike, I could get away with eating more. It's only recently I've started losing weight with bike riding, and then, only because I've greatly reduced how much I eat. You can't lose weight by only riding; you need to stop the "comfort eating" too.

mr_pedro

Indeed, it is very easy to over-compensate the extra calories burned from mild activity by eating more.
You do have to power the engine but it depends on what you do. My typical bike rides are between 1.5~2.5 hours long and I average speeds of about 18 mph on mostly flat grounds. On those days, especially after the 2.5 hour rides, I can almost eat double of what I normally eat and don't gain a gram of weight. But on days when I do moderate weight lifting or run 5k I hardly eat more because of that.

charbucks

According to this Livestrong page, weight loss is "on average" 25% muscle. I'm guessing that's from dieting without exercise, but it doesn't really say.

Anecdotally, I think muscle loss is a valid concern. Last year I was sick with bronchitis and unable to exercise for 6 months and lost about 10 pounds due to lack of exercise... and then gained it all back. I'm guessing that what I lost was muscle and what I gained was fat

sevenhills

It is widely stated that muscle can be lost too, there is no factual evidence to back this claim up. The 25% looks like they have just thought of a nice round figure.

MEversbergII

Try to mix some push-ups in there, as well as squats and lunges. If you can invest in a pair of kettle bells (check ebay or craigslist) you might have some benefits.As an interest, what kind of green tea do you consume? As my avatar implies, I really like tea.M.

charbucks

Yeah, it looks like the one link that they provide for a reference isn't valid anymore.

I did a quick Google Scholar search and found a couple of results...
[1] (from 1985) - Compared dieting with and without exercise. With exercise, lean body mass unchanged; without exercise, lean body mass represented 36% of weight lost. Statistically the same weight loss overall.

[2] (2005) - Compared high-carb and high-protein diets, same calories. Again, same weight loss overall (7.3 kg), but high protein lost more fat (6.4 kg vs 3.4 kg).

So, only two studies (for some reason I had a hard time finding the right search terms), but it does look like lean body mass loss can be significant. No clue where that 25% came from in the Livestrong article though.

mr_pedro

If you guys want to spend some time reading about this stuff, I would suggest https://www.bodyrecomposition.com.
The articles section has a ton of information on all this stuff, including references to scientific research over the years.

e.g. this article gives a nice overview of what a diet to loose fat should include: https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...ts-part-1.html

Carbonfiberboy 

IMO Mr. McDonald is correct. Part 2 is, of course, here:
https://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat...ts-part-2.html

Nickie

I haven't done this for at least 5 months now...

Nickie

If you'd like to follow me on MyFitnessPal my name's xSakura, I'm on there everyday

squatchy

I have tried many different approaches over the last several years and this is what I found.

You cannot work out enough to make very much of change. The only people who can burn enough daily calories are the one's who don't need to loose weight any way, ( Professional athlets).

Dieting causes our metabolizm to drop rather quickly. It try's to save the "fat insurance" for later. Bicycling will help to boost it back up.

If you use a "daily calculator" to determine how many calories you need per day,do this first. Find out what tour "Lean body mass" weight and then plug that into the calculator. That way it will determine how many calories you need to eat to maintain the healthier body inside of the softer one you now have. That way your maintenence will be based on the body you are working towards rather that saving the fat person you're trying to loose.

Allow yourself a couple of "free meals" a week. That will give you a better chance to hold out when your being tempted or tired of trying. It will also allow you to eat with family/friends, special occasions, ect so you will not feel so displaced from everyone else.

If you say to yourself " I don't reallt want this food" rather than saying "I can't have this food' if will empower you a little more and enforce your diet rather than make you feel like your depriving yourself so much.

Stop eating processed foods all together. Shop in the outside ring at the grociery store. Drink water before every meal to curb your appetite, and realize a lot of the time hunger pains are misunderstond and are really a call for hydration. Protien will do a much better job of eliminating hunger pains over carbs or sugar.

Too much exercise will raise your hunger levels as well as cause you to become less active due to fatigue.

Rest/recovery is the other half of working out. Over training will result in less perfomance and could eventually lead to drop cycling all together.

Just my two cents.

squatchy

Hey sevenfalls. It's totally documented that your body will consume muscle to aquire the protien it needs to keep your brain functiong if you don't feed it it's daily essentials..

The bdycomposition stuff explains this

mr_pedro

You make lots of valid point, but I disagree with this remark. As you go down in weight your maintenance calories will also go down and you should adjust your diet to keep a healthy deficit of e.g. 500 Cal relative to your true maintenance level at each point. Starting to eat at your ultimate maintenance level seems like a bad idea, especially if you are extremely overweight that could put you into starvation mode.

kinetic

Nickie- don't get too discouraged if you find a little weight coming back on here and there very suddenly. You had mentioned depression and medication earlier- I have been on long term meds for something like 5 years and watched myself gain nearly 100lbs with no change in exercise level or diet (I'd never had weight issues before the medications). They really effect your metabolic level and where the lbs go. It just means we don't have the liberty of taking any days off like most people.

So for those mentioning comfort eating and such, gaining weight or not making progress while eating right is very easy on many psychiatric medications. It is a very hard and discouraging battle to overcome the metabolic effects of these medications. Hang in there, glad to see you making progress. If you can do it so can the rest of us!

(I'm sure theres plenty on these boards a little scared to openly talk about being medicated, but the truth is that we have to factor it into our training goals and long term strategy to keep the weight off.)