Don in Austin

People like you and me are why I posted this poll. All over the great internet I see alleged fitness experts making a categorical statement "You can't lose weight with cardio." Awhile back there was a NY Times article to that effect. More accurate would be "SOME people will have trouble losing weight with cardio." Indeed, if you piddle around at the gym for 30 minutes and then reward yourself with a gross Starbucks muffin you probably won't lose weight. Many things don't work when done stupidly. However, I have gone from close to 215 pounds to 175 by riding my bike like a fiend. Until recently, I occasionally binged on Hagen-Dazs, I ate heaping plates of "moist" Texas barbecue. In Texas "moist" means fatty, and I trim none of the fat. I occasionally binge on a quart or two of nice organic whole milk. Occasionally a pumpkin pie at supper is gone by the time I go to work. It should be said that I don't drink sodas anymore.

Lately, I ramped up my riding and without dietary changes saw myself going closer to 170. I know a young lady who I congratulated on her obvious weight loss and she told me, "My VW was terminal and I go everywhere on my bike now." She lost significant weight...imagine that! There is a good friend of mine I know from my stock car racing days. Believe me, I have stayed overnight at their home and I would be hard-pressed to come up with a crappier diet than theirs! Nonetheless, when his obese wife picked up an elliptical machine at a garage sale to pedal while watching TV she started steadily losing a lot of weight. The elliptical turned into a clothes horse and the weight came back. Throughout the whole time they live on crap that makes McNuggets seem like health food.

Another BS thing I have read somewhere lately is some fitness trainer saying LOTS of exercise is bad and won't help you lose weight! WTF??? He then goes on to ridicule "skinny marathon runners!" Again, WTF?? Sounds to me like LOTS of exercise WILL make you skinny.

I was stable @ 175 for the last 2-3 years but lately found myself closer to 170 without planning it. I am 67 and semi-retired and lately spending less time at my shop and more on my bike, and my recent weight loss just started happening. I plan to keep riding my ass off but supplement it with a little less excess and a little more moderation and see if I can hit 160 or so.

Don in Austin

jessestylex

The "statements" people write that cardio alone won't help you lose weight are people who have never actually tried it. I hate when the experts teach someone one way and tell them thats the only way it works, when they have never bothered to test other means.

If Beginners had to choose from 2 weight loss programs.

1. Do strength training 6 days a week, Buy all health foods and drink all water.

or

2. Eat what you like in portion control, ride a bike 1 hour a day.

I think most people would pick option 2. Option 2 is great for the first year. I'm only at 7 months and I'm also at 170 pounds. My goal was 165 pounds in 12 months. So I have 5 months to play around with 5 little pounds just because I bought a bike from walmart.

CommuteCommando

Yes. 1500 - 2000 Cal/day in Snickers bars will not get the job done. Riding 75 miles to get to a Mexican Restaurant, then cleaning a plate of Combo#13 won't do it either.

rwwff

What's wrong with Combo 13 after nearly 4,000 kcal worth of exercise?

Machka 

+1

But you've really got to do 4000 kcal worth of exercise, and from what I've seen Garmin and many other calorie counters give you a "feel good" number. In reality, 4000 kcal worth of exercise would be 8+ hours of cycling, or for me, an imperial century or longer.

But if a person started riding an imperial century or longer every couple weeks, plus regular and frequent rides of 2 hours or more in between, that person could eat pretty much whatever they wanted.

rwwff

On the counters, at least for the garmin, if you hunt the web they give you the formula so that you can 'reverse-engineer' a correct VO2max /HR proxy based calorie count by keying in fake numbers for height and weight. Mine's actually pretty close, about 10% off as is; but I ride a very heavy, parachute laden bike and am pretty heavy for my height to begin with. As I can't count food calories with 10% accuracy, I just use the numbers and call it gudnuff.

They guy said 75 miles, even with a thinner cyclist body on a good road bike, you should burn up a 3000kcal or so; quite a bit more than the Combo#13, chocolate milk, unsweetened tea, and a Flan for desert (~2000 kcal)

ganchan

I was interested enough this thread to resurrect it, since I'm starting from zero and trying to get stronger/slimmer. But the scale doesn't tell the whole story. Don't we build muscle even while we're losing fat? Muscle weighs something too....

Spld cyclist

We're currently discussing this very thing on the calories burned = confusion thread (starting on Page 2).

Oldbmxguy

I lost plenty of weight by diet, and no exercise years ago. I can still do that now, but it is harder. I do both diet, and exercise. Exercise isn't enough for me. It usually increases my appetite. I have lost 50 lbs, and I have kept it off for 2 years. I exercise/workout everyday. The bike is just part of it. I have also learned after you loose a lot of fat, and working out, you start gaining muscle weight. Im 6'2" and 195. 185 was my low, but my waist is smaller, and my arms, chest, legs are bigger now. Muscle weight. Weight is just a number, as long as you look good, feel good, and at a healthy range of weight. Jmo I eat clean, and do low carb. I have one cheat day a week, usually Saturday.

MM80

I am very muscular 6' guy, big strong legs. When I started loosing weight I was 270 lbs (~25% body fat) due to ankle injury that prevented me from doing any running (actually my main exercise was soccer). After the injury the only viable exercise I could do is cycling.

I bought a road bike and started commuting 2-3 days a week (17 miles) keeping my diet same didn't loose much weight. I have improved my average speed from 17 to 19 mph on commute. Body composition was changed. I lost lot of weight from top part of my body but my legs are still huge

I talked to my doctor and he recommended me to do Modified Atkins diet = NO carbs only healthy fats, protein, veggies.
After a month I started eating fruits and added very little carbs.
This way I lost 40 lbs over period of 2-3 months. Life without carbs is really bad, I got sick of kale salads and eggs so I came back to eating carbs and now I started loosing weight. I am keeping my commutes 2 times a week and ~50 miles ride on weekends.

My goal is to be 200lbs and currently I am stuck at 230. Seems like the way to go is to continue with exercise and cut carbs.

jon c. 

I wasn't trying to lose weight when I started riding and never changed my eating habits, but I dropped about 20 pounds in the first couple of months. I was actually a bit worried as I wasn't riding that far or that hard so I thought it shouldn't make that much difference. But I leveled off after that and have held steady since then (about 3 years now). Although it was not a goal, I somewhat like maintaining the same weight I was 40 years ago.

bbbean 

I never "ate whatever I want" when I was losing weight. That's how I got fat in the first place. Cycling came IN ADDITION TO a healthier diet.

That said, I really do eat what I want, I just eat a lot less of it and I want healthier stuff than I used to. Down 160 lbs and at my goal weight for 14 months now. So far, so good.

Mark Stone

My experience is similar to ↑↑↑↑↑. I'm 61 now and have discovered through a lot of experience:

• If I ride my bike at the frequency of 4 times per week average, at least 30 minutes per ride, I cannot gain weight no matter how much I eat. Even if I eat monstrous amounts of calories, no weight gain.
• If I ride that same 4 times per week and my rides average 2 hours in length, my body always finds and maintains 215 pounds. If I start at 190, I gain weight til I'm 215. If I start at 300, weight drops rapidly until I'm 215. This is regardless of diet. My bod loves 215. (I'm 6'5" btw)

In both of the above experiences, which I have experienced over and over, it doesn't matter what I eat -- amount or content.

chasm54

All I can say to this is, that either you naturally don't eat all that much or you are extremely fortunate in your metabolism. I am not a huge eater - though I do drink more alcohol than I should - and I can and do put on weight even though I spend more than ten hours per week on the bike, unless I also pay attention to what I consume. Four half-hour rides a week and I'd be roughly the size of a hot air balloon.

Mark Stone

My eating day is usually around 3500 to 4000 caloriesBingo!

I'm the first to admit that what happens to me does not happen to everyone.

bbbean 

I hate to challenge you, but if your weight is fluctuating between 190 and 300, and you "rapidly" drop 85 lbs, there's a lot more going on than the frequency and duration of your rides.

Mark Stone

Well, I've only hit 300 once -- and my "rapid" weight loss took 3 years lol. However, my bod loves 215 pounds regardless of what I eat if I'm on the bike at least 4 times a week and the rides are 2+ hours. I don't know the science why, but it's been a fact for 40+ years.

beatlebee 

Wow, we live in a distorted world.

wolfchild

Weight loss is not my goal because I have never been overweight.

MM80

sprince

I have always eaten what ever I wanted and can't remember before riding a bike (around age 4). My lowest adult weight and body fat percentage (4-5%) was while eating 7000-8000 calories a day and getting a fair amount of exercise. Into the second half of my first century, the metabolism is not quite as fast and I try to "restrict" my calories to 4500 a day. The one time in my life when I got less than an hour a day of exercise I did put on some body fat. So my anecdotal evidence is that it's 100% about activity level and quality of the diet, for both weight control and more importantly, not screwing up your metabolism.

Mark Stone

That's the trouble with threads like this: →→ALL←← of the info and claims are anecdotal! (Except my story, which is verified imitation fact!!!) However it's enjoyable reading the narratives. We are indeed a healthy group, yes?

jon c. 

When I drank a lot more alcohol than I should have, I got up to about 220. After I stopped drinking, I maintained at around 160 (until I started biking and dropped to 140). I replaced alcohol with chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, but those calories seem to matter less. I can only conclude that human metabolism is very idiosyncratic.

chasm54

Where does the choc chip cookie dough ice cream come on the twelve steps? LOL.

Idiosyncratic indeed. I suspect that alcohol is disproportionately bad weight-wise because it interferes with the metabolism in various ways. Having said that, the real problem drinkers I know are rail-thin because they don't eat properly. That's not a recommended approach to healthy weight-loss, though...

Mvcrash

This past spring, I stopped eating Penn State Ice Cream. Otherwise, I kept my diet the same and riding the same. I lost 17 pounds. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough was just one of many flavors I kept on hand for my mental health. As far as alcohol is concerned, I still enjoy a small glass of good Scotch on a weekend night. At one point I combined the Scotch drinking with Butter Pecan Ice cream and you get a Butter/Scotch combination that is just wonderful.

Related to the rest of the comments, It is my understanding that when you exercise frequently, your basic metabolic rate stays higher all day and you burn more calories just being alive. Also one of the benefits of exercise.