I used cyling to help me loose 50 pounds two years ago. My lesson learned, focus more on intensity than miles. I didn't have a lot of extra time but there are some pretty good hills in my neighborhhod. Adding two or three loops of these hills to my regular riding didn't take a lot of extra time, nor add significant miles (maybe 5 or 6 miles per ride) but made a huge difference both in weight loss and in my ability to drop friends on weekend rides who used to drop me. The impact on stamina was astonishingly quick, even before dropping significant weight so that just motivated me to keep it up. From a conditioing stand point I was getting twice the benefit because I became stronger for the hills irrespective of weight and lost weight pretty fast.
edited to add; If relevant to OP, I am 6ft tall, went from 245 to 195 in a little over 3 months. Besides cycling, I kept my daily calorie intake to under 2300 calories a day. I no longer count calories but have kept up my hill riding and 2 yrs later am still at 195.
Last edited by DOS; 12-12-10 at 09:52 AM.