Originally Posted by
Stricken
@carbonfiberboy -- The food is what kills me. After my 1.5 hour ride last night around the town, I was STARVING, and I had even grabbed a quick snack of cucumber rolls at the local Chinese restaurant for a break in the ride (the ride actually took 2 hours, but I subtracted the half hour it took me to enjoy my snack). I was so freaking hungry, but I had no idea whether or not I should eat. And what SHOULD I eat? Eggs? Toast? Sandwich? Fried squirrel?
Thank you much for the tips, but how much should I be doing in a month if I am just starting on the bike again and doing 1.5 hours?
Well, I said it would take some research to figure out the eating part. And the exercising part for that matter. None of this is easy. You know that. You could start by googling "cycling nutrition." This will be one of your first hits:
http://www.bicycling.com/training-nu...on-weight-loss
You could do worse than to read the articles in that link.
Most of us take some sort of sports drink with us on the bike. Cytomax, HEED, and Accelerade are faves. Google. My wife likes diluted chocolate Ensure the best. You want to consume somewhere between 50 and 250 calories/hour while riding, depending on how hard you are riding. You might try starting with about 100 calories/hour. That will keep you from getting all starving while you're riding. So if you were doing the Ensure thing like my wife, you'd take a bottle of Ensure or a clone, dump it into a 24 oz. bike bottle, fill with water, and also take a bottle of plain water. Over the two hour ride, you'd drink most of the Ensure bottle, and as much of the plain water as you felt like.
It's important to keep your blood sugar up a bit, because if you get too hungry, you'll overeat after. Then after, you need a carb/protein mix, very little if any fat. A PB&J is good if you like that sort of thing. Chicken breast sandwich with lettuce and tomato? Or just a chicken and spinach salad is good. An important thing for weight loss is to only eat about 1/2 the calories burned on the bike, counting both during and after.
As far as how much riding: start with what you are doing right now. There's no "supposed to." Just start, and gradually increase the weekly hours. They say, "experience starts when you begin." It will take few positive and negative experiences before you'll get a sense of balance.