Originally Posted by
acidfast7
Extra food costs: 500kcal extra/day due to riding (we should assume that I eat most of the kcal as my weight is steady at roughly 72kg). Depends on what I eat: usually a mazipan croissant (€1.20) and extra cafe latte (€1.60) and usually a beer in the evening (€1.20) ... for €4/day. When I don't ride, I usually don't take the croissant/coffee at work or the beer while preparing dinner.
Extra food costs? So you count extra food as a cost like doing some fitness is a cost.
What about the health benefit as we usually need to do some fitness to stay healthy?
Staying healthy means eating less or equal calories equivalent than the calories spent doing some exercise as we usually eat more than we need. So overall the balance should be a gain not a loss.
Saying it is a loss is like saying that buying a good bottle of wine for collection purpose is a cost. It isn't it is an investment. On the short term you spend money but you gain money on the long term.
But i will agree with you in a way because from studies i have read there is no need to exercise 5 days/week to stay healthy. It's more like a quantity per week. And exercising too much is not better for health neither from what i have read.
So i would say you're right in a way that every food spent exercising which is beyond the strict minimum to stay healthy is a cost minus the health benefits related to bicycling (stress level, fun etc...)