Originally Posted by
cyclezen
note: I didn;t say 'fat' - I prefer to leave that as a personal judgement. but to stay at a very large weight level, the body has much higher BMR/RMR requirements, which if one doesn't fulfill, will magically cause weight lose. This not taking into consideration anyone who truly has serious endocrinological/phsysiological issues.
my 'rider fat' is solely based on my personal perceptions parameters - @ 76 Kg I get dropped easily on not real difficult climbs by guys I can easily keep up with normally. AT 72 Kg I can put the hurt into many of them. In my case weight is just an easy parameter of my idea of 'fitness'. When I get to 72, not only will I be lighter, but also stronger (per/Kg), and aerobically more fit.
I'd actually like to stay near 75 Kg and have a bit more overall muscle - being in my mid-60's, I'm convinced the muscle will be the hardest thing to keep up as I age further... but that's a whole other ball of wax, as relates to aging ...
You did say "rider fat" although to be honest I'm not here to worry about whether a term could be taken as an insult or not, just trying to figure out some metrics. You used terms like "very large" so I was just trying to figure out what sort of size you had in mind. To be clear I'm about 6'4 and weigh around 250 (115kg or so) so based on BMI measurements I'm overweight (borderline obese) for my height and by the standard of serious road cyclists I'm very large. I say that because for me to climb a big hill takes a lot more effort than it does for someone half my weight, to shift my body around at all takes more work than it does for someone half my weight, and so it's reasonable for my calorie burn rates to be higher than someone much smaller, lighter and more aerodynamic than me.
ETA: I agree entirely with your comment about needing more calories to stay heavy. The reason I stayed heavy for so long was because I enjoyed beer and cake more than I enjoyed moving about. Now it's coming off, as I'm looking for a balance that doesn't leave me feeling like life is about denying myself all the time but doesn't leave me struggling to get into my new smaller clothes.