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Old 06-10-14, 04:48 PM
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jyl
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I have not read the entire thread, so I'm sorry if some of my contribution is repetitive.

My experience is that I went from 215 lb to 185 lb primarily through diet and secondarily through cycling. Lessons I learned:
1. Weight loss is #1, #2, and #3 about eating fewer calories. You (anyway I) can eat 600 calories in a few minutes, it takes an hour of aggressive exercise to burn that off.
2. Knowing how many calories we are eating is a skill that has to be developed and it takes work. Foods vary so much in calorie density, a bite of celery and a bit of cookie are worlds apart, and who wants to give up the variety and pleasure of eating both celery and cookie? It took me a year or rigorously counting my calories, using food scale and smartphone calorie logging app, to develop an accurate sense of caloric intake.
3. Not all calories are the same for me, but I'm not certain if the differences are the same for everyone. I know that for me, high-carbohyrate foods and alcohol are waistline inflators, while the same calories in the form of meat, veggies, etc are not. Doesn't mean I don't eat bread and drink beer, but I limit how much. Doesn't mean everyone similarly has to limit those foods, each person has to find out how their own body behaves.
4. Cycling burns calories, but the more you ride, the less effective this becomes. When we do something a lot, we get efficient at it, and cycling is no different. Our pedal stroke gets efficient, we use the most efficient gears, we learn to conserve energy, and I think in a deeper sense our body somehow gets more efficient. Also, as we lose weight, the energy required to move us on the bike also declines. At 215 lb, taking up bike commuting was challenging and really took the weight off. Now at 185 lb the same commute (same route, same miles, higher speed) just barely maintains my weight.
5. You have to do something other than cycling. That is partly because of the efficiency gains discussed above. But also because cycling is an incomplete exercise. It doesn't do much for your upper body, your core muscles, your flexibility, or your ability to squat or bend or push or pull beyond the range of motion and muscle groups used to turn pedals in a 7 inch circle. You need to lift weights, do pilates, play another sport, at very minimum do pushups, planks, pullups and dumbbells at home.
6. You have to keep pushing yourself when you do cycle. We get more efficient at cycling as we cycle more, so to burn the same calories we have to ride longer. But we (anyway I) have jobs, families, limited time, and can't spend dozens of hours each week on the bike. So one option is to ride harder. Find a good hill, do hill repeats, push harder each week, push a bigger gear, sprint up at a higher speed, drive your heart rate higher. If you start out climbing that hill once at 8 mph, by the end of the season being doing it five times at 10 mph and next season make your goal 10 times at 12 mph. The other option is to make cycling part of your daily life, meaning commute to work on your bike, buy groceries on your bike, go to the pub on your bike.

Last edited by jyl; 06-10-14 at 04:51 PM.
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