Originally Posted by
Wilfred Laurier
when choosing between speed and distance
to encourage weight loss
my choice is
neither
elapsed time
and number of outings
are what you need to maximize
as well as improvements to diet
like
cutting back on whatever your food kryptonite is
for me
if i can go five or six days per week
that i dont buy and devour a family size bag of chips
and get a few longish rides in
then my weight will continue going down
I agree with this, but certainly not long elapsed time.
I started last year on a junk bike. I couldn't ride it on the hills on the roads. I rode almost daily on the flat bike trail 12 miles which took me 50 minutes. Very occasionally I would ride a bit longer and ride for 1.5 to 2 hours. I lost 10 lb. per month last year (with combined watching the food and riding the bike.)
This year I bought a "good" bike. First thing I did was start to ride on the road. I was back to watching the food intake (slumped over winter.) I have nothing but hills. They aren't long hills, but short and steep. I'm riding up them in my lowest gear and though I don't have a heart rate monitor, my heart rate is definitely elevated higher than I've ever had it in my life riding up the hills. Thus, it's like intervals. I wasn't losing weight.
I went back to riding mostly on the flat trails. I am now loving my bike and loving riding so I found myself riding longer and longer. Instead of an hour, I was riding 2-2.5 hours. Again, I wasn't losing weight. The only thing I can figure is, with riding longer time (and thus distances) I wasn't putting forth as much effort to last longer.
Now I went back to riding just an hour or so a day (if I could get out because of the constant rain.) I'm back to losing weight. I'm still not losing much though because I'm not riding 4-5 days a week like I was last year. Rain and overtime at work is keeping me from going out daily.