Originally Posted by
HTupolev
Suppose you're putting 200W into the pedals for an hour. That's 720,000 joules, or around 172 calories. But the human body tends to have a caloric efficiency of ~25%, so you actually need to eat something like 700 calories to make up for it.
300 is very low.
So why then when on a bike trip with 30 pounds of gear and me weighing 180 pounds averaging around 4000 calories a day input and riding 125 miles at 15 mph pace don't I lose weight like you could never imagine. The bulk majority of weight I do lose is water weight as I put it back on in a few days after getting back from the 8400 mile trip. You won't put food weight on that fast but water weight you will. Pretty much I'll only lose around 5 pounds and like I said I'll put it back on in a couple of days of properly getting myself rehydrated.
To the op, just remember unless you totally pig out you won't regain body weight quickly from food, but you will from water. A gallon of water weighs 8 pounds while a pound of meat only weighs a pound. Go eat a one pound hamburger and see how much weigh you gain...go drink a gallon of water and go see how much weight you gain. As you keep eating and drinking you will gain more body weight from the water you're drinking quicker than you will from the food you're eating unless you are truly pigging out. How fast did you regain the weight. That will tell you where you are losing your weight from and give you real good idea of how many calories you are actually burning. You won't burn 2700 calories by riding 8.9 miles. Even if you weigh 300 pounds and are riding over 20 miles per hour you would still only burn 1089 calories according to the Bicycling magazines calories calculator. I highly doubt your that heavy, were riding that fast and you only went 8.9 miles not 10 miles. I wouldn't trust that crazy calorie counter by a long shot.
Do like I said above, see how long it takes you to regain the weight. Measure yourself before the ride and after the ride. Remember unless you riding on the North/South Pole you are going to sweat plenty this time of the year, err hydration loss.
Also consider you haven't lost any weight so your input and output are pretty correct. Now ask yourself have you been eating 6-8,000 calories a day. Check the labeling and find out for yourself. Remember fruits and veggies don't have much in the way of caloric value to them.