ridethecliche

How would you recommend going about doing this?

Heavier breakfast and then gradually eating less through the day? Or is that something that's dependent on when you're riding?

I'm trying to drop 8-10 pounds in the next 6 weeks. I think it's doable if I eat right.

I'm probably going to be between 4500-5500 Kj a week on the bike.

I currently weigh about 155ish and I'm 5'10. I've weighed as low as 135 at this height, but my weight used to stabilize around 140-142.

I weighed 145ish in the spring, and have gained about 10 lbs since then. Some of that is muscle, but I'm pretty sure that I can lose atleast 5 pounds without any significant issues.

I guess I do need a scale though, huh.

MONGO!

How much are you riding?

ridethecliche

4500-5500 Kj a week. That's about 5k-6k calories a week.

I don't know how I've been gaining weight. I'm pretty sure that I'm not eating 10 days worth of food over the course of a week. Even then, I should be breaking even.

gsteinb

Beer is a good place to start. Trying eating healthier as well. I bet you don't have to do much.

ridethecliche

That's the thing though.

I don't drink much beer. 5 beers in a week is a lot for me. I do more Gin and Tonics than anything else.

As for food, I cook most of what I eat.

Breakfast, I normally eat a medium sized bowl of granola with 2% milk. Maybe a banana or OJ with it. Sometimes, I'll have less granola and have some eggs. Some days a pbj.

Lunch, normally a sandwich of sorts. Whole grain bread, slice of cheese, some veggies, 3-4 slices of lunch meat. Some mayo and mustard.

Dinner, pasta and whatever meat+veggie mixture I've made for the week.

Dessert is a weak spot, but then I only get maybe 400-500 calories top from it on days when I go overboard. Otherwise it's a cookie or two after dinner (300 cals).

Not sure what I'm missing...

Oh. Sports drink and clif bars/pop tarts while riding and maybe a pbj on some days before a long ride.

I guess I could start eating dinner earlier, but I normally finish my rides around 8 and start eating around 9:30.

ted ward

I have dropped 5 lbs the last few weeks. I eat plenty after a ride but fast in the mornings on days I'm not riding. If I am riding, I'll eat moderately in the hours before and then eat more than usual while on the bike. I'm actually in a race period right now so I spend a lot of time off the bike and not eating much, seems to work ok for me.

W/kg has gone up across the board, so I don't think it's hurting much

ridethecliche

I'll start by eating less for breakfast and lunch.

I keep baby carrots near me if I get the munchies at work.

Thanks for the input.

ggatsby

gin&tonic = beer

at least in terms of weight gain

gsteinb

:seriousfistedfacepalm

perhaps we'd be better off beating our heads against the wall

patentcad

T. Boonen sticks to gin & tonics and cocaine.

That really helped him in this year's Tour de France too.

gsteinb

Try making oatmeal (not instant) instead of granola. Granola tends to be pretty fattening and usually loaded with sugar or corn syrup. Lose the eggs, unless they're hard boiled...which they're not. They're usually cooked in butter and the yolk is all fat. An occasional egg white thing is fine, but you're talking weight lose not a weight that maintainable. Mayo? Serious? I'd get rid of the cheese also until you got where you wanted to be. Your dinner is too vague for me to say anything. And desert? ****. If I started there and worked backwards I'd never have replied again.

patentcad

So g, how do you feel about Wendy's Chocolate Frosty desserts during the racing season?

gsteinb

Well, I eat what I want but I'm not trying to lose weight. Typically I eat extremely low fat and then allow myself leniency on Sunday nights after racing. I don't think I ever get more than 5 pounds over my best race weight. Though this winter I am going to explore getting five pounds lighter for next year.

patentcad

gsteinb

I've been having variations of this same talk for nearly thirty years.

parents' friends: you're in really great shape
me: thanks
parents' friends: maybe you can help me with my diet. I want to lose some weight.
me: sure. I'd be happy to. Here's how I eat....
parents' friends:
parents' friends: but when do you eat chocolate cake? Weight Watcher's has chocolate cake on their diet.

botto 

i try and save beer for the evenings. it doesn't taste very good with granola.

Jynx

lol so true. people always ask "When is your cheat day?" and "What can I eat unlimited of?". I give up there.

botto 

ps to RTC - here's a diet i once tried that worked like a charm: get a girlfriend who's macrobiotic, and eat with her all of the time.

nitropowered

I typically eat a small bowl of oatmeal in the morning, eat 1 clif bar around noon, then around 3pm when I hit the crash, I mix up a bottle of Clif Recovery (really anything with protein) and sip on that until I'm off work and go to my ride.

substructure

Is this all you eat?

nitropowered

and of course dinner

substructure

What worked for me:

Eat big in the morning. Train mostly in the morning.
Eat several small meals throughout the day. Eat my last meal 3 hours before bedtime.
Take one day on the weekend and eat what I want.

When I started cycling and especially racing I went from 210 to 164 (where I currently sit).

This off season I will drop another 5-10 pounds - mostly upper body muscle right now - and try to hold it if my energy and power doesn't plummet.

waterrockets 

+1

The other general thing to consider is just to stop eating sooner whenever you're around food. When I lost my weight, I used 33%smaller bowls of oatmeal, eliminated one of my lunch sandwiches, eliminated Oreos completely, didn't get a plate at dinner and just ate the kids' scraps (which I normally eat anyway). Use smaller plates at meals and don't fill them up.

On the bike, make sure you're fueling for anything longer than an hour. After intervals, I haven't quite figured it out yet, but it seems like adding 40-50 calories for every continuous minute above 5' power was pretty close for me. Gotta replace the glycogen.

You'll be on the edge with respect to calories, and when you're on the edge, it's just a matter of time before you fall off. Just recover from it and keep going.

Also, just stopping the weight gain is a good first step. If you go to a class reunion and see the formerly hot chicks who started gaining just 2 lbs a year, it gets bad. It's fine when they went from 123 to 125, but ending up at 163...

I would recommend taking the first week as a transition period if you think you might fall off the wagon. Just alter one meal each day. Start with breakfast changes, and move toward dinner until your whole diet is overhauled.

botto 

dinner?

MDcatV

for me, alcohol really, really packs on the lbs. a week of vacation where I ate sensibly, rode a little, and drank lots of beer and wine, and I came home nearly 7# fatter than when I left. happens to me every year. especially if its during the racing season when the physiological cost of every effort is greater, even though it requires less kJ (i.e. race efforts hurt more and for me require more recovery than a long slow distance or SST or FTP intensity based workout, even though less kj are burned/hour).

i've found it nearly impossible to lose weight during the racing season, restricting calories compromises recovery too much. So, I just wait until I'm done racing, or when I start base again in november/december timeframe.

really, if you're riding as much as you state, at your age you shouldnt need to do much other than eat sensibly at meal time and when you pour alcohol down your gullet, do it in moderation and only enough to get yourself laid.