Originally Posted by
Machka
BTW - the idea that you have to ride slow to lose weight was a misunderstanding somewhere along the line which unfortunately became the common understanding. LSD does NOT stand for Long Slow Distance, it stands for Long Steady Distance ... in other words, the fastest you can ride for the full duration of the time without slowing down. So if you start a 90 minute ride at 30 km/h, and by the end you've slowed to 20 km/h because you can't maintain 30 km/h, that's not "steady". But if you start a 90 minute ride at 23 km/h and can maintain that for the full 90 minutes, that's "steady".
I think there was study done that said that during lower intensity exercise you are burning higher percentage of calories from fat. Now news media being what it is, they turned this in to "you loose more fat by exercising at lower intensity". Which is not what the study was saying. Although it is true that percentage of fat you burn is higher at lower intensity, the total calories you burn is lower. Which in the end is what matters.