Cutting back and getting serious
 

Alright, I admit I have done some riding but not enough routine riding to start dropping the weight. Part of my problem is the approximately 3 liters of Pepsi I drink everyday. My eating isn't too bad, but I love those damn Pepsi's. So I decided it was time to get serious. I went out and got some flavored Propel water. It does have 4 grams of suger for every 16 oz. but the Pepsi had about 52 grams for 16 oz. I consider that a dramatic difference. Now I know it isn't plain water but I just can't go that far yet. This coupled with a more consistant riding schedule should be a change in the right direction.......I HOPE!!! Any other ideas to help speed up the weight loss are always welcomed.

I wish you the best. Soda kills. I weaned myself off - for 20 years now. Anything sweeter than soda water just doesn't taste good anymore. Quitting soda is a huge step. Don't get me wrong, I like me my Root Beer and my Hansen's, but the effects of not drinking it are more desirable than the small satisfaction I gain from drinking it.

Kenseth i like you didnt have a riding training program.. i maintained weight didnt gain but didnt loose.

I started Martial arts. in my dojo we have a weekly fight night. light contact sparring is the one of the most intence workouts i have ever done.
the fous that is required the stamina the balence all go into that hour of fighting.

Unlike riding where you bikes doesnt care if you have a bag of doritos at night. where as in martial arts my oppenent will know what i have been eating the past week based on my perfomance. the more i go off track on eating. ie beer and pizzia the slower my reaction times are my stamina is down i cant blonck and i get hit. getting hit SUCKS. even with
light contact we always walk out with a burise here and there.
So in my world..
go ahead eat the 4th slice of domino's and a 3rd beer you got a fight in 4 days enjoy it now. It s great motivator for eating right and building streanth
I ride to the dojo on my bike ( and will SOON comon tax rebates) except on fight nights. and wintertime.

I started at 240 last july as a novice white belt
i am at 210 now hopefully to be in this group as an honorary member by the end of the summer.
I have recently added swiimming (in preps for a mini-tri) and weights

the weight loss made me a better cycelist..
the cycle makes my kick something of a deterrent in the dojo ;)


BTW I love propel where is your dea... errrr store ;)

WOW! 3 liters a day?! I have never been a soda addict, but from what I have heard it sounds as addictive as tobacco. Good luck! I'm guessing you don't like diet Pepsi. Is it the sugar you miss, or the caffeine?

I used to drink 3-4 cups of coffee a day. About a month ago I switched to decaffeinated green tea. To be honest I can't tell any difference, nor did I go through any type of withdrawal. I'm sure there are some internal benefits going on, I just can't feel them.

I used to be hooked on caffeinated coffee, until I went camping with my family one long weekend and after two days without caffeine I had such terrible headaches I was completely miserable. Didn't realize how addicted I'd become. It took about three months to wean myself off of all caffeine completely, and now I don't miss it at all (and get FAR fewer headaches, sleep better, etc.) Now I drink several pints of water each day instead -- but still love my cup of decaf coffee in the morning (my security coffee???)

Good luck!

3 liters? That's 1200 calories worth (of junk) that you just cut out of your diet, you should be proud of yourself!

Soda is very hard to let go of. I havn't had one since November 2007 and to tell you the truth, I don't miss it. Getting to the new year was tough but after that I didn't crave it at all. There is a ton of information on the internet about soda addiction, might be worth your while to read up on it.

Best of luck to you.

Coffee, Water, Gatorade ,3400 miles this year. Lost 20 lbs of stomach. No more soda gas to blow up the stomach areas.

I used to drink about the same amount of soda daily. I've found that I really enjoy tea, both hot and iced as a replacement. NOT the kind you buy premade, that stuff is basically the same as soda. Regular tea has much less caffeine than soda and coffee and if you don't add anything, has 0 calories. I find that it quenches my thirst better than soda, and I actually prefer the taste. On occasion, I will still have a soda, and man, I can FEEL it for at least an hour after.

It's funny you speek of the headaches. I have been having intense headaches and finally found out that it was withdrawals to caffiene. I also was really tired. I would sleep 10-12 hours a night and be exhausted fealing in the morning. I thought something was physically wrong with me. After consulting a doctor, I found out that my body was not used to not having so much caffiene, and in turn I was staying tired. I would have to drink a cup of coffee just to get some caffiene in my system. I'm getting better now though.:thumb:

I really feel the effects of the withdrawal from caffiene. As for the sugar, I'm not sure I miss it that much. Since I was drinking so much soda, the doctor said that if I could cut it out of my diet I should see weight loss just from doing that.

3 LITRES, holy cow:eek::

Okay, lets get real here, a 240ML can contains 100 calories from 27g of sugar snd 25.7 mg of caffeine. There are 4.167 of those cans in a 1L bottle, so your consuming 12.5 cans a day, or 1250 calories containing 337.5g of sugar, that's like grabbing the sugar bowl and downing 3/4lbs of sugar every day. Your also getting some 321.3 mg of caffeine, which is the addictive agent. These are empty calories, in that if you look at the Nutrition facts on the side of the bottle, you will see a total nutritional value of 0. What you should do is get used to the taste of plain water, people are so ingrained now that we need everything to taste like something else, when cool. clear, crisp water is actually one of the best tastes around.

Caffiene is REALLY hard to kick (actually it's not hard, just painful). I used to drink a 2-liter bottle of diet Coke every day, and when I gave it up, I felt like my head was going to blow up. For about 2 weeks, I'd have to take 2-4 ibuprofen to make the pounding go away....but once I got through that hump, I felt MUCH better. Now, it's been about 2 years, and I rarely drink caffeine at all. If I'm on a long bike ride, I will get a (full sugar) Mountain Dew if I'm dragging, but other than that, it's mostly water.

Getting clean from caffeine and sugar -- or cutting way back -- will make a big difference. Besides the considerable calories, think of the way you're constantly subjecting your body to a barrage of stimulants. This skews all your body's signals, particularly appetite and fatigue. Your rest/sleep cycle isn't natural, your eating cycle isn't natural -- when you disrupt those two, how can anything work well? I know a lot of people who complain of chronically not feeling well, who IMO would feel a lot better if they would concentrate on regular habits of sleep and nutrition (when, where, what type, how much).

Insane isn't it!!:eek: As for the plain water, you have to understand that I simply don't like it. As for now I will drink the flovored water and maybe eventually be able to go to plain water. I have to take everything in small steps for now. I am working on changing 20+ years of bad habits.

Not entirely true. When I race during the Tuesday night crits and haven't fueled correctly the night before or had a crappy lunch during the day my legs and stomach will feel like a bag of cement during the 2-3 hours of racing exercise. And that simply means you get dropped and can't hang on which takes the fun and chances of winning out of your race. It's very hard to latch back onto the paceline when the paceline averages 22-24mph. And that's the slow B group.

It doesn't really matter what sport it is, if it includes high level of strain on your body where your heart rate is 100% of the time at more than 90% of your max HR and you haven't fueled correctly, you're toast.

Thomas

i have the same problem i drink 2 liters of Pepsi a day. i eat cery little food most of my cals come from the pepsi. im 6'3 190lbs dont really have a weight problem but would still like to give up the soda

I was doing about 3 liters a day of Dr Pepper at one point years ago (working in theater I was on the job 80 + hours per week). I switched to instant unsweetened iced tea and added 3 teaspoons of sugar per glass. Then I started lowering the amount of sugar I added till I was drinking it straight. Next step was to start drinking some decaf tea and some regular till I had transitioned into all decaf. Seemed much easier to tackle the addictions one at a time and slowly.

I've been caffeine free for about a year and a half. I guess I'm lucky, as I only had to suffer for a couple of days. My habit wasn't as bad, though, so that probably helped. Since giving it up, headaches have been much less frequent and severe. If I get them at all (they are very rare now), they can usually be treated with a light snack. If that fails, a half dose of acetaminophen does the trick.

There are some benefits to caffeine, but I find that the negatives for me personally aren't worth it.

I still have an occasional root beer (maybe one a week), but I don't crave them the way I used to "need" a Dr. Pepper. Now if I could just lose the taste for chips and salsa...

"Like" is a funny word here. If you're barraging your body with junk, you're constantly pushing its buttons in not-very-good ways. You're jerking it around, messing with its feedback mechanisms, interfering with its auto-regulation -- no wonder it sends misleading signals back. Your body likes water -- your body loves water, but the junk you've been consuming has rewired your brain to constantly scream, "No no no me me me sugar sugar caffeine sweet good fizz black now now now!"

Small steps are a good idea. As you take them, try to become aware of your body. Listen to and analyze the messages it's sending you. When it says, "I'm tired", ask why. Is it because you rode your bike for four hours today? Or is it because you stayed up late playing Halo and didn't get enough sleep, or consumed too much caffeine yesterday and got poor quality sleep, or ingested a bunch of stimulants earlier and now you're crashing. When it says, "I'm hungry," ask yourself, "Are you really -- and if so, what are you hungry for?" Maybe you're thirsty instead. Maybe you've been munching empty-calorie crap all day and your body is pleading for a small bit of real nutrition. Maybe a small can of V8 would do a lot more to appease that hunger than (another) Snickers bar. As you listen more, you'll come to learn about nuances, about all the different kind of ways you can be "tired", and learn what's right to do in each case.