moosehead

The trip i usually take here in my neighbordhood is 1.25 miles. I tend to do this trip about 6 times a day. If my goal is losing weight should i do longer trips (more than 1.25 miles) and less total trips out my house or continue what i've been doing? at 1.25 miles i feel pretty tired and am wanting to rest. i'd rather not rest on the road so i'm not sure how i should approach this. i've also been taking 2 green tea capsules and a triabulus pill before my first trip, and another two green tea capsules in the middle, of the day, and maybe once more towards the end of the day. In another post right before I wrote this I was trying to find out how to calculate my calories burned. during one of my trips, i probably max out at about 12.4mph and average about 8mph or so. any tips?

thank you

st0ut

one way to increase you riding distance would be to plan you trip with a rest area(s). ride to starbucks get a tea (NO SUGER), ride to the next starbucks rince and repeat untill you have 5 miles planned out.

idig

It's really more about the time you ride than the distance. I would think longer rides would be more beneficial, as I'm not sure how much good a 1.25mi ride will do (it depends on your current fitness level, how hard you ride the 1.25mi, etc). That said, any riding is better than no riding, so as long as you are on the bike, you are doing some good.

Wogster

1.25 miles, isn't really very far, it depends on your weight, age, health and condition. For an average of 8MPH the coefficient is .03, so multiply that by your weight would give you a burn rate for 1 minute of riding. If your 200lbs that would be a burn rate of 6 calories per minute, your averaging 56.25 minutes in the saddle for 337 calories per day. Given that there are 3500 calories in a pound, it will take 10.385756677 days of riding to lose 1 pound, or 35lbs per year.

The problem for slow, low mileage riders, is that if you don't push yourself a little, you never get to go further or faster. You don't need to push hard, even if it's just adding an extra block or two to your regular loop. Every week you add a little more, before you know it, your looking at riding 8 miles at a time, then 10, then 20, then 40, then your looking at the metric century (100km or 62 miles), then the imperial century (100 miles) doesn't look that insurmountable. If you do go further per trip, you can reduce the number of trips per day. There are tough milestones, getting from 0 to 10 miles per ride, is tough, getting from 10 - 20 is not as hard, many riders do this fairly quickly afterward. The next tough one is the metric century - 100km (~62 miles)

piette

I would suggest picking up a polar heart rate monitor if funds allow. This will for first make sure your heart can handle what you are doing and alert when it is time to take it easy, and second it will tell you how many calories you are burning per ride. The heavier you are, the more calories you will burn per ride vs. someone smaller and more in shape.

I do think you need to work on increasing your distance a little at a time, but your body will tell you when that time is, you don't need to listen to people who know nothing of your physical condition telling you to push harder. Youre body can only push so hard before it will make its final push, you don't want that. The key to burning fat is to do excercise that will keep your heart rate right around 65% of your maximum heart rate, this is where that heart rate monitor would be very handy for you as you can look and see when you are burning fat.

If you are doing 1.25 miles and you are burned out at the end, you are working harder than you should to burn fat. You are not in a race with anybody else, or in competetion with anybody else. Slow down the pace, take it easy and keep your rate lower. This will benefit you by burning more fat, and may allow you to increase your riding distance theirby increasing the fat burn.

While burning calories while you ride is good, it's the calories you burn after the ride that is more beneficial to you. The ride stimulates your metabolism, and will help you burn off the calories you take in better. In my opinion, multiple rides per day would be a good thing if you are larger. It will help keep your metabolism spiked most of the day, and that is what you need.

So my opinion is keep taking those rides, but slow them down so you are not working so hard and try to slowly increase your distance. The pounds will come off, you just have to keep working at it.

Good job getting out there and doing what you have thus far.

Jeff

lil brown bat

+1 on the HRM -- it'll give you the best feedback on what's going on with your body, and whether it's appropriate to push it.

With that said, I do think that six rides of 1.25 miles isn't equivalent to one ride of 7.5 miles. In general, unless you're doing intervals, the 7.5 mile ride will do more for you. I agree with Jeff that if 1.25 miles has you knackered, you probably need to decrease your intensity for now -- but I disagree strongly about the "fat-burning zone", and I'll show the math if you want to see it. The purpose for decreasing your intensity is to be able to increase your duration -- generally, as you begin to work on aerobic fitness, your goal for the first 6 weeks at least should be to increase duration without much (if any) increase in intensity, since this will do the most to improve your aerobic fitness. Remember that the goal is fitness, which means health. The pursuit of "fat-burning" can send people off in some unwise directions, which don't directly support (or sometimes run counter to) the goal of fitness and improved health.

Mr York

Ya, but after 5 miles, one would have visited 20 starbucks!

sstorkel

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with this statement. While your body may be more efficient at burning fat during long (90+ minute) low-intensity workouts you'll actually burn more fat during a high intensity workout. Your body won't burn the fat as efficiently, but it will burn more of it. At least that's the way it works for me. Several years ago, I spent a couple of months in the gym 4-5 days/week doing an hour of exercise in the "fat burning zone" suggested by the various cardio machines. Didn't lose a single pound! Switched to a 30 minute, high-intensity work-out and consistently lost 2-3 pounds/week... Remember: it's all about the calorie deficit!

st0ut

no only three stop once every 1.5 miles. plus you get the benfit of being a cyclist at a coffee shop. I mean how cool is that.

the next stop every 2 miles.

the next week stop once.

Build your self up to it


Staying off your bike because you can only ride 1.5 miles at only 8mph is a sure way never to get better.

the point is just ride. give your self a bit of reward along the way.

lil brown bat

The reward thing can work or it can backfire -- particularly if the reward is food. Most people who are sedentary and out of shape would probably profit most by learning to think of food as fuel, rather than reward. Also, I think ultimately you're better off if you consider the impact of everything you're ingesting. It may have no calories, but none if it amounts to zero impact on your body -- that tea with no sugar contains water and caffeine, how are those affecting you? Nothing you take in should be regarded as if you hadn't ingested anything at all -- it's all got an impact, some good, some bad, most somewhat mixed.

st0ut

i guess the real point is some riding is better than no riding. the OP is already using green tea pills just substitiute the pills for the real thing and enjoy the ride to the next spot of tea.

tdbmd

In general, you would be better served by working to increase your distance and putting it into one or maybe two rides daily. Your body does become better at burning fat as you increase the time of exercise. And as noted by a earlier poster, you do burn more fat at higher intensities, but the long times increase the use of fat as a fuel. For example, in exercise of 120 minutes, approx. 98% of the fuel is coming from fat. As mentioned before, it is a process so slowly start to increase your distance, maybe start by combining your 6 daily rides into 3 rides of 2.5 miles, then 2 rides of 3.5 miles, then one ride of 8 miles etc.

ctoddrun

and exactly what would be the problem with that? Aside from the cost of 20 $tarbuck$ beverages, of course...

I concur with those above who recommended the heart rate monitors. When I started exercising 3 years ago my dw bought me one for Father's day. I COMPLETELY ignored how far/fast I was going (walking at the time) and paid attention to the heart rate - worked to keep it in the moderate zone (in Polar's terms.) Seriously, without even thinking about it or noticing that it was happening, my fitness improved. What was at first a SLOW walk with dw and the kids became a more focused walk; then the occasional jog to get the heart rate back up. And then one night I had to jog for 25 of my 30 minute walk to keep the heart rate in "the zone." I was shocked... Didn't get on the bike until months later, so don't know how that would exactly translate to getting started on the bike, but worth a shot.

And, as everyone else has said, riding is better than not...

Mr York

At 1/2 hour per stop, that would cut into the time available for sleep, although if the tea has caffeine, you may not need that sleep after all. Hmm...

Air

Questions:

1) Are you ONLY having green tea capsules? What's your diet like? The way it sounds you are severely undernurished which would leave you very tired.

2) How long have you been doing that route for? 1.25 miles 6 times a day you should see some improvement rather quickly unless you're barely coasting.

3) Height/weight if it's not too personal.

There are thousands of weight loss theories. What I'm going to write is just one but it came from my nutritionist and then on the flip side cardiologist.

Where they agree: 20 mins of 80% of max [US Cardiological standard to determine that is 220-your age] 5 times a week should be standard exercise for everyone to be healthy.

Sorta disagree: Cardiologist - do NOT go much over that 80% if you can avoid it, anything over 80% can be damaging and has not been shown to be beneficial. Nutritionist said go as hard as possible for the workout and eat what's necessary to make it through the workout, then adjust intake to eat as minimal as possible but still making it through the workout. In other words not eating enough so you can't work as hard as you want is counterproductive. When I mentioned the longer (2,3,5 hour rides) she agreed that it doesn't make sense to go that hard since I'm exercising above and beyond those minimums.

You need a good 20 mins of exercise per day (on average). I've read a few articles lately that said this can be cumulative and not consecutive (4 * 5 mins of 80% of max exercise = 1 * 20 mins of 80% of max). However since it takes you a little bit to work up to those levels each one of your rides may only hit 1 minute or less of that range if that, so you're not really doing the work necessary to get the job done.

Try doing that roundtrip - even if it wipes you out and you're done for the rest of the day. Then see if you can do it again the next day. When that's easy then do two round trips. Better yet grab some water and plan on spending an hour pedaling around your neighborhood even if it means taking a break by the side of the road every once in a while. Learn some good stretches and use those break opportunities to gain some more flexibility.

There's a guy around me who does two centuries a weekend up a mountain and back during the summer - on the ride I posted about today he did a year or two ago on just a gu pack because he wanted to get back early and forgot breakfast. I just think about any of that and I shudder - but it's not a good comparison. I realized two years ago (as of May 15th) was the first time I was on my bike after years and years of nothing and my first ride was 6 miles - three out and three back. Yesterday I did 145 in a day.

If riding a mile is really tiring than you start there and build it up. I was reading some century training threads and most of the responses were it's not the mileage, it's the time out there. It's really true - maybe look at the mileage when you get home and stick to a stopwatch instead.

racethenation

Everyone has given some great advice, but the most important thing is to just go ride. However you do it, go ride. When it becomes a little easier, ride some more, continue that cycle and it will come. There will be some days when it is easier and some that it is harder, but just go ride. I started riding regularly in January. My first several rides were between 3 and 4 miles, because that was all that I could do. I did 30 miles yesterday. How did I do it? I went and rode a little more each time. I remember the first time I mapped out a ten mile ride. I thought that I might could do that in several months. I did it a few weeks later. Somedays it was easy, but most days, I have had to push myself. Amazingly some of earlier milestones have been a lot more difficult than the 30 miles was yesterday. Each milestone seems to get easier.

Air

This is just a really good thing anyone trying to loose weight needs to think about - I know for me it's a problem. I was never really sedentary but still have trouble thinking of food as just fuel.

Pinyon

It is hard to do, but I also think that if you have a weight problem, it is best to completely remove reward and punishment as reasons to eat or not eat. I know that getting something yummy is part of nearly everyone's family life, but when you have a weight problem, it can cause significant problems with losing weight and maintaining the loss. I try to not use food as a reward or punishment EVER!

That is not to say that I don't eat stuff that I really like, either. I just try to make sure that it is not a reward. If I've had a hard workout, have been doing well, and there is something that I really, really like to eat someplace, then I get it. But it is only because the yummy food is there, I like it, and eating it will not cause me to have binge issues, or gain weight, etc. I never plan on having some special item, upon completion of a ride, weight loss goal, or whatever.

I try to use other things as a reward that does not involve my gullet. There are plenty of things out there that can be used as a substitute. Bicycle equipment, movies, going someplace for fun, etc.

zeroncali

Exactly, the only reward I need is the fact that I know I will look and feel much better.

Edit: Also knowing that the lighter and stronger I get the further and faster I can ride

UniversalFrost

see if you can knock out a good 5 mile round trip at a nice fast clip. I can do a 5 miler with hills on a mtb in about 25 minutes flat out and it really helps me when I improve on my time. I would have to say 5 miles is the minimum ditance to really make a true difference. Just make sure you are doing a nice and steady pace and not speeding in parts and then dragging in others. Keep it constant and that will help you the most.

JOE

jboyd

I agree with most that 1.25 at a time is pretty weak, no matter how many times. The one true thing that I have come across in riding, is that I really don't build up to my static ride potential until I hit somewhere between 4-6 miles. Up to that point, my muscles and lungs are just getting flexed and warmed up. After that i can go until my butt says stop, or I run out of fuel.

Last year I started riding for the first time. 2 miles, 4 miles, 8 miles 12 miles, until my average ride became 20-24 miles. I even knocked off a 50 miles, and all of this was on a Mtn Bike. I stopped in Nov and resumed again in March. 6 miles, 8, miles, 10 miles and so on. At fifty years old it is the way for me.

I just don't know how you can only ride 1.25 I would say, stop thinking about the mileage and and just ride for fun. Enjoy the freedom.

Good Luck.
Jay

Nola_Gal

I rode to and from school for about 18 months with little improvement in fitness that I could see. My classes were exactly a mile from my driveway. Since then I've expanded to a couple longer routes of 6-8 miles and now I can feel myself getting stronger. I'd encourage you to increase your distance (time) as you are able. Good luck!

10 Wheels

It takes 2.5 miles for me to warm up.
You just need to ride more.
I started by riding 5 miles at a time. Would take a break then go for another 5 miles.
Got up to 50 miles a day that way.

solveg

For what its worth, I hate bike riding the first 3 miles. I hate my bike (no matter which one it is), I hate my shoes, I hate the scenery, I'm bored, etc.

Then, for the next 3 miles, I'm mentally deciding how far I should go that day, because I feel a little punk for the trip I had planned. I'm constantly looking at the speedometer, thinking about little pains in my feet or hands. I'm not living in the moment at all. On really bad days, I'm already thinking of what I need to do when I get back home.

Then, at 6 miles, it becomes great fun, and I feel I could ride all day. I don't want to go home. I want to ride faster, and go places I've never been before. Total mind change at 6 miles. Must be when the endorphins hit.

This happens EVERY ride I take. When I was just starting out and couldn't ride 6 miles, biking was not as much fun as I remembered it.

heckler

i agree that you need to increase the milage, the same question applied to a longer distance would be interesting though.

5, 10-mile rides in a day or one 50-miler? i would assume my average would be faster if i did the 5 10-milers, but it would be split up.