Long distance may be detrimental to weight loss?
 

After the third time I've hit the 350 pound plateau since 2005, I've decided that going my own way with my diet and exercise plans is simply not working out for me. I went to see a dietician. Most of what he told me makes a lot of sense, and starting next week (after my current grocery supplies wind down) I'll be trying out my new diet.

The one thing he said that scared me, however, is that he does not recommend cardio exercise longer than 30 minutes at a time, because once you pass that threshold your body tends to burn muscle instead of fat. He said his biggest problem customers are 1) vegetarians (they can't get enough protein), 2) people who don't exercise at all, and 3) endurance athletes.

I was kind of surprised to hear this, since my average bike ride in the summer is at a minimum 2 hours long. On one hand this advice is disheartening, because long distance cycling is possibly the most fun thing I've ever done with my life, and once I get this back condition sorted out I have no plans on ever stopping. On the other hand, I can't help but think that he has a very valid point; after nearly 8000 miles of cycling over the past 2 years, I still have never been able to come close to losing the kind of weight I was losing when I was simply spinning for 45 minutes a day 3 years ago.

Thoughts?

Yes your body will start burning muscle but at a very low rate if you eat properly on the bike. For too many people who ride and are big it's to loose weight so thinking is don't eat while on the bike. You have to take in something to restore your glysimic level or think of it as fueling the engine and simple carbs get a bad rap but this is where they actually help. There is however a balance, you can only absorb so much but if you take in nothing yes your body will start burning fat. It took me awhile to figure this all out but once I start racking up the k's melt away. Spinning for 45 minutes does not deplete your body enough to start burning muscle it just burns fat. Do what works for you but I'll stick with the long rides or my rum consumption will increase to put up with life and I'll definatly grow...lol

Burning muscle after 30 minutes? That sounds like utter nonsense, heck I'm often take thirty minutes to really warm up.

But I will agree 4,6,8 hours on a bike is problemactic. When I was routinely riding those distances I found my eating habits changed, I was consuming too many calories at bad times of the day for me. Being ravenous after a century is not a good thing either. If I do 45 minute strenous workouts I stay on predictable calorie intake, no real problems. So, I would opine it isn't as much the time and distance, its the during and after calorie consumption which inevitably, for me, increases when I ride long distances/time.

I'm throwing the BS flag on the 'cardio longer than 30 min does no good' deal.
I can be on the bike at a moderate pace for X amount of time burning Y cal/hr and that is a number. The human body is very good at adaptation and it's my belief that adaptation has led the 'experts' to feel that 30 min is the limit. What happened to calories in vs calories out?

What else would I be doing during that same time span? Should I do non-cardio for the time other than 30 minutes?

Now what I decide to eat before and after is what I think matters.
Can I eat a box of Oreo's after a ride where I burned 2000 calories and comes out even? I think the answer to that is a resounding No.

Oh no, another "man is a test tube" person. Your dietician should meet Nerys. :-)

Seriously, the basic formula is calories in calories out. It sounds like this expert grabbed onto some plausible factoid and is turning it into a Very Important Thing.

Utter, utter nonsense. If you are properly nourished your body will not burn muscle in preference to fat.

Of course exercise breaks down muscle. But the bulk of your fuel for low-intensity cycling comes dorect from fat stores, and if you get enough protein post-workout, and allow yourself time to recover, your muscles will repair and get stronger while the fat, if you don't overeat, will stay off.

I also through the bs flag on this - I'm down 90 lbs doing just what he is telling you what not to do. I agree with the other posters that it has a lot to do with what you eat before, during and after. You have to maintain your calorie input during the long rides and it has to be the right calorie. I do not believe that all calories are created equal.

There is a very good book call "Ride you way lean" that gets into the science of heart rate as well as endurance cycling. But bottom line is if your heart rate is in zone 4 or 5 for an extended period then yes you will loose some muscle but if you keep it in zone 2 then your body can burn fat stores fast enough to replenish the glycogen stores.

This is all a bunch of opinions and I doubt your dietitian or I have any real scientific training.

however, so you are telling me that all the pros on tour have no muscle mass and routinely put out 400 watts for 4-5 hour? yeah right.

Your dietician seems more than a bit clueless!

I've found that the single most-effective way for me to burn fat is by doing 2+ hour bike rides! I tend to eat slightly more protein after long rides, in an effort to help prevent muscle catabolism. My power meter and body fat scale would seem to suggest that this strategy works well for me...

Long distance may be detrimental to weight loss?
 

Also call BS on vegetarians and vegans not getting enough protein. True some don't because they are not eating the right foods to get protein.

Check out Forks Over Knives video on Netflix or elsewhere. Or read the book. Great info on plant based eating.

You will burn muscle with extended cardio workouts. However, that doesn't mean that you will not also continue to burn fat (it probably will not be necessary for you to have the same amount of muscle to tote around 350 lbs as you need for 150 lbs.) If you follow the philosophy of primal blueprint, the optimal "cardio" workout is an hour... however, this is not at an elevated heart rate - it is maintaining 55-75 percent of max HR for that one hour. Five days per week would be good. In addition, doing sprints of 8 to 20 seconds with a 60 - 90 second rest in between sprints over a 15 minute period will build muscle and burn fat. Do this type of workout a few times per week. The most important part of the weight loss equation is the diet... I'd attribute 80 to 90 percent of the successful weight loss is due to watching your carbs and restricting your calories.

Look around... who looks healthier to you - the distance athletes or the sprinters???

+1. Even if it's not, I wouldn't mind having the body and fitness level of even an average pro cyclist.

Great article in this month's Outside magazine on nutrition.... Funny, the folks they spoke with never mentioned this factoid...

What I notice is that on long rides, I eat more, when I get done, I keep on eating. It's not the ride that's the problem, it's the eating during & after the ride.

Applying your dietician's reasoning, all randonneurs, Tour de France riders, marathoners, Iron Men, etc., should be big globby fat people because they've all been burning off all their muscle and no fat, but that doesn't seem to be the way it is.

Heck, for that matter I'd take mediocre CAT1/2

Some things to think about:


1. Even if the dietician is correct, is loss of some lean mass a big deal at 350 pounds? I have read that a loss of maybe 25% of lean mass in obese individuals is considered acceptable as it represents the extra lean mass they gained getting fat. Keep in mind, lean mass isn't just muscle but everything other than fat.


2. Research in this area is exceedingly muddy partly because it is difficult to control for all the variables and you can't have people living in a lab for a year, feeding them what you want to feed them and making them exercise the way you want them to exercise.


3. The dietician's personal experience is anecdotal and vulnerable to confirmation bias.


4. What about factors that are applicable to you? You are happy cycling. Being happier will help you stick to calorie restrictions. You may sleep better too, which may also help you not over eat.


5. Arguably, riding at a mellow pace over a long period of time will allow you to not have the exercise eat up muscle tissue but instead burn fat. (See, Yeager, "Ride Your Way Lean"). So, I am mixing it up by having long, slow distance days and days thrown in where I work the heck out of my riding but for short duration. This is still new for me. This is Yeager's advice. However, there is an interesting study comparing 30 minutes a day cardio to 60 a day in young men: http://ajpregu.physiology.org/conten...egu.00141.2012 Those who did the 60 minutes a day lost no more fat than those who did 30. It is worth thinking about. More might not be better. But I am like you, I enjoy long hours on the bike. So I want to do more if I can and be healthy.


6. Is it worse to exercise more if you enjoy it? I am still reading up on the issue. There is research on heart damage in long term distance runners that has to be at least considered, like the recent Mayo study:http://cardionutrition.files.wordpre...-bad-thing.pdf . People don't seem to know where the line is between just right and too much. It may be an issue of too high intensity for too long of a duration. The authors of the Mayo study recommend up to 60 minutes a day vigorous exercise and more has "diminishing returns" with risks outweighing benefits. But, it may be just fine to do low intensity, long duration, mixed up with other days of high intensity, low duration. I just don't know. And how low is low enough? I have a tendency to go at too high an intensity on my long days. I am working at slowing down for those rides and keeping my heart rate at 75% of max or less, but still aerobic.

I've read some of this stuff too. And I note that some of their subjects seem to show heart damage. But in the study I saw, they were looking at pro cyclists who trained and raced huge mileages at high intensity, and even in that group, most of them were absolutely fine. And there are other studies that show that those who exercise intensively tend to live longer, and enjoy better health into old age, than the more sedentary.

My judgement is that very few of us are at risk of doing too much. All of us are at risk of doing too little. Those of us who spend >10 hours per week on the bike are much more likely to do well than badly.

Excellent! I've had my BS meter read "high" on occasion when listening to experts but I never knew what to call it.
Neil, you and Nerys are inspirational. There is something really down to earth about your adventures on your bicycles.

Yes, but the initial conclusion is that there may be diminishing returns and greater risks if you engage in vigorous exercise of over an hour a day, at least if you are doing this year after year. I agree that most of us probably don't fall into that category. Homeyba aside. :) One problem is that a person probably won't know if they fall into the high risk category and where the cut off is for those of us who may have risk. Anyway, the issue is something to watch and see what researchers puzzle out with more research. It is going to be hard to piece together any solid advice when you have so many variables such as age, sex, prior fitness, genetic differences, intensity and duration of exercise, heart health, etc. The only reason I think about it is because heart disease is in my family and both my parents died young. So, I think about behavior that might not be risky for most but may be risky for me. What is risky for me may be something Homey can do in his sleep. Still, I do agree that the riskiest thing for me to do and for Mith to do is to be fat and sedentary.

Anyway, I digress. I am interested in where lines might end up being drawn on the big question of how much exercise is good and what might be detrimental. My last point in my initial post really did not have a lot to do with Mith's question about weight loss and exercise unless he is really beating himself up on the bike hour after hour.

I think your last sentence is the most important. There is a limited amount that any of us can do to protect ourselves, but were I to have parents with a history of heart disease I'm damn sure I'd err on the side of eing as aerobically fit as possible. It might not prolong my life, but it is unlikely to shorten it and it will almost certainly improve its quality.

Yup.

I am not going to say that you dont need to change because obviously what you were doing wasn't working but I agree with the BS statements. I would find a different dietitian. I don't know what you have tried but if you used a journal to track your activity and calories in, you would be far better off than giving up a form of activity you enjoy. Its just ridiculous.

I hate that these people keep giving me excuses and justification for not going, or going back to college.

Lot's of strong opinions here. I've only got one data point, me. Over 2.5 years of slowly losing weight I've learned that my body:

Needs more fat as a % of diet when I do more than 1 hour of cardio per day. If I don't up the fat the cravings attack.

My greatest rate of loss was with minimal exercise and very close attention to diet.

I can control my appetite better when the cardio is broken up in ~30 min intervals. Run 2 miles in AM, Commute 30 min to the shop, Commute 30 min back home in evening.

When I do my 50 mile weekend ride it takes my appetite 2 days to recover. I run and ride just below my aerobic max.

Your dietician isn't crazy or wrong but could be a bit off. It all depends on how hard your pushing yourself. yes if your above your aerobic base you won't burn as much fat, so if you went for a long ride and rode all or most of that way you wouldn't burn as much fat as if you were to keep the HR lower. Only way to really know is get a metabolic test done so you know where your heart rate zones really are.