I would offer somethings that worked for me. I think all the replies thus far are great and should help.

1. I have tried 10+ diets. They all will help you loose weight if you follow the rules.
2. All the 10+ diets I have done ultimately failed as I was not able to sustain any of them.
3. I decided to change my life style so I could develop a pattern of exercise and diet that would be sustainable for a long time.
4. I set cycling goals to ride as much as could and to set milestone events like a metric century or full century to have something to target. I even joined a club to make it more fun and sociable - this was a great help for me and I have met some great friends.
5. I started to understand my food choices and make adjustments to healthier alternatives that I actually liked.
6. I used myFitnessPal and Strava to help me monitor my progress and provide additional motivation.

I have lost 50 pounds so far. But, weight loss is no longer my primary goal. My goal is to be a better cyclist and I have seen continual improvement. I just completed my first 100 mile centuries in the last month. I have also established a new lifestyle that I like and should be able to sustain.

Good luck on your progress.

I agree with this method 100%. Diet monitoring and fitness, your life will be so much nicer and you will be happier than the neighbors. I am glad my parents taught us life sports like xc skiing, swimming, hiking and cycling. I could only play lacrosee, soccer and rugby before my body gave out (boo ACLs).

Stay regularly active and don't over indulge too much and eat smart things tend to stay a little more in check.

Eundurance athletes need to properly fuel their efforts. We're talking about doing an activity that burns hundreds of calories per hour, not sitting on the couch. At a 15mi/h pace (about what I average on my "fast" bike) 25 miles is 1 hour and 40 minutes of exercise and I'll burn around 700-800 calories according to my power meter. I think it's pretty extreme to mix moderate aerobic exercise while simultaneously starving yourself but I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

I also couldn't agree more that all diets are gimmicks to a certain extent that tend to fail over the longer term. Keep cycling as much as you can, try not to eat too poorly and stop worrying about how much you weigh.

Definitely agreeing to disagree. 700-800 calories, even if 600 of those are coming from glycogen stores, should be well within your body's stores. People who are looking to drop weight shouldn't be under the mistaken impression that you need an extra Snickers bar every half an hour they work out, if they are then they are self-sabotaging. One can easily be properly fueled between fat reserves and the previous night's meal! First couple hours run off previous night, only if you are going for hours 3-6 do you really need to replenish. Post workout, just make sure you start eating again some hours before the workout the day after, you'll be fine.

It's only in recent history evolutionarily speaking that humans have had constant access to food. If the hunt was unsuccessful one day, two days, do you really think those that had to shut down all activity and be unable to hunt the third day would be able to survive?

Intermittent fasting isn't starving yourself. Going without food for one single day isn't at all close to really starving. Maybe when not having ever done it before, it might *feel* like starving, but really it's not, and your body will still function fine, and be able to exercise for a decent chunk of time. You'll have plenty of fuel, and the next day you can refuel. It's only long efforts that require more fuel, or stringing multiple fasting days together & the exercise, that's problematic. Fat stores are the body's defense against famine. It'd be pretty bad if one couldn't stand a one day famine! If one has excess fat, surely it can't be bad to use it occasionally for its purpose!

I have easily done 80 km morning rides on an empty stomach, with minimal snacks on the way. Snacks include dried fruit and seeds in only a small tupperware that barely fits in my saddle bag.

That was a group ride; I kept up and took the lead for a while for my first ride with them. They were impressed a regular guy on a 35 pound steel bike could be so fast (and not eating energy gels or powerbars). Good thing they did not know I didn't eat breakfast, nor have coffee; or they may have given up cycling! This would have been a Saturday ride after a Friday fast (ate dinner Friday night). I eat well after rides like that though.

When on the varsity swim teams in HS and university I never ate the morning of competitions, or lunch for that matter since meets usually went through the lunch hour.

The funny thing is today is an eating day and I was starving before lunch. I had oats for breakfast, an apple for morning snack and I was absolutely starving (it was distracting my work) well before I usually eat lunch. Yesterday a fasting day, not hungry at all. Not even when I got home for the most part, I had a small handful of blueberries and then we had a later dinner.