Sounds like you have your own personal caloric cap and trade program going on.

I'm afraid that I traded away my cap tonight

I'm still ahead for the month, but I could use a lot more saddle time.

It was simple. I went vegetarian, lost 25 lbs.

That's not fair. Vegetrians are superior in almost every way. This thread is for mere mortals.

If you go vegan, you will be like Gaia herself.

My best weight loss, post 50 years old, was last year. I'm 5'8" (lost an inch!!). I went from 220lbs (maybe a tad more) to 188lbs from March to September. I did this by cutting out the post 8PM snacks, careful about what I ate at meal time, but did NOT go on a specific diet, and rode a bike not less than 2 time per week, and many time 4 times a week. Being a Quality Engineer by trade, I plotted the weight loss. It worked out to exactly 1 lb lost per week. The winter was going well for me having put back only 6 of those 32 lbs. But the last two weeks the weather has been awful so I'm guessing I've gained an additional pound or two. Time to get on the trainer and hold until riding season begins in 6 weeks!

I am currently sitting at around 190 pounds.

In September of last year I was sitting at pretty close to what I consider my ideal of about 180 pounds.

I kept that weight all the way up until Christmas holidays and even though I rode a lot over the holidays I still seem to have found some extra weight somewhere.

I am spending 3 days a week in the gym which I think is part of the problem - I seem to looking to eat - all the time - I've been shoving anything that doesn't move into my mouth.

In addition, I have been drinking beer again - which I had not done for a long time - and it seems to go straight to my waist.

Today seems to be a good day to start to the discipline again - and that is what it takes.

Diets and all the rest are just so much noise.

It takes an "attitude" and discipline, nothing more.

I am puzzled by this.

Why the "cut back on coffee" as part of weight management?

I need to cut back on it simply because it doesn't agree with my tummy the way in once did, but as a factor in weight mgt??

FWIW, something I neglected to mention: I read a study about a year ago in which they reported that people who weigh themselves every day tend to maintain their weight better than those who don't.

I know when I get a nasty surprise on the scale, I'll increase raw veggies and drag myself whimpering from the beer and wine for a few days. Small corrections are much easier to take than large ones.

Amazing the timing of my health insurance company. Today I received a brochure from them on getting to an optimum weight and maintaining it. The core of their message was this: Getting to and maintaining an optimum weight is ONLY done by adopting a healthy lifestyle including proper nutrition and adequate exercise. No diet, no matter how hyped will do the job. No exercise program, no matter how well advertised and endorsed will do the job. Only a healthy lifestyle will bring a healthy body.

They went on to write about what a healthy lifestyle is. One of the key phrases was that no one can do it for you. Another was to regard mild exercise as just that, mild, and so minimally effective over the long term. For long term, life long effect exercise must be aggresive and part of a person's daily life. They also compared exercise to the air we breath; saying it is just as important.

This is a real shift for this company. Not too long ago they didn't pay for preventive treatment or exams saying they were not cost effective. In other words it was cheaper to let someone get sick and die than to pay to keep them well. I'm glad they changed.

That has worked for me. I use Wii Fit every day including weight and BMI measurements. I lost 20 lbs. to get down to my high school weight (low end of my recommended weight range) and have kept the pounds off for a year now. I walk or cycle 1 and a half miles round trip to work. A piece of fruit serves as lunch. I avoid night snacking by drinking water.

Anyone remember a recent story on "60 Minutes" linking hunger to longevity? Something in our body chemistry is said to promote non-aging when we feel hungry. I know, some will say life it too short to live in a constant state of food denial and what's the point of living longer if you can't enjoy yourself at the dinner table. For some, there is more to life than food and the payoff of improved self image can reap huge personal rewards. I enjoy a high calorie meal occasionally, but I have found it to be all too easy to rack up the pounds at 50-plus if I'm not careful so I do weigh myself every day.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=1168551n

https://stanford.wellsphere.com/endur...-hunger/604223

Weight as of yesterday: 203.5#

This week cap and trade went out the window as I come down with the Enterovirus from Hell. I'll spare you the details.

My priority is just to get some strength back. When I worked out yesterday I felt as weak as a kitten.

The cap and trade resumes tomorrow.

I am interested in how much improvement, if any, you saw in your cycling with the weight loss.

Our forecast calls for cold and snow for the next ten days at least, so it will be awhile before I have a chance to see any change in performance.

Higher, faster, stronger, most especially on climbs. Even 5 lbs. either way can make a difference, unless you're gaining muscle mass, which will help with your overall endurance as well. Keep at it!

In college I weighed in at 235, I decided to change my life and got on my bike, stopped eating carbs and lost 70 lbs in 10 weeks. Kept most of it off but 10 years later I was at 200. Took up aerobics and went vegetarian and lost 40 lbs. Had an injury that laid me up for a few months, made a job change and a move and I was up to 190. got more serious on the bike, went on the Dash diet and lost 25lbs. But now I am back up to 180 and wanting to shed 20 lbs.
I feel your pain - it is difficult.

Losing weight after age 50 (I'm 63) has been the most difficult thing for me. At 5'9" (lost 1 1/2 ") I weighed in at 193 this morning. During cycling season I will get down to 185 lbs. I REALLY want to start the season at 185 lbs and get down to 175 lbs by the Fall. I do spin classes at least 2 times a week and lift 3 times a week. And, still the lbs don't come off. Frustrating as hell. I think I have to go back to counting calories but my metabolism must be reverse. It's not like I eat garbage or tons of food.

There are two groups of people who think losing weight is easy.

1) Those who could eat an entire deep fried cow with a roast pig chaser and not gain so much as a milligram.
2) Those who have an ideal weight of 150 and have never weighted more then 151.

For the rest of us, it ranges between difficult and darn difficult. It's interesting to see something like The Biggest Loser, you take a guy who is 350lbs, put them through a 9 hour a day, everyday workout, feed them nothing but rabbit food, and they lose 7lbs a week. Exercise does help, when I was 40, I had been working in IT for 20 years, at 5'9" I weighted 265. The IT business was heading to h*** in a hand basket and my computer business was failing. I took a job with a courier company which involved a lot of walking, I clocked it once at over 8km in a single day. I dropped to about 225 in about 3 months, just from the exercise alone. I got a bike and started riding some, about 3 years ago, switched jobs in the same company, I now cover a work area of around a trailer length, I will cross that entirely about 500 times during my night shift, so about the same distance total. I ride as often as I can, and now at 48, I am around 212. If we get a good riding summer, that will drop below 200, the last couple of years were horrible for riding. At some point this year I will have a hernia operation, hopefully that doesn't set me back too far. My Doctor tells me that 170-180 would be ideal, whether I can get back there or not, I don't know. The problem is that if I eat nothing, but rabbit food, I will not make it through the shift at work.

I'm 56 this year, and 5'6" tall. My "fighting weight" (as a Ranger in my early 20s) was 135. Between age 25 and 35 it crept up to 155. Then in my mid 30s I quit exercising, sat at a desk too much, and added 5 or 6 pounds a year until by 2000 I was at 215 pounds. About that time a doctor told me, "David, it's not rocket science. You gotta do more and eat less."

It was 6 years before I put that simple advice into practice. May of 2006 I got sick, couldn't eat without pain for a couple of months, and lost 15 pounds. Decided to not let that weight loss go to waste, and started working out and watching my diet per the "Body For Life" book. Between July and October I dropped to 185 and then stayed there. Note, at this time I was not running or cycling; used a rowing machine for aerobics.

Met my triathlete wife in March 2007. She got me walking and then running. We walked up Mount Yonah in north Georgia several times while scouting a wedding location, and I dropped 5 pounds doing that, to 180 lbs. Stayed there in July and August.

Labor Day weekend she got me on a bike. I was a kid again! I had so much fun! Decided to get serious about fitness and weight loss. I was running or cycling 6 or 7 days a week, doing the Body For Life Plan again, and counting calories, aiming for 1350 per day for a 2 pound per week weight loss.

In October I suddenly developed a hernia. Doc said I could keep running and cycling, but had to cut out the weight lifting. So I did.

Kept running and cycling except for ten days after the Nov 15 hernia surgery. By mid-December I reached my goal weight of 155. 25 pounds over 15 weeks, something over 1.6 pounds per week average weight loss.

As long as I was running and cycling, I kept it there. Then March last year, training for a marathon, I hurt myself and had to stop running and cycling. Unfortunately I didn't change my eating habits, so between March and June I put on 20 pounds. I got back on the bike in June, and that helped me keep from going over 175.

I wasn't working too hard on losing weight, just working on getting better on the bike, and stayed at 175 pounds. Managed to increase my average speed (for an hour on the bike) from 14.5 mph to 17 mph. I was really happy with that.

Then I hit a dog, got a concussion and fractured pelvis, and didn't ride in November and December. Fortunately I managed to keep from gaining weight over the holidays. New Years Day I was back on the bike again, and have worked my way back up to a 68 mile ride on the Silver Comet Trail (which is about as flat as you can find around here).

So the second part of my story, how I lost the 20 pounds I gained last year, is yet to be written. But cycling will definitely be part of that story.

Im 71 and retired in 2008. In 2009 I dropped 15 pounds riding my recumbent. Trying hard so far this winter I only gained about 5 back, staying below 180.

Good for you. I didn't copy all of your thread, but it indicates that upping the exercise and lowering the calories has worked for you.

I'm afraid I'm in your group 2 above, but I have to check blood sugar and inject myself 5 times a day, for 35 years to date, so I don't claim an easy advantage

But 'rabbit food' isn't the only helpful regimen. In fact, rabbit food with the kind of dressing that helps you to choke it down will be a whole lot more weight adding than, for example, brown rice with zucchini, goats cheese and olive oil, which tastes better and gets you through a physical shift

Good luck and good health to you

About a year ago, I finally got disgusted enough with myself, having hit the 325 mark at age 51 and 6'0" to do something about it. I had previously done Atkins, and gotten down to 230 or so, but when I quit that, the weight came back really kind of quickly. So, I went with a local diet center, that advertised on the radio a lot. Eat supermarket and restaurant food, lose 3 to 5 pounds a week.

January 29th I signed up with them. Basically, they train you to eat better. Salads are now a staple of my diet. You eat the salad to provide the bulk which physically fills you up. You eat good, lean proteins, but not to excess. You eat carbs, but improve the quality of carbs you eat, whole grains, fruits.

By the end of November, I had brought my weight down to 199. I still go to the center and weigh in weekly there, and stay in the 195 to 200 range. And weigh daily on the scale at home.

It is all a matter of inputs and outputs, if you put it in, it stays there, unless you make it come out with exercise.

My first century is planned for April 25th

I feel much better now, and can't wait for the streets to melt off.

^^^^That's pretty cool.^^^^

Yesterday after spin class I weighed myself and for the first time in recent memory I was subClydesdale: 199#.

Of course it was cheating. This morning I checked in at 202.5#. Still, it felt good.

I'm interested to see how hill climbing goes this Spring.

Cutting back on coffee won't do much for your weight. Now, if you put 2 sugars and some cream in each coffee you drink, and you drink 8 coffees per day, that's another question.

I think the theory is that the caffeine also stimulates the appetite. And if you are already in calorie deficit to reduce weight, you don't need further stimulation from the caffeine.

My diet plan also banned any caffeinated soft drinks, (except tea) and caramel colored caffeine free diet soft drinks as well. I have no idea what the beef on caramel coloring is.

Must be an al queida plot to undermine the productivity of the western world.

Same here. The different form of exercise (running) may have broken the 200 lb barrier I was stuck at for weeks. I was at 198 at the last weigh in. I'm just counting calories- about 2000 a day average.
That's good cause I don't want my lard butt to damage the cool Reynolds 531 Professional tubed frame bike I'm restoring.

I always thought it better to weigh yourself once a week instead of daily. Weight can change from day to day and seeing a loss/gain could be misleading.
Personally I weight myself maybe once a month if I think about it. I use the belt method. If it is getting tighter than it is time to stop eating the junk that caused it.
Summer time is easy while riding all the time, winter is another story.

EDIT: Just went and weighed myself; 186! celebrated with two Subway oatmeal cookies! LOL