[MENTION=400231]DrIsotope[/MENTION], your story sounds very familiar to me soooo . . . . . basically this is what I do . . .

- Keep riding everydays
- Never thinking about stop riding
- Fear of weight gain
- Undereat, Cut calories in hope of weight loss
- Intermittent Fasting, Full Fasting day blah blah, I been do it for 1 year and half, can't tell its help but my performance not improve much nor notice any different
- My body see 'cycling' as only way to burn calories . . . this is super terrible AKA not ride today? TA-DA weight gain! yay . . . .


My metabolism probably 'damaged' I am at the point that my body can't do its jobs to burn calories without exercise (cycling)

I come to think why the hell I keep do this all the time? Didn't I want to enjoy riding? why I do it to weight loss? why? I keep asking myself

From now on, I will not ride hard and everyday like before, of course my weight gains like crazy, I went from 69-70 to 78kg in just 1 month now and seems to stop there (8kg gains jesus, don't tell me its water weight, its fat ha!!!)

Now I aim to . . . eat whatever I want but still able to lose weight (hopefully) need to stop riding everyday like mad

The misinformation here about fasting surprises me. Unnatural? Your body does it every night - that's why the first meal is called...breakfast. Muscle wasting? If overdone, maybe, but not in the first ~18 hours. And it's such a helpful tool for what physically ails western civilization: obesity, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, perhaps certain cancers. The body is "designed" to store fats *and* to burn those stored fats. Why would it store those fats if it didn't plan on burning them later?!? So figure out how to coax your body into burning stored fats, and get it done. Fasting is one tool. Healthy food choices, low carb, calorie counting, exercise, and carb cycling can also help.

Can I point out that there's a huge difference between going without food for 9-10 hours when your body is mostly shut down and your brain waves are minimal, and going 12+ hours without food when your body is active and your brain is burning through mad amounts of glucose?

Why would anyone need to point out something so completely obvious?

Oh ... BF ..... nevermind .....

I have yet to see studies showing muscle wasting between the 9th and 18th hours of fasting. Please provide.

I would also caution about believing calorie burn calculators. Without measuring heart rate at least, or power output at best, calorie counters give very high estimates. If I run my Garmin without the heart rate strap, it estimates double the calories compared to with the strap. Programs like Map My Fitness also seem to be about double. This can lead to the trap of believing you burned 1000 calories so can splurge, when you really only burned 500.

Please point out where any one else mentioned muscle-wasting except yourself.

You are familiar with the term "straw-man argument"? It refers to a situation where a person invents an argument, attributes it to someone else, and then attacks the invented argument.

The statement being discussed is: This is what you need to refute, if you want to refute what others are claiming.

Are You claiming that there is no difference between not eating While Sleeping for eight hours and not eating for a sixteen-hour day full of physical and mental activities/ Because that is what--and All-- rachel120 said, and it is that which I said was obvious.

Do you have a different opinion on that specific point?

From what I've read, metabolism is ~75% at night. Office employees waking, eating carb-rich breakfasts, then sitting in a car, then sitting in an office...guess what happens? Obesity crisis. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day? Maybe if you work on a farm or construction site.

The body eating its muscles was previously mentioned at least once or twice.



That's an optimistic description of the average day in western civilization. I myself am surrounded by zombies. And I did mention carb cycling didn't I? I didnt' prescribe fasting as the only way, for all people. Calm down.

In fact, when I had a looser schedule, I would have a cup of coffee and go riding (or go to the gym) because I had enough glycogen, and enough food inside me digesting, to keep me going for a few hours. That really helped with weight loss, because if I did run out of glucose, my body had to burn fat ... which was the point of it all. Of course, I always had a Powerbar stashed just in case.

And a good one.

If I workout fasted, I keep intensity down to minimize burning muscle. That's the theory, anyhow.

If I work out while fasting I keep intensity low because I am weak. Same effect overall, I guess.

In regards to fasting and its effects on physical endurance:

Back when I was fasting for several days at a time, I did a 33 mile bike ride after 60 hours (2-1/2 days) of fasting. By the time I finished, I was on the verge of passing out, and felt light-headed for several hours afterward. Eating a meal afterward had no immediate effect. I returned to feeling normal after a night's rest.

I just recently did a 45 mile ride after about 18 hours of not eating, and had no issue whatsoever with endurance. Felt great after I finished, and could probably have done another 10 or 20 miles.

So I can say that going a single day between meals, at least when your body is used to it, is not detrimental toward endurance. But if you fast for multiple days, I suggest eating a little something before a long workout.

I've been riding for a couple of months now. I don't get out as often as I would like because my job requires frequent travel. I haven't really lost any weight, but I think my overall fitness is improving. When I first started out, I rode 3 miles to the store and called and begged my daughter to come get me with the car. (We couldn't fit the bike in the car and I had to ride it home after all). My last ride was 20 miles. I'm still really slow, but I figure I'm lapping everyone on the couch. And my average speed is increasing while still increasing distance.

Be patient with the weight loss. It will come if you eat a sensible diet and keep riding or doing other exercise.

Frankly, that's scary, putting caffeine in you and then either cycling in traffic or driving to the gym. You know what exercise without food leads to? Disorientation. Because your blood sugar is too low to support your brain's requirements. I've hit a glucose level of 55 many times, so I know full well what it does to your brain, and it's not safe to be on the road.

Nope. That fat might be good for safe calorie restriction diets, but skipping food and exercising is going to lead to a blood sugar drop, and that is stupid dangerous.

Why does anyone want to fast? Yeah I get it can work, but if your overweight it probably stands to reason that you don't like empty stomachs. Eating healthy is fairly simple. Plenty of lean proteins to chose from and vegetables actually taste good when not poured from a can. I'd mix in some weight training as well. That way you don't get bored, unless you really love cycling which you may not if weight loss is your primary goal and are just starting out.


I wouldn't worry about tracking and weighing your food early on until maybe you plateau off. Quit eating when your comfortable, not when you are so full you can't move.

Neither stupid nor dangerous for most healthy riders. Google "fat adaptation rides". Several times a week I will go out for 90-120 min at tempo on nothing but a mug of black coffee. It's training your body to run on fat rather than sugar.

It's not that simple. Different foods with the same calculated calorie content are absorbed by the digestive system differently. Nuts in particular show that effect. I don't know how much of a factor it might be with foods other than nuts, but I suspect could be enough to matter.
https://jn.nutrition.org/content/earl...17372.abstract
https://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/96/2/296
https://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/86/6/1649.full

I strongly disagree.

When I was doing it, it was working for me and I was not disoriented or fatigued ...occasionally I would "bonk," run completely out of available energy, but I kept things controlled enough that I was never more than a couple miles from home and never had a problem ... and always had that Powerbar if I Really needed it (which on occasion I did.)

Lately I have tried just working, not even exercising, on little or no food, and I find I don't have the energy to even sit in a chair.

I don't know what has changed, but I wouldn't dream of trying to exercise on am empty stomach now. Then too I have lost a lot of fitness due to injury and illness.

This is part of why I keep saying "No one knows." Every one of us is different, and every one of us is changing. What is great for one might be dangerous for another.

I know I have been exercising and studying (at least a little) nutrition for for about 40 years. I know a lot of different things have worked for me. I ma trying to learn what works best now ... but it isn't what used to work, or what worked best before that, etc.

But I have been at this long enough to know at least, when something is or isn't working.

I can tell you this about nutrition. When I was having severe blood sugar drops twice, three times a week, a medical doctor told me the issue was that I was letting 6 hours go by between meals and that I just couldn't go that long without food.

I would certainly hope a doctor would know what she was talking about when she said my low blood sugar was due to not eating often enough.

And this is something where the knowledge has been around forever. As a teen when I felt shaky and sweaty and disoriented my mother would insist I eat a sugar and a protein, the sugar to feel better immediately, the protein to keep me feeling better. She learned that from my grandmother, who was born in the 19-teens. So the need to eat and what to eat to stabilize your blood sugar has been general non-medical knowledge for close to 100 years.

When you were having severe blood sugar drops, your doctor was telling you that your blood sugar was low due to not eating enough.

Last time I read up on biology, the brain of every human needs glucose as an energy source. So yeah, every human has to eat on a regular basis if they want fuel for their brain to function optimally.

That might or might not explain society in a nutshell?

Incorrect. The human brain can metabolize ketone bodies in addition to or instead of glucose.