Lose weight and get more gears.

I can no longer keep up with one of my primary cycling partners, who recently lost about 15 lbs, and now is down to about 150 lbs.
So now I need to drop a few too, to keep up with him.

I agree about My Fitness Pal.

Just watching where the calories come from was an eye opener. For me it was nuts and cheeses.


-Tim-

I'm skinny, always have been, and haven't changed weight much when totally lazy and when doing things like crazy. For me that is 140lbs. I'm 5'9".

When I was fast, I was jealous of my friends who would show up at the March crits with a little chunk on their cheeks and some adipose in the abdomen.

As the season wore on, they returned to their lean self and got fast. In reality noone was ever more than 10lbs above the ideal but oh man, losing that weight made such a huge difference. It's not just the weight, it's the journey of getting there.

Don't even try to tell me that 10lbs won't make a difference. I've seen too many examples to the contrary.

1 beer is 150 calories, 2 is 300, 6 is zero. Maybe even negative calories.

How are you able to discern whether the difference was 10lbs, or whether they just got strongrr on the bike?

Find one of these people after they've lost weight and gotten faster. I'd bet anything if you filled their bottles with 10lbs of ball bearings, they'd still be much faster than when starting the season out of shape.

That's not to say weight doesnt matter. But I think a lot of people are misinterpreting what racing into shape for the season actually does...

Yup. I think that a lot of people are conflating the two and giving more credit to the weight loss than is due. I came in to the season with decent legs and lungs, but with additional winter weight (I did some trainer work, but not enough to offset the calories). I'm about 15lb down from a few months ago and, while the riding has gotten better, it's not nearly as dramatic as the times that I've returned from a complete winter hiatus, in poor shape in terms of legs, lungs and love-handles.

At one point I got faster going up hills while I was gaining 15 pounds. For exactly the reason you say.

More like 0.1 mph.

Bicycle Speed (Velocity) And Power Calculator

100 watts (hands in the drops)

150 lib rider + 20 lb bike -> 16.3 mph
175 lib rider + 20 lb bike -> 15.9 mph
200 lib rider + 20 lb bike -> 15.5 mph

That's not the issue. My post was in response to the claim that weight has no effect unless climbing/descending or accelerating.

Interesting. Those numbers are higher than I would have expected. Not completely out of wack. I suppose it depends entirely on the quality of the tire used......

What if the roads are pervaded by non-existent cyclists riding along at 39 mph? This seems like a very profound thought so I just checked a Strava segment leaderboard and sure enough, they're not there!!

It's the issue that matters.

Who cares if it isn't "no effect" if the effect is tiny?

Discussing an effect without any idea of the magnitude of the effect is pointless.

If the effect is very small, then it's closer to "no effect" than it is to "a significant effect".

Actually, we're agreeing. If one begins with the premise that any effect is 0, then there is no way to calculate its magnitude. The first step is to recognize that the effect exists (which is what I was saying), the next is to determine its magnitude (a step I didn't feel like taking).

A small effect is infinitely times greater than no effect.

The easy first step (by itself) produces no useful knowledge.

The last step is pretty much required (especially since the typical thing is to assume it's much larger than it is in reality).

Not really in engineering (which balances the cost of something with the benefit).

A) The first step starts the path to useful knowledge and the post to which I was responding got it wrong. B) What's stopping you from taking the second?
Now you're adding additional concerns not present in the original discussion. At any rate, it's impossible to calculate a cost benefit ratio, if one doesn't acknowledge a benefit exists.

You're getting sucked into the vortex, [MENTION=54365]asgelle[/MENTION].

Your response was useless.

I did the second step. See post 69.

What does this useless statement add?
It's impossible to calculate a cost/benefit ration without any knowledge of the magnitude of the benefit.

if you cut down a tree in a forest and it falls on you, do you hear it hit?

If BF posters met in real life and acted like they do on this forum .... there would soon be only one, as the rest would have died in personal combat.

Weight is only important if you are a serious cyclist. If you are a serious cyclist, then you will most likely always be "too fat for this sport."

So.. you can't handle the hills at the gear ratio you have, yet you are considering getting heavier gear ratio so you don't spin out on the downhills....
Sounds to me like the problem is just that the fixed gear doesn't work for the terrain you ride.

I live in Atlanta, very hilly, and it baffles me I see people on fixed gear or single speed bikes, struggling.

I know, I know, all your hipster friends have single speeds as well, and that's what's cool. But there's nothing cool about walking your bike up a hill buddy.

I actually downloaded this the other day, and used it religiously yesterday. Ended up with over a 1000 calorie deficit for the day...and wasn't really consciously trying to eat less. I certainly wasn't starving myself. It really does seem like if you're constantly tracking what you're doing...you're less likely to do something stupid, or negligent in regards to your health/fitness. I suppose this should be obvious lol. But it doesn't really seem to be in practice.

What if you rode fixed gear without shoes on? Then you could be hard and cool when walking your bike up the hill too! :)

Were you eating differently because you're tracking? (The quantum problem.)

That's a pretty big deficit.

Pro tip: When you're on the "what I ate in my meals" page, there's a button at the top with an icon like a pie chart. Click it to get a list of your nutrients for the day, how much protein and carbs and fat you ate In here, you can change from viewing "today" to "this week" and get a better idea of how things stand overall.

Some days you wind up with an unsustainably large deficit, and averaging it across a week is kind of like smoothing your power output on the bike.

Well yes and no. My diet wasn't fundamentally different. But I definitely did not grab the random things throughout the day that I normally do. Snacks we've got at work, midnight snack at home just because, 2nd beer.

And yea a 1000 calorie deficit is at the upper end of anything I think I would like to sustain.

Hrmm but wait. I think it is likely more than that. I've got the app set up to schedule a 1lb per week loss...so I assume a deficit is already accounted for at zero calories remaining for the day on the app?

edit: yea i did notice the pie chart yesterday. I think that HAS made me change my diet a bit. I've been pacing 150 grams of protein yesterday and today...I KNOW that is far more than I normally eat.

[MENTION=445996]Abe_Froman[/MENTION]

To clarify the math.

If you hit your goal exactly, with 0 calories left over, that means you have a 500 calorie deficit for the day. It's already built into your 1 pound per week goal. 1 pound per week = 7 days * 500 calorie deficit per day = 3,500 kcal weekly deficit, the amount of calories in a pound of fat.