Training and Nutrition Forum:

https://www.bikeforums.net/forumdispl...-amp-Nutrition

what' the point? you may as well drink seltzer.

+1 for livestrong.com's calorie counter. It's been an easy go-to to track and learn my eating habits and adjust accordingly, it got me finally paying attention to portions, reading labels, etc. Down 120 lbs in the past fifteen months, so it's probably a pretty good resource.

(Okay, adjusting my lifestyle to make two hours of hard exercise a daily habit probably helped.)

A tip:
Make sure you use "general" cycling, not any of the speed specific selections when you're tracking rides. It averages out to the reasonably respected 40/cal mile formula (although I think it does adjust depending on weight.) Even if you are actually burning more than the calories it comes up with, it's probably not going to be enough to cause a problem. If you're burning less, that's your problem, not the site's. Pedal harder.

As long as you're properly nourished, and as long as you're smart, working harder will only make you better.

Hup, hup, etc.

reasonably respected by whom?

unless you're racing, or in the mountains, that's not going to be a problem.

Excuse me, by me. It's ended more than a few of these threads before and it's rarely been refuted, so I projected my respect on others via their silence. Anyway, when it shows up, it usually comes with umd bludgeoning people with math and PT data and a flurry of "incorrect"s. He's one of the few people on here that seems to have their act together enough to pay attention to, so I pay attention.

Regardless, I can get you up to date medical journal articles that support it. Do you have access to Jstor, EBSCOhost, or LexisNexis? That'll make it a lot easier and significantly more legal, given the delicacies of reproducing paid content elsewhere on-line.


You essentially restated my point with superfluously specific information. Good job.

your so-called point was vague and misleading.

I lost 12 lbs in 5 weeks using caloriecount.about.com. I used 75% of kilojoules from my PowerTap to come up with calorie burn per ride. I created my account as sedentary to hone in on base burn rate, then just made sure to keep it below 250W on my rides so I was mostly just burning fat and wouldn't replace the calories. Caloriecount's prediction chart was spot-on with my rate of loss.

I didn't weigh food, but just looked things up and used nutrition info on products. I also simplified my diet so I was eating a lot of the same things over and over again, so my tracking didn't have so much variability.

So "low fat" milk has sugar in it?

Wow. There is a lot of complicated answers comming from this thread. I don't think it's that tough. If you know your BMR, just start counting calories in all the food you consume. If you hit your BMR on a day that you don't bike, stop eating. After a couple of weeks, you should have a good idea of appropriate portions and it gets a little easier. Deny yourself nothing, just keep the portions reasonable. I think a well balanced diet with a calorie cap is a lot healthier than trying to cut out entire food groups, unless you have a specific goal other than simple weight loss. I enjoy food too much to say I'm going to cut out bacon, cheese, bread, ice cream, whatever. I've been adhering to a strict calorie deficit diet since early February and have been consitently loosing ~2lbs per week without skipping dessert.

Get a heart rate monitor that counts calories or a power meter of some kind. My HRM would indicate that a strong pace on the bike is worth 18-21cpm (1080-1260cph). I'm not sure how accurate this really is, but it's consistant and it's what I have.

Sorry to bludgeon you with the truth.

40 calories a mile would appear to be a gross generalization. Depends so much on the terrain, the speed, the rider's aerodynamics, pack or solo, etc.

15 mph, flat ground is not going to hit 40 calories. 20mph in a pack, flat ground is likely still under 40 calories.

25mph TT effort is likely above 40 calories a mile.

Climbing 10% grade is clearly above 40 calories a mile, descending well below that.

YCMV

uh oh. get ready for a "you essentially restated my point with superfluously specific information. good job." reply.

In a 1-minute power test, I burn about 45 calories. Everyone should probably just do a bunch of those every day.

What I do is try to establish regular routines for exercise and diet, and then try to tailor the diet for a calorie deficit. My point is that among the two, you get far more bang for your buck in paying attention to diet calories. The exercise calories can vary and it really won't make that big a deal -- it's almost not worth worrying about them as long as you're consistently getting exercise -- but diet must stay consistent. It is the area in which it is very easy to let a lot of them creep in unnoticed.

More to your point, I don't worry too much about calorie counts, as much as I do energy density (google 'volumetrics'). I make a diet plan based on a variety of foods with low density and then simply let hunger be my guide. If my physical activity for the week goes high, I find myself eating more frequently, but I stick to my plan so it's ok. I pay attention to the last 4 weeks of weight trend and make adjustments if necessary. By definition, if I find that I've lost 8lbs in the last 4 weeks, that I was running an average weekly deficit of 7000 cal. There's no need to micromanage it.

If you did 12,000kJ in one week, google converts that to 2,868kcal (correct me if I'm wrong here). You can easily order one meal at Chilis or your local rib joint that will go over 3,000kcal.

A 200lb man uses 2400cal per day just keeping his body functions running...his heart beating, his lungs breathing, his liver...livering. If he eats 1700cal per day he's running a daily deficit of 700calories or 4900 calories per week. He's losing about 1.5 lbs per week. If he adds 1500 calories of exercise per day (10,500 per week) he's suddenly losing 4.5 lbs per week. That's a lot, but it's not unheard of. If he's losing that much he really should be on a medically supervised program. Interestingly, 4.5 lbs per week is exactly what I averaged when I was on a program years ago before I got into biking. So it's not unrealistic (especially for people who need to lose a lot of weight), but it probably isn't the kind of thing one should attempt without a doctor's supervision.

That scenario describes the beginning of a lot of failed diets, however. Come up with a rigid, unrealistically low calorie plan, then add in an extreme amount of exercise. The diet plan stays rigid (or tries to) and doesn't allow for the desire for more food, but the body demands more food, plan breaks, diet over.

That's why it's better (we're talking weight loss) to stick to a moderate, regular amount of exercise and focus all attention where it can do the most good...the diet. If the guy in your scenario had stuck to about 2000 to 4000 cal in exercise weekly, he'd happily be losing 2.5 lbs per week, and no his body would not be freaking out and going into starvation mode.

it's not that hard.

I found that if I ate better foods they last longer in my system before I'm hungry again and I also try to gauge my food intake to where I'm hungry at the next meal. Also eating more often but small portions works well.

My wife and I have split plates when going out to eat recently. Most restaurants just give you a gigantic portion that you can either stuff yourself on or take home leftovers. I think splitting a plate at the larger portion places makes perfect sense.

agree, I've been averaging a 1000 deficit for the last few weeks. no fancy charts like yours though :-)

fncy and free, courtesy of losit.

Sugar-free lifesavers FTW :-)
When I'm in weight-loss (like now) beer-for-enjoyment is pretty much out (sadly). So ditto on the bud 55. It's pretty much flavored seltzer with a shot of vodka.
That's a great tactic, and works for me too. We split soup, salad and sandwich. Save money, save calories.

Something else I do is try to identify low energy-density foods that are available at a wide range of restaurants. That way if I'm stuck away from the house and I have to eat something, I have "safe" foods. Wendy's chili is pretty low-density, so a large chili and a plain potato from Wendy's is a good post-ride meal in a pinch. Most Mexican restaurants have a chicken-tortilla soup that is not cream-based, and if you take the avocado out it is low-cal, so if friends want to grab mexican, I just order the biggest bowl they have of the soup. It still sucks watching everyone else munch on nachos, but it would suck far worse if you had nothing to eat. Vietnamese Pho is pretty low-density with it's thin broth, but it comes in such large portions it is not always the best option.

Google may convert it like that, but your body doesn't. Because people are only about 20% efficient, its a pretty safe assumption to use 1KJ at the power meter = 1 dietary calorie.

Alan Lim had a calculation on Saris' website, taking the range of efficiency in athletes tested, which showed that 1 KJ = 1.1 dietary calories to an accuracy of +/- 5%, depending on the efficiency of the individual.

So for simplicity use a 1 to 1 ratio, or you can give yourself .1 extra credit based on Lim's data.

I'd be curious to see those articles. Just post up links to the abstracts.

For me, my average through 245 hrs of riding this year is 36 Cals/Mile at an average power of 196W. Only days 40 or above are hill repeats or harder intervals. Races generally lower due to warmup and cooldown.

The first date with my gf - about halfway through those 30 lbs I mentioned - was at Cheesecake Factory. Earlier that day, I just about drained my phone's battery looking for nutritional information about their menu. I finally found a PDF that somebody from Oregon had posted to a weight loss forum (Oregon requires restaurants to publish nutritional data). They do NOT want anyone to know how calorie-packed their meals are — most of their entrees were in the 1400-1700 calorie range, with a couple edging close to 3000 (!). Fortunately, they had a chicken dish with white rice and steamed veggies, which was like asking for seltzer water at a frat party (or Bud 55 ), but just 750-ish calories.

So, yeah, keep checking the labels, or cook good meals at home, and you can learn how to spot the good stuff when eating out.

We're going out this weekend to a steakhouse with some friends of hers, and we're planning to split the meal like usual. She wants to mess with the other wife, though; she demands the star treatment from her husband, so when we order, I'll ask for the NY Strip, and I'll say that my gf will just have the side salad. Once we get the steak, though, we'll slice that sucker in half and do our usual thing.

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