Prairie Native

To those who count calories to keep a certian wieght, how did you start and where do I look for the most accurate info? Ive calculated my BMR to be 1900 calories (without cycling) but this is where I have found some discrepencies. On some websites it lists biking at 16-19 miles an hour burning anywhere from 500-1000 calories per hour. What have you guys found to be the most accurate?

I need to lose some wieght (prolly 10-15 pounds). I am 6'2 and about 180, maybe a little less depending on the day. I am NOT fat by anymeans but have some stomach to lose (beer) and I feel being that much lighter will make me faster on the bike, plus I could get my 6pack back!

ANY other help is much appreciated. If you guys have a website you like or a routine that works let me know. A big concern of mine is not eating enough, I get really bad headaches and feel like crap if I go a work shift without eating because of forgetting my debit card. Should I plan on eating the majority of my calories before riding for the day and eating small after???? Thanks in advance.

Accordion

This is the best bike calorie calculator I have used:

https://bikecalculator.com/wattsUS.html

I received the link here at Bike Forums a couple years ago. It's WAY less than those online calculators. People with Power systems say that it is very accurate and comparable to their outputs.

I'm 200 pounds (roughly) and on three-hour 16mph rides I burn around 1200 calories. As you see it's quite a bit less than the 1000 calories per hour figure!

Prairie Native

f'N awesome! thanks!

Gearhead65

6 months and 40 lbs ago I started using Loseit! app on the iPhone to track calories intake and calories burned. It worked!!! Continuing to use it for maintaining weight. Went from 189 lbs to 149 lbs on 6'-0" frame.

icyclist 

"To those who count calories to keep a certian wieght"

That's very different from:

"I need to lose some wieght (prolly 10-15 pounds)."

Maintaing weight takes work. To lose weight is, as many bf members know, extremely difficult. To lose weight, you won't have to count calories, but you will have to differentiate between types of food.

Essentially, that means to cut back on (or stop eating) sugar. That includes sugars in sodas, candies and desserts, and even orange juice (have an orange but not a glass of OJ). Stop eating starches, too - pastas and potatoes, e.g. - because while not technically sugars, starches will quickly be turned into sugar.

And of course, keep exercising, including exercises that will help define your abs.

However, since you're 6'2" tall, and 180#, you don't need to lose weight, you need to redistribute and change it. You need to change the fat on your gut to muscle, and that doesn't mean losing 10 to 15 pounds.

umd

Although I don't count calories to maintain weight, if I ever want to lose weight I have to. I use MyNetDiary to track everything. Just simply thinking about stuff for entry usually has enough of an affect on my eating patterns.

As far as how much is burned through biking, the most accurate way to know is through a gas exchange respirator. Obviously that's overkill and not practical. A power meter is probably the next best, especially if you have done a gas exchange test in a lab to determine your efficiency. However the range of human efficiency is pretty narrow so this is not critical. Estimating power has it's own problems, but is probably still going to be better than most x speed = y calories calculators. HRM calorie counters can be ok but are heavily based on statistics which you may or may not match. The better ones take into account your resting HR, max HR and an approximation of your VO2. And of course your weight, age, etc. The absolute worst way is to use those generic exercise amounts that come with the food tracking sites.

Note, for the following, assume 1kJ of work (measured by a power meter) is roughly equal to 1kCal of food energy burned.

As for any kind of x calories per hour or y calories per mile, those will depend very much on how much you weigh and how hard you are working. For example, I did the same loop yesterday and today, but yesterday was a recovery pace where I did 383kJ of work in 50 minutes, and today was tempo where I did 513kJ of work in 40 minutes. Both were 14.1 miles, so yesterday was 27.4kJ/mile and 460kJ/hr but today was 36.4 kJ/mile and 770kJ/hr. That's a big difference. This was a relatively flat ride, the amount of climbing will decrease the amount per mile (for the same effort). And if I am really working hard, I can do over 1000kJ in an hour. And I'm a small guy, bigger people will burn even more because it takes more work to go the same distance. The bottom line is any kind of generic calories per mile or calories per hour will assume too much.

Randochap

And don't supersize it. The main issue with the obesity epidemic is that people have gotten used to gigantic portions. Put less on your plate and eat less, more often.

Stay away from restaurants that serve humungous portions of fat and sugar.

This is a much simpler approach than obsessing over every calorie. Changing eating habits in this way will take care of the calorie load.

DXchulo

Use this as an excuse to buy a power meter. Like umd said, assume that 1 kJ is 1 kCal, then log your food intake. You'll find that you can eat a lot if you dump the empty calories, so you should never feel too hungry.

icyclist 

+1 on the supersize issue.

By the way, OP, while you might not be aware of it, foods labeled on their packaging as "low fat" contain lots of sugars, and should be avoided in the quest to lose weight.

mtalinm

after a couple of weeks of looking up the # of calories in foods, you pretty much know how much you're consuming. then the trick becomes making it EASY to record the # of calories you're eating.

I use the blackberry app called Brio Calorie Tracker, which just lets me type in the food + calories instead of making me go through an annoying lookup like on the Livestrong Daily Plate app. it also keeps a list of recently-eaten foods so I can pick from the drop down easily.

I've done tons of diets, but calorie counting is the best b/c you can eat any type of food you want without feeling like you've "blown it." also, because you're counting calories you soon realize that the reason to avoid starchy carbs and sugar is not because they're "forbidden foods" but because they won't fill you up, and you'll be hungry again shortly, and then you'll bust your daily allowance.

I keep a spreadsheet with the following for each day:
1. weight
2. basal metabolic rate (calculated from weight)
3. calories burned in excess of basal metabolic rate
4. calories consumed
5. daily deficit (calculated from 2-4)

I then calculate what my weight SHOULD be based on my daily deficit. it comes out surprisingly close to what the scale says.

superdex

1) cut out processed foods
2) cut out as much butter as you can stand
3) cut your portions by a third

colombo357

Going for the Andy Schleck look I see. How's your performance?

colombo357

Good luck sustaining that.

Cutting out crap is one thing, staying hungry all the time is another. If the guy can maintain a weekly deficit of 2000-4000 calories (just by riding without cutting portions), that's enough. 1 lb a week, he'll be done losing weight right around labor day.

At least that's what he should do if he plans on staying trim for YEARS rather than weeks.

david_594

https://www.livestrong.com/myplate/

Has been very helpful for me. I've gone from 183#'s in march down to about 166# currently. Biggest things have probably been portion control and substituting healthier options.

I love cheeseburgs and make them frequently at home. Originally a 1/3 lb 85% patty, bun and cheese were about 550 calories. I've since switched to 1/3 lb 96% beef paties, wheat bun, 2% cheese and get something that is equally filling and only 360 calories. Eggbeaters for whole eggs. Miracle Whip Lite versus regular. An 8 ounce glass of soda instead of a full can. All the little things add up in the end.

Deli meats are pretty filling, low cal and low in fat so they have become a lunch staple. The little pre packed bags of chips ensure I don't go dishing out 2+ servings when I try to pack my own potato chips.

Now if only those 8oz cans of coke didn't cost twice as much as the 12oz cans i'd buy those in a heartbeat.

jasandalb

livestrong.com has a good tracker of food and your intake. Allows you to see how much protein/fat etc... you intake and what you have left before you reach your target caloric intake for the day.
1900 calories seems low....

I use the "Harris Benedict Equation" to be a bit more active.

Take your BMR and mulitply by the following for your category:

Sedentary = BMR x 1.2
Lightly Active = BMR x 1.375 (light exercise 1-3 days per week
Moderately Active = BMR x 1.55 (moderate exercise 3-5 days per week)
Very Active = BMR x 1.725 (vigorous exercise 6-7 days per week)

This allows you to find out what you need to maintain your weight... then if you plan on losing weight.. just factor in that one lb of fat is 3500 calories.

telebianchi

I lost 35+ lbs using fitday.com and a polar heart-rate monitor w/calories burned function.

A couple of things I did with that though:
I put in a higher-than-actual weight into fitday to calculate my "normal" calories burned per day (BMR) by about 5 lbs.
For activities in fitday, I always selected a lower intensity workout. So if I did a 15-16mph two hour ride, I would enter a 13-14mph two hour ride.
All calorie readings from the polar HRM were reduced by about 10%.

It took a couple of weeks to get things right, but then I lost 4 to 6 lbs a month for 7 months straight. Was this perfectly scientific? No. Did it work? Absolutley.

For counting calorie intake, I was fastidious about everything down to the teaspoon of sugar in my coffee to eating a handful of grapes. Use measuring cups and a scale when making your meals.

Check out the Nutrtion forum on BF for lots of good ideas and info.

Nachoman

Thanks for that link. I just signed up. I'll try it out.

joe_5700

Eliminate beer from your diet. Bye Bye beer gut. Worked for me and I do not miss it in the least bit.

kleinboogie

+1 on powermeter (kj = kcals), LoseIt (take the time to input custom foods and recipes, it's worth it). I lost 55 lbs with those two. And the bike of course. General guidelines are cut out the white death (flour, milk, sugar, some would say rice but that's my weakspot) as much as possible and combine foods wisely (protein/veggies, starch/veggies, fruit/veggies). Basically no protein/starch, like every meal in america, which is where the real advice about avoiding fast food applies. I burn about 600 cals per hour on a moderate ride (well below FTP) and 900 on an intense one (up and over FTP).

For months my diet was 2 eggs for breakfast, yogurt mid-morning snack, chicken salad for lunch, fruit for snack, meat / veggies for dinner. Lots and lots of sugarless gum to fight off cravings. Riding days was GU Drink and/or gels about 200-300 cals depending on the intensity/length. Long days was Infinit drinks and Clif Bars afterwards. GL

Nachoman

I went from being a heavy IPA drinker, down to limiting myself to one light beer, or one glass of wine, per evening. I lost a bunch of weight really quickly.

botto 

https://loseit.com/

Prairie Native

This is exactly what im doing. Keeping a log, of every single thing I take in. I think my biggest worry is calculating calories burned in excess of basal metabolic rate. Ill figure it out im sure. Funny thing is by most people's opinions im pretty skinny, but I used to be a lot more "cut" and have a VERY low fat %.

rooftest

+1. That sounds like the "Meth: Before and After" Diet.

krazygl00

I would suggest you not pay attention to how many calories you burn with exercise, for a few reasons.

First, because it is far more productive to measure calories from food intake. You can lose weight with diet and no exercise...it will be tedious, it will take a long time, and you'll probably feel like crap, but you can do it. Conversely, you cannot possibly lose weight if you exercise like a maniac but have no plan in place to limit calorie intake. The reason for this is that for any given amount of calories, it is far easier to fulfill the caloric requirement with food than it is to burn the calories with exercise. Go ahead, ride that 3-hour ride...but I bet I can nullify the calorie loss with the calories I could fit on one plate of food.

You have to go into a calorie deficit of 3500 calories -- regardless of your body weight -- to burn one pound of fat. So if you plan to ride enough to lose that in one week -- the bikecalculator.com site says that is 130-ish miles at about 16mph for a 180lb man. That's 8 hours of riding for the week. Personally I think that estimate is a little stingy; I tend to think about 40 cal/mile is closer to the truth, but that is still about 90 miles. In any case, you go out and do your 6-8 hours of riding to go into a 3500 calorie deficit. But the catch is that your body doesn't like that...it starts to get hungry and if you don't have a diet plan in place, you'll eat whatever you can get your hands on. Willpower always loses to hunger and the calories will creep into every meal and every snack. Trust me, it's easy.

You're far better off coming up with a good strategy for eating that limits calories (large volume/low calorie, eating 5 times per day, strategically using meal replacements and protein shakes, keeping a food journal) and getting a regular moderate amount of exercise. The keys are planning, developing a routine, controlling your environment and keeping records.

Diegomayra

I restrict my diet based on Food intake.
.
Highly recommend using a phone app