rousseau

All other things being equal, I'm discovering that I only lose weight if I walk. A lot. Yes, I'm a fattie who sits at his desk in his home office all day, and no matter how much riding I do, I just can't slim down from riding.

But a month ago I started doing an hour-long walk every day right after breakfast, and I've lost about five pounds or more. It's amazing. I think the key is that I'm doing it early in the day, so it kick starts the metabolism. Otherwise, I only ride in the evenings.

So I'm a confirmed walker now. And I'm profiting from it in ways I hadn't expected. Like, today I did a steep hill that I haven't been to in over a month, and holy Christmas, I nailed that sucker. Literally, I got to the end, and thought: is that it? I was practically dancing on the pedals all the way up, where before I used to almost grind to a halt in my lowest gear and come close to tipping over. But it's not just the hills; I'm going faster into the wind and on slight inclines and everything.

Walking. Who knew?

kgomez1992

I'm really glad you discovered what works for you! Have you tried a ride after breakfast instead of a walk? You could give that a shot!

rooftest

You're not watching your diet.

znomit

Walking is low intensity. It doesn't make you hungry. You could achieve the same from a slow ride.

Megiddo

I didn't start loosing weight until I started to count my calorie intake. I use the the free app https://www.loseit.com works for ipad/android/PC... maybe more, but it's what I have.

AK404

It also depends on what kind of riding you've been doing. Most people who come into my shop want to get a bike to lose weight, and I have to remind them to keep the gears relatively low so they can really spin the cranks around instead of pushing them to the monster wheels and letting the bike do all the work.

Ever since I started spinning instead of mashing, I've been noticing a small but noticeable weight loss.

Cookiemonsta

I'm no doctor.

But normal walking burning more calories than high intensity cycling? I just dont believe it.

I guess it depends on what kind of cycling you were doing. I imagine doing the same distance on foot instead of on a bike, the walking would be more helpful. For myself, cycling is the best way to stay in shape bar none. But a huge part of that is because I love it, unlike any other " cardio-like " exercise.

Bike Gremlin

Cycling burns amazingly small amount of callories. Compared to running, swimming and even walking. I'm sure high intensity clycling burns more callories per hour than just slow walking, but make that forrest/mountain hiking and if I remember well - it's pretty close.

One more thing. When riding in a good fast group I often find myself pushing A LOT more than I ever would alone. Both rides feel like a good several hour excercise, but when I'm on my own, it's just not as hard. Something to think about.

RiPHRaPH

low intensity riding burns more fat as a percentage of calories spent. But I suspect that the reason walking works is not due to the superior fat burn but due to the fact that a walk doesn't require you to eat and recover... so lower intensity does not have you reaching for replacement calories.

DaveWC

I don't find that to be true at all. If you know your power output from cycling you can easily estimate the calorie burn:

Calories = Avg Watts * 0.8604 / 0.24 = Calories for 1 hour

So if you're pushing 250 watts you'll burn about 900 calories per hour.

wphamilton

I'll back you up on that Rousseau. I didn't realize how much less I was walking after starting cycling, for four of five years. I found that I'd become downright weak walking, running, jumping. That's bound to impact getting out of the saddle on hills at least.

I believe the other part also, losing weight walking but not cycling. Well you can figure the calories, a fast walk is only about the same as a slow ride in calories per hour, but somehow the appetite and what your body does with the calories changes from one to the other.

StanSeven

Walking doesn't do much. I run a lot and running does make a difference with weight control as long as I don't eat later to make up for it.

The problem with cycling is all the "down" time. With running you start working as soon as you go and hardly stop. Cycling involves lights, intersections, traffic and backing off going down hills. While charts might say I'm burning X calories/hour, in reality it's less. The important thing is being realistic in how you spend the time cycling and make adjustments in your calorie estimates for starting out, cooling down, and waiting at lights.

Aeolis

I've lost about 20lbs since I started cycling 40 miles per day but I also pay attention to my diet. In the same time frame if I was running instead of cycling I coulda lost mmore but I hate running and would of ended up quitting.

Burn calories in a way you enjoy or you won't stick with it.

NWS Alpine

Diet aside, walking is perfect for reducing body fat %. Like mentioned above it usually puts you in the right aerobic heart rate zone that uses fat reserves but doesn't kick into anaerobic zones. HIIT will melt body fat and keep lean muscle mass. Think of a sprinters body composition and the interval training they focus on.

https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/drobson178.htm

Although at the end of the day diet diet diet. Calories in vs calories out.

Elduderino2412

You problem is probably your diet. It's as simple as you need to burn more calories than you intake. Depending on your fitness walking doesn't really elevate your heart rate much, so you won't burn many calories.

Gatorfreak

Being a fellow home office worker, I built up my desk to be higher and stuck a treadmill under it. Started walking 1mph for 8 hours/day while working. With no intentional dieting I lost 10 lbs slowly over a year. Might not sound like much but that's going from 153 to 143 lbs. Previously I was never able to get under 150 lbs and am now the lowest weight of my adulthood. I have to commute (by bike) to the office for half of my work days.

rousseau

I'm doing the walking in addition to the cycling, so I'm burning more calories in a day. That probably explains it. Well, that, and the fact that I'm doing the walking early in the day, too.

My typical routine used to involve getting up, walking twenty paces to my home office, and sitting. For ten hours. Or more. Only after that would I get on my bike. I'm obviously no expert, but somehow I think that my metabolism was in slow mode for most of the day, which made it impossible to burn calories. Nowadays I get back from my hour walk and I feel energized and refreshed for the rest of the day. It just feels right. I also need the resistance on the joints, as too much sitting broken up only by cycling was probably going to give me bone density problems down the road.

I've tried counting calories in the past. I can't do it anymore. I won't do it anymore. That's torture. And diets don't work, and they suck. Because the way you eat needs to be a lifetime achievement, so what works for me is minor modifications that I can slowly adapt to. Things like: stop eating donuts every day, just have one every other day. And then, eventually, I'll be brave enough to only have a donut twice a week. That's where I'm at now. Baby steps.

AMFJ

I see a lot of cyclists who are out riding doing something like "pedal, coast, coast coast, pedal, coast coast coast etc. They are also throwing down serious amounts of gels, cliff bars, energy drinks, etc.

I'm not saying this is you, but as I tell my GF a lot, just because you are on the bike it doesn't mean you are exercising. If you are going to coast you might as well be on the couch watching TV.

You get out of cycling exactly what you put into it. You can fake it all day long. You can't fake running, walking, nor swimming. If you are losing more weight walking than cycling I would examine how you are cycling. A good bike computer will let you upload your data. Looking at the ride as a whole will give you a lot of insight. My first year I thought I was killing it. Then I started looking at my data and realized how much I was faking it on those rides.

If nothing else, riding a bike is much more fun than walking.

TrojanHorse

Sounds like I'm in very similar shoes to you - work at home most days. Traffic near my son's school is horrible, so I started parking a half mile away and walking my son & dog (I usually add some on the end for 2 miles total), which is only about a half hour but I've found that it also benefits in the same ways you did. My dog likes it too.

Bike Gremlin

Just took one sentence out of context. You could read the whole post, as well as take a look:

https://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist3.htm

I was amazed. Thought cycling was a lot more calorie burning. Yes, 250 watts. But that's like full throttle. Like hiking fast up a hill, or running at almost full speed.

Elduderino2412

according to that chart just 20mph for an hour is almost equal to 11mph running 5.5 miles(11mph running is very intense). Seems pretty calorie intensive to me, Cycling is like anything else. Get your heart rate up, burn calories. If you cycle for an hour should burn almost 1000 calories. Which is one meal basically.
Running is more efficient way to burn calories, but it's more stress on the body

DaveWC

It was hardly out of context. You said that cycling burns amazingly small amount of calories, period. I disagreed. I also provided a useful formula to determine how many calories a person would burn if they know their power output. Maybe 250w is full throttle for you, but not for me. It's immaterial as I provided the means to determine what your calorie burn would be.

As it turns out the link you gave is very accurate for me, showing at 180lbs, vigorous activity I would burn about 858 calories per hour. When I run at the same perceived effort, I manage 9 minute miles which would equate to 899 calories per hour. So again, I dispute the idea that cycling burns amazingly small amount of calories. Your chart shows that it burns about double the calories of a very brisk walk. I'd much, much rather cycle for 2 hours at 250w power output than walk for 4 hours at a 4 mph pace.

rousseau

No one's replacing riding with walking. Buddha forbid! The point I was making was adding walking early in the day to my daily routine.

And while exercise is exercise in terms of power output, coasting is the nature of the beast when you're cycling. I do it a lot. Coasting rules.

PedalingFool

I was at a weight loss plateau for a while and switched from bike riding to walking last week...
The weight's been going down again... when I plateau again I'll either go back to the bike or try running... it's good to change activities once in a while.

dolanp

This is most likely the phenomenon you are experiencing. Track your calories and reveal the truth.