A snickers and a can of coke are like 450 calories. Just how slow are these 2 hour rides?

you win the thread. </internets>

well..if it's a king size it is 440 calories alone.

Even at 590 calories thats less than a good 2 hour ride should be.

Exercise is a limited factor when it comes to weight loss and maintaining a healthy weight is mostly about what you eat and how much you eat.

If you want to drop weight to improve your power to weight ratio (and perhaps lose that extra 10 pounds that refuses to budge), you have to adopt a diet that will promote that weight loss.

Most of the cyclists I know are carb junkies and a lot of those carbs are not the good kind; many power gels they sell contain a bad mix of sugars in that they use fructose which does not metabolize like glucose and actually triggers hunger rather than suppress it.

Spend a day bombing it on the road where you are putting back gels or other fructose loaded supplements or foods and you will come off the bike hungrier than you really are and this can lead to over-eating. A lot of people do not realize how fructose is different from glucose and how it does not trigger the hormones that let us know we are full and fuelled up. The extra fructose that does not get burned gets turned into fat while extra glucose is converted into glycogen.

The folks who down a candy bar and a soda on a ride are probably getting more glucose than they need and half of the sugar in those foods will be fructose which will end up as fat since it was not required for the level of activity.

On an evolutionary perspective, fruit consumption was an excellent way to build fat stores for times when food sources were limited... our bodies can produce all off the glucose / glycogen it needs for normal levels of activity and we are not designed to be sprinters or high speed animals, we are built for endurance.

I practice a low carb diet / lifestyle and it is not some crazy paleo or Atkins diet... we avoid all processed foods and don't eat sugar, and limit to carbs according to our needs and goals.

I have not been riding nearly as much this winter as I have in past years and am still at my race weight... I got there by eating a lot of higher fat foods and keeping my carbs under 100 grams a day.

My wife stays under 20 grams a day (with no calorie restriction) as she has been working to lose post surgical weight and has lost almost 50 pounds since summer during a poeriod when her activity levels have been reduced.

when you find out let me know, for I am a chubby cyclist. Fast & powerful but with a belly

I think the questions already been answered. I was where you are once and thought there was no answer. Its just that there weren't any that I liked.

I think the error is assuming everyone in lycra on a road bike is out there pounding the pavement 10+ hours per week. Even Cat 3's don't need to train that much to be competitive racers. IME, without restricting calories through diet, if you want to burn enough calories to sustain weight loss it comes down to volume. At ~100 miles a week of cycling I didn't lose a pound. When I started ride at least 150 miles a week the weight fell off. One other variable is climate. If you live in a cold climate than winter, for most, means cutting back considerably on cycling volume which is bad for the waistline.

snickers bars are great for longer rides.

and just for eating in general.

This has been my MO for 5 or 6 years now. Additionally I perform another ~1.5 hours of week of core and light upper body stuff. I don't watch my diet at all, and drink lots with co workers and friends.

Granted, I'm young (27), and only have a full time salary position and a girlfriend to juggle outside of cycling. If I had additional time commitments, like a real family with children, and/or health issues that prevented me from riding so much, I would be very overweight with my current lifestyle. Still some guys manage to be thin and fit with a career and a family.

I still think that Merlin's post on the first page sums this thread up quite nicely. I'll post it again:

To the OP.....

.... because life is too short to worry about pointless questions like this one....

very true, you can ride 10 miles an hour for hours and comparatively little energy used or you can ride 17-20 miles an hour and get a real workout.

I'm skinny, but since I've been riding I've lost a few pounds.

Likely even shorter if you're one of those fat ones.

This is the truth. I've been on group rides where guys are pulling over every 20 miles for a Coke and a Snickers bar. Then at the end its pizza and beer. Generally, people grossly overestimate the calories they burn...as if cycling is some kind of magic super-activity that burns 1,000 calories every 30 minutes.

Plus, cycling is an easy sport for a fat guy. You sit on a bike and pedal. Running can destroy a fat-guys knees and is generally a lot more intense than cycling can be (meaning riding at a casual pace is a lot easier than running at a casual pace).

I pedal about 100 miles per week.
I'm not fat. But let's just say I'm pleasingly plump.

I'm above average? Sweet!

He's not kidding. Once, without my knowing, my wife timed me eating a Big Mac. While driving. And talking. 45 seconds. No mess. Didn't talk with my mouth full. I wasn't even trying.

Doesn't that depend on how, "big" you are (height, weight, etc)

Sort of, but even with height/weight disregarded, it's a safe bet that less than 50% (likely far less than 50%) of the riders here will have a FTP of 222watts.

dont know why, but that really disgusts me.
how can ppl be so unaware of themselves.

This is it in a nutshell. Most of the calorie calculators out there, be they on your Garmin or via a site like Strava, overcalculate calories burned and most people don't eat sensibly following a ride so they don't actually end up burning nearly as much as they think they do. Regardless of the sport someone does, nutrition is key. You have to put the right amount of "smart" calories in on an ongoing basis and not replace too much following a vigorous workout.

The biggest issue, though, is eating right is hard. You ideally should do several small meals in a day and that all takes a lot of dedication and some prep time. In my experience, only really zealous amateur athletes or fitness junkies are willing to put in that effort.

OK. Fine. The only healthy people around have 5% or less body fat. You should be able to count their ribs. They should be able to walk into an anorexia clinic without being questioned. Tyra Banks and Jennifer Lawrence are just chubby, not the slightest bit attractive.

Geez.

Pursuant to the posts above, I met a women on a Populaire that was built like a fire hydrant. She'd completed an Iron Man and left me in the dust. She was also great in the sack.

That last sentence was not based on personal experience.

I think it's more a misunderstanding situation than anything else.

Cyclists seem to OBSESS over calories on the ride. It's probably from seeing the pros with their long multiday tours and long all-day races, where it's really crucial to fuel well.

However, for anything under 2.5hrs, it's almost a negligible effect. Runners who burn even more calories than cyclists routinely do 3hr races on no calories whatsoever, and never blame underperformance on 'not eating enough during the race.'

Yet on 41 and elsewhere, it's pretty standard advice that you apparently 'need' sugar even for 1hr TTs. And I'm going to get flamed completely for even suggesting otherwise, even though the minimal need for fueling on <3hr hard race efforts has been decisively shown in running both at elite (sub 5 min miles) and amateur levels. And no, you don't burn so many more calories cycling than running.

so true. so true.

After hours of contemplation, I have the answer: cyclists are so fat because they want to be, a respected frame builder once said that an acceptable weight for a bike should be no more then 10% of the weight of the cyclist. Therefore, 260lb=28lb bike 180lbs=18lb bike, 120lb=12lb bike. Blame it on the bike.