on days i dont ride i can eat a house
 

the past three days its been raining and i have been at work most of the day. when i get out i come home and am too tired to set up trainer and do a half hour or so on it. i do commute by bike t and from work each day, but its a short 6 mile round trip that i dont usually figure into my yearly miles.

lately i have been HUNGRY all the time! especially on the days i dont ride i feel like im hungry for the whole day and have to really work hard to make sure i dont eat a whole bag of doritos! im assuming it is from my metabolism(sp?) but is it going to hurt me by putting on pounds?

also, what are the best ways you have all found to avoid snacking and such? i really want to rid myself of the small spare tire i have around my waist.



(over venting, waiting for replies)

Recovery days I usually eat a lot of fruit, salad and veggies for this same reason. It helps.

What works for me is to have 6 small/medium sized meals daily, eating every 2.5 - 3 hours or so. That way you control your hunger and don't overeat at any particular meal. It also helps curb your cravings, because you know your next meal is just around the corner anyway. I tend to eat breakfast at 6:45am, morning snack at 9:30am, lunch at noon, afternoon snack at 3pm, dinner between 6-6:30pm and a evening snack at 9:30pm. Each time can vary about +- 15 minutes, I'm not so regimented that I HAVE to eat at the exact same time every day, but my habits and routines are pretty stable.

I try to balance the number of calories throughout the day, and also have a reasonable balance between carbs and protein for each meal. I use FitDay to track what I eat, and my activities. On the average I found I consume about 2200 calories a day, except for some Saturdays when I do a 45-60 mile ride, where the total calorie consumption for the day is around 3000 calories.

Before I started doing this I would be starved for lunch, and starved for dinner. Nowadays, I'm hardly ever hungry. Using FitDay is great to make sure you keep your balance between calories burned and calories consumed.

Oh. I am 6'2" and 167lbs.

Yes Fitday is a great tool and I use it too. The healthy snacking is the key for me. I eat breakfest 630am, a banana or apple around 930am, then lunch at 11 to 12ish, then an afternoon snack like a granola bar around 3pm, dinner at 5pm to 7pm ish, and if needed a light snack around 830pm. Good luck.

i just need to suround myself with more healthy snacks. my room mates keep crap around the house and it just yells for me to eat it. i have a bad sweet tooth.

im thinking of starting a new eating plan though so i hope that will help

Yeah, just don't restrict yourself of a certain kind of food. It bites back in the end. :) Just don't over do it on any food. Don't sit there and snack. Make yourself busy with something around the house or just leave and go around town. Munch lightly.

Thats what I do. :)

true. i have the bad habit of taking something totally out of my diet like chocolate. then when im at work (at starbucks) i end up eating all the damn pastries. im surprised im only 183 lbs (6 foot). im right on the cusp of over weight by most bmi charts.

someone please give me some helpfull hints!!! i wanna look good naked!

For snacks, buy dill pickles.

I don't want no pickle, I just want to ride my bi-sickle.

With apologies to Arlo.

Az

My God! That happens to me too! The days I train, I'm fine & hardly want to eat. The days (like today) that I don't train - I just can't stop munching. Does anyone have a scientific answer as to why this might happen? Or is this a pyschological thing because we have more time on our hands? What do you think?

I think it's your body responding to all the work that you did the day before. If you worked hard, you're body is trying to recover/improve, and it needs calories to do that.

That makes sense. Hard when you're trying to lose weight though. Have to make sure I have lots of good healthy snacks around.

Exactly!

lots of smaller meals. Eating 6-8 times may sound like the fast track to adding pounds but honestly when I think of eating the typical "3 square meals" I can't help but laugh and roll my eyes. Those are the people are gorge themselves 3 times a day, have insulin working against them almost all day, are catabolic for most of the 24 hours in a day, and are cooooonstantly snacking. If you eat 400 calories 7 times a day, that's 2800 calories. I'm not sure what your maintanance level of calories, or your basal metabolic rate (BMR), but that's the amount of calories you can eat per day and not gain or lose weight. Just do some math and figure out what you can eat at each meal. The only rules I have for myself is to avoid sugar except for the 2 hour window around my workout and avoid excessive fats. Fat is important in test. production as well as general health and energy production, so don't try to completely cut it out.

look into oatmeal, either old fashion or steel cut. They're very carb dense, steel cut being more so, and they're carbs are very low GI so they take hours to burn. You won't encounter a "sugar rush" and "sugar crash" and won't have issues with insulin and fat storage.

and I'm guessing the reason for the off day munchies is due to the catabolic state you're in, especially if you didn't eat so well on the training day before. Glycogen stores are probably low and muscles are beaten up and torn down. Your body knows when it needs food, eat eat eat!!!