Luddite

I'm confused. My weight has gone up a little bit and yet my clothes still fit the same. I'm actually trying to work off 10 lbs I gained over the last year, slowly. I have several evil hills during my daily commute to and from work. Am I replacing fat with muscle? I'm ok with that, mostly.

BTW, I'm a girl.

prathmann

Probably. Muscle tissue is more dense than fat so you might gain weight while remaining the same size or even getting a little smaller. Muscle also has greater energy demands so it'll help you lose weight in the future at a given calorie intake.

Luddite

Would this happen even though I only have a 16 km daily commute? (8km there and back) it seems like such a tiny distance...

black_box 

how do you feel during/after the commute? are you going faster?

drew55

It's still buring calories and replacing fat with muscle that will eventually burn yet more calories. While it may seem small, if you previously drove it, and changed nothing else, eventually you will lose weight as well.

melkman

if you are gaining weight but your clothes are still fitting then it is muscle. scales are useless and i wouldn't recommend using them. go by how your clothes fit.

pacificaslim

If your goal is to weigh less, and you aren't getting there, then you are eating too many calories. The cycling is burning about 400 calories a day (figure 25 calories per KM) and yet you are still gaining weight so you must be overeating by at least that much a day. If all the extra weight is going on as muscle, you may not mind it. But regardless of the percentage of fat vs. muscle, the only way a human body can get heavier is if we put something into our bodies through our mouth.

melkman

weighing less should never be you goal because weight doesn't mean anything. a fat 130# and a fit 130# weigh the same but look drastically different. scales can be very discouraging and should be used only maybe once a month. best advise i've heard is to take a picture of your self in your underwear (no one has to see it) and put it away. then take another picture once a month in the same underwear and same lighting and compare them with the old one. you might weigh the same but you will start looking better and your clothes will start to get looser. only time i weigh myself is when i go to the doctor.

peloton1967

I've been going through the exact same thing. I'm 42 (a "boy") and I got fat after college and graduate school. When I started riding again (I was a road racer many years ago), I lost 20 pounds. Then I've found this year that though the scale says I've actually put on weight, my clothes fit better, etc. etc. So, I felt like I had put on muscle weight while reducing body fat. I hope so...and I'm hoping that in time I'll begin to drop more weight. I ride hard 5-6 days a week, including longer rides of 40-50 miles on the weekends. My problem is that after longer rides I'm ravenous and go at the refrigerator like ugly on a monkey. I'm not riding hungry as I've taken some good advice on pre-ride nutriton, etc. In the end, I guess I have put on muslce, but I've stagnated on weight loss because I'm a pig after the ride...if my wife would chain me the water pipe in the basement after my ride, I think I could get back down to my racing weight...

kache_98

Are you weighing yourself at the same time of the day, under the same conditions on the same scale? If the answer is "no" then is probably water weight/food weight ect (The body goes through +- 5lbs changes during the day). If the answer is "yes", then you're probably just putting up some muscle and getting even hotter.

jkala

I'm in the same boat, but I have 30+ lbs to lose, I dropped a clothing size, but have not lost a pound.