Laura007

I'll try to make this short and sweet.
3 months ago, I was a couch potato. Walked on my treadmill occasionally, but nothing more than that.
2 months ago, I bought a bike! I ride at least 4 times a week. My average speeds now are 12mph, and I always go over 10 miles total. My biggest ride is 17 miles. I am progressing well I think, picking up the speeds, purposely taking routes with big hills, etc.
Instead of losing weight, Im GAINING!
Now, Im hoping its muscle coming in quicker than fat burning off.
Diet is actually really good. Im a freak about what I put into my body. No junk food, chips, mcdonalds, etc. I love veggies, salads are my favorite thing ever!
Also, not only do I cycle, but Im also lifting weights on my off days. Mainly chest arms and back.
Any clue as to why my body is fighting this new lifestyle of mine?
(I should point out though, that there are changes in my body. My legs are looking good, and lets not get started on how good my heart feels! Just nothing on the scale after 2 months!)

Beaker

You don't mention what you weigh or your BMI - not prying, but that might give a sense of the trajectory you're looking to be on. FWIW, I'll bet that if you can keep increasing your mileage this problem will go away. If you can get in the 100-150miles/week range, this'll probably be a different situation. Do you eat/drink much on your rides? After the rides?

Congrats on getting hooked.

poxpower

For losing weight, it doesn't matter what you eat, what matters is how many calories it amounts to.
You can eat as healthy as you want and still be a lardass if you take in more calories than you burn.

As far as muscle goes, expect to gain 0.5-1 pound a month AT BEST. So if you gained 5 pounds this month, that ain't muscle.

Laura007

Current weight as of today is 160. Im not sure on the BMI. My rides arent really long enough for snacks during, but water is always present, during rides and throughout the day. I will admit to not eating breakfast on a regular basis. Terrible, I know. My mileage does need to increase, not only for weightloss, but there is a ride at the beginning of October that I really want to do.
It just seems odd to me that going from 0-60 in 2 seconds hasnt resulted in a change on the scale.

electrik

Your body composition and health may be changing for the better. However, it takes maybe a year to put on say 2lbs of real muscle. Probably longer for a woman. Emptying and filling your fat stores happens much faster. You maybe also be retaining a lot of water if you're pushing hard on the muscles, since they swell up to protect themselves and this causes them to take on water. IF this was the case you'd be urinating a lot and noticing large weight fluctuation on your off-days from the gym

People also burn fat from different areas at different rates, there is no "spot" reduction - people can have round middles and super low body-fat on the legs or the opposite - it depends on genetics.

Anyway, congrats on doing something and not being another sedentary person.

electrik

Yes, witness the twinkie diet... but lets be honest, garbage in garbage out. Living off twinkies and vitamins would probably lead to crazy inflammation and no real heath gains.

Machka 

"They" do say that people need to exercise 60-90 minutes a day, every day, in order to lose weight. If you're not there yet, don't just jump up to 90 minutes but start to build toward that direction.

And those 60-90 minutes do not have to be all at once or all in one activity. You could go for a 45 minute bicycle ride and a 15 minute walk at two different times of the day for 60 minutes of exercise. Or 20 minutes of weight lifting, and 20 minutes of walking, and a 50 minute bicycle ride to get to 90 minutes.

Even just being more active throughout the day helps ... walk up the stairs rather than taking the elevator, park at the far end of the parking lot in order to walk to get your groceries, take the kids to the park and run around with them, during commercial breaks jog up and down the stairs in your building, walk around the house, skip rope, etc., at lunch go for a brisk walk, do a lap around your building every couple hours while at work ......

poxpower

Yep.
Want to lose weight? Any weight? Then eat less than you burn. Doesn't matter WHAT you eat.

You don't have to do one second of cardio or eat one chicken breast salad.

And yes, this is bad for your health

If you want to lose only fat, you have to watch what you eat. When you're losing weight, your body likes to nibble on a little bit of everything, not just fat, unless you feed it enough. The best way to do this is to eat the amount of calories you'd need to maintain your weight if you weren't doing any exercise and THEN do the exercise on top of that.
If you're just starting out, it will take you months to lose 5 pounds doing this but your fitness will be at its best.
The more calories you cut as compared to what you burn, the more likely it is that your body will go after other things than fat to feed itself.

The slower you lose weight, the better. But who has the patience?

Twinkie diets are RAD.

Machka 

If for some reason you don't have time for 60-90 minutes per day, that's when you've got to significantly cut down on the number of calories you consume.

For the past couple months, I've only been walking 40-60 minutes per day during the week, and cycling for a couple hours each day on the weekend ... which really isn't enough to lose weight. Winter = dark and chilly in the evenings. However, I've been losing weight because I've made significant changes to my diet ... mainly to the number of calories.

kevin_stevens

The other thing that will help is to mix in some anaerobic weights. You can't really lose much weight directly through exercise - just not enough hours in the day. But conversely, what *will* help is if you get your *metabolism* up. If you can increase your base burn rate by 5%, that's working for you 24/7.

KeS

ericm979

If you are feeling good and getting fitter, don't worry about the scale. Yes I know that's difficult for a woman in our culture. But as you get fitter and ride more, you'll start losing weight.

gregf83 

It's not too difficult to lose 1 lb/week on 1 hr/day of aerobic exercise while keeping caloric intake constant. There's no need for weights unless you want to get stronger.

gregf83 

Riding a bike is primarily an aerobic activity and will not generally build muscle, particularly riding at 12MPH. The most likely explanation for the weight gain is that the riding has stimulated your appetite and you are eating more.

Keep at the riding and try to increase the time and intensity you ride each week. Also, start carefully monitoring how much you are eating. Sites like fitday.com are useful to help you track your inputs and outputs. If you can create a caloric deficit you will lose weight.

stonefree

You could try avoiding polyunsatured oils and use saturated oils instead, like in the salad dressing, but I know that it's difficult. Studying the labels is a pain, only to find out that you can't avoid them very easily.

Ducking down behind my heatshields now.

Beaker

Repeating for emphasis, just ride more miles each week and then see where you get in a few months time.

stonefree

Yeh two more months and nothing on the scale. And the another two more after that.

PatW

Something to remember, it is awfully hard to lose fat merely by exercising. It can be done. But many people go out and exercise for 30 minutes and then figure that they can eat a giant hot fudge sundae and still lose weight. It just isn't so.

I figure it takes me about 70 miles of riding to burn off a lb of fat. And I would too but I almost never ride that far without increasing my caloric intake.

If you are careful about watching your diet and exercise also, the combination can be very effective.

Oh another thing, it is easy to have "hidden" calories in your diet. Salads are often big offenders because salad dressings are often LOADED with calories. A person thinks that they are being "good" by eating a salad but with the dressing, they would do better eating a sandwich.

Machka 

Or don't use dressings at all.

I usually have about 1.5 - 2 cups of lightly boiled veggies at lunch these days ... since Easter, since I've started losing weight. In the beginning, I put a little bit of margarine in with the veggies after I boiled them, but the last couple weeks I've dropped that as well. So I eat only the veggies at lunch. And I rarely use salad dressing.

andrizzle

^ this is not good advice.

It makes me feel like this


1. It matters a great deal what you eat. I don't feel like writing a small book about it here but please watch this documentary for a good overview of it. Food Matters It's on Netflix.

2. Though it's true you're body takes energy from multiple sources, you can help it take moar from the fat. L-Carnitine . Take one of these in the morning on an empty stomach. It tells your body to use the "fat" energy before the "muscle" energy.

There is too much to be said here. Please just research. If you're serious, weight loss and health is just around the corner.

late

Dr Oz

https://www.doctoroz.com/

Btw, some of that weight gain (or even all of it) is muscle.

Muscle is good. Women tend not to appreciate it enough.

Carbonfiberboy 

It's very common to gain weight early in an exercise program. There are several things that happen. Blood volume increases. Glycogen storage increases. Muscle repair increases inter and intracellular fluid volumes. All these are good things. Don't worry about it.

As your fitness increases, your wattage, meaning your ability use food energy to move the bike, will increase. Your exercise hours per week will gradually go up. Muscle burns more calories than fat. All these things will burn more calories per week. Your appetite may even decrease if you work at consuming smaller portions at any one time. At meals, quit eating while still a little hungry and have a cup of tea or coffee. Then have a snack an hour later if you didn't gauge it right. It's a slow process if you do it right. Besides the scale, use a tape. The scale can lie, but the tape doesn't.

The only real problem is positive reinforcement. You have to get it from the bike, not the scale or tape. I think you've already figured that out. One can be too rich and too thin. Our society doesn't do a good job of valuing things.