Eating before riding?
 

I usually ride during the week after I get home from work around 6pm, I'm only riding about 9-10 miles(riding as fast as I can). I do need to lose another 20#(I've hit a plateau with my weight loss, I've already lost 51# - I started dieting 9/20/10), but by the time I get home from work I'm usually hungry. Should I be eating a snack of some sort maybe on the drive home? Maybe something like an apple? Any suggestions or advice? Thank you in advance.

Well for 10 miles you don't need to eat anything as far as keeping up your energy goes.
If you're hungry and it's a problem, eat something and eat that many calories less at other times in the day. For instance, if you eat a banana as a snack on the drive home, then eat 100 calories less for breakfast or 50 calories less for diner and lunch.

Personally I find something like an apple or a banana decently filling, but it'll only last for like 20 mins. If you want to eat bananas, I suggest eating them pretty green, those are harder to eat because they're not ripe and sit longer in the stomach than when they get nice and yellow/brown. I've also found that eating an entire apple as fast as you can fills you up for a couple mins. I'd stay away from any energy / granola bars or nuts as those won't fill you at all unless you eat like 900 calories of them. Same goes for any sandwich / bread / meat. All terrible low calorie filling snacks.

If you can stomach raw vegetables, eat those. Broccoli, cauliflower, radishes, carrots, celery -- all stuff that's hard to eat, fills you up and has almost no calories. If you're really hardcore you'll eat an onion.

It's up to you but I would eat if I was hungry. Have a bowl of cereal before your ride. If you're trying to lose weight I'd also extend the length of your evening rides.

If I do an evening workout, I generally eat a snack before, something like the fruit mentioned above or a cup of yogurt.

Thanks, I appreciate the advice and suggestions. I've been eating too many of 'granola or peanut' bars(Snack Wells, Planter's Big Nut Bar, Power Bar Pure & Simple, LaraBars), thinking that I needed to have more protein at a meal or snack.

If you want protein you could always eat canned tuna. Get just the white tuna in water. I add lemon juice to it so it doesn't taste so much like shoe anymore. Has 40 grams of protein for 220 calories. Takes longer to eat than a bar and it doesn't trigger that "OMG THIS IS WAY TOO DELICIOUS" cascade effect that nuts and sugary crap has that makes you want to eat another and then another and then another.

The only problem with Tuna / salmon is the mercury. A can a day is too much, I've heard. 2-3 per week is apparently fine.

Wished I liked tuna. You are correct about the 'trigger' effect - so true.

Sometimes I'll just have 15g flavored whey protein in a half glass of water. This stops the hunger thing remarkably well, though not always. I've also noticed that if I ride without eating, the hunger thing frequently goes away while I ride. It usually comes on at about 45 minutes, but if I ignore it, it will go away for about that long again. However, I don't ride hard when I'm doing this! If I'm going to ride hard, I need to eat something before or during. You might be able to get away with just taking a bottle of sports drink -Accelerade, Cytomax, HEED or equivalent. About 150 calories/bottle. Start sipping this as soon as you start and continue at about 1 bottle/hr.

Pppp Bbbbb & Jjjjjjjjj - Heavy on the jelly...