At my fastest (Cat 2)–I ranged from about 80 to 83 kilos at almost exactly 183 cm tall. My abilities always felt curtailed when I weighed under 80 kg but I’m now way above 100 kg as I haven’t really trained very hard for the last couple of decades. I have to be honest that I’ve also turned into an emotional eater, and have had a lot of trouble with stress eating because of my job. Talk about curtailed performance!
I do know that to be a successful masters racer, I need to be back, at the very least, near 85 kg. Anyone else figured out a way to stave off emotional eating in a mid-career phase of a busy life, when one still doesn’t have more than 10 hours to train? I don’t drink alcohol, which I do know helps me somewhat in not putting on extra weight. Meditation, yoga, walks? The occasional smoke? (half kidding).
I’ve found that I had to remove any trigger foods from my home. I can’t eat chips (crisps) or pretzels in moderation - a bag is a single serving, no matter the size. Same with ice cream, I need a minimum of a pint to feel like I’ve had enough to satisfy me. So, if it’s not in the pantry, I can’t eat it.
I make sure to have plenty of low calorie substitutes - fruit, carrot sticks, pickles, popcorn. I mix Greek yogurt with protein powder and freeze it in popsicle molds to help satisfy my ice cream fix. I do allow myself to have ice cream once a week, pizza occasionally, and plenty of other things I like, but I buy them the same day I intend to eat them.
This is partly how I’ve lost 28 pounds since February.
I plan and track my calories. I may occasionally have an extra couple unplanned fig cookies, but then I’ll eat a bit less pasta for dinner. Without a number to track and hit, I could easily eat the entire package of fig cookies in one sitting out of boredom/procrastination.
For a few months now, I’ve lost weight and continued to raise my FTP, so we’ll see how long that continues.
I am also a emotional eater. I was able to loose 45 KG (almost 100 lbs) over a year and I kept it off for over 12 years now. Some things I learned:
Eat mostly food that is not calorie dense (vegetables, whole grains legumes) and lots of low fat protein (chicken, tofu, legumes…). This will make you feel satiated without eating too many calories.
Don’t buy processed food. If you are busy, do some meal prep.
Don’t buy food “trigger food”. If you don’t have chocolate, chips, ice cream etc. at you house, you can’t eat it.
Periodize your diet. Eat enough carbs before and during training. This will help you perform better and you will not eat as much afterwards. Eat less carbs on low volume or recovery days. Apps like Hexis can help with that.
Don’t smoke but the idea is good. Find something you can do instead of eating. Like good coffee or tea (without sugar). Keep snacks around that are low calorie like cucumbers or carrots.
Wow, that’s awesome! That’s easily how much I need to lose by the spring to even be halfway successful, especially in crits. I’m also playing some USTA tennis next year, which means I’ve absolutely got to be lean when a few of those tournaments hit. (I realize bike racing + tennis is a weird combo, but I lose my mind just competing in one sport anymore, lol).
Funny I bumped the Dialed Health podcast for this in my queue this morning so won’t get to it until the drive home tonight:
Also episode about emotional eating.
I’ve got nothing against Derek but there is a big difference in getting back to ideal body comp when its 10lbs vs 50 80 even 100lbs or more in many cases. Emotional eating is something else entirely.
If you are looking to lose 20kg/40lbs+ you kind of need to remove the cycling from it. You can workout and ride your bike but to be in a deficit you need to make those kinds of meaningful changes it is very very hard to fuel the workouts. It can be done, but it isn’t easy and it can just add another layer to the mental stress of it as FTP possibly drops or you can’t complete workouts because of being under fueled.
I’m down about 25lbs in the past 100ish days. I did make FTP (re)gains in that time but hit a point I couldn’t make progress and finishing workouts became brutal. I’ve since taken the past few weeks to just eat mindfully but not in a deficit, get back to some lifting to regain the muscle (~6lbs) I lost and then revisit the deficit while getting back on the bike but only to maintain.
I guess my point is anecdotes about getting back into fitness as a fit person is one thing. But weight loss and cycling kind of start to diverge when you need to cut significant weight. Emotional eating is something else entirely and food isn’t the root of the problem.
