Skipping meals, following diet fads, and not eating foods you like has caused my in-laws weight to yo-yo in their 30s and 40s and 50s. However some on this thread can make it work!! For me it’s not sustainable.
My weight gains were from a sedentary job, and eating healthy but lacking discipline on portion control. And escapism in drinking too many hearty high calorie beers. Again a portion control issue. Now firmly into middle age what works for me has been to increase protein intake, appropriate portions of food I enjoy, cutting back on beer, always doing some mobility/strength work, and increasing calorie burn on the bike.
Ultimately to lose it and keep it off, I believe it comes down to making small changes in your life. It’s possible to change your lifestyle (for example switching to keto) but at the risk of it not being sustainable.
You make it sound so easy but above you posted that you still want to loose 20 more pounds.
I’m not trying to criticize but just want to say that it’s not that easy for some people. Especially, I’ve found that last 10-15 pounds exceedingly difficult in my 50s.
I’ve lost a lot of weight. My weight peaked around year 2005 - probably 260. I lost the bulk by calorie counting, raising consciousness, and making my diet healthier and healthier.
I started riding seriously again about 7-8 years ago and that led to little extra weight loss but nothing dramatic. When I was in my 20s, 100+ miles per week would have magically shed the weight to race weight by July.
Two years ago I got down to 192 with herculean efforts and 12 hours per week of base miles. As soon as I stopped counting calories, my weight popped up 3 pounds for a net loss of 4 pounds over three months of working hard on it. I never hit the 180s which would have been the goal weight.
I gained 10 pounds over the first year of covid and have been at 205 since. The diet is pretty darn healthy at this point but I haven’t wanted to go meal to meal hungry or sacrifice watts on a calorie deficit.
Not easy. Discipline. Losing another 20 pounds will put me where I was in my mid 20s. Seven years ago I was 10 pounds lighter but looked skinny fat so I started working out in the gym. Losing weight while gaining muscle and increasing on bike fitness is a delicate balance. Easiest to do over 4 months of base training, and then training gets too hard and I plateau weight until base comes around again. FWIW I rarely count calories (except to recalibrate portion control), we’ve always eaten a lot of raw and cooked plants/veggies/fruit and so even at sixty it really comes down to calories in (portion control) and calories out (mostly aerobic exercise). Up the burn, trim the calories, and it slowly falls off. First month I target 2 pounds a month, then minor tweaks to bring it up to 3-4 pounds/month. Patience and discipline.
My wife has weighed the same her entire adult life, a bit frustrating for those of us that lack her discipline.
For me the process is actually easy once I am truly dialed in and focused on the diet portion. I know what works for me and what to eat and how to train during periods of weight loss. My problem is I get lazy and and regain the weight easily. I am the definition of yo-yo the past few years. I also get over confident because I know I can lose the weight so if I gain some back I don’t worry about it. Next thing you know I’m 200+ again.
I never stop training as it’s just my thing. I do a pretty good amount of races/events each year, but honestly it’s the training that motivates me far more than the racing. I’m extremely consistent and I think that has helped me maintain the power weather I’m eating for weight loss or eating like crap.
+1 on the Greek yogurt. I go for the 2% as I just like the consistency better then the full fat version. Always a part of my diet when I’m working on weight loss.
Same here. although I do a good job limiting it to once or twice a week. If I drink more frequently it starts to interfere with my training and as I said that’s my true motivation. Once I knock out my TR sessions for the week though then yea I typically end up having too much for the next day or two.
When referring to the fat free Greek yogurt, I was talking specifically about a late night or middle of the night snack.
I actually eat full fat Greek yogurt every morning in my oatmeal.
This is what gets me as well. Although it is often the salty snacks after the beers that push it from not great to bad. The second biggest win for me (biggest was cutting back beer by a lot) was actually shrinking my deficit. If i go for 500-750 I will do great for 2-3 weeks and eventually snap and have a large pizza and a bunch of beer and 5500 cal later I have undone the 2 weeks of good. If i keep it at 250 per day I can sustain it so much longer without feeling it. My ‘bad’ days tend to be 500 over rather than 3500 over and far less frequent. I lift pretty heavy 3 days per week, and I am noticeably less beat up with the smaller deficit as well.
Ya, and that’s why I target 2 lbs/month in the beginning! Then slowly up target to 3lbs/month by increasing the calorie burn (more hours on bike) or small decreases in portions. While still eating protein 6 times a day.
The best I ever did was going from 185 to 160 at 6-8lbs/mo. I was doing 2 carb free days a week and the other 5 days, some carbs but less than I wanted. At least once a week and often 2, I’d have a huge ribeye for dinner (pan fried, basted in butter). I was spending about 6 hours a week in the gym doing strength training.
The first 3-4 days really sucked but cutting back on carbs really stunted my appetite. I began to have a hard time eating anything.
At the time I was on long break from the bike. I tried riding a couple of times and would feel great out the door and then crash 5 miles into it. I never ran out of energy doing weight training. Also, I began to feel foggy and it became difficult to do my job.
I learned later it was the lack of fueling that made it hard to ride…and to think. It clearly was an unhealthy and unsustainable diet but I wish I had done it one more time for about 2 months before getting back on the bike. Would have been nice to start off with a flat belly again and then fuel sufficiently for the bike once I started riding.
It is definitely doable. Maintain a caloric deficit of 500 calories a day. Figure out your BMR using a good watch or test. FUEL your workouts, but those calories count. For instance…
Wake up.
1.5 hours on the bike
1200 Calories.
2000 Calories BMR
Daily total of 3200 calories needed to maintain weight
600 Calories on the bike
600 calories breakfast
600 lunch
600 dinner
160 cal protein shake before bed
2560 total calories
3200- 2560 = 640 calorie deficit. Small snack somewhere will make it 500 calories.
I follow something similar to this and have lost weight while increasing power on the bike. Better yet, I’m getting a ton of protein (I stay away from sugar off the bike) and my body composition is changing. It sounds totally vain (but we all do it) but i look at my legs sometimes like WOW! Its a cool feeling.
For me it’s about keeping the stuff I’m likely to binge on (jelly belly) away and reading the damn label on food.
3/4 of a cup of yogurt & 1/4 cup of blueberries for a snack. Yes measure out the damn portions it does make a difference in the long run and you won’t be anymore hungry after 3/4 cup thank you will with a full cup.
Also stay away from as much processed stuff as possible.(honestly it’s a form of calorie restriction) For snacks I make things out of the Feedzone Portables cookbook. I keep trying recipes and I’m keeping track of things I know I’d like on a long ride like Unbound or RPI.
I had a coworker that was of the opinion that they needed ‘protein powder’ and ‘energy mix’ for their ‘rides’. They were thinking of quitting riding because they weren’t losing weight. I looked at their intake, and laughed. They were taking in so many calories that they couldn’t burn unless they rode for HOURS. I told them I just do water, and a banana (or 2) if the ride is over an hour. They looked so shocked.
But, yeah, ‘getting there’, losing weight on the bike, even for me, is hard. I lost far more weight, and was better able to keep it off running! Can’t believe it, but running melted off the weight. I got down to 180 with a BMI in the low teens. My RHR was in the low 40’s. I felt so damn good! I was lifting too, and was just on top of the world. I was running 6 days a week for a minimum of an hour, and just used water. And then blew a foot. It all came crashing down. Now, I fight to stay the same weight. I have lost a lot of weight, but I seem to have to ride more time than I want to do in a day/week/month.
Oh, riding twice a week isn’t going to lose weight. Increasing your calorie burn will. Ride 4 to 5 times a week, ride for at least an hour to hour and a half. Back to running, people were astounded that I didn’t give up their gimmick food item to lose weight. I ran like a maniac and ate a lot of fiber and swore off notorious empty calories like alcohol, fruit juices, and other junk. So look at what you eat, not counting calories. I never got into that. It seems like so much effort for something I thought I should know. I didn’t clean my plate, I dropped butter and sauces from restaurant orders, and got surprised looks asking for ‘plain veggies’, no butter or salt. Just plain grilled fish or chicken, no ‘extras’. BBQ Sauce is almost always laced with high fructose corn syrup. All cocktail mixers are sugar heavy. Critically look at what you eat/drink and you will be lead in the right direction and burn more calories. Look at food as fuel. Think ‘How am I going to burn this off’. Good luck…
As someone else mentioned, intermittent fasting is good for not feeling hungry when going to bed. It works very well for me to lose weight (4 hour eating window from 4pm) but sadly I have to say that it’s really not compatible with intense / long distance cardio training like cycling.
Both performance and recovery are harmed by not having eaten plenty of carbs in the last N hours, and keeping the intensity and length of workouts and rides isn’t possible, even with eating plenty just before and during the rides. I have had some success by skipping fasting completely on the day of workouts, but recovery is still affected by not eating in the morning the day after a long ride, and ultimately with the amount of riding I intend to do in summer I can only fast a couple of days a week at most.
I did intermittent fasting (no breakfast, light lunch (e.g. bag of nuts/dried fruit and a piece of fresh fruit), normal dinner) and I lost 10-15 lbs pretty easily. In that time I moved from unstructured to structure training.
I will say that when I look back to my training/power numbers while on IF - it was very slow improvement. On days that I had a TR workout scheduled I would eat a normal lunch to get workout cals, but even that provided limited gains (as one could expect given that adaptations occur when NOT working out).
In Jan I started aiming for more protein after listening to one of the podcasts. Protein with 2% milk for breakfast, small (but normal) lunch, smaller (but normal) dinner, and then bedtime snack (apple, slice of cheese, and protein drink with water). Part is really focusing on sizeable vegetable portions. Adding the protein added some lbs but when I look at my training from IF and non-IF it is like night and day. Not sure if that is entirely diet or just reaping the benefits of 9 months of LVSS.
I am down 8 lbs from when I started - not as much as I had hoped but my workouts are strong and I feel good. One of the side effects of fasting/working out like I was is that my mood became very flat and I really wasn’t super happy in general. Not like I couldn’t enjoy life, but baseline mood was one or two notches below my normal joie de vivre.
Good luck with your plans - and your bedtime snacking!
Have done this so so many times.