Hello’ everyone, I am 51 yo, male and I use to cycle since 1999. I ’ Ve never been so slim but, Düring last three years i reached 90 kg per 1, 76 cm… I follow a structured training program ( bike and Gym) and a food daily program of 1850 kcal die, Training 6 days per week without loosing amy weight…
Any suggestion how to Change my behaviour tò reach Back 77kg?
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Similar thing going on - I counted calories for over a month in November, lost a few pounds, and then seemed to gain it all back between Thanksgiving and Xmas, despite not eating like a fiend. I still look a bit thinner though.
I lost a lot of weight a long time ago (and kept it off) counting calories but I wasn’t training. I’m finding losing weight while training extremely difficult. If I cut calories too much, my legs are constantly sore and I feel over trained. It’s just really hard to walk this tightrope.
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I’ll preface by saying I’m not an expert in any of this other than the experience of losing weight.
My strategy is basically aggressive calorie counting. You need to commit to not cheating on yourself and in some cases this means slightly over-estimating for foods you aren’t sure about. Aiming to lose about 1 pound per week seems to work best, and you will probably exceed that. I’m not really into intermittent fasting as a practice, but I tend not to eat anything other than half and half before 1-2 PM most days so it’s sort of happening anyway. I drink a Soylent (or two or three if pre-ride) which is 400 calories per bottle around then which holds me over till dinner. The product is a bit expensive but you know you are getting pretty complete nutrition for at least part of the day. For dinner I eat basically whatever I want that won’t blow my remaining calories. The key is to take small portions, clearing the plate, waiting 10-20 minutes, and then eating more. This allows me to feel a bit fuller with less intake. I’ll snack later up until 11PM if the budget allows. Gravitating towards foods that increase the feeling of fullness with less calories helps a lot. I also drink a lot of water throughout the day, I go through a 1 gallon water bottle every two days roughly. Again, this helps stave off hunger. I would suggest the 64 oz bottles on amazon and not the gallon ones.
For indoor rides I don’t fuel at all and that seems fine since I’m mostly under 2 hours and in z1/2. For outdoor rides I try to fuel at least 50% of the burned calories, probably more. In my experience riding makes staying under my calorie limit significantly easier because of the psychological impact of eating food. 700-1500 extra calories makes a big difference. At this point I’m pretty much planning on counting for the rest of my life because if I don’t I end up in a mode where I over eat without paying attention to it.
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Similar story. 45, 83kg, 167cm. I remember the days I was 65kg. I’m going for between 500g to 1kg per week to make it sustainable and hopefully without impacting riding or energy too much. The only thing I can really do is calorie count, what is going in and what is going out.
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I have a theory on why it’s hard to lose weight and train.
Herman Pontzer who has done metabolic studies on the Hadza tribe has a theory that we tend to only burn so many calories per day. If we do manual work (exercise) our bodies slow down other processes to save energy. Thus if you replace all the KJs burned, and your body slows down other stuff, then you may not lose any weight.
So, our body wants to naturally burn say 2000 calories per day, we restrict to 1750, exercise 500 calories per day which we add back. That puts us at 2250. Our bodies still want to burn 2000 calories per day. Other processes slow down and us big guys don’t lose weight even while riding 5-6 days per week unless we are truly starving ourselves.
I find it to be a difficult conundrum. I tried calorie restriction at 1.5 pounds per week and ended up miserable, glycogen depleted, and with sore legs. I did better restricting to 1 pound per week and adding back only 1/2 the burned kjs on the bike.
On the other hand, in my 20s, I could start training in February and lose 5 pounds per month all spring to hit race weight by summer.
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Okay…so normal preamble, not a dietician, not a doctor, not medical advice, just me, just a dude, did this, it worked for me, maybe not for you.
Basically it’s like when you get a raise or a new job at higher pay. If you can find a way to spend like you did BEFORE you got the raise, then the raise = savings. If you just bump up the spending you go immediately to equilibrium.
A generalized approach.
- Establish a general model of what a normal week of eating without exercising and still maintaining a consistent weight looks like. This isn’t necessarily easy, but I have a good sense of about what is normal, and a sense of what has worked for me.
- Eat like that. If that means repetition, then repeat. Make sure to mix up the food, like don’t just eat baloney and bread. Get a nice mix of ‘well-balanced’ whatever that means to you.
- Add exercise. I know everyone is going to let out a coordinated exasperated sigh when I say it, but do this exercise just below (or at) your lt1. That’s high zone 2.
- Continue to eat at your baseline. You know the baseline, eat at the baseline. Don’t restrict your calories. Your body needs X calories to function properly, you’ve established that baseline. You are just turning up the heat a little bit.
- Do some form of cross training, even light. situps, pushups, pull ups, curls, walk, etc. It doesn’t have to be extreme. The goal is to USE the muscles you have, you don’t want them chucked into the fires to fuel your z2 rides.
The more you burn on those rides, the more weight you’ll lose. 3500 a week you could lose a pound, 7k 2 pounds. I wouldn’t go much above 9-10k depending on how much weight you have to lose. 9k is a fair amount of calories to burn on the bike in z2 anyway (I know, that’s what I did). IF you plan on hammering a ride, or have a stronger workout planned, then add the carbs you’ll burn to your baseline for that ride.
The goal here is to not have fully depleted glycogen stores, 2 hours at z2 should not deplete your glycogen fully. Eating a normal meal after your workout should suffice. (make sure to keep your electrolytes up) The idea overall is, you aren’t restricting your calories, you’re increasing your effort. You aren’t starving, you’re being active. No one starved to death eating a balanced 2500 calories a day.
There are a lot of ways to approach weight loss, there are some HIIT ways, there is the long slow body comp change stuff. Proteins and powders, fasting, etc. Good luck. I believe in you.
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It’s because of body composition. You gained muscle while losing fat.
The opposite happens when people stop exercising. For awhile they think they haven’t gained any weight and all is well. Then they realize they’ve lost lot of muscle and gained a ton of fat.
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With all due credit to the person who originally posted this link somewhere, I would guess it might have been @mcneese.chad ?
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I lost 15% of my body weight in the last half of the year by going from 7-8 hours (with more intensity) to 8-12 hours (with 1-2 days of intensity), intermittent fasting, and keto. Prior to this, I was firmly in the “I need more carbs to perform” camp. That might still be true if I start to add more intensity, not sure. But…doing 2-3 hour rides on Sat and Sun, plus 1-2 harder 90 minute workouts and 1-2 60-120 min Z2 workouts during the week was all very doable with IF+Keto, plus it pushed my weekly TSS and CTL way up. YMMV
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Are you working out in the morning? IF is a nightmare when I’m on the bike at 5 am
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I usually have 2 cups of coffee and then ride around 8-8:30. That will allow me to get to 10-10:30 without eating.
I’m retired, so lucky in that sense (and many others!)
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Calories burned have to be greater than calories received. It really is as simple as that. TDEE calculators are a good start, but not 100% accurate. You can either spend $$$$ to get an accurate test, or you can slowly reduce intake and figure it out that way.
IME, tracking calories with an App helps tremendously. However, accurately inputing weights and ACTUAL foods is a whole other skillset entirely. Just finding the food in the app won’t cut it. Tracking by individual ingredients is the best way, and it is much more time consuming. But, its the most accurate.
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Two things to add, one is when you’re counting calories off of packages it is generally in the interest of the companies producing those products to make the product appear as low in calories as possible. Studies have shown that package calorie counts are often off as much as 25% per serving and serving sizes are often misjudged by people. People also often don’t count added calories from things like oil, dressings, supplements, beverages and other things that add up to put them outside of a calorie deficit.
Another thing to keep in mind is the type of calories do matter, the calories that go into your mouth are not exactly the same calories that are processed by the body. Foods higher in soluble fiber require calories for your body to process them so the caloric density is lower. Plants are high in insoluble fiber which passes through the system without breaking down and therefor doesn’t have a caloric load. Additionally fiber helps regulate blood glucose levels and increases satiety.
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Losing weight is pretty easy, at least until you are into the single digits. Losing weight while maintaining (and especially improving) performance is not. I commend those with ability to not only do that, but do that with low carb intake. I am not that lucky…
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This is my goal right now haha. We’ll see how it goes.
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I went from 299.99999 (I refuse to say I ever weighed 300) pounds to 180 in just over 18 months when my son was born. This is when I got into cycling, I would ride 4-5 days a week and count my calories, boom… the weight fell right off.
What I’ve noticed is that your body programs/re-progams itself to keep up with your lifestyle. Now that I train on a daily or almost daily basis and strength train twice a week, I have to REALLY focus in on macro nutrients to notice a difference.
Another thing I’ve come to realize is at 5’11 180 lbs, my body is comfortable there. Any time I think I’ll drop 10 lbs to really hammer down on my w/kg ratio, I tend to get sick, lose power, etc… so at this point I’ve just dialed in a 2,000 calorie base, + training calories. I really focus on eating lean meats, complex carbs, and fruits/veggies. Minimal processed food and extra sugar (other than training fuel, of course). Doing this seems to slowly be shaving body fat while adding muscle without compromising my power or wellness.
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Those newb gains (well, losses) happen pretty quick, but once you start pushing your genetic set point lower it can take some time to be able to sustain it while not under fueling, which leads to sleep issues, weak immune system, etc. Consistency over time, a long time, is required to reach your true genetic limit.
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if you want your weight loss to stick, think of how you were super successful at something in the past and model that behaviour.
will you do better making small incremental changes that stick? (eat more protein, cut out food in wrappers, cut out sugary drinks) or will you do better throwing all your food out and counting every calorie and planning every meal? both ways work but one would work better for one type of person.
don’t look at exercise as a way to lose weight. consider that to be 100% diet.
big thing that helped my last weight loss (I yo-yoed for years) was info from Renaissance Periodization about maintenance phases. they advise you to lose weight in chunks and have maintenance phases in between to let your body settle in to the new weight. so lose 10 lbs in 2 months…then 2 months maintenance…then lose another 10 lbs, etc. (I just made up those numbers…that’ll depend on your beginning fat% and how fast you wanna lose).
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