“You don’t need medication for your mental health, just go outside and ride your bike”
“Plain water will hydrate you just fine”- probably decent for people exercising recreationally, not so great when overgeneralised to endurance sports.
Isnt the fuel your workouts/body comp thing usually in reference to someone who is already “skinny” and just trying to lose a few lbs to up their w/kg? And not someone vastly overweight trying to drop significant lbs?
I feel like I’ve heard Jonathan, and some guests, refer to it in that context as making them feel better and as fast or faster than at their optimal weight.
I think Keegan gave the best weight loss advice I’ve ever heard on the podcast …
He said (paraphrasing), “If you want to lose weight ride your bike every day. You won’t get faster at a certain point, but you’ll lose weight.”
I agree with you on this point …
With that being said, TR’s stated goal is to make you faster … and I definitely believe that focusing on watts vs. lbs will make you faster overall. BUT, if you want to lose lbs for reasons outside of the cycling/racing context, then I think there are better ways to exercise … just know that prioritizing one vs. the other.
I’m lucky isn’t that my body comp, generally, lands where I want it to be when I’m my fastest. But there have been times I really wanted to lose and extra 5-10lbs and felt limited in that endeavor by my training regimen.
I don’t disagree with Keegan at all on that. My original point is that passing off “just fuel your workouts, eat healthy, and your body composition will be what is needs to be” as actual weight loss advice is a bit disingenuous. If someone actually has weight to lose, and are self aware enough to actively seek advice on how to go about it, I find it a bit nonchalant to gloss over their question in order to avoid promoting a “lighter is better” narrative, or whatever.
The TR podcast has given good weight loss advice on several episodes, and I’m not arguing that. I’m simply taking issue with the ever more prevalent narrative of “if you fuel your workouts and eat healthy, weight won’t be a concern in the long run”. That’s simply not the case for most people. “If you fuel your workouts and eat healthy, you’ll get faster in the long run” is probably true for most. However, when someone asks for actionable weight loss advice, I find it nonchalant and unhelpful to tell them that fuelling well on the bike and creating a rainbow on the plate will get them to their goal weight.
At times that is the case, but on a podcast posted this summer that was literally titled “how to lose weight” or something similar, they provided no actionable advice at all. I take no issue with fuelling workouts and eating quality food to get faster, but I bet you anyone who has lost a lot of weight will tell you it took a lot more than that to reach their goals.
“Just buy one good bike and that’ll be all you need or want”
To be fair, I’ve lost ~60 lbs. fueling my rides and eating good foods. But my genetics are my genetics, and it took 3+ years.
Buts it’s a significant amount of weight.
“It depends”
That’s great, and I bet plenty of people do. However, it is vague advice at best, and when someone poses a specific question, I would personally argue that the most considerate answer is a specific and actionable one.
Fuelling your rides and eating good foods is likely to result in weight loss. A caloric deficit is guaranteed to result in weight loss. Focusing on having a variety of colours on your plate is likely to result in a diverse intake of vitamins and minerals. Tracking your micronutrient intake and adjusting diet thereafter is guaranteed to result in a diverse intake of vitamins and minerals.
I’m not arguing the point that fuelling your rides and eating healthy is important. Nonetheless, you could fuel your workouts well, eat healthy, gain 150 watts on your FTP, and still not lose any weight. Fuelling your workouts and eating well is necessary to reach your potential on the bike, but when someone asks how to lose weight, telling them how to perform better on the bike is answering the wrong question.
Yeah I think maybe this bad advice comes from people like my husband who generally don’t have a huge desire to over eat. They sort of naturally self-regulate and a lot of good cyclists seem to do this. But a lot of people who actually are carrying around a few extra pounds are doing so because we have more of an inclination to over eat - we like food more, we like unhealthy food more, we associate exercise with “getting” to eat more, etc. and have to consciously track calories or at least make sure we go hungry between meals. I recently learned the term “food noise” and I think for those of us who experience that more the “just ride more and it will sort itself out” advice is a fail.
I don’t see a scenario where TR would advocate going hungry in pursuit of results. They are a very careful bunch when it comes to inclusivity and not offending people, and I think that plays heavily into how they discuss certain topics like weight loss and body comp.
I understand this scenario, and I agree, I think this is what they are doing, but I think it misses the fact that people who know they need to lose weight, and are asking for help, get offended by being told, “oh, just fuel your rides, and you’ll reach your optimal weight”. By trying to not offend one group (which I would argue is a far smaller percent of the population), you’re offending the group asking the question, which again, I would argue is a far larger group (no pun intended!)
I’ll be honest, I think they’d rather be accused of being vague than being insensitive.
I think I’ve failed to properly communicate what I mean if that is your take away.
My point is that I think they tip toe around certain topics because they are an uber progressive company and don’t want risk being construed as “fat shaming” or encouraging what could be considered “toxic” relationships with food. For example, they would never advocate an amateur athlete “going hungry” in pursuit of w/kg goals so they can podium at their Wednesday night crit at the industrial park.
Where did this narrative come from that TR is trying to avoid being “insensitive”?
You may not agree with their advice re: weight loss / fueling (I persoanlly don’), but I think the above narrative is a bit of projection re: their motivation.
Just an observation after listening to every podcast for the last 5 years. I could definitely be wrong. But, in my opinion, I think it plays a role in how they doscuss certain topics.
Off topic and tangent is right.
How about we not turn this into another thread about weight loss?
Back to the topic at hand.
“Just fuel with straight maple syrup.” And then trying it on a long/hot/humid tempo day.
I’ve seen some pretty horrendous bike fit advice, must be a rich vein for some examples!
Start cycling when you retire it’s a nice inexpensive pastime.