How do you stay trim & fit?
 

I am at a crossroads where I work out, ride, run, hit the gym and watch what I eat but remain a clydesdale. I feel good on the bike ride multiple types of bikes Mt, Track Gravel & road but cannot lose the weight. I tried the starving thing I have tried skipping meals and nothing is working. I think I have food PTSD from my youth where I would bonk a few times per year so now I eat like a tour de france rider prepping for a long Team time trial post and pre ride.
What is working for you.

We've thrown out all of our large family size cook ware and prepare much smaller meals with no leftovers. We buy ingredients, no pre processed meals. Not going to tell anyone what to eat, but please try to eat a little less over time. A one or two pound per week downward trend in weight over the long term, in my reading, is best for changing life long habits.

I'm mostly in the same boat. I lost 35 lbs in 2017, getting down to 205 lbs. Clearly what works for me is a mostly fresh veggie diet with some protein, but nearly zero carbs, sweets, junk food and alcohol. Also, moderate intensity exercise is better in terms of fat burn than high intensity.

It is all about limiting caloric intake. My kid lost 20 lbs in 2 or 3 weeks. All it took was having his jaws strapped shut after surgery.

genius! brb gonna wire my jaws shut

They were rubber-bands, and we still fed him via a tube on a syringe, kind of like how you put sealant in tires through a valve stem.

This is the kind of thing teenage girls do.

A much more sensible approach is to track your calories, and eat in a slight deficit. You might consider joining MyFitnessPal (or similar) to help you do that.

I dropped 25 kg (55 lbs) in 2015 using that method.

Also, regular, daily exercise helps. :)

I agree and have begun using MyFitnessPal. It does seem to help just being aware of your food calories, and other nutritional distributions. It has a much better inventory and food look-up than the one other such app I tried. Apparently there are some apps that require you to weigh everything, much too tedious as far as I'm concerned. I've lost ten pounds in the past couple of months, slow and steadily.

I too get out and ride, hit the gym and occasionally go for a jog. Even though I would consider myself more fit than 90% of the people my age, I really have to stay focused on 2 things. First is my diet. If I keep it under control I can lose weight with the best of them. Keeping it there is another issue. I know how, I just don't adhere to diets for that long. The second and probably most efficient way I find to lose weight is to stay active. I don't mean just hitting the gym and getting out on the bike, I mean spending more time doing other things. If your day is filled with activities you may surprise yourself. In the Spring when I find myself working in the yard for an hour a day or washing my car more frequently than in the winter I usually surprise myself at how much I'm losing weight and keeping it down. I think it's way to easy to convince ourselves that we're being active, but when you sit back and think about how many hours you just spent in front of your computer or TV you'll be shocked at how many of those hours were spent not even moving.

It is interesting that 3 weeks after jaw surgery and removal of the bands, he was able (still) to kick my arse on local climbs and work out at the gym. But I think it is easier to recover lost muscle mass at age 21.

KETO diet. :thumb: It works and you'll find more energy for your workouts.

Not doing this^^^.

I have even cut down calorie intake while out on the road doing unsupported tours. I came to the conclusion that I was eating too much during the day. Of course I needed to refuel at the end of the day, but through trial I realized that I did not have to eat as much as I was during the day's ride. Most of it involved cutting out big breakfasts and big lunches. Small snacks to keep up the energy worked fine.

Here is an example. I did the below, with nearly 4,100' of climbing, on some black coffee and some fig bars for breakfast in camp. On the road I consumed 1 package of Perpetuem, an apple and a Cliff Bar. Hard day (the profile doesn't capture the post-descent ups and downs before reaching camp well), but I never felt out of energy even though I didn't have a large breakfast or lunch en route.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/23254899

Lose It! - calorie counter app. understand your fuel intake and fuel burn. it's hard not to lose a pound a week if you maintain a simple daily deficit of 500 calories. suffer on hills, not at the table.

Eat more fat. (Seriously.)

It is all about diet exercise, lifestyle. The Standard American Diet plus the Sedentary American Lifestyle (SAD SAL) is a known fat generator and killer.

SAD includes too much refined sugar, too much food from animal sources, and too little fiber.

Carbs are fine, as long as your burn them and consume them with ample amounts of fiber, to slow absorption. Replace the killer whites (sugar and flour) with whole foods; replace the fruit juice with whole fruit. If you do drink orange juice, get the kind with lots of pulp, and don't drink it on an empty stomach.

The monounsaturated fats in olives, avocados, and nuts are good, as well.

I am a rabid fan of active transportation and probably burn 500 calories/day just getting around. I also exercise three times per week at the local YMCA to maintain upper body muscle mass and bone density.

Also the smaller proportions routine. We've been doing that for a few years. Works like a charm. My wife likes to cook a pot or pan of something. If the recipe says 4 portions, we make 6. We split 3 eggs, 2 toasts for breakfast. Instead of 1 c. oatmeal, we use 3/4. Etc. We didn't change our diet, just ate less of a balanced, plant-based diet. We exercise a lot and consume a lot of carbs, but we cook everything from scratch, just like a TdF chef but a lot, lot less.

We have a couple of riding buddies who've had more trouble doing this than have we. What worked for them is calories in/calories out. They do the work of caloric meal planning and exercise recording. Worked amazingly well for them. To make it more interesting, they took cooling classes, mostly French. Why not eat well, really well? Just less.

motivation. you gotta find yours. without it, nothing works

I second this. Great app. It's a bit of a PITA at first to get some of your standardized meals into the app, but after that it's fairly straightforward. It's been proven time and time again that periodic diets don't work. You need to establish a calorie level that will gradually taper your weight and then stick with it forever. It is critical that you track every single calorie that goes in your mouth. After doing this for a while you will gain a good understanding regarding where those useless extra calories are coming from.

This app is also nice because it can account for exercise too. This means that if you rode 50 miles on Sunday it will tell you what you can eat to replace those calories and still stay on track.

I try not to eat after 4 p.m,

I cut back on junk carbs -- meaning, more than I could burn with exercise, or eating at the wrong time. Less beer, baked sweets, candy. If I do have a beer or eat some junk carbs, I try to time it around bike rides or other exercise.

I dropped from 175 lbs in 2015 to 150 now - I'm within 5 lbs of my optimal weight when I was an amateur boxer 40 years ago. The first 15 lbs came off gradually with moderate diet changes and exercise. I've lost another 10 since last year with more diligent avoidance of junk carbs, and eating more meat and fats to feel satisfied and avoid feeling peckish -- that nagging sense of feeling snacky.

I know there are all sorts of theories for optimizing a diet but rigorous diets are rarely sustainable. I find it easier if I permit myself to indulge occasionally within reasonable limits, including timing to use exercise to burn up excess carbs and sugar. Keto isn't new. I knew folks who tried it back in the 1970s-'80s. They lost weight. But the diet wasn't sustainable.

Stubborn weight gain is pretty much due to junk carbs and sugar, and not exercising at all, ever. Many folks eat a lot more of that stuff than they realize, until they keep track of everything they eat and the ingredients. I have several family members who swear their weight problem is hereditary or glandular or due to slow metabolism. Nope. It's because they eat a lot of sugary junk and never exercise. Then as they feel worse about themselves due to weight gain, they eat more junk for comfort. I sympathize but they're stuck in the same dysfunctional family dynamics and issues as other family members with substance abuse problems, mostly alcoholism. Staying too near a dysfunctional, stressful situation -- including family -- can be self defeating. Sometimes it's essential to break away, find or create another living dynamic, and avoid the triggers that lead to obesity, getting drunk and using drugs.

​​​​​​​lol

​​​​​​It's taken nearly 30 years to learn what you just explained in 5 minutes.

whoever said to document and keep track of every calorie, I agree with that

do an in-depth analysis of what you are eating, how many calories it is, nutrition etc.

Become an expert on what works for you