View Single Post
Old 01-27-06, 09:29 AM
  #12  
Pat
Senior Member
 
Join Date: Jan 2002
Location: Orlando, FL
Posts: 2,794

Bikes: litespeed, cannondale

Mentioned: 5 Post(s)
Tagged: 0 Thread(s)
Quoted: 1 Post(s)
Likes: 0
Liked 1 Time in 1 Post
A few thoughts on this one. You might want to take my comments with a grain of salt because I am a guy and things are different for women.

I think you should increase the carbohydrate portion of your diet which would help you fuel aerobic workouts. You can increase it just a bit and just on days when you have a longer aerobic event. I checked your calories consumed per pound and you are burning less with your exercise than I figure my BMR to be. It seems to me that you have really restricted your caloric intake.

I know gaining weight is disheartening because it is so hard to lose weight.

Another thing about gaining weight. What is important is the fat and not the lean weight. Models have ridiculously low weights for their size because they generally have no muscles at all. Why are thin female couch potatoes supposed to be attractive? Women with muscle tend to be pretty heavy even when they are lean.

A way I keep track of my fat is to just to look at the thickness of my skin fold in various parts of my body. I know where I gain weight first and it works pretty well even if it is by guess and by gosh.

Remember improving fitness follows a declining curve. You get the biggest gains when you start out. Initially since you did nothing, it takes nothing to keep your level of unfitness. As you get fit, it takes workouts just to keep what you have. As you get better and better it takes more and more work and intelligent training to improve. Do you think that Lance Armstrong could easily get fitter? (admittedly a very extreme example).

As for climbing, that is mainly power to weight ratio. Now certain things will help climbing. I think out of the saddle work on a spinning bike would be good and also stair climbers. Of course, what is best is climbing hills on your bike. In our club, one of our ladies is just about the best climber in the club. I can get her on the flats but not on the hills.

Another thing, I have never been better than a fit recreational rider. But it takes a very strong female to beat me (usually a successful racer). Women operate at a disadvantage to me on a bike as far as speed goes. Look at any fast group of riders and you will see about a 9 to 1 ratio of men to women (or even worse). Men have higher concentrations of hemoglobin in their blood and bigger cardiac outputs that allow them to deliver more oxygen to their muscles and that is what it is about in aerobic exercising. The thing is that the men have a big advantage over you. Of course many of them will end up with triple bypass operations or prematurely end up pushing up daisies from heart attacks so I guess it evens out. What am I thinking? Who cares about living 7 years longer? What is important is how fast you can ride!
Pat is offline