Originally Posted by hubcyclist

Wading into the whole hours of training stuff and weight. I kind of have to concur about needing 10hrs a week to keep my weight in check, at least in a situation where I'm not watching calories and just eating with reckless abandon because I have to stay fueled for the next workout. I ride 6 days a week and at the moment doing exclusively sweet spot intervals with trainerroad so my rides are all involving 1000-1500kj of work. I'm about 5-8lbs over my "ideal" weight (155lbs) so I'm trying to not be so cavalier about my eating without sacrificing the fuel for my workouts, but it's tough. I'd probably be more successful if I more closely tracked my eating, but that's a lot of thinking that I'm unwilling to do at the moment lol

But I know sheep and I are in agreement that a lot of people probably don't ride hard enough and assume they burn more calories than they do and then are surprised why they aren't losing weight or even gaining weight. For example, I went on a 2hr bike ride with my 9y/o, we averaged about 11mph, and that was about 300calories. I think a lot of people would think 2hrs of activity would result in a higher caloric expenditure (aside: it would be super interesting to give people power meters and compare their gut feeling on calories burned vs the actual reading from the power meter). So whenever people talk about wanting to do cycling for fitness, I always recommend actual training, because that's the only way to really start to increase the caloric burn in less time, otherwise folks have to put in a lot of riding to help create that deficit. What I accomplished in 90mins (nearly 1200 calories) would take someone going at 11mph in the neighborhood of 8hrs to do. So I think there is truth to the assertion that a lot of people don't ride with enough intensity