Originally Posted by
radroad
I've lost about 5 lbs this year. I've done very little riding. Maybe once or twice a week, tops. The weather doesn't help, and I'm being smart recovering from tendonitis.
Oddly enough, I lost zero weight riding 100-150 miles a week last year while car-lite. This year in just a couple of months, I've lost 5 lbs effortlessly. Here's the thing. When I ride regularly, I allow myself to eat more. I eat foods that are higher in fat. Net result: zero change in weight. This year, I'm riding a lot less. However, I'm more careful with what I eat. I figure, since I'm not riding very much, I can't afford to eat snacks or larger meals. The downside of course, is that I'm not as strong of a rider, but that's also obviously due to my recovering from tendonitis, which can take months.
Conclusion: exercise makes me stronger, but it's not making me any skinnier. Ironically, less exercise makes me skinnier. Psychologically, exercise that makes me sweat leads me to believe I've worked harder/burned more calories than exercise where I don't sweat like hiking, walking or weight training.
Interestingly, the forms of exercise where I don't sweat much may be much more healthy since they are all weight bearing forms of exercise. I'm not sure what the future holds as far as how much riding I do. I still enjoy riding obviously, but disappointed it hasn't worked out as far as weight loss.
For reference I am currently 165 lbs, but my "ideal" weight is closer to 150 lbs, my weight in college.
I suppose people are different, no expert, never was heavy. I am 5-10 and 156 pounds, 29" waist, 42 inch chest and I am 65yo. The heaviest I have ever been in my weight lifting era was 190 and in my marathon era 150. I weigh now what I weighed as a senior in HS, 156 pounds. I do not eat. It is simple. I am not growing anymore, three pieces of diet jelly toast and one glass of diet OJ for breakfast, nothing for lunch but four apples to snack on, two turkey burgers for dinner with carrots and water. Coffee in between.
You can work out until hell freezes over and not loose a pound if the food intake is not reduced. It is not practical to exercise enough, consistently, to loose weight from exercise alone, the mouth must close, the food intake must stop. Really simple, garbage in, you get fat. Do not eat anything and you stay skinny. Every day counts.
I knew we would get around to blaming the USA for everything bad. GMOs baloney, steroids that they pump into the critters, that is a concern. My observation, vegetarians and anti-GMO folks are often overweight and out of shape. One of my best friends, was skinny as a rail and is all about that stuff and somehow manages to continue to gain weight. We have been genetically modifying our critters and crops since we crawled out of the equatorial forests of Africa, whats new, we just figured out how to do it in a few years what took a few hundred before, yawn. I hate being an educated person in science in a world of here say.