Originally Posted by
Oneder
Well that's definitely not true. Some people have high BP even though they are skinny as a rail. Some of it can be weight related but I don't come to a bike forum to talk about diet tips and there's also people much heavier than me who have better BP. Being fat also increases your BP in a very specific way and I take a BP drug which works against that action (but is not doing anything for me).
If diet is truly 95% of physical health then there is obviously zero point to ride a bike in the first place. I don't accept that and have already seen that is not the case due to my BP decreases since I started daily bike rides.
As far as long hour+ rides go, endurance exercise is also a waste of time for cardio health. I also don't ride the bike to lose fat. I know from experience bicycle does virtually nothing for weight loss.
As others have said this post is laughable, especially the last two paragraphs.
Let's start at the top - you realise that weight is related to a "very specific" type of raising in BP, and you "take a BP drug which works against that action (but is not doing anything [for you])." So you have admitted that your weight is affecting your BP but you don't necessarily want to lose weight.
Diet is a huge part of losing weight. It wasn't clear to me that aplcr0331 was talking about general health or about weight loss honestly. Given that they mentioned "fat burning" multiple times in that post, I'm going to go with the idea that they were talking about diet being 95% of weight loss. Riding a bike is a good type of cardiovascular exercise, but we'll get to that later. It is, technically, possible to ride enough so that you are in enough of a calorie deficit to lose weight but I can assure you that your 28 miles a week is not going to do that. 28 miles a day might (which isn't something I'd recommend you do), but 28 miles a week won't.
Your point about endurance exercise being a waste of time for cardio health is perhaps the most amusing part of your post. It's just so exceedingly off the mark. Seriously, just google "endurance exercise cardiovascular health" - I'm not going to do the work of finding articles for you, just look at the first page of hits.
Going back to the question that is the title of your thread, is there a reason why you haven't asked your doctor(s) this? The only reasons I would cap my rides to 4 miles are if I flatted four miles in and didn't have a patch kit or a spare tube, there was a thunderstorm (I'll do rain any day, but potential lightning is my limit), I had a medical emergency, or there was some other sort of emergent situation that came up. If I were you I would be talking to my doctors about this and upping my mileage and decreasing the number of days I road. My schedule doesn't permit riding my bike seven days a week and I suspect my energy levels would go down if I tried (I also have other things going on that effect this). 10 miles 3 days a week would likely be more useful than what you're doing now.