CharleyGnarly

I am confused. Please help.
I don't get the whole calorie vs. fat and how it works when losing weight.
On the one hand, it seems as if one has to watch how many calories are consumed. On the other hand it seems that caloric intake is crucial to performance.
And how does it effect fat, and the lose thereof? I want to lose about twenty lbs and just don't get it.

umd

If you are training to get stronger, it is hard to maintain a coloric defecit and still have enough fuel to complete high intensity workouts. If you are just exercising to lose weight you can maintain a higher defecit and just ride at whatever intensity you have fuel for. The higher intensity that you exercise at, the more carbs you burn, and therefore a lower percentage of fat. You still burn more fat as well, but it goes back to needing more fuel (carbs) to complete the workout, so it's a balance.

wheelgrabber

1lb of body fat is the equivalent of 3500 calories. In order to loose 1 lb per week you need to stop consuming or burn 500 calories per day.

Average woman's daily diet to maintain weight is about 2000 calories, average man's is 2500 calories.

So you need to cut your diet 500 calories per day(every day) to lose a 1lb per week. Or burn 500 calories per day everyday. Riding a bicycle burns between 300-500 calories per hour. 300 being normal ride, 400 being LT training, 500 all out TT ride.

Most people burn under 400 unless they have a heart rate monitor and a clue.

The majority of people cannot exercise 7 days a week and burn 500 calories each time. Therefore healthy weight loss is a combination of slightly lowering your caloric intake daily and increasing your total calorie burn through exercise.

Drinking less alcohol & soda and eating less(not all) carbs is the easiest way to lower daily calories. Not eating high density fats like cheese and nuts helps as well. The killer foods are things like chips & soda.

Slow is the way to go. If you start to starve yourself(below 2000 calories per day) , your body will change its metabolism, thereby holding onto the body fat in order to survive. Not good in the long run.

1 lb per week is reasonable, 2 lbs is possible(in a healthy manner) if you exercise everyday. Eating less is not .

tallmantim

As said, manage the calorie intake and your exercise outtake and the rest should look after itself. Maintain a healthy diet as well.

You are better off doing high intensity workouts for the total time you have available to you if you are time poor rather than going lower intensity - you burn more fat while exercising at a lower intensity, but your body will manage your total energy requirements, so you are better off burning more calories overall.

If you are not time poor, you can look at doing low slow riding that would get you into more of a fat burning zone.

As said if you are training for performance you will bonk during intervals if you don't have the energy freely available in your system.

umd

500 cal/hr would be a rather slow all out tt ride. I burn about 500-750 per hour in z2. If you assume 1kJ or work = 1kcal of food (a common assumption), 600 cal/hr is only an average power of 167W.

colombo357

Crikey, that's not even enough to power a 168W lightbulb at full brightness.

wheelgrabber

How are you measuring burned calories?

umd

Power meter. As I said you have to make an assumption about your efficiency but the range for humans is not very wide and the conversion factor ends up being between something like .9 and 1.2 calories of food burned for each kJ of work performed. Therefor it's fairly accurate to just read kJ from the power meter as calories.

hobkirk

FWIW, check out UMD's ride (rides?) in the "Share your ride with Garmin Connect..." in the Road Cycling forum - this one impressed me! (93 miles, 70 feet ascent/mile average, 19 MPH average, 139 average HR, 196 W average power - quite a bit different than my typical ride!)

PS - How can "average MPH" be higher than "average moving MPH"?

umd

Not sure, some quirk of how the garmin registers pauses I guess. It's because "moving time" somehow is greater than time. One is what the Garmin reports the other is somehow calculated.

Pat

The thing is that losing weight is getting so that for a period of time calories consumed - calories burned > 0 . As mentioned above, it takes a bunch of exercise to burn a lb of fat. As also mentioned above, weight loss is usually a combination of a judicious modification of diet and an increase in activity.

Often, if you examine your diet, you can cut out things that just are not "worth" the calories to you. Do you drink whole milk? Why not skip to skim? Do you eat butter on things? Why not switch to a butter substitute. Do you eat ice cream routinely? Why not pare back the portions or eat something else? The trick with any diet is getting one that you can live with.

It seems to be the American way to undertake a draconian diet and lose weight very quickly. Of course, the diet is an exercise in privation. The dieter hits their target weight, goes off the diet. They celebrate by binging on "forbidden" goodies. They end up gaining back all their lost weight and more! So they repeat the process.

That is why a slower approach is often suggested. Losing one lb per week can be done with a moderate increase in exercise and some moderate changes in one's calorie consumption. It will take a long time to lose the weight if you are well over weight. But getting there slowly is better than the diet binge cycle.

Here is something that worked pretty well for me. The nice thing about exercise, is that it gives you an area of progress that you can monitor. As you get fitter, you will make new personal bests. The thing about weight loss is that it can be rather episodic. It can be discouraging to go for a couple or several weeks and seem stuck. Weight seems to come off in little bunches. Or maybe it just seems that way. I never charted it.

If you do long intense aerobic activity, your body will require ample glycogen stores before you start exercising. So your fueling requirements will change as far as carbohydrate/fat requirements. If your aerobic activity is not so intense, you do not have to be so caereful to charge your carbohydrates.

Richard Cranium

This post makes a crucial point about the nature of exercise, weight loss and diet.

What is this important point you ask? Oh please tell us Doctor Dick? Please, please tell us why this post is so important?

I'm going to wait and see if anyone can figure out what the "crucial point" is when discussing diet, exercise and weight loss. And how this subject is different from simply discussing diet and exercise.....

umd

Well as I said it's hard to maintain enough fuel to complete workouts properly when trying to keep a caloric defecit for any significant weight loss.

Brontide

Is it more important to lose the 20 lbs or improve your "training"? If the 20 lbs are more important do the best you can while running a net caloric deficit until you reach your goal. If training is more important then get into those intense workouts with the hope that your increased BMR will work off the 20 lbs eventually.

wheelgrabber

There are two basic times you need to consume calories. At rest and during exercise. The fat burning that will cause a loss of weight is not burned during exercise that requires "performance".

Exercise prefers fast metabolizing calories from carbs and glycogen. First the stores of glycogen then the carbs in sports drinks, powerbars, and other fast foods.

Your body burns 12 calories per pound per day. Even if you are sitting on the couch watching the Tour, and only get up to grab a beer and take a leak.

"According to Tony Leyland, a kinesiology professor at Canada's Simon Fraser University, a pound of muscle typically burns 30 to 50 calories a day at rest, while a pound of fat burns only three calories a day".

So fitness is kinda of a slippery slope if you stick with it. The more muscle you have the more fat you burn while doing nothing. Your new muscle metabolizes the excess fat, not while you are riding your bike.

People who start lifting weights often gain a bit of weight quickly(muscle) then the fat and lbs come off later.

CharleyGnarly

Update from the original post.
Since then I have dropped about thirty lubs and four inches in the belly. Went from snug 36" pants to a comfy 33". I did the KISS thing (Keep It Simple Stupid) and did some research. It all boils down to what I eat, not how much. No miracle additives, or suppliments, etc. I won't bore you with the details, but it has worked.
Feel way better, 100% lack of heartburn/reflux stuff, way more energy, sleep better... all around better quality of life.
Thanks for the responses, and stay healthy.