Fairmont

I am six feet tall, and according to the charts I should top out at about 180 for my age (forty in two months--yikes).

I just got back into biking, and even though I hate the MANY hills we have in our area, I always feel great when I get to the top. I can't stop smiling (I refuse to quit a hill and walk. No freaking way. I'd rather go a snail's pace in first gear, but I am not going to stop and walk).

Anyway, I topped out at 211.5 one day and said, "I am going to have some serious health problems in a couple years.

For me, 212 is officially obese, and I missed it by half a pound.

So I started riding again, then sold my bike and bought a new one today (more for road...a Trek Soho 1.0).

Since I started back a couple weeks ago I've lost six pounds. I'm down to 205 give or take a beer), and am committed to riding to work and back everyday this year (I teach, and my ride is four miles each way with plenty of climbing, especially on the way there).

SO.

I guess I'm an official Cylde?

What happens when I lose the weight?


Has anybody here been a slob, like me, and then a year or so later took his shirt off at the pool and gotten glances from the ladies?


Another motivator for me was an incident at the neighborhood pool. Twenty years ago I was a fairly attractive guy. I wasn't what women would consider hot, but I have a nice face and was fit most of my life. Then life got ahold of me (and Wendy's McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut, etc.). Twenty years ago I'd drop my shirt if the weather topped 70. Now? I try not to.

So, anyway, I was at the neighborhood pool, and an attractive lady smiled at me. Then, when I took my shirt off (not knowing she was still looking at me), I watched her face melt from a smile to a frown.

That was VERY obvious. Shoot!

So, I'm motivated to get fit, and biking is just the ticket, especially when it's to work and back (saving gas/money). I can pay for my bike in under a year with the gas savings.


Just thought I'd share that un-unique story.

Tom Stormcrowe

Welcome aboard and welcome to the herd.

v1k1ng1001

Welcome!

Wogster

Biking will not help much for the spare tire, for that you need other exercises (jogging doesn't help much for that either), but crunches and abdominal exercises will. Talk to your doctor, see if they can recommend a personal trainer and a nutritionist, whether you can get back to what you were 20 years ago, well, lets be reasonable, it was 20 years ago. Mind you, there are guys who at 50 are in better shape then they were at 30, I am 47, and I am certainly in better shape now then I was at 27. I want to be able to still ride a century when I am 65, which means I still have a way to go.

I'm hoping for a century next year, this year has nearly broken records for the most rain, which is not surprising considering we nearly beat the all time snow record last winter. A light rain I don't mind, but we have had heavy rains with high winds, and thunder storms this year, I've given up trying to match or beat goals this year......

Oh by the way, if your 6' or taller, your a clyde anyway, no matter what your weight...

milehile

I'm 6'6" and 260+, and I feel like I'm in the same theoretical pool you are in. I get a lot of compliments on my looks, but then they see the rest of me. I feel that if I lost about 40#, I would be happy with the way I looked. So, that's why I got into biking.

I wasn't looking into becoming a hard-core biker, but was looking for something other than jogging to get into shape, while also transporting myself to and from work. I now find myself at bike shops drooling over a $1200 Cannondale wishing it were mine. But, my Trek 360 is doing a job well done, and I can already feel my legs getting a little more toned. The muscle mass in my legs has increased by at least 10% and in only 2 weeks of riding. As for the gut, well, it's still there, but my stamina is increasing. I no longer have to stop and walk up the hills here in my hometown (I go uphill ~80 feet in about 5 miles on the way to work).

Oh, and for me, it was Taco Bell, McDonalds, Arby's, and Domino's that ruined it for me (worked at all of them).

atcfoody

Okay, where did you get this information? I'm guessing that it came from one of those evil "height and weight" charts. These charts were based on a specific population, often times, a very small group, and never apply to everyone (especially people who are active). Second, a scale only tells you how much gravity pulls on you, PERIOD! A scale in no way should be used as a measure of how fit or in shape someone is. Example: my mother is going to be 64 years old this fall. She wears between a size 6 and 8, and weighs in at about 130 lbs, being 5'7". She went to one of those free health screenings at work and they told her that she needed to loose about 12 lbs. Mind you, she has been running as a hobby for almost 30 years, can finish a 5K in around 26-28 minutes, and is on both trail and bike patrol for the local metro park system. For Mom to get down to 118 (their suggested "ideal" weight), it would involve something being removed, surgically.

The reason I'm ranting about this is that society and the media are one of the biggest driving forces behind eating disorders. I currently have an athlete (I'm an Athletic Trainer and College professor, just so you know) who is one of our cheerleaders and she lost 3 dress/skirt sizes since last season. Somehow, she has been convinced that she needs to be able to wear a size 2 wedding dress next year. She is probably going to be kicked off the squad because she is becoming too fragile, and not able to support the other girls in the stunts, becoming both a liability to herself and the rest of the squad. We are trying to get her to admit that she has a problem, and to get her some counseling, but this takes time. Magazines like GQ, Cosmo, and the like tell us (men and women) that we need to fit into a certain type of clothes or be a certain size to be happy and look the way that people do in those magazines. Well, that just isn't so. We are all different, and no one thing works for everyone.

Did I mention that I think Barbie is one of the most evil toys to hit the planet (how many girls have become anorexic because of that little plastic b!^@%)?

Now that I've gotten that out (I really hate it when someone comes down with a preventable disease), let me let the Physiology professor side take over and get this post back to something useful.

This isn't entirely true. Cycling and jogging will both help with the spare tire, but not in the way everyone thinks. Men carry more fat around the middle, mainly because over the human existence, men have been doing more of the hunting and long duration work. That spare tire is in a place where, if you were going to go on a 3 day hunt with nothing more than a spear, it could be mobilized easily and keep you supplied with energy for your trip (fat is the most condensed form of energy storage in the human body). Women, on the other hand, carry fat on their hips, where it cannot be mobilized as quickly, but is there in reserve for the purposes of child bearing.

So, as long as you hop on your bike or go for a run for a long enough time (over 30 minutes, usually), and don't increase you food intake, that spare tire will go down from cycling and/or running. Crunches will help to build up the abdominal muscles, causing them to hypertrophy (muscular enlargement due to strength training), making them more prominent and giving you that 6-pack look. But crunches alone will not remove that spare tire, unless you are doing hundreds of them a day, effectively becoming an aerobic activity. Long term aerobic activity (over 20-30 minutes) is what burns fat, the exercise doesn't matter.

The other thing to remember is that muscle weighs more than fat does. It is much higher in water content, and much more dense than fat is. This means that if an athlete (this means us Clydes and Athenas too) is compared to sedentary (read couch potato) person of the same size and shape, the athlete will weigh considerably more due to muscle mass. Don't believe me, find a couch potato that wears the same size clothes you do and both of you go jump in the pool. I can assure you that you will have much more difficulty floating than your sedentary friend. This is because they are carrying more fat around, and it floats, muscle does not.

Okay, now I've got all that out.

In the end, do most of us need to loose a little weight, sure, and some more than others. But don't let the scale be the thing that tells you if you are in shape. Do you like what you see in the mirror? Do your cloths fit better? Do you have more energy? Do you get sick less often? Is your blood pressure in a good range for your age? Do you have a low resting pulse rate? These are the questions that you want to answer "yes" to in terms of health. Not anything regarding a scale.

So, eat real food, not too much, and mostly plants, and be happy with who you are.

D

p.s. Real food doesn't involve opening a box or a can opener, but that's another post.