Greybeard712

Life is too short not to enjoy an occasional beer and pizza, and/or a burger and fries. I try to limit that to only once a month (one or the other). In 3 years of riding I've gone from 270lbs down to 208lbs.
I did, however, bounce back up to 214 the two weeks I couldn't ride in Oct due to a cracked hip. But that's slowly coming off.

2016: 4,476m (7237k)♂ Total: 14,118m (22,721k)

winston63 

Congratulations on some amazing weight loss! that's fantastic.

I completely agree regarding the occasional caloric splurge. I certainly find that it's easier to manage if I'm riding lots and I have to pay closer attention if I'm off the bike for any extended amount of time.

noglider 

A burger is fine if you take in the right amount of calories and don't eat crap with it. In fact, I eat more beef than ever now, but when I eat it, I hardly have anything else with it. I'll have some fruit or vegetables, and that's it. No sugary drinks!

Greybeard712

A freshly made IN N' OUT burger, watch them slice the fries from whole potatoes, and a chocolate shake. That's it for the month, except for the beginning of November. All that leftover Halloween candy. My bad.

2016: 4,520m (7274k) ♂ Total: 14,141m (22,757k)

Roody

What about Thanksgiving?

Greybeard712

Hah hah hah - Thanksgiving, all bets are off. It's downright UnAmerican to NOT stuff yourself on Thanksgiving.

That also goes for Veteran's Day - Free Casino Buffets. Yum!

2016: 4,674m (7,523k) ♂ Total: 14,295m (23,006k)

Greybeard712

If you want simple method for calculating how many calories you burned on a ride, use the following method:
Miles ridden times:
50 bicycling, general (eg. Riding 10 miles X 50 = 500 calories)
52 bicycling, 10-11.9 mph, leisure, slow, light effort
54 bicycling, 12-13.9 mph, leisure, moderate effort
56 bicycling, 12 mph, seated, hands on brake hoods or bar drops, 80 rpm
58 bicycling, 14-15.9 mph, racing or leisure, fast, vigorous effort
62 bicycling, 15-18 mph, racing or leisure, fast, vigorous effort
64 bicycling, 16-19 mph, racing/not drafting or > 19 mph drafting, very fast, racing general, hill climbing

Example: Riding 21 miles at 15-18 mph burns 62 calories per mile
21 x 62 = 1,302 calories burned.

Machka 

I just use 100 cal for every 5 km.

Seems to fit with what MFP and Strava give me and I lost weight using it.

So when I ride 21 mi (30 km), I burn 600 cal. That's pretty realistic.

Greybeard712

It really depends on how hard and how fast you ride. Higher speeds or hills require more energy, ergo, more calories burned.

Some of the on-line calculators use a complicated formula (weight, age, hills, flat, speed, etc.), there is one I got from Livestrong, but after all the effort of variable factors the method I posted was within a few calories and much simpler.

Machka 

My formula of 100 cal for every 5 km takes into consideration higher speeds.

Greybeard712

Using your method [100*(km/5)] I come up with 650 cals burned vs 1302. Since I'm not losing weight as fast as I'd like to, your method is probably closer to accurate, or somewhere inbetween. Thanx for the input.

DougRNS

A long tome ago - early 90's I saw something that said a rough estimate of calories burned on a bike was 20/mile at 75% of maximum heart rate and 40/mile at a 90% effort. I think that is fairy accurate from my experience. If you are noodling around for 20 miles you aren't burning too many calories. Bikes are so efficient!

nayr497

Getting fatter A full-time job, a house, a wife, and a one-year old are all cutting into my saddle time. I used to ride 2-3 hours a day, and 5-6 hours on the weekends. Now I'm down to mostly just commuting 35 minutes to work.

Time to scale back my intake, which I used to not really have to worry about. That said, I'm probably only a few kilos overweight, though I feel like a blimp!

winston63 

That sounds realistic - I haven't generalized a formula like you have, but I usually ride with a Garmin GPS and I've found that if I assume I've burned 60% of the calories it estimates I'm able to pretty consistently meet my goals for weight loss and maintenance.

There's a little fuzziness in there of course, my Garmin doesn't know if I'm riding my lightweight race bike or my fully loaded touring bike (or if I'm in a headwind, etc) but overall that hasn't mattered at all as far as weight loss/maintenance goes.

StarBiker

Turkey Jerky. Hershey bars. Cape Cod chips. Salmon and salad. Veggie or White Pizza. Starbucks Refreshers. (Buy them at Target)
Always watch out for wild women and you will be just fine.

tandempower

Why do you mention watching out for wild women, exactly?

Walter S

Some things they don't teach on BF, exactly

tandempower

I was just asking what exactly he meant, since the comment was vague and nebulous.

Roody

I thought it was a joke, and pretty funny. Of course many jokes hold a kernel of truth...

Greybeard712

Sometimes you just have no control over the weight gain. It took me 2.5 years, 9,000 miles of riding, and a shoulder surgery to get down below 200 lbs to 196. I was a happy camper. Then a kidney malfunction happened, Drs. put me on 60mg/day of Prednisone (massive dose), couldn't handle this steroid at 60 so reduced it to 40/day, but added 22 lbs in 4 weeks. 4 weeks of Rituximab (Google it) infusion and they still don't know if it did any good. I'll find out in another week whether it was worth all the fuss. Don't get sick, it's bad for your health.

PdalPowr

I am 280 and should be 200.
If I lose weight I would be happy but
don't let it stop me from biking.

Hippiebrian

This time last year I weighed 275 lbs. I had been car free at that point for 9 months and still was gaining weight. I found out about intermittent fasting, specifically eating one meal a day. I decided I could do that, and started off. A year later I am 195 lbs. and still dropping. I eat only once a day with an exception once every two to four weeks. I eat whatever I want, and fairly big quantities. The trick is keep it all to once a day and nothing but water, black coffee or unsweetened black tea in between. And when I say whatever I want, I mean exactly that. I can pound an entire medium pizza and then go out for ice cream, as an example. This way of life rocks! As an added incentive, I read about how much money it takes to shave a few grams off of your bike. Heck, I took a full 80 lbs. off the motor and it not only didn't cost me anything, it actually saved me money!

timtak

I got thin by road biking but since giving up cigarettes about a year ago (with some bad days) and even though I have upped my mileage to 75km most days, I have been putting on weight again slowly but surely. Hot damn! I may do intermittent fasting, perhaps a day a week. I believe it likely that fasting was the way in which pre-agricultural humans lived, so it should be this situation to which our bodies are suited. Recent research suggests that intermittent fasting reduces cancer and improves longevity.
No affiliation
https://www.amazon.com/Longevity-Die...cancer+fasting