PatrickR400

Eating to much salt causes water retention. Cut salt and shed water, which is shedding weight, but not an indication of lost weight.

SHBR

Too many variables to give advice to the OP situation. I can say that long rides work best for me, as in all day 8 hours + ride time with medium to low intensity, eventually you will burn fat, repeat as necessary.

Leebo

Like mountain biking? An intense workout.

Null66

one inviolate observation.

It takes calories to build muscle. It is quite difficult to build substantial muscle even while in calorie surplus.

ColaJacket

It's probably time to get a HRM or Power Meter (and a cadence meter if you don't have one already).

That way you can train smarter. You probably need to take 1 day a week off (if not 2). It does sound like you hit a plateau with your training, so you need to do something to train smarter. I hear a lot of people recommending the Time-Crunched Cyclist. And if you want to lose more fat, then do a google on cycling and ketosis.

GH

Van Goghs Ear

If you're eating the same as you were 30 pounds ago, then you are most likely consuming too many calories. As your body gets smaller, you require less calories to function (metabolic functions). You'll also burn less calories working out as it requires less energy and effort to move your 200 pound body versus your 230 pound body (like the difference between jumping jacks versus jumping jacks with Dumbells in your hands). This is why people often struggle (myself included) with the last 30-50 pounds in a weight loss regiment.

mapeiboy

Eat less and exercise more . By more I mean climb more hills

Drew Eckhardt 

Bicycling doesn't work that way, especially when you set your goals in terms of time (one hour on weekdays and double that on Saturdays or whatever) not distance.

You can loose 50 or 70 pounds and use more energy working out after, although you go faster and see more scenery doing that.

There's 50 pounds between the left side and right side here but no direct connection to weight - I restrained myself and rode more easy miles through Summer, 2014; worked on getting my power back starting February 2015 plus increased volume; and am stuck inside on a trainer since crashing in June.

The top bar graph is kj/week where 1 kj = 1 Calorie. The next two are 10 and 60 minute peak powers in Watts which are joules/second, with 100W 1 Calorie per 10 seconds - 360 an hour at 100W, 720 at 200W.



Many food items don't come in proper meal-sized units - a Super Burrito can be two meals. That excess is more of a problem when you have less fat to support at 2-4 Calories per pound per day. Loose 30-50 pounds and your resting metabolic needs drop by 420-1400 Calories a week; and the excess takes you from 1/8 - 5/8 of a pound a week negative (including the water which goes with fat) to steady.

Fortunately a lot of them keep well and reheat later.

lurch0038

cut carbs and sugars....weight will fall off your body

Van Goghs Ear

it was a crude analogy, but the logic is still sound, the more weight you lose, the harder it is to make a drastic calorie deficit. If you lose weight and keep all your other numbers the same as when you were much heavier, you will eventually have to augment your numbers. When I weighed in at 400lbs, my metabolism was around 4100 calories/day according to my nutritionist using the metabolic test (using an oxygen mask thing-a-ma-jiggy). It was easy to create a calorie deficit at this point. Obviously if I kept eating 3000 calories a day, my deficit would no longer be 1100 calories, in fact, I would be gaining weight at this point.


I'm confused, I'm not sure if this is a sentence or a quote from a William S. Burroughs book while he was on heroin..

Yes, I agree with this 100%, and is the essence of what I was trying to say. Ultimately, if you can though, it's always best to use scratch ingredients and make your own foods and monitor/control your portions. When I lost my 150 pounds, my measuring cup and kitchen scale for ingredients were my best friends, and I seldom consumed pre-packaged foods. I was definitely taken aback by how many foods I used to think were labeling the nutrition value for the whole serving or package were in fact, incredibly misleading. Even packages of tortilla wraps giving the calories for half a wrap...who eats half a wrap? seriously!

Inpd

Yeah. I looked at my diary and I'e added in a fare amount of carbs in the last month so I'll have to cut back. Its so easy to let a bowl of cereal, fruit (I'm in CA) etc squeeze into your diet.

jetboy 

for me 190 is pretty much ideal ( I am 6'2" and decently muscular) so as was posted earlier its sort of hard to give advice without knowing what your expectations are.

I'd say this: sugar in all its forms is really the enemy. complex carbs are fine, but anything refined is just another name for sugar. once you cut sugar intake you will feel like absolute crap for about a month as your body adjusts, but it will adjust and you will be fine.

we eat a lot of rice in my family (asian) and the simple change from white to brown rice meant a drop of 10+ lbs with no change in eating habits.

also, I always tell my wife: its not what you did last week that effects this week: its long term... results come a couple months out if you are doing it right.

i

InTheRain

Some good advice here. My favorites are "cut your carbs"... cut them hard! Less than 50 grams per day for a while, and then keep them under 100g per day. Your body will adjust and learn to use fat for fuel. The other piece of great advice, "up the intensity" do intervals... sprints and/or hills. Or get off your bike for a few days and do some weight bearing exercise that is intense... sprints (running.) Do some resistance exercise with heavy weight (keep the reps below 8... where the last one is all you can do and you might need help.)

It's hard work. And your diet is more important than your exercise when it comes losing weight. I'll bet most of the people in this forum have lost weight and know how to do it... most of us don't have the discipline to keep it off.

Willbird

I had type II when I first came here, I have normal H1AC now. But I played with s blood glucose meter a lot. Whole fruit for me anyway, apples, blueberries, strawberries did not even cause s blip in my blood glucose. The carb is so tied up in fiber IMHO that it is not a big deal. Pineapple would spike me like crazy. Old fashioned oats and cream type soups would spike me too. Today 125 lbs lighter those things are fine.

Aladin

FAR from the full story...what's your stats? Age, ht and wt, do you actually chart and figure what you consume?

Insulin resistance.. goggle it.

GREAT job BTW.. well done.

snow_echo_NY

not only monitor how much you eat, but what you actually eat. you haven't talked about your diet.

have you read In Defense of Food yet? it is based on this quote: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants"

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...efense_of_Food

some other good quotes: "“Don't eat anything incapable of rotting.” and “Avoid food products containing ingredients that are A) unfamiliar B) unpronounceable C) more than five in number or that include D) high-fructose corn syrup”

it's not a perfect book by any means. neither is his other best seller: the Omnivore's Dilemma https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...vore_s_Dilemma

but if you are eating lots of processed foods and not actual food (by actual food, i mean plants with a tiny bit of meat very occasionally) then it's really about, you are what you eat.

if you're bicycling a lot, food is your fuel. you have to give your body good fuel to keep going and perform well. you'll notice it immediately if you have brussel sprouts and broccoli for dinner vs. steak frites.

looking forward to hearing more details OP!

chefisaac

With weight loss, riding only gets you so far. Riding is good for cardio, not so much muscle gain. Start lifting some to build some muscle. Muscle gain and EPOC will burn more calories in the long run. The EPOC from cycling is not so much.

I had had this problem too for a while. Was riding 250 miles a week, 6 days a week. My trainer, coach and dietician all said to reduce cycling and add in weights and HIIT.

Also, eat better and higher quality of foods (when you can afford it). Organic, grass fed, pastured, local etc.

It worked. 140 down and still losing.

ozziejones

Ride as my as I want, eat whatever I want.

Willbird

Actually a book I just got says that in studies people who exercise burn 10% to 15% less calories at rest, so the deal about raising your basic metabolic rate with an hour a day of exertion may be total malarkey, and if it were 15% that would be 2100 a week if you were eating 2000 a day....so 2100 of a 3500 calorie deficit (if you were striving to lose 1 lb a week) would slow weight loss a LOT.


Bill

baron von trail 

Ride faster?

mikiek

If you are not aware, do a little research on the difference between aerobic and anaerobic exercise. One helps fat burning, the other not so much. There are ways to ride your bike to get an aerobic workout and different ways to get an anaerobic workout. They can both be good workouts but the results will be different.

Jseis 

Cycling on 100+ psi tires on pavement is just dammed efficient. I ride 99% of my time on my fat bike on the beach. Very inefficient. So inefficient that I can easily lose 1/2-3/4 pound per week riding say 10 cumulative hours (about 65-70 miles). For me, that's around a 1500-2200 calorie deficit per week. Slightly more than 200 calories per day!

......doesn't take much pizza & beer to mess with that. A diet log of everything you eat will tell you real quick how your daily caloric budget is doing with respect to weight loss.

Willbird

Fat bike or super efficient road bike one can burn the same calories per hour :-), if one maintains the same heart rate .

VCSL2015

Just curious.. how is your endurance? Are you doing spurts and inclines? Alot of resistance burns fat I noticed in areas of my body not reflected on the scale. I took the advice of other members here and broke up with my boyfriend, my scale. We broke up in June, and I am learning how to use food as fuel. I dont even like to use the word diet. For me it has negative connotations, but I just dropped processed food and sugars in my diet it took three weeks to ween myself off but learning how to eat real food is a learning process. Anyways, Im much happier after my boyfriend break up and just concentrate on my bike rides which includes mega hills plus mega cross wind, head wind and never tailwind LOL which builds endurance and strength and if weather does not permit me to ride I try to at least walk 4 km. I walk in pouring down rain, wind and snow. Did I mention I HATE walking? But i find my trainer is more boring than a walk so I walk. My point is, you are not superhuman. You will lose weight if you eat real food and exercise.

schnee

Watch the HBO miniseries on obesity. It's on Youtube, and has a lot of great info.

One fact from it: after you lose a significant amount of weight, as in 10-15% of your total weight, your metabolism drops 20%.

That's true of everyone, and it never goes away.

It's disconcerting, because your stomach is used to being more full, but cut your portion sizes a bit more and tough out the first week. You'll adapt and it'll feel natural again.