Inpd

So I have some definitive proof here!

I already lost a lot of weight from biking and dieting and am now a healthy weight.

For the hell of it, I've been riding 3+ hours a day for the last 10 days but just for fun, not to lose weight. I'm riding relatively fast at 15mph and have notched up 460 miles (see https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycli...l#post18882726)

I was amazed (and sad) to see that before I started, I weight 182 pounds and now I'm 183 pounds! I haven't been eating crap like McDonalds, but I've been eating 3 square meals a day. Breakfast is low calories omelette, but the other meals could be a home made pastrami sandwich. So I'm not binging but I'm not counting calories either.

It's been fun riding this much but I was hoping to get own a few pounds but it looks like I have to diet as well to achieve that.

10 Wheels

182 lbs is a good weight.

Be Happy

Willbird

10 days is not a SUPER long time either, there can be some trade off going on between fat and muscle that may show up eventually :-). Some tape measure work might be good to add into your data :-).

Also hydration and........digestive tract contents can have a real impact on gross weight. I get the most consistent numbers first thing in the morning without drinking anything, and after eliminating #2. That is a "dry" weight....we dehydrate while we sleep I seem to remember reading, due to moisture in respiration, but it is a very consistent weight for me. I try to limit myself to ONE package of Pepperoni a week just because I have not found a qty of it I can have in the house and not eat it ALL in one week, but for a day or two after that indulgence all that sodium packs on some water weight.

The human body is a complex thing :-). And gross weight is one of the worst ways to measure it's composition, but it is also one of the EASIEST ways :-).

Inpd

Err. Thanks for the description!

All weights were first thing in the morning after waking up.

adrien

A data set of one, with limitations, is not proof.

The only way to lose weight is to burn more calories than you consume, and to do so consistently over time. Most folks (myself included) will tell you exercise won't alone provide weight loss, because you inevitably want more calories. The bit that's truly behind weight loss is...eat better, and critically, eat less.

Finally, bear in mind that the more you ride, the more you will tone your body and gain muscle. Muscle weighs a lot more than fat.

My experience: went from 260 with 25% body fat to 202 with 14% body fat. Did that four years ago. I am currently 212, with 14% body fat. The difference is more muscle, because of the riding.

Willbird

I have never found a nicer way to say that dropping the kids off at the pool can mean 2 lbs :-)

Bill

Inpd

Agreed. I already lost 50+ pounds.

But lets do the math.

460 miles over 10 days.

You burn conservatively approximately 40 calories per mile which means I burnt at least 18,400 calories. Over 10 days that's an extra 1840 calorie I have available to burn each day on top of my regular caloric allowance of 2000. Lets say I only "use" (by eating) half of those. That means I'm at a 920 calorie deficit per day.

Over 10 days thats 9200

To lose a pound of fat you need to burn 3500 calories so I should have lost about 2-3 pounds.

DrIsotope

Either your caloric intake is more than you think, or your expenditure on the bike is less than you think. A forty mile ride will burn ~2,000kcal (~1,800kJ, Stages measured) for me, and I'm far less efficient than most. My daily intake is perhaps just north of 3,000 calories a day, and my weight has held steady this way for all of 2016-- because I'm not trying to lose more, and dieting at my current mileage load/pace is risky business.

HazeT

3000 miles this year and I gained 14 lbs
Cycling definitely doesn't make up for 4.5 lbs cheese cakes.

HazeT

Where does the "40 calories per mile" comes from?
I recently did a 72 miles ride, my average moving speed was 18.9 mph and I burned 37 cals/mile.
Today I burned over 50 cals per mile, but it was 5000 ft of climbing over 40 miles.

As people said, be careful with the conservatively 40 cals/mile and watch out your intake.

DrIsotope

As I said in another thread on here somewhere, ride a day of Z2 intensity then eat a whole pizza (or cheesecakes, as it were,) you're gonna put on some weight.

And OP, as I'm sure you know, it's no as much how much you eat as it is what you eat. If you're wolfing down bags of frozen vegetables and skinless chicken breasts, the weight would still be coming off. Maybe. I dunno. I'm not a human power meter.

KD5NRH

This; I'm only down 11 pounds since March, but judging from my suits and belts, a few more pounds have been transferred from squishy gut to firm legs.

Jarrett2

I learned the same through trial and error as well.

Cycling is great for overall health. Not that great for weight loss.

deapee

You're arguing with basic scientific fact here.

1) If you consume less calories than you burn, you lose weight. 2) If you consume more calories than you burn, you gain weight. Now there can be other factors involved in the short term such as water retention or a gut full of poop, but those first two sentences are scientific fact. If you are building muscle, you're probably at a caloric surplus.

Willbird

I only figure 400 calories per hour at best.....and the scale has proven I'm not far off on that. That is 26 calories per mile.

With myfitnesspal set to -2lbs per week and never eating back any the average "extra" for riding 100+ miles a week was about 1/2 lb on average over probably 70 lbs lost, then getting down to the 180 range where I had only 20 or so to go riding 125-150 a week was not touching that final 20 really.

adrien

Lots of variables here. First -- do you have an HRM and a power meter? Those will, together, give you much more accurate caloric read. If I ride (at 210) and chill out and coast more than usual (average heart rate say 110), with a weighted average of say 100 watts, I'll burn about 250 calories over 10 miles. If I hammer, run the wattage up to a weighted 210 or so average and the heart average in the 150s, then I'll burn about 480 over the same distance.

Second, you're assuming your caloric intake was exactly the same.

And critically, you're assuming no gain at all in muscle mass, which would offset.

Willbird

Agreed......the power meter and HRM adjust for things Strava for example never "knows" about at all, such as an 8mph head wind gusting to 25......which is also highly variable due to terrian and even crops :-). The power meter and HRM would know you were wheel sucking too ;-)....but Strava never would :-).