Germanrazor

My whole life I lifted free weights and played baseball and then went solely into lifting as an outlet to reduce life’s stress. 20 years ago I gave up lifting as I was approaching 225 lbs. and felt sluggish because cardio was laid to the side. I went into cycling, both mountain then road. Road cycling soon gained favor. It took me until I was 30 years of age to realize the most important muscle was the one that pumps the vital red liquid with oxygen. I have battled trying to take off the mass of muscle as my body has a hard time doing and I attribute to lifting free weights from the time of grade school into puberty through college and working out with pro wrestlers at our local gym where I attended college to cold turkey stopping. To this day I still look as if I lift even though I have not been in a gym in 20 years. Maybe the early years of lifting with the onset of hormones/testosterone has benefited me in one way, but the other is I wish I could lose the mass.

That said, I have started a serious diet of severely limiting carbs and hardly eat fast food unless on the road with my job and no alternative. Protein, protein and more with an every so often carb as a guilty pleasure as I love a baked potato. This brings me to the fact I have lost 12 lbs. in just over a month of closely watching my diet and cycling 3-5 times per week when I can. My goal is hitting 190 lbs. consistent then finally 185 lbs. I have not been this weight since high school in the 80’s because of weight lifting daily for hours.

I feel better than ever with the 12 lbs. gone and hope the last 4-5 lbs. to 190 will make me feel even better, Cycling to me is an addiction and I wished I had been doing it since 7th or 8th grade through high school and college and I am sure if I had found it then my body would not look like I just stepped out of the gym lifting constantly. Don’t get me wrong, in my baseball days to have forearms the size of some peoples legs were necessary to jack a baseball 370 feet over a fence at times but given a choice, I rather have a cyclist body that is lean and legs like tree trunks.

Cycling has been a great release for me that replaced weights and it works both heart and lungs better than all the laps I have ever ran or lonely country roadways back in the day.

Anyone else found cycling probably as a life saver after youth has left and the metabolism slows way too much?

shelbyfv

Cool story!

bruce19

I was a college athlete. Football (QB) and baseball (SS). When I was done my body was pretty beaten. Couldn't run too far anymore. Eventually got into cycling and it is my only fitness these day. It is serving me well at age 74.

mstateglfr 

Yes many of us.
​​​One of the big reasons why endurance sports attract adults is because though the quick athleticism is gone, the strength and drive remains- so endurance sports are perfect.

trekmogul 

12 years ago I have gone from a fat working 265lbs to 152lbs that i have now maintained for the last 12 years..it can be done..

firebird854

When I was in high school I weighed in around 160lbs for 5'7". I become frustrated by this, and just after graduation, when I was around 18-19y/o I started lifting, thinking it would burn calories, it did not. I then bought a treadmill, this helped tremendously and I got my weight down to mid 140lbs, but it can get quite painful to consistently run, so I bought a bike! Got a Trek 1.1 when I was 22/23ish and still recall how hard it was to originally ride 3 miles. That first year I could barely maintain a 17mph average on rides, and couldn't really go beyond 30mi without stopping. I even tried a few races, but got dropped quickly and lapped many times... At the end of my first year of cycling I got hit by a car, sued, and got a much better bike, a Specialized Tarmac. I then trained like mad over the winter and went from a 180ftp to a 260ftp. I did numerous races throughout the coming summer (2018) and hovered around 140lbs. In 2019 I bought a newer, better, road bike and trained even harder, getting my ftp up to 270, and taking on multiple 200+mi rides as well as traveling to some cool places in the USA to cycle. Now, in 2020, my weight normally hovers around mid 130lbs and my FTP is around 288, I have also gotten myself a full-on time trial bike, worked my way up to running marathons and figured out how to swim freestyle. I had planned to do triathlons this year, but then everything got shut down.

If I'm being honest though, one of the biggest reasons I bike is simply to be able to smash pizza, drink all sorts of fun stuff, and burn it off with a single long ride. It's like I found a cheat on life!

woofy

I'm a swimmer. Always have been. Do have significant mass from that, especially upper body. Big chest. This is also genetics, and I am just one of those people with a 34 inch waist and a 48 inch chest. Heh. Was a sprinter in high school. I like long distance and open water now. So yes... endurance sports perfect. Sooooo true.

Was competing for a while and getting on the age group podium at least. That usually meant beating 2/3 of the field. So mildly successful. Just really liked it and felt the need to test.

With COVID-19 the pools all closed and it was pretty much winter here in the Northland. But not so much that I could not ride. And ride I have. I started in March turning 13+ miles around in a little over an hour. Last week I broke 45 minutes with an average speed in excess of 18 mph. Looking to do even better and cannot wait for the cooler weather this fall. At 60 I am not the fastest guy in town, but how I have enjoyed pushing myself and seeing the times go down.

I will say anyone that loves swimming should be comfortable on a bike, and comfortable with some of the training techniques. Swimmers have been doing intervals since at least the 70's...

So yes, biking has saved my life, but only just recently - and thank goodness for it. I took my first 1.5 mile swim since March last week. It wrung me out, but I was totally able to do it thanks to the biking.

I am now thoroughly addicted, and YES I will go back to swimming, but in addition to biking, not instead of.

Sorry so long. Kind of self-absorbed, but I do relate to much of the OP's post as well as some of the other stuff that has been said.

Here's the tidbit. I've lost 15 pounds in the past six months doing intermittent fasting. My eating hours are 12pm to 8pm. Actually it is now more like 18 pounds. So to the OP... be careful and take everything with a grain of salt. Consult your doctor or a dietician about... intermittent fasting. It may get you the last bit of the way to your goal. For me it is a lifestyle choice and it has worked. Relatively slow weight loss, but steady and perceptible. Healthier that way. Still a clyde, but working my way outta THAT club. Don't want out of the 50+ club... only one way to do THAT! Heh.

canklecat

Yup, I dropped from 205 lbs in the early 2000s to as low as 145 recently. I'm 5'11", so even 200 lbs didn't look too overweight on me, although it was bad for my health -- I started developing symptoms of congestive heart failure around 2007. That's what killed my grandparents in their 80s so I made some changes in diet and exercise.

While 145 was my optimal weight in my teens and 20s when I was an amateur boxer, now at age 62 I don't need to be that low. So I've slacked off the low carb stuff, disassembled the road bikes for long overdue maintenance, took a couple of easy weeks just riding my hybrid without any goals, had a few beers, ate a little junk food.

Just riding a bike and cutting back on the junk food got me from 205 to 175 by 2015 when I resumed cycling. But I was still drinking a lot of beer, eating more junk carbs than I was burning off, so I plateaued.

After a bout with thyroid cancer in 2018 and a broken shoulder (hit by a car) I decided to change my diet more. I was on a mostly liquid diet for months before the thyroid cancer was removed -- it was constricting my trachea and esophagus. I tried vegan for a few months and hated it. I can't digest legumes or veggie protein without a lot of enzyme supplements.

So I went back to a mostly carnivore diet, eating more meat. I do use whey protein supplements -- all my snacks, chocolate milk, etc., have a little whey protein. I don't do full keto and I indulge in junk carbs occasionally in conjunction with a workout or long bike ride. That helped me drop from 165 to 150, which is comfortable and helps a bit on climbs. At 150 I have a little flab around the belly and lower back but I don't care. If I decide to try for the seniors time trial competition next year I'll worry about losing that little extra weight.

The lower testosterone is a real challenge. I've dropped hints with my doctors, including my endocrinologist, but they won't take the bait. They say I'm just over the minimum for my age so they won't recommend testosterone patches (they used to when an older client just mentioned "feeling tired." But not anymore.) Same with my hematocrit, thyroid level, etc. All barely within acceptable minimal limit, but my endocrinologist is very cautious because of my history of cancer, thyroid and bone density problems, etc. She thinks in terms of prolonging life. I'm thinking in terms of recapturing some energy.

So I take a bunch of supplements, mostly legally obtainable without prescription or shady methods. Can't say for certain whether they work (no EPO or anything that needs to be injected -- just oral supplements). I feel stronger, can stand to pedal much longer than I used to, do more pushups, etc. But it hasn't translated to better aerobic fitness, so now instead of my legs burning up and going dead at maximum extended effort, I'm gassed out while the legs still feel pretty good. Maybe I just need to work harder on my cardio.

sanmateoclimber

This story is rad and inspiring, but I just don't think OP and I are ever going to see eye-to-eye if his cheat food is a potato. Is the baked potato... seated at the center of a pepperoni pizza? Or perhaps there is a key squished into the center of the potato, and said key opens a secret vault full of fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and ice cream sundaes?

Ride on, brother.

79pmooney

Congratulations and welcome!

You and I are very different. I cannot bulk up and muscle up. (Well I could eat on the flab, and get a little stronger but I never had the option of impressing anybody with my shirt off.) I got the quiet voice - and heard- that I was to never weigh more than 160; that I simply did not have the body to support it. Raced in my 20s @ 145; a long skinny climber. <155 now.

I think one of the coolest things about cycling is there is room for such a wide range of body types. Stick around., I want to hear more of your stories.

Ben