Riding far versus fast
#26
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I don't count calories, either. I just use the scale. Doesn't say what I want it to say? I change my behavior.
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Which is why I couched my entire comment in terms of my own personal experience. The comment even begins with "My personal approach..."
Then chose your grandparents well.
Lots of people are naturally slender - my Dad, and my older brother, for example. Dad ate whatever he wanted, and in good quantities. I never saw him do any exercise just to exercise, and his job was largely sedentary office work, but he was thin all his 100 year life. My older brother, similarly, has never watched calories. He used to exercise a lot - running, orienteering, etc, but since he stopped those he didn't gain weight and he eats well, too.
Me? I got different propensities. If I don't count calories, and just eat "instinctively", no matter how much I ride, I gain weight, or at best don't lose it.
I don't count how many calories I eat, I don't count how many calories I burn, I don't weigh my food, I don't keep track of any other data... I eat instinctively, some days more some days less and workout instinctively and I have never been overweight yet.
Lots of people are naturally slender - my Dad, and my older brother, for example. Dad ate whatever he wanted, and in good quantities. I never saw him do any exercise just to exercise, and his job was largely sedentary office work, but he was thin all his 100 year life. My older brother, similarly, has never watched calories. He used to exercise a lot - running, orienteering, etc, but since he stopped those he didn't gain weight and he eats well, too.
Me? I got different propensities. If I don't count calories, and just eat "instinctively", no matter how much I ride, I gain weight, or at best don't lose it.
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A long exploring ride with a half dozen 300 foot climbs: 52 miles, 4:09 riding time, 12.5 mph with these hills, 2800 feet. 1402 kjoules.
About 340 calories per hour. Or 27 cal per mile.
That actually surprised me. Around 22 to 30 cal per mile is a good rule of thumb for many different rides. Lots of rides have hard, high wattage efforts, but often periods of easy pacing or coasting.
But I thought the full hard effort, shorter ride would be much higher.
About 340 calories per hour. Or 27 cal per mile.
That actually surprised me. Around 22 to 30 cal per mile is a good rule of thumb for many different rides. Lots of rides have hard, high wattage efforts, but often periods of easy pacing or coasting.
But I thought the full hard effort, shorter ride would be much higher.
About 276 average watts an hour = 1mJ. Ride 3 hours at 276 watts and burn about 3mJ, or close to 3,000 calories an hour.
So yes, steady, high average power. That's the good stuff! 1 mJ an hour is a solid goal for some.
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I don't count calories as that's heinously tedious and boring, but I do have to ensure I'm feeling hunger at various points in the day, or I'm inevitably eating too much and will gain weight.
So for my purposes, hunger off the bike = losing weight. Contrast that to hunger on the bike = bonking, which is no good at all.
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Others have posted good information.
Diet is much more important than exercise when losing weight.
You can burn body fat equally with short intense exercise or long less intense exercise, provided you use the same amount of energy.
Short intense exercise will result in larger muscle mass. You can see this if you compare weight lifters with marathon runners. Also if you compare cyclists in sprint events, with cyclists in endurance events.
Diet is much more important than exercise when losing weight.
You can burn body fat equally with short intense exercise or long less intense exercise, provided you use the same amount of energy.
Short intense exercise will result in larger muscle mass. You can see this if you compare weight lifters with marathon runners. Also if you compare cyclists in sprint events, with cyclists in endurance events.
#31
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Others have posted good information.
Diet is much more important than exercise when losing weight.
You can burn body fat equally with short intense exercise or long less intense exercise, provided you use the same amount of energy.
Short intense exercise will result in larger muscle mass. You can see this if you compare weight lifters with marathon runners. Also if you compare cyclists in sprint events, with cyclists in endurance events.
Diet is much more important than exercise when losing weight.
You can burn body fat equally with short intense exercise or long less intense exercise, provided you use the same amount of energy.
Short intense exercise will result in larger muscle mass. You can see this if you compare weight lifters with marathon runners. Also if you compare cyclists in sprint events, with cyclists in endurance events.
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Rule of thumb is normally Cals = 3.6 * Avg Power. For your example at 276W you'd expect to burn about 994Cals. If you use Joules you need to multiply by about 4 to account for efficiency.
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In some cases, when people who have not exercised for some time, begin exercising, they may not lose weight in the beginning. They may lose fat, but gain muscle mass. If you are one of those, keep it up. You will eventually lose more fat.
#34
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Maybe a different perspective on the matter: I don't think it is all that relevant what type of cycling burns more calories if you want to loose weight. As others have pointed out, exercise makes you eat more and you can easily compensate for all the calories burned, leading to no weight loss.
On the other hand, my experience is that what cycling does, or for that matter any type of exercise, is it will make it easier to stick to healthier nutrition rich foods that fill you up while keeping a calorie deficit.
The hard part is that no matter how intense you exercise, it then always requires a conscious effort to choose the right foods and most important to eat a bit less than what your appetite tells you. Unfortunately there is no way around it to loose weight, you will need to consistently eat a little bit less then you want to for quite a while. What exercise and the right choice of nutrition will do is make that a bit more tolerable.
On the other hand, my experience is that what cycling does, or for that matter any type of exercise, is it will make it easier to stick to healthier nutrition rich foods that fill you up while keeping a calorie deficit.
The hard part is that no matter how intense you exercise, it then always requires a conscious effort to choose the right foods and most important to eat a bit less than what your appetite tells you. Unfortunately there is no way around it to loose weight, you will need to consistently eat a little bit less then you want to for quite a while. What exercise and the right choice of nutrition will do is make that a bit more tolerable.
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1 mJ an hour = 1,000 calories.
Zero reason to make it any more complicated than that. 6 calories = 1.5 grams of sugar. Not consequential in the least.
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#36
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But yes, in general you can say that 1kJ of work amounts to 1 kcal of food. (for people that plug these numbers in some type of online converter and get different figures, you also have to consider that there is an additional factor of 4 to account for efficiency of body, i.e. you need to eat 4 times more energie than the energie that was needed to move the bike)
I normally think of it in terms of average power and multiply by 3.5 to get to kcal per hour, as I find it easier when I envision a certain ride to estimate average power than it is to estimate total kJ.
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About 276 average watts an hour = 1mJ. Ride 3 hours at 276 watts and burn about 3mJ, or close to 3,000 calories an hour.
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Assign the worst cook in the house to cook and prepare your meals from now on! The first rule of weight lose is remove the temptation. Don't buy snacks, don't buy junk food, no soda, no ice cream, etc.
Even healthy foods in sufficient amounts will sabotage your weight-loss goals. Don't make them taste good. Cut back on the spices, flavoring, sauces, etc. Make them taste as bland and drab as possible.
Even healthy foods in sufficient amounts will sabotage your weight-loss goals. Don't make them taste good. Cut back on the spices, flavoring, sauces, etc. Make them taste as bland and drab as possible.
#42
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That will then give your natural appetite a chance to actually work and stop you over eating.
Trick is to let your taste adjust itself such that you start enjoying tasty whole foods.
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Hunger is more quickly relieved and with less amount if the food is drab.
Obviously, you can still eat lots of delicious food but then you must burn more calories in your workout. That may lead to longer workouts and if you don't have free time for long workouts, then drab meals is the answer!
Obviously, you can still eat lots of delicious food but then you must burn more calories in your workout. That may lead to longer workouts and if you don't have free time for long workouts, then drab meals is the answer!
Or you can, you know, just eat less of the good food.
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Not sure what you mean by "good food" here.
The healthiest foods I know, they do taste drab. I have relatives who ate nothing but healthy foods which is almost unpalatable and reached nearly 100 years of age ----- without modern medicine! They were very poor and consequently, can't afford hospital bills and meds and their solution was minimalist healthy foods. They never became overweight at any point.
Eat less of very tasty foods, you'll still be craving it. You'll need some real good discipline to control yourself especially when you're doing lots of cardio workouts. Won't work for everyone. Fill your fridge with nothing but healthy and drab foods, the temptation is much less.
The healthiest foods I know, they do taste drab. I have relatives who ate nothing but healthy foods which is almost unpalatable and reached nearly 100 years of age ----- without modern medicine! They were very poor and consequently, can't afford hospital bills and meds and their solution was minimalist healthy foods. They never became overweight at any point.
Eat less of very tasty foods, you'll still be craving it. You'll need some real good discipline to control yourself especially when you're doing lots of cardio workouts. Won't work for everyone. Fill your fridge with nothing but healthy and drab foods, the temptation is much less.
Better to learn how to make good food taste good, and eat enough of that, which will help you resist the donuts and onion rings and bacon cheeseburgers that are out there. I know that I'm far more likely to go out to get fast food if I don't have a healthy, tasty alternative. Every day you DON'T give in is a victory.
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#45
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Not sure what you mean by "good food" here.
The healthiest foods I know, they do taste drab. I have relatives who ate nothing but healthy foods which is almost unpalatable and reached nearly 100 years of age ----- without modern medicine! They were very poor and consequently, can't afford hospital bills and meds and their solution was minimalist healthy foods. They never became overweight at any point.
Eat less of very tasty foods, you'll still be craving it. You'll need some real good discipline to control yourself especially when you're doing lots of cardio workouts. Won't work for everyone. Fill your fridge with nothing but healthy and drab foods, the temptation is much less.
The healthiest foods I know, they do taste drab. I have relatives who ate nothing but healthy foods which is almost unpalatable and reached nearly 100 years of age ----- without modern medicine! They were very poor and consequently, can't afford hospital bills and meds and their solution was minimalist healthy foods. They never became overweight at any point.
Eat less of very tasty foods, you'll still be craving it. You'll need some real good discipline to control yourself especially when you're doing lots of cardio workouts. Won't work for everyone. Fill your fridge with nothing but healthy and drab foods, the temptation is much less.
Your advice, as usual, is extreme and unrealistic because it's based on entirely different contexts.
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That produces appetite suppressing peptide YY and doesn't deplete your glycogen stores as much leading to hunger.
Working out past your anaerobic threshold reduces hunger stimulating ghrelin production, but is too limited - you can't do that every day, and probably can't accumulate more than 30 minutes total. Instead you end up working somewhat hard which produces what runners call "runger" because you've depleted your glycogen stores without increasing peptide YY or decreasing ghrelin.
If you could ignore hunger you wouldn't be asking about weight loss.
Rob Gray's test results from the Wattage list, with FTP around 300W.
Last edited by Drew Eckhardt; 12-07-20 at 11:04 AM.
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#47
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Low intensity which is forced by enough time riding. I lost over 60 pounds that way without being hungry.
That produces appetite suppressing peptide YY and doesn't deplete your glycogen stores as much leading to hunger.
Working out past your anaerobic threshold reduces hunger stimulating ghrelin production, but is too limited - you can't do that every day, and probably can't accumulate more than 30 minutes total. Instead you end up working somewhat hard which produces what runners call "runger" because you've depleted your glycogen stores without increasing peptide YY or decreasing ghrelin.
If you could ignore hunger you wouldn't be asking about weight loss.
That produces appetite suppressing peptide YY and doesn't deplete your glycogen stores as much leading to hunger.
Working out past your anaerobic threshold reduces hunger stimulating ghrelin production, but is too limited - you can't do that every day, and probably can't accumulate more than 30 minutes total. Instead you end up working somewhat hard which produces what runners call "runger" because you've depleted your glycogen stores without increasing peptide YY or decreasing ghrelin.
If you could ignore hunger you wouldn't be asking about weight loss.
Longer rides wear me out of some of that energy. And I find that I can stay low effort for a longer percentage of my ride. And therefore I don't eat back the Calories I just rode off.
#48
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I think you summed up what I couldn't. If the goal of riding is to lose weight, then just ride low intensity. I've always felt that high effort increased my hunger. I have a lot of trouble trying to ride low effort. Every climb, no matter the change of elevation or grade is a challenge for me. So I fail at trying to stay low intensity on short rides.
Longer rides wear me out of some of that energy. And I find that I can stay low effort for a longer percentage of my ride. And therefore I don't eat back the Calories I just rode off.
Longer rides wear me out of some of that energy. And I find that I can stay low effort for a longer percentage of my ride. And therefore I don't eat back the Calories I just rode off.
Outdoors, I've been just staring at my stem and gearing down to keep my watts at least close to my supposed goal. Stupid low gears on shallow hills, no pride at all. I'll wind up with average watts below goal because descents. OTOH, that means I can stay out longer because of small partial rests.
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#49
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Weight loss hasn't been top priority for me... instead I've been focused on getting stronger and faster in hilly terrain. My strategy has simply been to ride faster on hills, more often. For me, it's a happy coincidence that losing weight and climbing faster go hand-in-hand. Happily, I've lost 18 pounds since March (from ~196 to ~178) without any deliberate dietary change. If anything, I'm probably eating more than before - I enjoy eating well! - though my consumption of beer is probably down by several bottles/week.
My advice is this: whatever your goal is - and also whatever path you pursue for reaching that goal - you'll probably get best results by continuously measuring and recording inputs and outputs. What specifically should YOU measure? Choose what you like! Because (seemingly magically) whether you log your weight, count Calories, count Weight Watcher points, or count beers and snacks... logging any of these or any other related metrics will help you keep focused on your goal and committed to improvement.
In my case, I use Strava obsessively to track many aspects of performance. Leaderboards and personal records motivate me to push harder on segments... including specific hills. But yearly progression statistics are also very interesting to me. I get those from the excellent "Elevate" browser extension for Strava. So, it's convenient for me to tell you that so far this year I've averaged 4.35 rides/week, 22.55 miles/ride, 1386 feet of elevation gain per ride. I've only averaged 13.71mph, but I can tell from segment times that I'm certainly getting faster on hills.
Good luck!
My advice is this: whatever your goal is - and also whatever path you pursue for reaching that goal - you'll probably get best results by continuously measuring and recording inputs and outputs. What specifically should YOU measure? Choose what you like! Because (seemingly magically) whether you log your weight, count Calories, count Weight Watcher points, or count beers and snacks... logging any of these or any other related metrics will help you keep focused on your goal and committed to improvement.
In my case, I use Strava obsessively to track many aspects of performance. Leaderboards and personal records motivate me to push harder on segments... including specific hills. But yearly progression statistics are also very interesting to me. I get those from the excellent "Elevate" browser extension for Strava. So, it's convenient for me to tell you that so far this year I've averaged 4.35 rides/week, 22.55 miles/ride, 1386 feet of elevation gain per ride. I've only averaged 13.71mph, but I can tell from segment times that I'm certainly getting faster on hills.
Good luck!
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Riding far versus fastAny advice on which is better? Like which one is more recommended for weight loss?
The best exercise strategy for annacaptur is the exercise he/she will continue to practice. Hopefully that could include many kinds of bike rides.
Last edited by Richard Cranium; 12-12-20 at 09:17 AM.