ancker

According to my Garmin Index Scale:
33 years old
5'7" or (170cm)
74.9kg (165 lbs)
25.9 BMI (24.9 would put me in 'normal' range)
20.5% Body Fat

Trying to focus on fat loss this fall/winter. Body fat percentage and BMI are somewhat less important to me. I'm not sure how much I trust the Garmin scale to calculate that, and BMI is good for 'ballparking it'.

However, I do have a goal of getting down to roughly 150lbs or 68kg by spring. I'm focussing on eating better as a point. I didn't eat horribly before, just cutting back on portion size and maybe 1 or 2 less oreos when the wife insists we have dessert and I already drink 16-20 (8oz) cups of water a day.

I'm lucky enough to have a job where I work from home (on a computer). This lets me get on the bike (trainer) pretty much daily. I'm currently doing an hour of zone 2/3 (power). I'm also trying to do 50 squats and 20 pushups every time my Garmin watch screams at me to move (every hour).

What else can I be doing while I'm home all day to help accelerate fat burn? Should I add more time on the bike? More Zone 2? Zone 3? More pushups/squats? What would you do?

furiousferret

What I'll suggest that no one else probably will is to get a stand up desk.

You'll burn somewhere around an extra 35 calories an hour versus sitting, and just as important it will help with your health. Sitting (which includes the bike) for extended period has a ton of negative effects such as anterior pelvic tilt, dead glutes, and a weak kinetic chain up the body.

I telecommute as well (a few days a week) and got a varidesk. There are cheaper products out there now, so money isn't as much an issue.


This is how I lost my last 20:
(I read somewhere on the net the body can only digest 450 per sitting is how I came up with the minimum)

ancker

A stand up desk is an interesting idea. My wife has one at work and loves it.
I'll look into that as an option, though I'll have to figure out how to make it work for my set up.

As for the meals. I've been tracking my diet in myfitnesspal. So I'm already working on the calorie intake thing. I'm not sure how I'd function on only 1350-1800 a day. I've read that power training and weight loss don't mix (It's hard to eat enough to make good power while cutting calories for weight loss). So I'm trying to focus at least a couple months on weight loss before I really start into power training again.

Aside from doing core work for the normal reason, is there any benefit in doing lots of situps/crunches/etc for fat loss in that area? Typical feedback is no, but curious what this group thinks.

nitroRoo

Weight training is excellent for promoting fat loss, but not so much for weight loss. Having said that, my best results have come from crossfit which incorporates lots of weight training and high intensity interval style training. Obviously a good diet is a prerequisite for all of this - I've definitely proven that to be true hehe.

NYMXer

Something that many people overlook is empty calories. Avoid them (as in alcohol, sweets) and excessive carbs (breads), eat more fiber rich foods and ride more.
Less calories in vrs more calories out = weight loss

caloso

The only thing that ever worked for me was to eliminate crap from my diet. Everyone has a different definition of crap food, but you know it when you see it.

up on two

If it is affordable and taste good, it is likely crap food.

caloso

Pretty much.

topflightpro

I've read several studies that indicate diet has a greater impact on weight loss than exercise. Which further supports the previous statements of removing the crap from your diet.

Doge

do you have some recommendations?
I have quite a spread I have to elevate. One of my German Clients had one 10 years ago. I thought it was so cool - till I looked at the price of $2,500.
Just a priority thing I guess.

forceofnature

I lost weight eating 5-6 small meals a day and working out 6 days a week. At end of weight training 20 min of sprints/ interval training. Got to 9% BF. Since then I got lazy and eating more calories than I should. Now getting back on track again.

furiousferret

This is what I have for telecommuting:

https://www.varidesk.com/product/sit...sk-pro-plus-48

I am leaning towards getting this at work

https://www.amazon.com/X-Elite-Stand...dp/B00Y3P0K1M/

If I had the option to get a new desk, I probably wouldn't bother with the conversion tops and just get an adjustable stand up desk; haven't done the research but you can get a decent one for $700 to $1200.

carpediemracing 

Lose weight first. Go through the New Year's stuff before you start training hard.

I went on a pretty militant diet 2009-2010, goal was in the 1600-1900 cal range daily. Went from 183 in mid Oct (I was well over 190 lbs in March) to as low as 148 or something in late Dec, most of my weigh ins were in the low 150s. Gained about 5 lbs before the season started, stopped counting seriously when I went to my then-annual SoCal training camp in January, 2-3 weeks of "ride as much as possible". I don't have my training data handy but I think I did a 30+ hour week in SoCal that year. Stupid big hours.

For food I'm okay with repetition. Therefore I'd cook something controllable (jar of sauce, known quantity of chicken), portion into 4 or 5 meals with known quantity of carbs (rice/pasta). I filled with a lot of veggies. For me it was canned green beans, easy to add, easy to count. Seltzer. Coffee with very little sugar and peppermint to add flavor. Salads with chicken and virtually no dressing. Snacks were generally very controlled, I don't remember what now, but a little bit of jam on bread or something. I was pretty heavy on carbs.

I had days where at 9 PM I was looking at only 900 cal consumed so I'd eat something relatively big to make up for it. I had a number of 1200 cal days. I'd hit my target (1800 or whatever) and feel guilty. It seemed like my weight came off in stages, I'd plateau, lose, plateau, lose.

I tried not to count training calories. There were net zero days, where I'd eat say 1800 cal (and I counted it as such) but I rode easy for a few hours and ended up with close to zero net calories.

It took about 4 days of being a bit wobbly to get into the low-sugar mode. Then I operated in sort of a low-power setting. Always cold. Tired. A bit edgy.

I slowly ramped up the food in December when we went to FL for family. I was so paranoid of gaining weight at first. I totally see how people get eating disorders.

In 2015 I did something similar but this time I cut sugar out as much as possible, ditto carbs to some level. Again, about 4-5 days where I was a bit shaky, but after that I felt pretty good. Much smoother overall with the sugar cut, no shakiness, no weird bonking, no weird taste in my mouth from I don't know what, like starving or whatever. At a lot of chicken. I only got down to about 160 lbs, but I did it only for about 2 months. Participated in a VO2Max/core experiment that was all of 3+3 weeks long, blasted out of the gates with a great for me 218w FTP, won my first non-sick race about 2/3 of the way through the VO2Max experiment (in other words very little training), and then life changed and things went downhill from June.

In late 2015 I had a diabetic scare. A1C was pretty high for a non-diabetic (6.5%). I started in on an Atkins kind of diet just to reduce carbs/sugar. Incredibly I went from about 175/178 to about 163 lbs in about 2 months. I think I spiked my cholesterol a bit as I was sometimes eating 3 steaks a week just for breakfast (and black coffee). It was much more fun eating like that, but the reality is that it wasn't really good for me. 5.9%? or something like that now, so it's better, but my cholesterol went up.

The core helped. No crunches. It was stuff on a foam cylinder (6" diameter, 3 feet long, you lay on it lengthwise, do stuff), some side plank kind of stuff, I have a link if you're interested. Did it 2x a day plus after every ride. I have a bad back so it helps.

YMCA

a standing desk goes against everything a pro was ever taught!
never stand when you can sit; never sit when you can lie down

that said... I'm thinking of getting one

canuckbelle

Just an FYI, I just came across a thing that I didn't know was a thing: protein pasta (Barilla Protein Plus, for example). 10g of protein per serving of pasta. 400cal goes a LONG way with this stuff.

tommyrod74

Edited that slightly for you.

TheKillerPenguin

Don't be talkin smack about snickers bars now.

tommyrod74

You may already know this, but A1C may be less valid for some populations for a diabetes diagnosis - including endurance athletes.

carpediemracing 

I had no idea. Thanks for pointing this out.

I readily admit that I was living on candy during the day for about 6 months, partially due to the way work worked. Taking lunch breaks could negatively affect income so snacking out of the available-to-everyone candy stash became habit. My diet was definitely poor in the 6 months before my blood was drawn.

carpediemracing 

You'll start learning stuff like that.

For example there are lower sugar jams, most are the same grams of sugar. Breads are killer, like bread bread but also tortillas and such. Insane how many calories in some of them. Basically you have to ditch most breads/related, rice for sure, and moderation on the pasta. Pizza is pretty bad, even without cheese because the dough is bad.

You'll be reading a lot of labels.

For me chicken became a staple, usually cooked in some sauce that was relatively low in overall calories as well as fat. Or, better, just salt/pepper/onionpowder/garlicpowder, so zero added calories.

I always cut off the excess fat, even in skinless/boneless stuff. I find it's easier to trim the fat from thighs rather than breasts.

The Missus can't stand it but a staple when I was poor was some pea soup (if possible a low fat version) with a can of tuna dumped in it. Tuna is great (not sure about environmentally but...), low/no fat, low/no carb, low calorie, good protein. I avoid tuna at home because the cats go nuts.

I'm thinking I need to start too. Been thinking about it but not really acting on it.

Homebrew01

My little tricks were:

Wear my belt a bit tight to remind me

Brush teeth early at night, then less tempted to nibble

When eating junk food, like a brownie, throw half of it away before you start, then you can't eat the whole thing.

Don't buy the junk in the first place. If it's not in the house, you won't eat it.

I picked M - F as diet days, then not so strict on the weekends. Trying to be "good" 100% of the time is tough.

rideaz

I lost 12 lbs this summer. I didn't change what I ate very much, just ate about 10% less. I'm vegetarian and my diet is pretty clean to start with. I also added non cycling activities (hiking, trail running) because my body seems to get pretty efficient at cycling and I think that was why I was stuck at that extra 10lbs all the time.

tetonrider

do you have anything to point me toward on this?

years ago an a1c test was accidentally performed for me and came back higher than expected (no family history, good diet, solid exercise). it was a shocker. figured it might be an anomaly.

i further improved diet and weight, then retested.....and it got worse. it remained stable for a few more tests, then i just shrugged. there's nothing more i could do. haven't had it tested in 2 years.

i had some theories about why the test *might* be invalid for me (maybe a little reaching...like average life of cells >90d, meaning falsely high count according to the normal standard) -- we just had no other explanation.

is there a best time to test (i.e., on the last day of a rest week)? since it purports to be, essentially, an average of 90 days, i'm not sure if it matters when one tests. basically i'm always in training mode. i take time off, but in every 90-day period i probably have some heavy training and racing.

thanks!

tetonrider

a hidden source of major calories (when one is trying to cut weight) is oils and/or sauces. i'm not saying it is good or bad, but a few TBSP of olive oil with some chicken can dramatically affect the # of calories per serving.

this is one area where a week of TRUE tracking -- literally everything -- can reveal some interesting things.

for me, meals tend to be 1 of a few variations (with a few exceptions). what i do is carefully measure out, say, 1# of chicken (4 servings), a pepper and whatever veggies, the exact amount of olive oil i use, then divide by the # of meals it actually turns out to be. then i know that whenever i have "chicken & veggies" i know it is xxx cal (30 pro, 25 cho, 10 fat).

after a small investment in tracking, it becomes 2nd nature to be able to approximate what i'm eating for any given meal and where i am in a day....when i'm interested in that stuff.

Enthalpic

Interesting, while professional cyclists had the best fasting glucose levels they had the worst a1c levels.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17614026
In multiple linear regression analysis, the intensity of physical exercise is inversely correlated with FPG (r = - 0.320; p < 0.001) and directly correlated with HbA1c (r = 0.190; p = 0.006).