lindafranc

I have noticed that almost all people around my age are overweight or obese here in the US. I am not. I'm trim, slim but of solid flesh. The only difference I can see is that everyone else uses a car for transportation. I got rid of my car years ago (good riddance you dangerous, wasteful box of metal on wheels) and bicycle everywhere on a regular basis. Plus I look young! My friends my age look a lot older. Does anyone else notice this phenomena - that if you bicycle daily, or regularly for years you will stay trim and look younger?

mcours2006

People with active lifestyles tend to be less overweight than those with sedentary ones. This is no surprise. Whether that activity involves cycling, hiking, walking, a physically demanding job, or whatever, is less important than the fact that the one is active.

jfowler85

The genetic and epigenetic factors are significant. I'm skinny whereas many my age are starting to cross the threshold into overweight and obese, but then again my dad is thin and his dad was thin as well. Same thing with age - bicycling isn't going to make you look younger, but if your telomeres deteriorate at a less rapid rate relative to those around you that's another story.

A short answer to your question: bicycling will improve your health if you take vigorous rides often, but it will not help you look younger with respect to skin turgor, wrinkles, hair loss, etc.

fietsbob

years up until I hit 45..

Stucky

Lifestyle helps a little, but ultimately, I think it's genetics. I look younger/better than friends who are more active and younger than me (I'm 55). My mother's 93 and doesn't even seem "old". My older sister is in her early 70's and unlike myself, has lived a very degenerate lifestyle- smoking heavily and many other vices, and eating garbage and getting virtually no exercise....and while she does have health problems, she's still more energetic and in better shape than most people her age, and people often mistake her and our mother for sisters when they are together! I've seen many others who do not have such good genetics, croak in their 50's or early 60's from leading lives like my sister has led.

Genetics....

T Stew

Of course being way more active will help you stay trim and perhaps look younger. And good job giving up autos, I could not but do admire those that can. I was quite out of shape in my 20's, so I can say without regard to genetics that running, cycling, and living a more active and healthy lifestyle made a huge difference (I've dropped about 50 lbs since my 20's). The biggest drop for me was actually when I started cutting my own firewood. Felling, bucking, loading, unloading, splitting (by hand with axe), and stacking about 4 cords or so per year is a ton of work and calories! That's around 20,000 lbs you're moving about 4-5 times. Also splitting wood with an axe is great therapy and stress relief lol. Until I give up my city job and turn full homesteader I won't be giving up my vehicle, well even being a homesteader would be hard without a truck but not impossible.

lindafranc

I used to think that was important, and it has an effect, but I have seen photos of society from the 70's and being overweight was the exception. Most people were thin. Something happened from there. To me it appears technology replaced all the remaining time people had to be active. For example, back in the 1970's you had to get up and go to the tv to change the station. You had to go to the store to buy things. Now you can order food and have someone feed it to you without leaving your bed! It's my theory that as little as 100 minutes of bicycling distributed fairly equally over a week for years will prevent most people from becoming overweight.

wphamilton

Nope. We had remotes in the 70's, and just as adequate excuses to be sitting and inactive as we do today, so you can't blame technology. I blame it mostly on fast food, pre-packaged processed food, colas and other beverages, and increased acceptance of self-indulgence.

Machka 

It would be better than nothing, and would certainly be a great start, but 100 minutes would likely only burn 700-800 calories.

With that little exercise, a person would also have to make the decision to eat within their maintenance level for the most part, and the 700-800 calories might cover a once-a-week splurge.

rseeker

As I understand it, there are many factors, but one is that nutrition cough "experts" started saying fat was bad for you, and when people cut the fat out of their diets they added processed carbs and sugar instead. Turns out, by current thinking, some dietary fats are just fine, while the refined carbs are so bad you can call them toxic. I also think foods based on processed carbs became much more available, at say convenience stores, gas stations, fast food outlets, vending machines, etc. (The difference between processed carbs and other more natural sources -- I think -- is that the fiber is removed such that they digest very quickly.)

GrainBrain

Some people seem born restless, others more relaxed. I wish I could work in an office at a desk. With a microwave - and a lavatory!! But I love being outside and would go crazy sitting.

I've noticed that hobbies like hiking or cycling, anything requiring the heart to work a little harder require some knowledge of diet and healthyish living. If I eat like crap I feel it on the bike and it's not as fun. This lead me to halfway try and be conscious of treating my body well.

With that said I just polished off a double cheese with bacon burger, and washed it down with a few brews.

I'd go off about average body shape in the corn belt, but it's been shown that this doesn't correlate to overall health. I think what we're seeing is the result of a wealthy nation.

veganbikes

You and your overweight thing...I don't get it?
Not everyone has to be trim, I have a toroidal buldge in my stomach region for aerodynamics (like a ZIPP wheel) and I cycle regularly (though have taken more time off this year and late last year than I care to have done).

One can love pasta and cake, as well as cycling!

AlmostTrick

Agreed. The typical American diet is not a healthy one.

Agreed. With the abundance of cheap, calorie/fat dense foods at our disposal it is quiet easy to eat more calories than moderate exercise can burn off.

Do you really believe more than a tiny amount of the over weight persons in our modern society have cut fat out of their diets for any substantial period? Heck no. The junk foods most eat are quite high in fat... and often high in "bad" carbs too, as you point out. "Good" slower burning carbs do not make one fat.

Just as fat was given a bad name many years ago, now carbs have. Yet there are more overweight people, including kids, than ever before. Our bodies need carbs, and fats, and other nutrients. The key to maintaining proper weight is eating a wide variety of healthy choices... and limiting the unhealthy ones.

caloso

I’m 50 and the same weight (167lbs) as the day I graduated from high school. Is that because I ride my bike every day? Maybe. It certainly doesn’t hurt.

lindafranc

From my observation the formula calories in and energy expended is not all what can make weight go up or down. I believe the environment can cause psychological effects which causes physical effects - weight gain or loss. Then there is the change in the time fat is present in the blood - aerobic exercise greatly shortens the time, like by 90%. So it has nothing to do with total calories in and energy expenditure but rather aerobic energy expenditure causing the fat levels to drop very significantly.

Machka 

Weight gain, weight loss, or weight maintenance all comes down to Calories In vs Calories Out.

evan326

Metabolism.

Lazyass

Metabolism is part of it. I weigh 165 but if I did no physical activity I would be in the 140's at least. But in the USA there's so many obese people because of the diet. In my military career I went around the world and I just didn't see it anywhere else. The first place overseas I went to was London when I was in high school. The first meal I has was breakfast in a restaurant and I was shocked at how little food I got. It was like one egg, a little piece of sausage and not much else. Probably fewer calories than an Egg McMuffin.

You also won't see anyplace else on earth where the majority of people living in poverty are fat.

jeffpoulin

No it doesn't, or rather, it's not that simple. Not everyone digests food the same way. We each have a unique microbiome that lives off the food we eat. We also have different hormone levels. For some, excess calories may be consumed by gut bacteria. For others, it may be used to build muscle mass. Of course, it can get stored as fat too. What you eat, how often, how much stress you have, and how much sleep you get all play important roles in maintaining your gut flora and therefore your overall weight. Of course, eating too much and/or exercising too little will eventually lead to weight gain (and vise-versa), but the degree to which it does varies from person to person.

pesty

I’m going to say that it’s has nothing to do with activity and everything to do with eating choices and genetics.

I ride on average over 6000 miles a year, I ride on average 5-6 days a week. I can do 100 miles in under 5 hours including stops. I have been 20-40 lbs overweight for over a decade because I don’t watch what I eat. If I did, I might actually be fast. I also constantly get told I look 10-15 years younger than I am, that’s genetics. People said the same about both of my parents when they were my age.

When I met my wife, she weighed 103 and was a toothpick because she ate like a rabbit and only took in about 1000 calories a day, but she was very inactive.

There are lots of factors that affect people’s weight, and yes, most people your age are obese, because statistically 60% of the country is obese. But I’m hear to tell ya, it can’t just be ridden off. If it could, I’d be sub 175lbs.

caloso

Funny how so many Americans have such slow metabolisms.

HerrKaLeun

exactly. Genetics my play a 5% role here, 95% is lifestyle inc. eating and activity. It isn't like the great grandparents of the obese US citizen also were obese in the middle ages during a famine.

Metabolism (all the sugar cycles and all that science how a cell uses energy) is very efficient and at the thermodynamic limits after millenia of evolution. Differences between people are minute.

Genetics is just a convenient excuse for most people. The same way it is convenient to be lighter than average, even if that is still overweight. Sure, some fraction of a % just has bad genes, but not the 60% or whatever fraction of the US population is obese. When I met my wife i weight 150# at 6'. Went to over 210# and now at 180#. I don't think my genes changed forth and back. I always ate a lot, the difference was back then I didn't have a car and office job.

there is the danger of normalization. I'm not really heavy, but in the US i feel thin because I'm surrounded by heavier people (makes me happy someone else is worse than me syndrome). When I'm on vacation in Germany i feel fat, because there aren't many people heavier than me. But guess what, cancer, diabetes, heart attack etc. don't care how I compare to the mean of the population, they only care how unhealthy I'm when they strike...

Garfield Cat

Once in a while I like burgers and fries with a Coke or chocolate milk shake. Other times I like a slice or two of pizza. My favorite is the real Italian sausage, the kind you get in NYC. Joe's Pizza on Carmine street, Greenwich Village.

GrainBrain

I'd disagree with this slightly. I'd argue that yes, their grandparents did carry genes that let them pack on and store fat at a higher rate then others. What was an evolutionary benefit when food was scarce is now a hindrance.

Along with genetics I watched a segment on a Sunday morning show awhile back that highlighted some Nordic countrys. They were discussing overall lack of cancer/heart disease/etc and long life expectancy. They did tests on the population and looked at how they currently live. Nothing obvious was seen that good explain their health vs the world. Turns out that a millennia of living in ultra harsh conditions causes only the fittest genetic material to be passed on.

Retro Grouch 

I think that you have to analyze one's lifestyle as a whole. Everything works together.

If you bicycle 1 mile to the Dairy Queen for a banana split every day and then bicycle home, that would be a regular exercise program but I doubt that's going to keep you trim.