livedarklions

It's like the old joke, "quitting smoking is easy, I've done it a hundred times" . The problem isn't losing weight, it's keeping it off. And that can require major life changes that are not easy to sustain.

My weight loss and sustaining it required me to become obsessed with the issues. It's why I get so annoyed with people who seem to be equally obsessed with telling people "all you have to do is learn self control". That's really easy to say, and really difficult to do.

BTW, I did find one piece of advice really helpful--don't watch food shows on TV. They're all based on the idea that every meal needs to be special, and that really got stuck in my head. I have also pretty much stopped watching sports on TV. Besides being hours of sedentary "activity" , I can't even estimate how many food commercials that spares me. Am I the only one who finds it hard to watch sports on TV without snacking a bunch?

pgjackson

It's not just me. I'm not making this stuff up. At the core of virtually every weight loss system is controlling eating habits. All of them. Wether that is simply eating less, or eating different, the fundamentals of weight loss are based on eating less calories. If you are overweight and go to your doctor, he's going to tell you to watch what your eat and exercise more. Assuming you are generally healthy and able-bodied that is the process that works for most people.

Don't know why you think that is controversial. For severe cases, the lap-band or gastric bypass surgery can be performed. Why does it work so well? Because by basically squeezing the stomach it makes the patient feel full sooner...thus they consume less food. That's it. No magic. No overly complicated mumbo-jumbo. It physically makes you eat less. Pretty simple. Just eat less food. I have several friends who did this and it works. It really doesn't need to be so complicated.

You said it yourself "this is about learning to regulate calorie intake". Sure there are other factors, but step one in virtually every weight loss plan is managing eating habits. And yes, the main reason most people fail lo lose weight is they give up because it is very difficult. Nobody is shaming them, it's just fact.

Go to your local grocery store and look a the crap people buy. Carts full of carbs, soda, sugars, tobacco products, and alcohol. Crap, just giving up alcohol can make a huge difference to a lot of people. Even here many people believe they need carbo load the day before a ride, ingest sugary energy gels every 30 minutes during a ride, then replenish with a big meal after. Then people want to complain about why they aren't losing weight and blame it on some nit-noid technical stuff they found in some internet article. Weight loss is hard, but the process is simple if you follow through with consistency over long periods of time. It's the consistency that trips most people up.

wolfchild

Alcohol is a non-issue if used sensibly and not abused....Having 2-3 beers at the end of a hard work day or after a ride is one of the best things to have. If I had to choose, I'll take a beer over a protein shake every time.

pgjackson

2-3 drinks per day is probably not the best choice on a diet plan. And I highly doubt anyone would ever say that 3 beers is the best thing to have in a weight loss conversation. But then protein shakes are mostly junk as well. If you are trying to lose weight and you are drinking 21 drinks per week, cutting back on the booze might make a big difference.

terrymorse 

This is not true. There is only one healthy level of alcohol consumption: zero.

WhyFi

...textbook abuse.

Beyond that, alcohol can also negatively impact restful sleep, which is quite important to recovery.

genejockey 

While 2-3 drinks/day goes beyond most definitions of "moderate", I think the data don't support zero as the only healthy level of alcohol consumption.

terrymorse 

I was thinking of this article in The Lancet:

No level of alcohol consumption improves health

Excerpt:

The level of consumption that minimises an individual's risk is 0 g of ethanol per week, largely driven by the fact that the estimated protective effects for ischaemic heart disease and diabetes in women are offset by monotonic associations with cancer.

Also this, from the UK Chief Medical Officers' Advice (2016):

...there is no level of regular drinking that can be considered as completely safe in relation to some cancers.

And there's this, from Dr. Merkin, entitled:

Alcohol At Any Dose Can Increase Cancer Risk

alcohol at any dose can increase risk for cancer...
drinking even one glass of wine a day raises the risk of cancer of the throat, esophagus, liver, colon, rectum or breast...
taking up to two drinks a day is associated with a 23 percent increased risk for prostate cancer...
just one alcoholic drink a day is associated with increased risk for cancer of the mouth and throat, esophagus and breast...
The World Health Organization and the American Institute for Cancer Research recommend not drinking any alcohol...
The alcohol industry downplays the cancer risks of their products in the same way that the tobacco industry did 70 years ago.

gregf83 

The amount of time descending mountain roads that minimizes an individual's risk is 0 hours/wk. Most cyclists accept some level of risk to do the things we enjoy.

terrymorse 

As long as you know what the risks are, okay.

PeteHski

Now we know the secret of your super-lean physique. Or maybe it just explains your typical postings?

MoAlpha

This has been doctrine in US health care for years.

livedarklions

I don't know anyone significantly overweight who doesn't know they are consuming too many calories vs. their level of activity. No one here has denied that. As you yourself have pointed out, consistency is the real problem. No one here is claiming any "nit noid" reasons they're not losing. But all I am saying is that what works for you to maintain consistency probably won't work for most people because they can't sustain it. People are obviously struggling with this, and you haven't stated anything in that post that they're not aware of, probably more than you are.

And I find it hilarious that in the same post about how simple it is to do this you cite numerous people you know who've had major surgery to force them to do it. I know several people who have suffered some very nasty health problems from those surgeries and also managed to put the weight back on a year or two after it..

BTW, I don't do any of that carb stuff before or during a ride, but why are you assuming people who do have weight issues?

I rode 135 miles Saturday. I'm not regretting the large meal I ate afterwards or the brownie I ate at 70 miles.

PeteHski

I definitely do that "carb stuff" before and during rides (in a calculated way based on the intensity and duration) and have no weight or health issues.

livedarklions

Right!
If there's ever been a better example of ymmv, It's this! Whether this makes sense is going to vary widely with the amount and type of riding and probably somewhat on your own metabolism. I have no idea whether people store similar amounts of glycogen, for example, but I think I vary in how much is stored based on what I did yesterday. I feel like l have very little reserve energy on the second day when I do back to back centuries.

I've never been super lean, but I would suspect people who are have a smaller energy reserve than I do.

PeteHski

I don't think many people can sustain a relatively high intensity effort (say around 85% or above of FTP) for more than about 90 minutes without re-fuelling with carbs. I did a fast metric century ride yesterday at an intensity of about 75% FTP and consumed 3 gels, 2 bars and a litre of water/energy mix. That adds up to just under 1000 calories in total. Data (with power meter) shows around 2,500 calories used for that ride. So I replaced around 40% of those calories during the ride. Before the ride I just ate a light breakfast (oat cereal and a slice of toast), let's say 500 calories. After the ride I had a normal meal (chicken and vegetables), let's say 750 calories max. So that's a total of 2,250 calories consumed before, during and after the ride. A reasonable balance.

I was listening to the TrainerRoad podcast earlier in the year and one of their ex-pro cyclists was discussing ride fuelling and her general advice was to do what I did above i.e. aim to consume around half of your ride calories during the ride and eat pretty normally either side of it. The logic works for me anyway and I don't get into a large calorie deficit following a long ride.

livedarklions

Basically, I tell people I don't train, I ride, so I don't monitor stuff and I have no idea what my ftp is. You and I are riding for different purposes and it makes sense that you would have to be far more systematic about regulating your intake than I would. I take a very long ride (usually 100-135 miles) once a week and several shorter 25 mile rides during the week. On the very long ride, I generally just stop and have lunch somewhere about halfway into the ride. I'm not too worried about the calorie count on those days.

None of this is to say you're doing anything wrong, we're just doing different things. I freely admit I know next to nothing about training. I sure as heck aren't going to tell you when to eat a lot gel or make fun of you for doing it like that other poster implicitly did.

MoAlpha

Saturday I rode 3 hrs 17 min moving time at an average of 87% of FTP. I had a shot of whey protein for breakfast before the ride and ate a Clif bar at a stop for no real reason. 2159 nominal calories expended. No problems. People vary, particularly in their type and degree of training.

PeteHski

BF never ceases to amaze me. For me that would be a ball-breaking effort, leaving me totally dead on the floor! A quick look in the Sufferfest workout library of sessions with an IF 0.87, the longest duration I can find is 1 hr 42 mins at an IF of 0.88. It is an absolute monster of a workout and yet you can keep that sort of intensity going for much longer. So you must be kicking some serious butt! If only I could compete at that sort of percentage FTP for that long, I would be winning everything in sight by a country mile.

GhostRider62

Awesome ride!!

British TT champions doing 100 mile TT can ride at 90-91% FTP for just over 3 hours. Much of it depends on the type of training, those who feast on HIIT would be down in the 78-82% range

MoAlpha

Nah. I am a stringy little 65 yo weakling trying to keep up with far better riders. FTP is based on data from earlier in the season, so effort might be slightly overestimated. I do seem to have a good capacity to burn fat, acquired over decades of endurance sports and presumably enhanced by the genes of a people used to wandering in the desert.

MoAlpha

Remember I said “average.” This was a small-group thrash over rolling terrain with lots of Z5-7 and opportunity to recover. I could never do 3 hrs steady in Z4.

PeteHski

Maybe. but a) they are national TT champions and b) they are not in their 60s.

PeteHski

Well that is even more impressive if you averaged an IF 0.87 on hilly terrain vs a steady flat TT effort at the same average power. These guys don't even operate at that kind of sustained level.

https://www.trainingpeaks.com/blog/p...france-week-1/

"Durbridge put out his Peak Power values late in the stage. His Peak 20 Minute Power of 410W, or 5.22W/kg, came in the final 20km of the stage.
Before setting those peak values, Durbridge rode for just over four hours at a Normalized Power® (NP®) of 300W.
A Training Stress Score (TSS) of 269.8 and Intensity Factor (IF) of .75 shows that this was not an easy stage for Durbridge.
In total, Durbridge averaged 245W, or 3.12W/kg and burned 4195 calories."

WhyFi

Keep in mind that you're talking about TT efforts vs (presumably) a punchy group ride and (presumably) NP rather than Average Power.