fmvapp

Hi,
I am a beginner and need some help with a training plan/nutrition plan. I want to do a 62 mile ride-Philly to Jersey Shore. It’s the ACS ride July 12th, 2009. I have been riding about 15 miles 3-4 times a week. Some weeks I don’t get to do that much because of the weather...it has been raining a lot. I am going to take a spin class in addition to my usual riding schedule. What kind of training plan do I need?? I have never done a ride this far...It will be my first time doing a ride like this. I also really need to lose weight before this ride..I am 5’4 and 200 pounds so I really need help with my nutrition plan as well. What should I eat before and after my workout-are sports drink any good-??

late

Hi,
limit mileage increases to about 10% a week, but right now adding 5 miles to the long ride should work.. I like to do a long ride on one Sat and then
a shorter, hilly ride the following Sat. It's good to mix things up.

You won't need sports drinks prob until June. I use enduralytes a lot.
https://www.hammernutrition.com/za/HN...0047&AMI=10104

There are lots of ways to diet, whatever works for you is good. What have you had luck with in the past.

You will likely be back here with questions about saddles, shorts and chamoi cream as the rides grow longer.

palookabutt

+1 on the above. If you're truly a beginner, almost any riding you do will help you improve, but 10%/week is a good rule of thumb once you get to 25 miles or so. Be sure and take it easy (cut your weekly miles in half) every 3rd or 4th week.

As for nutrition -- replace junk food with your favorite fruit. Whenever possible, eat veggies or popcorn instead of chips, fruit instead of candy. Personally I like the "drip" diet -- 6 small meals per day instead of 3 large ones.

fmvapp

Any suggestions on what I can eat pre and post rides? I really need the energy

palookabutt

Monique Ryan's articles at VeloNews contain a lot of information:

https://velonews.com/article/89146

...but if you don't want to get too complicated, you don't need to eat too much prior to a ride -- perhaps 200-300 kCal of cereal, fruit, yogurt if it's first thing in the morning. Post-ride you want a mix of sugar and protein. Since I'd guess you're not riding more than an hour or so, it won't take much: a PBJ should do it. (This is in addition to your normal eating.)

Once you start going longer than 1.5-2 hours, you can add other sweets into the mix. Plus, you'll want to start carrying something with you on the bike. Bananas are great -- eat one every ~30 minutes on the bike and you're good to go.

Spreggy

15 mile rides are one hour give or take. No need for any special nutrition before or after. Fill those bottles with water and drink plenty, at least one bottle per hour. I really think palookabutt is recommending too much food for your short ride, especially since you want to lose weight.

Avoid becoming just another American energy addict. Everywhere we turn some a-hole is trying to tell us we need an energy drink or pill or bar. Well guess what my friend, you have 50 lbs of energy supply strapped around your midsection right now, ride that baby off! By the end of this Summer you could be lean and mean if you clean up your diet of any junk and maybe use a little portion control to reduce your intake. Energy marketing is pure, unfiltered bull****.

The most important thing for a new cyclist to do is ride-ride-ride! You think you need energy now or whatever, but after a month or two of riding solid that 15 miles will feel like a warm-up to you, and 30 miles will feel like exercise. After a thirty miler, a small meal of protein and carbs will do you right.

Here's a pretty standard century plan:

https://bicycling.about.com/od/traini.../a/century.htm

Good luck fm!

palookabutt

Yeah, I suppose I wasn't very clear. I was thinking of metric-century efforts more than the 15-mile rides. A beginner doing a metric may take more than 4 hours, in which case they'd want to eat something along the way.

TarmacDude

Well I'd be leery of listening to this kind of advice. Fact is OP, you weigh a lot and your body needs a certain amount of energy in order to function properly. I've seen it time and time again people not giving their bodies enough food because they started a cold turkey diet and a highly intense exercise regimen, and start having health issues because they are oblivious to the possible repercussions of such a dramatic change in diet and exercise. You want to cut down on food, but it doesn't need to be drastic. A pre-ride meal and post-ride meal is crucial especially in your case. If I were you, eat sensibly, as other have stated in this thread. At your weight, eating sensibly and exercising regularly on the bike...you will definitely lose weight. Don't push yourself too hard at first...let your body adapt. After 3 weeks or so depending on how you feel, start fine tuning your diet and up the intensity.

BookFinder 

I appreciate your observation. Sitting out here as a 50 + re-entry rider, I don't know that my fitness level will come up as quickly as implied.

Also, is that article on training at About.com realistic? That thing lays out a 10 week plan to get ready for a Century. Maybe I'm just out of touch, but 10 weeks seems pretty ambitious -- at least for someone in my slothful condition...

With apologies for the momentary and slight hijack.

umd

You do not need to eat to support fat weight. You should eat enough to support your lean body mass + exercise calories.

fmvapp

Thanks for the replies! Here is another question. How bad is trail mix after my training workouts? I am taking a spinning class one day a week and then going to the gym and using the spinning bike for a half hour with moderate intensity then riding after work about 20 miles. I found the only thing that helps with my workout headaches is Gatorade and trail mix...how bad is this?

hockey4mnhs

I don't think its that bad everything in moderation is my thing.

chill123

with the right training everything is possible. i used to be over weight and eat junk/drink too much before I rode my first century. as others have suggested it won't take a lot to cut out the junk and eat sensible portions. combine that with regular riding and not only will you get fitter the weight will come off.

my advice (from experiance) is not to go complete cold turkey as you'll be much more likely to fail. i am now fit as a butchers dog yet i still eat chocolate, drink beer/wine and the odd hamburger. the key is making these things a treat not a habit.

good luck amigo.

fmvapp

thanks for the info! I am trying little by little to cut out the junk and eat better

BloomBikeShop

Some good advice above.

To add in a little about pre/post ride nutrition, here are a couple articles I recently published:
https://coachlevi.com/nutrition/what-...and-post-ride/
https://coachlevi.com/nutrition/eat-d...-ride-or-race/

fmvapp

Your site is great!!! Thanks!

HIPCHIP

Just starting out myself with riding, but I've recently lost 57 lbs so can help with that.

First, if you can, talk to your doctor and hopefully a nutritionist about your weight loss as that's the best. I have a degree in sports medicine and my wife has a degree in health so we had a head start, but I was eating very healthy and hardly losing any weight. My wife suggestion I keep a eating and exercise log, so I started logging down everything I ate and looking at the calorie count on the packages. What I found was that even though I was eating light I was still eating too many calories.

One of our friends is a nutritionist, and she recommended a 1200-1400 calorie a day diet, so I cut out all drinks containing calories and started drinking diet soda, diet ice tea, flavored water, anything with zero calories. I also check the bread I eat and got the lowest calorie stuff I could find. Lots of fruit and veggies. There's spray-on salad dressing that's 1 calorie a spray, so that's a lot better than most. Use salsa as a dressing or flavor enhancer also. Also try lemon or lime juice. You can go on-line and look up healthy low calorie diets and get tons of great ideas that taste good. As long as you are counting your calories you know if you can eat this or not eat that. You just need to cut proportions down and replace it with other things that will fill you up.

I also walk basically every day. I walk for 2 hours and over 7.5 miles each time (had to build up to that) and with the walking and the calorie counting I dropped weight fairly quickly. I'm now stabilized (my weight won't come off as easily as it did because my body is used to what I'm doing) so I just started riding my bike for cross-training and am having great success, so I'm walking one day and riding the next. I'm now even able to eat a little more because I'm burning off the calories and need extra so I can lose more weight (it feels good knowing I have to eat more to lose more!).

As for the exercise, when it comes to running it is recommended that you increase no more than 10% a week so that does sound good. Do cross-training if you can: walk, run, swim, aerobic classes, etc, and you should start to notice it helping really quickly.

Good luck.
Dan'o :}

devilshaircut

I also had some nutrition questions ... For track racing ... Without going into excessive detail, I'd like to modify my diet to help me perform better at the velodrome. Before I work on my quads I'd like to lose some extra baggage. What sort of adobe do you guys have for losing weight without compromising peformance? I'd like to lose about 25 lbs of dead weight ... Ideally gaining that back later as muscle mass. My reason for the weight loss first is because I am curious as so how I would perform without having to get really bulky.