Lieren

I'm having this problem (the weight loss, not the fatigue) right now as well, although from running rather than biking. It sounds like I eat lots more than you do during the course of the day. I find it's easier for me to drink my snacks between meals - chocolate soymilk, chocolate milk, those fancy juices like odwalla, fruit and yogurt smoothies are all easy to sip on while working. I buy big containers and decant into water bottles or old peanut butter jars (or keep the big container in the fridge at work). Also, string cheese and peanut butter on anything (crackers, apples, celery, etc.) are easy mid-morning or mid-afternoon snacks.

dang133

I suggest eating cliff bars before riding. They give you a good amount of energy and are vitamin fortified!

gauk

I have a physical job and burn 5-6k calories a day, here's my suggestions:
Eat if you're hungry. Bring a granola bar, sandwich, or vegetables in case you get hungry.
Eat more if you know you'll be doing a lot a particular day. Breakfast is absolutely the most important meal of the day.
Eat animal/fat/protein foods after working out (dinner), and complex carbs/beans/sugar beforehand (breakfast). Digesting fat can take days, and doesn't supply energy in time for same-day exercising.
Ice cream is delicious but expensive and addicting

Satyr

Not sure I would worry too much about losing weight, honestly. Especially in America, most normal weight calculations are actually on the heavy side. I lost 15 pounds fairly quickly after becoming a vegan, those pounds just being the product of fat soaked eggs and the like (I was a vegetarian for a few years prior to becoming vegan, and ate more than my share of eggs).

Anyway, there is a great book called Raw Power about weight training on a RAW food diet. I was only raw food for a short while and thus did not read the book in full, esp. since I am not interested in serious weight training.

But some very healthy suggestions in the book were:

Eat less frequently. Eating constantly actually promotes metabolism which leads to greater weight loss.

Avocadoes are excellent sources of some pretty good fats. I used to eat about 2 a day.
Nuts, as were suggested. I eat about two handfuls of cashews every day.
Flax seeds. (Just good tasting).

Coconut milk too is full of fats, so a nice coconut smoothie can do wonders.

A variation on a recipe I use for vegan shakes is thus:

a few bananas
some ice
some soymilk (in this case some coconut milk too)
kiwi
peanut butter, a few spoonfulls
an apple, pear, etc.

Then just blend. The peanut butter gives the stuff an almost chocolately taste, and mixes well with the banana.

---

As for feeling tired, I was frequently tired when I was on a vegetarian diet. I think my problem is I was a teenager, and also ate far too many eggs/cheese. Once I became vegan and vastly extended my dietary options most of my fatigue left.

I think the key for decent energy is to make sure you get fresh fruits and vegetables. This can be hard since preparing in meals sometimes take time, esp. cutting many vegetables. It's far easy to just cook up some pasta and add sauce, but this is a meal that lacks many things.

A quick and healthy snack I am rather fond of is as follows:

- Slice or two of some thick bread, perhaps pumpernickle or some German Vollkornbrot or something. The dense Bavarian style breads
-an apple, sliced.
- banana (organic), sliced down middle and then quartered.
- peanut butter or tahini or almond butter
-some medjool dates (they are nice and gooey)

Then make an open face sandwhich. It's a nice boost of energy and pretty tastey too I might add.

Patriot

Tex Mex and Krispy Kreme. They solve any excessive weight loss issues I've ever had.

creativeirish

This site has good nutrition and fitness advice:

https://www.menshealth.com/cda/topicp...od.for.fitness

macintheus

Ditto: no expert here...

First of all, see a doctor--best to be safe. Then, after receiving your clean bill of health, add lots of pasta and bananas to your diet. If you're doing heavy weights you might also want to up the protien intake--chicken and turkey are good.

Eat more.

+1 on the Guinness

jagged

Thanks, everyone. Missing details: I am 31. I've had the same waistline since I was 16 or so (until now). I do weight training 3 times a week; full body (less emphasis on legs), with 8-12 reps. Koffee, wouldn't adding muscle tissue increase my rate of burning fat?

The food tips are helpful. Jif Low-Fat Smooth Peanut Butter is about my favorite food in the world, so I am definitely going to increase my consumption of that. Ice cream and pie had occurred to me, but, I dunno, somehow eating tons of junk food seemed unhealthy. I have never been a great fan of energy bars, protein milkshakes, or anything sold by GNC (I won't buy anything that's advertised with a "before and after" picture) but I'll consider energy bars. Most of them have way too much sugar, though.

nathank

1st: i'd say it's not i _real_ health issue unless you're choosing not to eat to save money (i.e. you say, "gee i'd like to eat now but i don't want to spend any money" - i know as i did this as a poor college student)
if you're active in sports (cycling) and aren't intentionally starving yourself(i.e. REALLY poor or anerexic or whatever), i think it's relatively difficult to be "unhealthy" from underweight (yeah, sure you could be MORE healthy if you had more muscle mass and ate more and you can almost always improve nutrition, but i mean you average "skinny dude" or even "sickla-skinny dude" (other than heroine or other causes) is generally healthier than your average 20 lbs overweight "dude with beerbelly"...

2nd: this is a common problem. i am a very active person and have been on the skinny side my entire life... at age 18, 6'0" and 135 lbs, age 22 6'1" and 145 lbs, age 25, 6'1" and 150lbs... from age 25-27 i spent 1 1/2 years of HARD HARD work to gain 15lbs -- i lifted weights 6 days per week, ate as much as possible and also took gainers and protein drinks. yes, for people with high metabolisms who do lots of sports (i ride around 6000 miles/year + other sports) it can be expensive to eat enough! (max weight was just over 170lbs) since then i weight around 165-170 in winter and 155-165 in summer.

the main solution is: eat more! other than finding cheap foods there's no real way around not spending more money...
--> eat 4-5 meals per day
--> snack regularly
--> take gainer - especially before going to bed

i do all the above and every summer when i bike more i lose 5-15 pounds. then in winter i do lots of weight training and FORCE myself to eat (yes, i physically have to force myself to eat more often and larger amounts and try for healthy but high calorie foods)

if you really want to keep from loosing weight, then i suggest weight lifting, but with the catch that you will have to eat SUBSTANTIALLY more! i just started my winter "muscle-gain" program about 3 weeks ago and i am now RAVENOUS - i am eating about 6 meals a day -- i.e. breakfast around 8am, then if i don't eat SOMETHING by about 10/11 i am starving, then lunch, then at leats 2 more snacks at work, then graniola abthen protein-shake 1/2 hour after weight lifting, then after-work meal, then dinner, then gainer-shake again before bed.

oh course the main benefit here is that you will become really healthy: strong heart/lungs/cardiovascular system from cycling, strong muscles/joints/etc from weight lifting and low body fat...

nathank

ah, you posted while i was typing and being distracted (you know, work, that ugly distraction)

yes and no...
weight training will increase your muscle mass and the retention of muscle requires LOTS of energy so your basic metabolic rate generally goes up if you do weight lifting: if you don't use a muscle the body out of efficiency decides not to use so many resources (calories) to maintain something that is deemed not necessary, so the muscle is reduced in size and (if extra calories available) the calories are stored as fat. so if you weight train, then your body will "decide" you need those muscles and put calories toward their preservation/maintenance so then have no calories left over to store as fat (and/or have to convert existing fat for more energy). now if you simple have too few calories then your body "decides" it needs a certain amount of fat for "safety" and then the rest of fat/muscle that it cannot sustain are no supported, so you lose weight...
--> so in a sense weight training may lead the body to "burn more fat" but not directly.

ok, so basically the change is that you are cycling more? is that right?
in that case, then you are now burning MORE calories than before because of the cycling and if you haven't increased your caloric intake then your body probably first converted some extra body fat and now is converting both fat and muscle to make up for the calorie deficit.
---> solution = increase you calorie intake!
(oh, another one i do on which there are varying opinions as to its "safety" is drink raw eggs - they're cheap, fast and easy - about every other day i drink 2-3 eggs before going to bed or better yet mix with a gainer-calorie powder -- some people will cite the salmenella (sp?) danger and others the high cholestoral)
what else: drink whole milk instead of low fat

cerewa

Peanut butter is good stuff. But much of the oil in typical peanut butter is hydrogenated oil, which increases your risk of heart disease.

Because you seem to be running a bit short on calories, I suggest you buy natural, full-fat peanut butter. That's the kind where the oil separates at room temperature (liquid oil generally doesn't clog arteries).

If you're not getting enough calories, a healthy dose of natural peanut butter is quite good for you. Keep it in your fridge, because that keeps it from separating.

Guest

Eating lots of food high in saturated fats= no good. You want to increase your food intake, but do it with the good fats- foods with unsaturated fats and/or lower fat foods like whole grain foods. All fat isn't bad- just the trans fat and saturated fats. Avoid that stuff.

I wasn't sure if you just wanted to get more weight, which is why I suggested weight training. You should be doing weight lifting anyway to maintain your muscle mass. Yes, it will burn more fat, but at least you'll have a little more heaviness on you, which will definitely help keep your bones strong, as well as promote stronger muscles.

Koffee

noisebeam

Nuts, nuts, nuts, eat 'em like chips.

Read up on the differerent kinds, while they all are low on sat. fat, some have double compared to others. Also avoid ones with any added stuff, especially the butters may do this. Even if you are wanting to gain weight, you should still avoid saturated and especially trans-fats.

Al

genec

Throw in a pizza and you got a whole meal.

genec

Koffee, what happens when you do moderate weights and lots and lots of reps?

I am not trying to build muscle, but endurance... is this the right approach? It felt right, but if this is not the right approach, I wanna get it right.

huhenio

Once you know you are healthy ...



go on an eating rampage, like Godzilla!!!!

You need to eat more ... choose your poison@@

Guest

The best thing I can tell you to do is hire a personal trainer for one session to observe your training and make recommendations towards your training to achieve your goals.

What you'll want to do is make sure your weights are low enough so that you're not bulking up, but high enough so that you can effectively maintain muscle mass and work towards building muscle strength. That does take some tweaking of your weight training until you find the weights that work for you.

Koffee

SharpT

but I am curious what others in this situation do to maintain their weights and energy levels.

I just started commuting on Oct 1st, and now I eat like an f'ing pig.

I used to never eat breakfast, maybe a banana, and easily make it to lunch, which was typically small. Then a late dinner, no snacks. I haven't regularly worked out for at least 10 years.

Now I wake up hungry, eat a 210 calorie bowl of oatmeal. Ride my 11 mile commute, eat a banana at work. A large sandwich at lunch w/half an avacado, like twice what I used to eat. Then on my 11 mile commute home, as I pass fast food joints, I salivate like a dog . Once home I immediately eat dinner. Then I constantly eat snacks till I sleep. (PBJ's, nuts, chips, etc.)

And I've still lost 4 pounds from 167 down to 163, I'm early 30's 6'. I wonder how many calories a measily 22 mile RT flatish commute is burning?

What's great is I love being hungry and eating, probably one of the benefits of exercising again.

SharpT

Lunch tip: Frozen half avacodoes at TJoes.... I pack one with my lunch each day and by lunchtime it has thawed and I spread it on my sandwich. Yum....

Da Tinker

On the calorie question, I recall that a 165 pound rider at 18 - 20 mph on a road bike will burn on the order of 800 calories per hour. Also, the rider's metabolism will be pumped up for a while after the ride, so call it at least 1000 calories per day extra for SharpT.

chephy

Is it really? I thought adding more carbs to your diet (e.g. an extra bowl of rice or a side of mashed potatoes) is a really inexpensive way to stuff oneself, and a pretty healthy one too. Rice, buckwheat and all sort of cereals - they do you good. And here is a trick for cheap fruits: perhaps you have some nearby farms where you can pick produce yourself and then buy what you picked for a much lower price than in the store (and it tastes better too!).

And there is always peanut butter!!! That's a good measure of calories for your buck.

chephy

And I never understood people who just had a bowl of cereal for breakfast. Breakfast is the eggs 'n bacon + toast with jam sort of time!

Guest

Cereal takes less time.

Koffee

NoRacer

Try this calculator to get an idea:

https://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspart...e/calculat.htm

If you averaged 17 MPH for your 22 mile RT, then that would be 77 minutes, total, on the bike. Plugging your weight (163 pounds) and time (77 minutes) into the calculator yields -> ~1506 kcals (Bicycling: 16-19 mph, very fast, not drafting).

Other environmental factors--rollers, head winds, overheating, wet road--will increase the calorie deficit.

.

huhenio

I did a 72 mile trip yesterday in the breeze and I ended up shivering like chihuahua for a couple hours after the ride -even after shower -

Calories cannot be underestimated.

I look like the machinist ... again

tkos

I was starting to loose weight and get tired on my commute (36 KM roundtrip with lots of hills - 40-50 minutes depending on lights and traffic). A good breakfast with lots of calories is the best thing. So add some toast to the ceral with peanut butter or jam. Have a mid mornign break of some fruit, a good lunch and then a mid afternoon snack. Spreading out the eating helps a lot and doesn't make it seem like such a chore. I like mixed nuts, raisins and semi-sweet chocolate chips in a ziplock baggie. A yummy and healthy snack.

I had to up my calories to 3000-4000 a day to keep the energy up.