pwa wrote:It takes a lot of miles to work off one slice of cake. Life isn't fair.
Well, I looks at it this way .... If indulging in cake requires loadsa miles to compensate, this is a win-win. After all, loadsa miles can be very entertaining. Even the hard ones are nice when they stop (especially a stop at the café).
But perhaps you have not yet been a cyclist long enough to switch on your masochist gene?
Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
My understanding is that exercise including cycling is good for the mind and body but is unlikely to help you lose weight and to do that you need to eat less calories. The other trick to lose weight or to maintain a healthy weight is to eat most in the morning and little in the evening, that is what I do and it seems to work and I rarely feel peckish or hungry.
If you are at your optimum weight you will rarely loose weight just cycling. However if you are many kilos over what you should be then there is a good chance you will get down to your optimum weight with regular cycling & that means putting effort into what you are doing not just poodle about going from one cake shop to another. The thing is to find out what your optimum weight is. Sometimes you know what it is without any professional advice/ They take into account things like your height, age. bone structure ( people of the same stature can have larger or smaller bones). To be under weight can be worse than overweight especially as you get older. Most importantly for me is I watch what I eat & cycle regularly. I see many obviously overweight people cycling along the canal towpaths here, just breezing along & when they come to a bridge with a slight incline they get of & walk. I feel like shouting out to try cycling it, you'll get there in the end. Then there is the E bikers & no I'm not going to go there. What ever it's still good to see folk out & about getting exercise
pwa wrote:It takes a lot of miles to work off one slice of cake. Life isn't fair.
Well, I looks at it this way .... If indulging in cake requires loadsa miles to compensate, this is a win-win. After all, loadsa miles can be very entertaining. Even the hard ones are nice when they stop (especially a stop at the café).
But perhaps you have not yet been a cyclist long enough to switch on your masochist gene?
Cugel
Too long, sadly. Masochism now in the past and the cake gene more dominant.
I don't consider it losing rather using the weight.
I tour most of the winter, but always return to the UK for Christmas and NY. Lots of festivities and I can put on a few kilos, mainly round my middle. At the end of Jan I am back on the road and within a few weeks (according to my waistband) I have used those stored kilos.
Losing any more depends on how tough the tour is and probably more importantly how good the local food is.
To the OP, I would like to see CycleUK get more involved with the health side of cycling. I think diabetes is a good one to work with. There have been recent reports of people going into remission by exercising and diet. The exercise is often cycling. If cycling could be adopted as part of the standard treatment working to remission, it could help to boost the profile of cycling at all levels and who knows, we may even get more investment in infrastructure, etc. After all, diabetes is a major problem in the UK and accounts for 10% of the NHS budget.
simonhill wrote: To the OP, I would like to see CycleUK get more involved with the health side of cycling.
The problem is that it shifts the focus of cycling onto something we do in order to achieve something else. Cyclists have always known that cycling has health benefits (and despite the evidence above, that includes weight loss over time). But we do it because it is inherently satisfying. I have a feeling that all this focus on health, competition, achievement, monitoring and weighing might be missing the point. Even the Guardian has something to say on this:
Having said that, I cannot help but agree that many people would benefit health and weight-wise from taking up cycling. Oh well, whatver it takes, I suppose.
When the pestilence strikes from the East, go far and breathe the cold air deeply. Ignore the sage, stay not indoors. Ho Ri Zon 12th Century Chinese philosopher
I ride three times a week. Thirty miles a time with some hard hills. Quite a bit of hard riding. I try to do a club run of up to 90 miles as often as I can get out. I weight train pretty hard three times a week and jog/run a 4 mile circuit at least three times a week. More sometimes. I must walk a fair few miles as well, picking up and delivering the grandkids. I never seem to lose or gain a pound, though I rarely measure it.! My belly is always there looking at me and never gets any smaller. I've slowly gained a stone since my thirties. Been the same weight for about twenty years. I'm 6'2", 14.5 stone and seventy years old. Can't see it changing. On tour riding every day. It's still the same. So. No. In my experience you don't lose weight cycling.
Lucy cycles 75 wrote:Hi there - we're looking for stories on people who've lost a lot of weight since they started cycling or how they made new friends because they started cycling again. If that's you or you know someone who fits this criteria and you would like to tell your story please could you email lucy.watherston@cyclinguk.org? Cheers!
Your story soon to be broadcast to the world on Pick TV or similar "The World's Most .........
"Zat is ze reel prowoking qwestion Mr Paxman." - Peer Steinbruck, German Finance Minister 31/03/2009.
rotavator wrote:My understanding is that exercise including cycling is good for the mind and body but is unlikely to help you lose weight and to do that you need to eat less calories. The other trick to lose weight or to maintain a healthy weight is to eat most in the morning and little in the evening, that is what I do and it seems to work and I rarely feel peckish or hungry.
You should be the Minister for Health.
Breakfast eat like a King. Lunch eat like a Prince, Supper eat like a Pauper.
For the PC brigade if you are female substitute the female equivalent titles.
"Zat is ze reel prowoking qwestion Mr Paxman." - Peer Steinbruck, German Finance Minister 31/03/2009.
Yes. I did, but now I've found I have to eat vast quantities to balance the cycling and I have to monitor my weight or it will plummet. But when I don't cycle no such issues.
When I was younger I as a complete sports fanatic but have had both hips replaced and numerous knee operations meaning I couldn't do most of the sports I loved and had piled on the lbs from 10 years of doing very little exercise combined with giving up the dreaded fags.
I Starting cycling "properly" about 1 1/2 yrs ago to give me a hobby / interest that involved exercise but also hoping I'd lose some weight but I'm exactly the same now as the day I started .... I don't think it helps that most of our rides end up in the pub with a couple of pints and crisps negating any good we've done
Cugel wrote:But perhaps you have not yet been a cyclist long enough to switch on your masochist gene?
40ish years and still not a masochist. I don't understand why you'd do that to yourself.
Started cycling as a child so, no, I've not lost weight since I started cycling.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
Cugel wrote:But perhaps you have not yet been a cyclist long enough to switch on your masochist gene?
40ish years and still not a masochist. I don't understand why you'd do that to yourself.
Started cycling as a child so, no, I've not lost weight since I started cycling.
Was you a large child then?
As to the masochist thing and cyclists - there is a tradition of "suffering", in road racing and time trialling but also in Audax and even in Touring. It induces the endorphin glow; it makes us feel superior to the couch potatoes (oh yes it does!); it's cheaper than a lady dressed in black leather.
Cugel
“Practical men who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence are usually the slaves of some defunct economist”.
John Maynard Keynes
mjr wrote:Started cycling as a child so, no, I've not lost weight since I started cycling.
Was you a large child then?
I think you've read that inverted - I didn't say I hadn't gained weight...
Cugel wrote:As to the masochist thing and cyclists - there is a tradition of "suffering", in road racing and time trialling but also in Audax and even in Touring. It induces the endorphin glow; it makes us feel superior to the couch potatoes (oh yes it does!); it's cheaper than a lady dressed in black leather.
I prefer to get the endorphins from exercise and laughter than pain. Pain is often there for a reason.
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk All the above is CC-By-SA and no other implied copyright license to Cycle magazine.
If you consume fewer calories than you burn, you lose weight: no exceptions. Contrariwise, if you’re gaining weight, you’re consuming more calories than you’re burning: no exceptions.
Very often, especially in the UK with its poor eating culture, a lot of those calories come from (1) snacks, (2) sugary drinks, and (3) alcoholic drinks. If you banish these and eat portions suited to your size and activity level (so that you begin to feel hungry before your next meal), then your body learns to use fat as a fuel source. Weight loss follows naturally and painlessly.
If you drip-feed your body sugar and alcohol, you give it no reason to dip into its fat reserves. The mechanism for burning fat withers with disuse. Consequently, when hunger strikes it is so debilitating (and demoralising) that it’s practically impossible to keep doing whatever you’re doing. You feel weak and maybe even light-headed. You stop and eat sugar. Thus the vicious circle continues.
