Cyclists v Tummy fat( Power/weight ratio implications)

[briansnail]

Does any aspiring Biochemist know why/can explain the following ?. Cyclists can be as skinny as skeletons. Excepting the cyclists Achilles heel. Our Tummies. Fat is one fuel supply and tummies the depot that powers our cycling machines. After 18 years most Cyclists tummies are like an expanding universe in slow gear. I buy the theory about lost muscle and declining metabolic rate. What I cannot figure out is why we do not gain fat energy as an even distribution on our bodies. This energy storage medium is in one concentrated lump on our bellies. Unless of course your lucky enough to be a female cyclist (hips instead).That's the query why do the fat cells chose one location to home in on? after all they are spoilt for alternative locations. All cyclists look better and more streamlined without this major goof by evolution.

If this post has the 18 year olds in hysterics. Enjoy. No one escapes. Cycling is just to efficient to burn up the calories. Unless your attempting the Tour de France. I wonder if the New Scientist website has an answer. My supermarket does not help. I cycle home from work and at 6.30 pm pass right by.Its impossible to avoid posh pastries at sell off time (12 pence each).I had 6 last night. As Mr Wilde pointed out "The best way to get rid of temptation is to give in to it"

[Spinners]

"A moment on the lips... a lifetime on the hips."

Straight to the tummy for me too

[Mick F]

I don't really care.
I'm fit and healthy, not overweight though I could do with losing a few pounds, but I'm strong and happy.
Yes, I have a tum, but I can still touch my toes.

[bigjim]

Silverback Gorilla. Big, strong, powerful. Extremely fit and gets all the ladies. But a good old belly on him. Lives on carbs, Fruit which contains loads of sugar that turns into fat which is stored in the belly. It's natural for us mammals. Unless you go protein only you are going to have a belly. A six pack isn't natural.

[Mick F]

Yep.
Nicely put.

[Cugel]

Bodies vary in type. Some people put on a lot of fat around their gut, and organs thereabouts, as they age. Others put on just a bit there with the rest spread over the whole body.

My own physique is what's generally called mesomorph - thick bones, large muscles. I also carry body fat all over, so I look quite slim albeit muscular despite being 13 stone and one pound yet only 5 ft 10 ins. 43 inch chest, 34 inch waist, hips ??. I was once 14 stones, when doing a lot of weight training. I was also a bit fatter then - but all over rather than with a larger waist. I could pinch 3/8ths of an inch of fat on my bicep rather than 1/4 inch.

Others of my height and weight look fat because they put most of it on in their middle parts. Those of that type who are also unfit look even more round as they have skinny arms and legs. They are generally called endomorphs: pear-shaped, with that inclination to get fat around the middle and hips far faster than elsewhere.

All this seems to be genetic, even though you can change things a little bit with exercise and diet. The ladywife is 5ft 9ins and 8st 9 pounds - just an inch shorter than me yet four and a half stones lighter. She has a body type generally called ectomorph: long limbs and muscles with thin bones. She rarely puts on extra fat but if she does it all appears around her middle.

A quick & dirty way to classify your body type as meso, endo or ectomorph is to wrap your thumb and forefinger around your wrist:

mesomorph (thick boned, large muscled): finger and thumb ends don't meet by a significant gap.
endomorph (pear-shaped with medium bone and muscle size): finger and thumb just meet.
ectomorph (thin bones, long muscled often thin): finger and thumb overlap.

It's a crude classification but does seem to indicate general characteristics that tend to go together in a body.

*****
I once knew a mesomorph cyclist who was about the same height as me but 18 stone. He did have a fat middle but also immense musculature. He could do 56 minute 25s on a flat course but was hopeless in a hilly road race. Lots of power but still too much weight.

Cugel

[al_yrpal]

Hmmm. I thought it was a family trait. If I just look at a pie it goes straight on my tum. I have lost a stone in the last four months and am at what I think is my ideal weight what I weighed when I was 40 and super fit from playing a lot of squash, but...the tum is still there. And, my son, a cyclist and runner and my daughter a regular gym user and runner both have the family tum. Its a curse

Al

[Audax67]

Tummy? Wassat? I have an abdominal fairing.

[bigjim]

I've always had a tum. Even when I was young and pretty. Still got it. It's my most loyal friend. No matter how I try to mistreat it or lose it. It is still there every day looking at me.

[Mick F]

mesomorph (thick boned, large muscled): finger and thumb ends don't meet by a significant gap.
endomorph (pear-shaped with medium bone and muscle size): finger and thumb just meet.
ectomorph (thin bones, long muscled often thin): finger and thumb overlap.

I don't understand this about fingers and thumbs.

Please explain.

[fausto copy]

You lot have made my day

No matter how much I try and diet and no matter how fit I am, I've always got a bit of a tum (though it's a bit more than a bit at the moment )

I look at all my paternal family and see they are/were all the same, so simply thought it was a family trait.
I've been run ragged the last couple of weeks looking after Mrs.C following her hip op, and despite 24 hour care, sleeping a lot less and generally eating less, my tummy's still there.

But now I know it's not down to me and my forebears, it's down to keeping you lot company and not embarrassing you with a trim physique.
Now, where's that secret stash of chocolate biscuits I wonder........

Edit: my finger and thumb on Cudgels's test are miles apart, so I can proudly say I'm a mesomorph - sounds cool

[peetee]

I was totally trim with obvious but puny 'washboard' tum right up to the age of 45 when I had to all but give up cycling. Then I went all three dimensional. Back on the bike now but not long enough to reduce the girth and i have had to raise the bars a bit.
Never thought I would see the day but my consolation is I delayed the flab for a good 15 years compared to my non-cycling friends and rellies.

[robc02]

You're making me feel the odd one out! Now 61 and same weight and shape as when I was 17. I've got a jersey from back then and it still fits. 6ft tall and 10st 3lb give or take a pound.

The only weight issue I have had has been unintentionally losing it. When I returned from a week's tour last summer I was below 10st. I got checked out by my GP to make sure there was nothing amiss - there wasn't - and gradually returned to normal over a few weeks.

[Mick F]

Edit: my finger and thumb on Cudgels's test are miles apart, so I can proudly say I'm a mesomorph - sounds cool

I still don't get it.

How can your finger and thumb NOT be touching?

[yostumpy]

I don't really care.
Yes, I have a tum, but I can still touch my toes.

Yes, I too have toes, and can touch my tum.