How to loose weight

I am planing to join cycling to help me lose weight. I understand that by riding the bike, I'm really only working the lower half of my body. How often should I do upper-body exercises? How often should I ride my bike? appreciate any help.

Ride as often as you can. Every rides does not need to be a killer and you can alternate your training between intensity and maintenance rides.
It is important to maintain a toned core but as in the cycling training in all depends on what your goals are.

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Dope,when training and talent just aren't enough.

Agreed with JH.

Although you may be only exercising your lower half of your body, by maintaining your position on the bike, your arms/back also get a workout as well.
My wife - and she isn't a cyclist as such - says that she finds that cycling is not only good for the legs but that she finds her arms/back is toned too from cycling.

In terms of controlling weight, cycling with definitely help you to burn calories.

if you're not in doing long rides (by that I mean 2 - 3 hours minimum), I would suggest that you try combining cycling with another aerobic activity such as running or swimming.

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.."But finally the last thing I’ll say to the people who don’t believe in cycling, the cynics and the sceptics. I'm sorry for you. I’m sorry that you can’t dream big. [I]I'm sorry you don't believe in miracles. You should believe in these athletes, and you should believe in these people. I'll be a fan of the Tour de France for as long as I live. And there are no secrets - this is a hard sporting event and hard work wins it" - Armstrong 2005 TDF
morelike hypocrisy.

Bike riding by itself will cause you to lose weight (fat) over your entire body if you do it several times a week, do it with sufficient intensity, and eat right.

As you know, it does provide a little upper body muscle toning.....but, mainly works your lower body.

Depending on the amount of time you have during the week, you might just try alternating your workouts. For instance, ride your bike on Monday and then do upper body weight training on Tuesday...riding on Wednesday, weights on Thursday....rinse...repeat....etc....

Unless you are trying to build big upper body muscles, then you would want to use smaller weights with high repetitions and very little rest between sets. That will keep your heart rate up, burn fat, and build lean sexy muscles.

Alternate bike riding and weight training, eat right, and you'll be lookin' wonderful before you know it.

Glad to hear you are attempting to lose weight via cycling. Losing weight takes discipline - moreso on the intake side (eating habits) than the expenditure side (burning calories). That said, try to burn calories at every opportunity throughout the day and don't simply leave it to your time cycling.

IMO, you should attempt to do some sort of aerobic exercise everyday - even it's only 30mins. Weight loss takes discipline, and gaining momentum (consistency in exercising and eating properly) will increase your level of discipline.

Be dedicated and give it your best effort, otherwise results will be very mediocre, at best...

Yes it does.

Gaining weight takes lots of discipline too. Do you know how many beer curls it took to regain pretty much all the weight I lost last year?

it really depends on what your goals are. are you simply looking to loose some lbs or are you looking to shed some lbs and gain some muscle structure as well? doing cardio will help in itself but adding some weight training of High reps and lighter weight. This will strengthen your muscles and lean you without bulking. cycling will help you throughout your body, but you should after time see a loss in weight as well as more lower body definition (calves, quads, butt..etc) ( I guess "64paramount" already mentioned a lot of this)

your food intake will be a large part of your dieting as well. if you are going to be cycling, you will need energy which means you should be eating carbs. your body will use the carbs as a source of energy so you dont have to worry about you gaining weight from them. This doesn't mean you should eat a large pizza and a full loaf o bread though either. Stick to 1 to 2 servings of things such as pancakes, spaghetti (or other noodles), breads, crackers....(little tip...if you have a bit of a sweet tooth, eat them after exercising as your body will use the sugar to resupply the sugars lost while working out.)

Good luck and stick with it! it varies for some people as the first 2 weeks are the most difficult to stay motivated with the soreness and time it takes to stay dedicated. for others the first 2 weeks are the most exciting and easiest to stay on track but slowly loosing motivation eventually fading exercise out all together till 4 months later realizing they need to start exercising again cause there weight has gotten out of control even more and the cycle starts all over again. Be the guy that follows through and kills it!!! you can do it

Buy a fixie and date someone of the same sex...