Fat, Forty and Fairly Unfit



Blimp

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Dec 29, 2002
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Having spent the last few years training mainly by drinking beer and playing golf, I have recently decided to get back on the bike (bought two years ago at vast expense in a fit of enthusiasm)<br /><br />I have gradually built up to 30 / 40km rides averaging 30km/h and have no troubles on the flat. Problem is, hills kill me (even small inclines). The aim is to lose weight (currently 93kg / 188cm), but would like to get fit enough to race next season.<br /><br />Any help would be appreciated.
 
Wanna looze weight?<br /><br />Train at moderate intensity around 70% of your hr rate.<br /><br />How do i Callculate my 70%?<br /><br />get your rest rate, rate you have when you wake up and are still in bed, and your max rate(dont know it use 220-age for a male).<br /><br />Example max 185 , rest 65<br /><br />tehn mesure effective zone(max-rest): 185-65: effective zone is 120 beats/min<br /><br />take 70% of 120 this is 84 <br /><br />What heart rate do you have to train now? Rest + 70% so 65+84 is 149<br /><br />So if you train with a heart rate around 149 you burn the most fat. Adapt max to your age(or mesured rate) and rest to your actual rest rate
 
Thanks.<br /><br />I have even decided to make the ultimate sacrifice and make the switch to light beer.
 
Thanks Joe,<br /><br />I've just got back from trying more hills. Problem is, have you ever tried climbing hills in Tasmania in the rain and wind?<br /><br />Anyway, it hurt less than last time.
 
There must have been a reason Joe. The mod/Steve who removed the post will let you know.
 
[quote author=maarten link=board=19;threadid=2816;start=0#msg23854 date=1041247399]<br />Wanna looze weight?<br />Train at moderate intensity around 70% of your hr rate.<br />So if you train with a heart rate around 149 you burn the most fat. <br />[/quote]<br /><br />maarten, let's debate the notion that training at moderate pace will help with weight loss. It's an accepted &quot;belief&quot; amongst many people nowadays that exercising at a lower intensity is the best way to train if your goal is weight loss. I used to &quot;believe&quot; this too, but I decided to investigate the matter and have since changed my &quot;beliefs&quot;.<br />We all accept that the foundation of weight loss is to burn up more energy (calories) than we consume. At the same time, we all accept the fact that the body utilises different energy sources at different exercising intensities. It is true that during long slow easy exercising we utilise blood fatty acids as an energy source more so than we do other energy sources (around 70%).<br />Now consider a person riding a hard bike race for 5 hours! Lets assume that person burns up 4000 calories during the race, of which 2800 comes from fatty acids. Each gram of fat contains 9 calories. Thus, burning 2800 calories will result in 311 grams of fat loss, and that after 5 hours of hard bike riding! Now imagine how long someone must ride a bike for at moderate pace to burn up 2800 calories or less than ½ kg of fat!<br />I believe that a 45 minute high intensity exercise session will burn the same amount of fat or more than 3 hours on the bike at moderate pace.<br /><br />Whatya guys think?
 
45 minute high intensity training session?<br /><br />I think that would kill me!<br /><br />I read somewhere else on this forum that I should aim for a base of at least 500km before any high intensity stuff - at the moment I am doing around 150 - 200km per week.
 
I found four things really helpful in fighting off the fat and generally get into better shape:<br /><br />1. Walking, as an additional low-intensity exercise<br /><br />2. Getting a heart rate monitor. The instant feedback is very motivating, watching the calories count up as you exercise; and then week by week watching your average heart rates fall, and (eventually) OwnIndex grow!<br /><br />3. Sensible food substitutions.. ie McDonalds/KFC out, Subway in. 'Diet' foods replacing high-fat items. Less junk food/chips and more fruit/vegies. Vigilant calorie-counting is for wannabe accountants .. just be sensible.<br /><br />4. A reasonable and achievable plan.. it's important to look at this as a change in lifestyle, and not something like a &quot;crash diet&quot; that's going to last for a few months and stop dead (and go back to your old bad habits) the moment you reach your objectives.<br /><br />The article library at www.polarpersonaltrainer.com has a lot of useful information about how to exercise with a view to losing weight/gaining general fitness. Such as: &quot;Working Off Fat&quot; on this very issue.<br /><br />As Vo2 mentions, when talking in absolute calorie terms (rather than percentages), there isn't that much difference in actual calories from fat burnt between low and high intensities..<br /><br />However, it's far easier to go for a 1.5 hour ride at a moderate HR, than an all-out 1 hour ride :) especially if you're not very fit in the first place.<br /><br />Expanding on the HRM issue, when I first got mine, I was shocked to find that I used to ride close to my lactate threshold! No wonder I was absolutely knackered after 45 minutes or so. By keeping my heart rate in check, over the months I managed to massively expand on my endurance level, and enjoy cycling a lot more as a result.<br /><br />&quot;work smarter, not harder!&quot; IMO. If you get somewhat decent fat-burning ability from both mild and hard riding, why strain yourself? Just spend another half hour or so on your cruisey ride..
 
Vo2,<br /><br />I base my advise upon a scientific method used by the university of Ghent in Belgium which examined the effect of training on general condition, fatt mass and many other variables. Test showed that just above 70% was the most effective way to reduce fat mass.<br />I haven't tested it myself as I mosttimes have problems keeping my weight instead of loosing it.<br /><br />It might be true that a flat out burns more fat but you can't do a long flat out, real flat out is limited to 10 sec and doesn't use fat but other sources. Long intensive is what you mean, its way easier to do moderate rides for a long time than intensive, combined with the fact that due to recuperation you can do a moderate rides every day, intensive racing not of course(certainly for a beginner). Also there is the fact that going intensive for a beginner is to hard for his body which isn't used to this kind of execise.<br />
 
The idea of training in the &quot;fat burning zone&quot; (FBZ) is an outdated idea, that doesn't hold with current ideas. However, using the 70% of heart rate reserve (HRR) that Maarten suggests is *likely* to be *higher* intensity than traditional FBZ. Furthermore, with HRR training zones, they paradoxically increase (i.e., go up) if you are ill or not recovered.<br /><br />To loose weight (fat mass) you need to expend more energy than you consume, i.e., have a negative energy balance. It doesn't matter whether the substrate used is carbohydrate, fat or most likely a mix.<br /><br />Estimating HRmax from 220-age may or may not result in completely inappropriate zones. Whilst, that equation is good, it's only a regression equation based on a large population. The standard deviation is in the order of ± 15 b/min. This could result in widely inaccurate zones. If you are going to use HR to train with (and I'm not suggesting that you are), it would be more appropriate to ascertain correct zones from some sort of test (e.g., incremental test to exhaustion).<br /><br />During a 45-minute high intensity session, very little fat may be &quot;burnt&quot;. However, it would be impossible to expend the same amount of energy as a 3 or 4-hour ride. It's the total amount of energy expended, irrespective of substrate utilisation, that's important for weight loss.<br /><br />In the aforementioned 5-hour (race) ride, expending 4000 kcal, this would equate to a power output of ~ 222 W, for a trained cyclist at a 'normal' cadence. A high intensity 45-minute session might be completed at ~ 300 W, thus expending ~ 810 kcal, which would equate to 20% of the energy expended in a 5-hour ride.<br /><br />Blimp, specifically asked about weight loss and increasing hill climb ability, with a view to racing next season. Although, weight loss may be warranted (impossible to know without ascertaining body fat %), it is also imperative to understand that the defining factor in performance is to increase power output, which needs to be done with higher intensity efforts. Ballpark figures, would suggest that climbing a 10% grade at ~16 km/hr (for Blimp at current weight) the power requirement is ~ 484 W. If Blimp lost 4 kg, that would increase speed by 0.57 km/hr or decrease time to climb a 2 km grade by ~ 16-secs. On the other hand, a 10% increase in power output with no weight change would result in an increase of speed of 1.47 km/hr, or a saving of 37-secs.<br /><br />Accordingly, my recommendation would be to increase power output, via both endurance rides (e.g., 2 - 4 hours) and also by completing fairly intensive, moderate duration intervals (e.g., 5 - 30 minutes).<br /><br />Ric<br />