Sillyoldtwit said:
Have just read the Bonking thread. Very interesting! However I'm more confused than ever. I'm doing hard (for me) 20 minute intervals in the gym Tue/Wed/Thu
(burning more than 500 calories each time)
I am also trying to lose weight, which the replys in the bonking thread seem to say is very difficult. I thought after a hard session you need protein to repair the body but at the same time you need carbohydrates for the next days hard session. How do you guys balance these needs. And more to the point, how the hell do you lose weight if you eat like a pig after a hard session and put the calories straight back on again.
Having started the bonking thread, I might "weigh in" (
ha!) to say that, yes, intense training (or more accurately, recovery from intense training) is somewhat hindered by a hypocaloric diet. It's not entirely either/or, though. It's possible to strike a balance where you run a modest caloric deficit, accepting that it will take a little longer before you're ready to really nail a hard training session. The problem is simply glycogen depletion. When running a caloric deficit, it will take your muscles a little longer to top off their reserves of high-quality fuel, but they'll get around to it eventually. At most, we're talking about 1 less day of intervals per week, while losing 1 pound a week.
There's no reason to
at all to lose fitness as a result; in the worst case, your pace of fitness improvements might be somewhat lower than it would otherwise be. Studies examining taper protocols find that most athletes can reduce training volume by 2/3rds (!) and, as long as intensity is maintained, experience no drop in performance for at least a couple months. Habitually hard-training athletes find this hard to believe, but it's a pretty robust result.
I also note that you've been given the standard "piles o' miles" weight loss advice. You should know that that doesn't work for everyone. For two years, I did 200-300 miles per week, and gained three pounds. In the last year, I've done 150-200 miles per week, and lost about twenty pounds. The problem is twofold:
1. We're constantly surrounded by energy-rich food, such that any conceivable exercise-induced caloric deficit can be replaced in just an hour or two of thoughtless eating, and
2. Our bodies have evolved an extremely exquisite mechanism for staying in a neutral-to-slightly-positive energy balance.
These two points mean that, for most, diet, not exercise, is the key to systaining a medium-term energy deficit (and hence, long-term weight loss). Also, I think the "piles o' miles" weight loss program exacerbates the chronic glycogen depletion problem, making hard training truly impossible. Paradoxically, for me at least, the key to losing weight has been training
less, and eating
a lot less.
One theory I have is. Take a few days off from cycling, fast to lose 2 or 3 kilos, thereby lowering the baseline from which to work. Any ideas?
There is simply no way to lose 2 or 3 kilos of fat in "a few days." It should take you at least 1-2 months to lose that kind of weight in a way that will maintain health and fitness. Whatever you do, don't literally "fast" for days on end. Snapping in and out of true starvation is an extreme stress; your body will be too busy recovering from trying to digest your muscles to fuel your brain to bother making capillaries, increasing mitochondrial density, or any the other energy-intensive adaptations you're asking your body to make when you train hard.
A final thought: you've discovered one of cycling's "dirty little secrets" that we like to hide from new riders for a while. Many lose a few pounds when starting cycling, especially coming from a sedentary lifestyle, but pretty soon there's a trade-off between optimizing power production, and optimizing body composition. Like all riders, you must try to make a choice about how to live your life to find a sweet spot in that continuum.
I claim that, all else being equal, it is better to be powerful than light.
1. There's no such thing as "too powerful," while there's such a thing as "too light" (i.e., too light for health, or vigorous athletic performance).
2. Event selection can mitigate the importance of low body weight. While we often pretend W/Kg is the only measure that matters, in flatter events it is more likely to be W/Kg^(2/3).
3. Getting powerful is, in a sick way, kind of fun. Sure, intervals are hard, but if we didn't enjoy hard training at some level, we'd all be doing some other activity than performance-oriented cycling. Getting light, on the other hand, is miserably hard work, and can lead to real psychological and physical problems for some; google "anorexia athletica" some time.
4. Subjectively, I think it's easier to take a powerful rider, and lose some weight while maintaining fitness, than it is to take a lean rider, and improve fitness while maintaining body composition. YMMV on this point, admittedly.
Since you're still making huge, relatively easy gains in the power department, I would just keep investing your limited reserves of time and energy there. Only when you start having
real difficulty improving your power output would I worry about body composition. That could take years.