need help losing bodyfat



GixxerRick

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Jul 13, 2009
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Besides dieting and riding a whole lot, would riding an hour at endurance pace first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, be beneficial to helping me lose body fat?
I also heard that i should only be drinking water and not any sports drinks to help me lose weight,is this true? im trying to increase my power to weight ratio now..
 
They say eat a 1,000 less calories a day to lose 2lbs. of fat a week! Stay clear of sports drinks 1 a day if you must! I run 3 miles a day and ride my bike 25 miles a day and I dont use sports drinks I do however drink about 25 of those nestle bottles of water a day the same bottle just refill it about 25 times.
 
GixxerRick said:
Besides dieting and riding a whole lot, would riding an hour at endurance pace first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, be beneficial to helping me lose body fat?

If you're adding 7 hrs/week at endurance pace, yes. If you're replacing a higher intensity workout with riding at a "fat-burning" pace, then no. Doing it on an empty stomach is not more beneficial than eating something. I mean it's not like a bowl of oatmeal being digested as you ride is getting stored as fat.

GixxerRick said:
I also heard that i should only be drinking water and not any sports drinks to help me lose weight,is this true? im trying to increase my power to weight ratio now..
There are smart people here who will be able to tell you based on your current power and your size/weight whether aggressive weight loss is really the fastest way to improve your watts/kg. For most people, it's much better to bring up the power, and eat in a way that allows them to do high quality training, rather than going balls to the wall on diet and half-assing it on the bike.
 
redneck47441 said:
They say eat a 1,000 less calories a day to lose 2lbs. of fat a week!

Which is a very confusing and false saying. If you restrict your diet to less than 1,000 calories a day and still train at the same volume as before you won't be losing a lot of body fat. Yes you will be losing weight but the weight that you're losing is your muscle mass, the legs you've tried to build up during the last year are just going to disapear.

If you're in a very restricted diet that will get rid of your body fat you'll mainly have to focus on getting protein into your body so that you won't lose any muscle mass.
 
Sometimes people have too much muscle mass - or more muscle mass than they actually need. Take Bradley Wiggins who finished 4th in the Tour this year. Sure, he lost some body fat and by the end of the Tour he was down to ~4% which is borderline dangerously low but he lost a fair amount of muscle mass too in order to lose that 20lbs that the lost. Contador isn't exactly The Hulk either...
 
Jeppi said:
Which is a very confusing and false saying. If you restrict your diet to less than 1,000 calories a day and still train at the same volume as before you won't be losing a lot of body fat. Yes you will be losing weight but the weight that you're losing is your muscle mass, the legs you've tried to build up during the last year are just going to disapear.

If you're in a very restricted diet that will get rid of your body fat you'll mainly have to focus on getting protein into your body so that you won't lose any muscle mass.

I don't think that's what he said. If I understand his meaning you should cut 1000 calories from your present intake.
You could still be intaking 2400 c. a day if you were at 3400 before.
At least this is what I understood.
 
jhuskey said:
I don't think that's what he said. If I understand his meaning you should cut 1000 calories from your present intake.
You could still be intaking 2400 c. a day if you were at 3400 before.
At least this is what I understood.

Dropping 1000 calories is pretty drastic and could result in a major loss of energy on the rides. I'd start with 2-300 calorie drop, but still if you want to loose body fat, increase your protein intake.

If the response was to go to a 1000 calorie diet, there is no way that will work. The basic calculation for Caloric intake is (Weight * 10) * 1.2 = Calories needed to live and active lifestyle. Then you have to add based on the exercise regiment you are on, which has to with the caloric burn you have during cycling in this case.

I have done 3 rounds of P90X and at 190 pounds was eating 2,500 calories per day. Now that I'm cycling I've burned as many as 1,800 in 1 hr 20 min.

Don't blame the food, just make sure you're eating the right foods. Food is fuel.
 
Red Dog Leader said:
I have done 3 rounds of P90X and at 190 pounds was eating 2,500 calories per day. Now that I'm cycling I've burned as many as 1,800 in 1 hr 20 min.

Don't blame the food, just make sure you're eating the right foods. Food is fuel.

What are you using to estimate your calorific expenditure? I get nowhere near that even if I hold 320watts for an hour.
 
swampy1970 said:
What are you using to estimate your calorific expenditure? I get nowhere near that even if I hold 320watts for an hour.

I use the Timex IronMan Road Trainer heart rate monitor which will record and give you Caloric Burn. The only thing now is that I'm burning those at Threshold so am burning more Carbs and Glycogen than fat. But I like to push hard and have been averaging around 167 BPM for even over an hour.

I'd suggest getting a good heart rate monitor. The Polar F4 is also a good one.

Hope that helps.
 
Red Dog Leader said:
Dropping 1000 calories is pretty drastic and could result in a major loss of energy on the rides. I'd start with 2-300 calorie drop, but still if you want to loose body fat, increase your protein intake.

If the response was to go to a 1000 calorie diet, there is no way that will work. The basic calculation for Caloric intake is (Weight * 10) * 1.2 = Calories needed to live and active lifestyle. Then you have to add based on the exercise regiment you are on, which has to with the caloric burn you have during cycling in this case.

I have done 3 rounds of P90X and at 190 pounds was eating 2,500 calories per day. Now that I'm cycling I've burned as many as 1,800 in 1 hr 20 min.

Don't blame the food, just make sure you're eating the right foods. Food is fuel.

That's about what I usually burn on climbing rides 1700-1800 in an hour thirty to an hour forty but to be honest I could cut out beer on some days and drop over 1000 calories. Wouldn't hurt me at all.
 
Red Dog Leader said:
I use the Timex IronMan Road Trainer heart rate monitor which will record and give you Caloric Burn. The only thing now is that I'm burning those at Threshold so am burning more Carbs and Glycogen than fat. But I like to push hard and have been averaging around 167 BPM for even over an hour.

I'd suggest getting a good heart rate monitor. The Polar F4 is also a good one.

Hope that helps.

Comparitively, my Polar CS600 massively overestimates calorific expenditure compared to the PowerTap which measures actual power. Sometimes the difference would be as much as 35%.
 
jhuskey said:
That's about what I usually burn on climbing rides 1700-1800 in an hour thirty to an hour forty but to be honest I could cut out beer on some days and drop over 1000 calories. Wouldn't hurt me at all.

Only a 1000? Dear God man, don't tell me you drink MGD 64!

;)
 
swampy1970 said:
What are you using to estimate your calorific expenditure? I get nowhere near that even if I hold 320watts for an hour.

swampy1970 said:
Comparitively, my Polar CS600 massively overestimates calorific expenditure compared to the PowerTap which measures actual power. Sometimes the difference would be as much as 35%.

Good to know...thanks. Still a lot of calories burned while cycling.
 
swampy1970 said:
Comparitively, my Polar CS600 massively overestimates calorific expenditure compared to the PowerTap which measures actual power. Sometimes the difference would be as much as 35%.

I have also found that Polar HRM overestimate by about 30-35% when compared with my Powertap. I have used several Polar HRM over the years and have gotten the same overestimation of calories burned.

The typical exercise machines found in th gyms tend to give even higher numbers than do Polar HRM.
 
Nutrition is first and foremost important. SOme good advice posted so far.

Another good tip is to jump on a trainer upon waking up and ride on an empty stomach for 30-45 minutes at zones 2-3. Jump starts the body providing a boost in ones RMR (resting metabolic rate) for the remander of the day.
 
Hunter Allen posted some relevant stuff on his blog...

Official Blog of TrainingPeaks Blog Archives Maximize your ability to burn fat as fuel, by Hunter Allen

Still need to be convinced of the improving fat burning ability of AM rides before breakfast but certainly agree from own experience that high intensity sessions are more effective than LSD training and from 4 years training people with fat loss goals in the gym.

When recording calorie intake and calorie expenditure I found that a daily 45min trainer session at L4 - L6 range equalled a 2000 kilojoule deficit for the day and with this type of training I could do it every day.

With fat loss required I get told to get in the miles but what I find is that every long ride I do leads to overeating and I only see a 0-500 kilojoule deficit and I see a huge drop in Training Stress Balance and feel tired so need a rest day afterwards so again a lower deficit.

Other bonus is L4-L6 is race specific so while I am getting in condition for racing I am also training specifically for racing. To the point where I got put in the Cat 3 race last weekend which was 40km longer than I planned for I was able to handle the extra distance fine, it was just the speed I was lacking as I build back fitness after a bad winter of colds and flu's.