A weight loss plan that works for average cyclists? - Page 3 - Cycling Mob: Road Cycling, Mountain Biking and More

12-27-2004, 09:16 PM

Bill Baka wrote:
|| If you are going to eat a large meal, do it before a long ride, not
|| after. Same for breakfast and dinner, eat a large breakfast if you
|| must but never eat a large dinner. This is
|| one of the
|| American traditions that probably should be done away with. A big
|| breakfast can be worked off during the day, but you still need to be
|| careful and not overdo it. Lunch should be sized according to what
|| your afternoon is going to be like. Dinner should be as modest as
|| you can
|| tolerate since you will be going to bed sometime not too long after
|| dinner. A large dinner gives your body nothing to do except convert
|| it
|| to stored energy AKA fat.
|| FWIW I have gained a few pounds during the holidays due to the
|| customary
|| big dinners and an addiction to chocolate. All of us deal with it
|| but if
|| you can modify just a few habits the results should be worth the
|| effort.

I disagree with this, Bill. If you only eat one meal a day - dinner - it
can be large (1500 to 2000 kcals) and if you burn more than that you'll
still lose weight.

12-27-2004, 09:27 PM

Preston Crawford <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote:
>I know this is a possible flamewar post, but I have to ask this. And first
>off, please refrain from flaming each other's diets. I'm coming into this
>eyes wide open, honestly asking questions about what people eat, what
>works for them, etc. I don't want this to turn into another "Sheldon Brown
>is a party doll" post. Just please, try to resist the urge.
>
>Okay, as to my question. Many of you know my story. I went vegetarian and
>started cycling 5 years ago and lost 160+ lbs. I went from over 400lbs. to
>238lbs. at my lowest.

Rockin'.

>I've, unfortunately, slowly climbed back up to
>around 270lbs.

Hard to do on veggies. Takes a *lot* of calories to maintain
250 lbs of bulk. I know. I used to eat in a meal what I now
eat in a day, and I'm eating pretty hearty now.

>I'd like to get back on track, but it seems like nothing
>I've tried has worked. I eat some meat again. Eggs, fish and turkey. I'm
>on a pretty decent diet. But basically I've hit a major 3 year long
>plateau. My wife is on a plan that, while not Atkins, cuts out a lot of
>carbs and emphasizes carbs like rice. i.e. You can't eat bread, but you
>can eat rice, cous cous, stuff like that.

Atkins is nuts. All the research shows that it just bores people
into eating fewer calories.

>It's working well for her so far, but I just can't imagine not having
>bread. I know from my own personal experience that refined sugars and
>grains are a big problem. Cutting them out was a big part of why I was
>successful. However, how far can someone who cycles quite a bit take that?

Nothing is a "big problem" except total calories in minus total
calories out being a positive number.

>And a bigger question is this. Have any of you experienced a dramatic
>weight loss, then a plateau? And if you have, what did you do to get
>yourself kick-started off the plateau?

I learned about food and energy and losing weight.

I thought I knew about it before.

Turns out I didn't, even though I actually had the information
all along. It's just never presented to us coherently, so it
looks haphazard, and we apply it haphazardly. And it doesn't
work because we find a way to defeat it inadvertently.

>I feel like, maybe in part because
>of my dramatic weight loss, my metabolism or something has shifted to the
>point where weight loss is more difficult than it was before.

It has, but if you were still significantly fat at 238,
you weren't close to having a problem metabolism.

You won't see real problems until you're well under 10% bodyfat.

I don't know where that is for you, but even if you're a
tall, broad guy, it's probably when you're under 200 lbs.

>I don't know
>if that's just bunk, but I can't explain otherwise why I've been stuck for
>so long in spite of the fact that I'm still eating right.

Define "eating right". Do you know exactly how many calories
you're eating now? Do you know how many you will eat tomorrow?

If you knew how many you were eating on average over the last two
weeks, and that your weight was stable at that rate, and that your
exercise is consistent (even if it's zero) and not merely occasional,
could you then be disciplined and reduce your calories by 300-800
per day? Or reduce your calories and increase your exercise to total
a 300-800 calorie difference per day?

Because if you can do that, you'll lose 0.5 to 1.5 pounds a week.

Period.

The trick is, you need to track it carefully to be sure
you aren't sneaking in things that are sandbagging you.

An unaccounted handful of pretzels, a bag of chips, anything,
done just once per day, can undermine your "eating right".

Even with my spreadsheet open 5 times a day, I have 100-200
calories of variation in my intake by the end of the day.

Every time I ignore tracking, I start to "forget" that
I'd already had a meal that was 100-200 calories over
the average, and do it again. At 5 meals a day, I can be
500-1000 calories over and hardly notice.

All that stuff about food composition and glycemic levels
and meal timing can modulate your loss rate by maybe 20%.
But sometimes focussing on that can help you get the
calorie balance right in the first place. Which may
be why every diet has a gimmick.

>Any experiences are welcome. Please no flaming. I'd just love to hear a
>sampling of what's worked for those of you out there. Especially those of
>you who have struggled with, and moved off of plateaus.

Look for Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle"
online. It's only available in e-book form (as a PDF file
you can probably read if you've ever used Adobe Reader in
your web-browser), but that means you'll have it in hours
instead of days.

It's kind of geared towards athletic people looking to
get ripped by cutting to very low bodyfat percentages, but
it's also applicable to anyone at any bodyfat percentage.
He doesn't have a fad or a gimmick to sell. He just
did the homework we all should have been forced to do in
grade school.

He'll spend 337 pages telling you what I told you above,
and then detail why it's that way, and then discuss the
things you can do to tweak it. If you're like me, you
won't be able to put it down.

And you'll probably be able to build your own working diet
out of the foods you like to eat now. Which is the point.

--Blair
"Lose 30 lbs in 30 days^h^h^h^hweeks!
Ask me how!"

12-27-2004, 09:27 PM

Preston Crawford <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote:
>I know this is a possible flamewar post, but I have to ask this. And first
>off, please refrain from flaming each other's diets. I'm coming into this
>eyes wide open, honestly asking questions about what people eat, what
>works for them, etc. I don't want this to turn into another "Sheldon Brown
>is a party doll" post. Just please, try to resist the urge.
>
>Okay, as to my question. Many of you know my story. I went vegetarian and
>started cycling 5 years ago and lost 160+ lbs. I went from over 400lbs. to
>238lbs. at my lowest.

Rockin'.

>I've, unfortunately, slowly climbed back up to
>around 270lbs.

Hard to do on veggies. Takes a *lot* of calories to maintain
250 lbs of bulk. I know. I used to eat in a meal what I now
eat in a day, and I'm eating pretty hearty now.

>I'd like to get back on track, but it seems like nothing
>I've tried has worked. I eat some meat again. Eggs, fish and turkey. I'm
>on a pretty decent diet. But basically I've hit a major 3 year long
>plateau. My wife is on a plan that, while not Atkins, cuts out a lot of
>carbs and emphasizes carbs like rice. i.e. You can't eat bread, but you
>can eat rice, cous cous, stuff like that.

Atkins is nuts. All the research shows that it just bores people
into eating fewer calories.

>It's working well for her so far, but I just can't imagine not having
>bread. I know from my own personal experience that refined sugars and
>grains are a big problem. Cutting them out was a big part of why I was
>successful. However, how far can someone who cycles quite a bit take that?

Nothing is a "big problem" except total calories in minus total
calories out being a positive number.

>And a bigger question is this. Have any of you experienced a dramatic
>weight loss, then a plateau? And if you have, what did you do to get
>yourself kick-started off the plateau?

I learned about food and energy and losing weight.

I thought I knew about it before.

Turns out I didn't, even though I actually had the information
all along. It's just never presented to us coherently, so it
looks haphazard, and we apply it haphazardly. And it doesn't
work because we find a way to defeat it inadvertently.

>I feel like, maybe in part because
>of my dramatic weight loss, my metabolism or something has shifted to the
>point where weight loss is more difficult than it was before.

It has, but if you were still significantly fat at 238,
you weren't close to having a problem metabolism.

You won't see real problems until you're well under 10% bodyfat.

I don't know where that is for you, but even if you're a
tall, broad guy, it's probably when you're under 200 lbs.

>I don't know
>if that's just bunk, but I can't explain otherwise why I've been stuck for
>so long in spite of the fact that I'm still eating right.

Define "eating right". Do you know exactly how many calories
you're eating now? Do you know how many you will eat tomorrow?

If you knew how many you were eating on average over the last two
weeks, and that your weight was stable at that rate, and that your
exercise is consistent (even if it's zero) and not merely occasional,
could you then be disciplined and reduce your calories by 300-800
per day? Or reduce your calories and increase your exercise to total
a 300-800 calorie difference per day?

Because if you can do that, you'll lose 0.5 to 1.5 pounds a week.

Period.

The trick is, you need to track it carefully to be sure
you aren't sneaking in things that are sandbagging you.

An unaccounted handful of pretzels, a bag of chips, anything,
done just once per day, can undermine your "eating right".

Even with my spreadsheet open 5 times a day, I have 100-200
calories of variation in my intake by the end of the day.

Every time I ignore tracking, I start to "forget" that
I'd already had a meal that was 100-200 calories over
the average, and do it again. At 5 meals a day, I can be
500-1000 calories over and hardly notice.

All that stuff about food composition and glycemic levels
and meal timing can modulate your loss rate by maybe 20%.
But sometimes focussing on that can help you get the
calorie balance right in the first place. Which may
be why every diet has a gimmick.

>Any experiences are welcome. Please no flaming. I'd just love to hear a
>sampling of what's worked for those of you out there. Especially those of
>you who have struggled with, and moved off of plateaus.

Look for Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle"
online. It's only available in e-book form (as a PDF file
you can probably read if you've ever used Adobe Reader in
your web-browser), but that means you'll have it in hours
instead of days.

It's kind of geared towards athletic people looking to
get ripped by cutting to very low bodyfat percentages, but
it's also applicable to anyone at any bodyfat percentage.
He doesn't have a fad or a gimmick to sell. He just
did the homework we all should have been forced to do in
grade school.

He'll spend 337 pages telling you what I told you above,
and then detail why it's that way, and then discuss the
things you can do to tweak it. If you're like me, you
won't be able to put it down.

And you'll probably be able to build your own working diet
out of the foods you like to eat now. Which is the point.

--Blair
"Lose 30 lbs in 30 days^h^h^h^hweeks!
Ask me how!"

12-27-2004, 09:27 PM

Preston Crawford <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote:
>I know this is a possible flamewar post, but I have to ask this. And first
>off, please refrain from flaming each other's diets. I'm coming into this
>eyes wide open, honestly asking questions about what people eat, what
>works for them, etc. I don't want this to turn into another "Sheldon Brown
>is a party doll" post. Just please, try to resist the urge.
>
>Okay, as to my question. Many of you know my story. I went vegetarian and
>started cycling 5 years ago and lost 160+ lbs. I went from over 400lbs. to
>238lbs. at my lowest.

Rockin'.

>I've, unfortunately, slowly climbed back up to
>around 270lbs.

Hard to do on veggies. Takes a *lot* of calories to maintain
250 lbs of bulk. I know. I used to eat in a meal what I now
eat in a day, and I'm eating pretty hearty now.

>I'd like to get back on track, but it seems like nothing
>I've tried has worked. I eat some meat again. Eggs, fish and turkey. I'm
>on a pretty decent diet. But basically I've hit a major 3 year long
>plateau. My wife is on a plan that, while not Atkins, cuts out a lot of
>carbs and emphasizes carbs like rice. i.e. You can't eat bread, but you
>can eat rice, cous cous, stuff like that.

Atkins is nuts. All the research shows that it just bores people
into eating fewer calories.

>It's working well for her so far, but I just can't imagine not having
>bread. I know from my own personal experience that refined sugars and
>grains are a big problem. Cutting them out was a big part of why I was
>successful. However, how far can someone who cycles quite a bit take that?

Nothing is a "big problem" except total calories in minus total
calories out being a positive number.

>And a bigger question is this. Have any of you experienced a dramatic
>weight loss, then a plateau? And if you have, what did you do to get
>yourself kick-started off the plateau?

I learned about food and energy and losing weight.

I thought I knew about it before.

Turns out I didn't, even though I actually had the information
all along. It's just never presented to us coherently, so it
looks haphazard, and we apply it haphazardly. And it doesn't
work because we find a way to defeat it inadvertently.

>I feel like, maybe in part because
>of my dramatic weight loss, my metabolism or something has shifted to the
>point where weight loss is more difficult than it was before.

It has, but if you were still significantly fat at 238,
you weren't close to having a problem metabolism.

You won't see real problems until you're well under 10% bodyfat.

I don't know where that is for you, but even if you're a
tall, broad guy, it's probably when you're under 200 lbs.

>I don't know
>if that's just bunk, but I can't explain otherwise why I've been stuck for
>so long in spite of the fact that I'm still eating right.

Define "eating right". Do you know exactly how many calories
you're eating now? Do you know how many you will eat tomorrow?

If you knew how many you were eating on average over the last two
weeks, and that your weight was stable at that rate, and that your
exercise is consistent (even if it's zero) and not merely occasional,
could you then be disciplined and reduce your calories by 300-800
per day? Or reduce your calories and increase your exercise to total
a 300-800 calorie difference per day?

Because if you can do that, you'll lose 0.5 to 1.5 pounds a week.

Period.

The trick is, you need to track it carefully to be sure
you aren't sneaking in things that are sandbagging you.

An unaccounted handful of pretzels, a bag of chips, anything,
done just once per day, can undermine your "eating right".

Even with my spreadsheet open 5 times a day, I have 100-200
calories of variation in my intake by the end of the day.

Every time I ignore tracking, I start to "forget" that
I'd already had a meal that was 100-200 calories over
the average, and do it again. At 5 meals a day, I can be
500-1000 calories over and hardly notice.

All that stuff about food composition and glycemic levels
and meal timing can modulate your loss rate by maybe 20%.
But sometimes focussing on that can help you get the
calorie balance right in the first place. Which may
be why every diet has a gimmick.

>Any experiences are welcome. Please no flaming. I'd just love to hear a
>sampling of what's worked for those of you out there. Especially those of
>you who have struggled with, and moved off of plateaus.

Look for Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle"
online. It's only available in e-book form (as a PDF file
you can probably read if you've ever used Adobe Reader in
your web-browser), but that means you'll have it in hours
instead of days.

It's kind of geared towards athletic people looking to
get ripped by cutting to very low bodyfat percentages, but
it's also applicable to anyone at any bodyfat percentage.
He doesn't have a fad or a gimmick to sell. He just
did the homework we all should have been forced to do in
grade school.

He'll spend 337 pages telling you what I told you above,
and then detail why it's that way, and then discuss the
things you can do to tweak it. If you're like me, you
won't be able to put it down.

And you'll probably be able to build your own working diet
out of the foods you like to eat now. Which is the point.

--Blair
"Lose 30 lbs in 30 days^h^h^h^hweeks!
Ask me how!"

12-27-2004, 09:27 PM

Preston Crawford <[Only registered and activated users can see links. ]> wrote:
>I know this is a possible flamewar post, but I have to ask this. And first
>off, please refrain from flaming each other's diets. I'm coming into this
>eyes wide open, honestly asking questions about what people eat, what
>works for them, etc. I don't want this to turn into another "Sheldon Brown
>is a party doll" post. Just please, try to resist the urge.
>
>Okay, as to my question. Many of you know my story. I went vegetarian and
>started cycling 5 years ago and lost 160+ lbs. I went from over 400lbs. to
>238lbs. at my lowest.

Rockin'.

>I've, unfortunately, slowly climbed back up to
>around 270lbs.

Hard to do on veggies. Takes a *lot* of calories to maintain
250 lbs of bulk. I know. I used to eat in a meal what I now
eat in a day, and I'm eating pretty hearty now.

>I'd like to get back on track, but it seems like nothing
>I've tried has worked. I eat some meat again. Eggs, fish and turkey. I'm
>on a pretty decent diet. But basically I've hit a major 3 year long
>plateau. My wife is on a plan that, while not Atkins, cuts out a lot of
>carbs and emphasizes carbs like rice. i.e. You can't eat bread, but you
>can eat rice, cous cous, stuff like that.

Atkins is nuts. All the research shows that it just bores people
into eating fewer calories.

>It's working well for her so far, but I just can't imagine not having
>bread. I know from my own personal experience that refined sugars and
>grains are a big problem. Cutting them out was a big part of why I was
>successful. However, how far can someone who cycles quite a bit take that?

Nothing is a "big problem" except total calories in minus total
calories out being a positive number.

>And a bigger question is this. Have any of you experienced a dramatic
>weight loss, then a plateau? And if you have, what did you do to get
>yourself kick-started off the plateau?

I learned about food and energy and losing weight.

I thought I knew about it before.

Turns out I didn't, even though I actually had the information
all along. It's just never presented to us coherently, so it
looks haphazard, and we apply it haphazardly. And it doesn't
work because we find a way to defeat it inadvertently.

>I feel like, maybe in part because
>of my dramatic weight loss, my metabolism or something has shifted to the
>point where weight loss is more difficult than it was before.

It has, but if you were still significantly fat at 238,
you weren't close to having a problem metabolism.

You won't see real problems until you're well under 10% bodyfat.

I don't know where that is for you, but even if you're a
tall, broad guy, it's probably when you're under 200 lbs.

>I don't know
>if that's just bunk, but I can't explain otherwise why I've been stuck for
>so long in spite of the fact that I'm still eating right.

Define "eating right". Do you know exactly how many calories
you're eating now? Do you know how many you will eat tomorrow?

If you knew how many you were eating on average over the last two
weeks, and that your weight was stable at that rate, and that your
exercise is consistent (even if it's zero) and not merely occasional,
could you then be disciplined and reduce your calories by 300-800
per day? Or reduce your calories and increase your exercise to total
a 300-800 calorie difference per day?

Because if you can do that, you'll lose 0.5 to 1.5 pounds a week.

Period.

The trick is, you need to track it carefully to be sure
you aren't sneaking in things that are sandbagging you.

An unaccounted handful of pretzels, a bag of chips, anything,
done just once per day, can undermine your "eating right".

Even with my spreadsheet open 5 times a day, I have 100-200
calories of variation in my intake by the end of the day.

Every time I ignore tracking, I start to "forget" that
I'd already had a meal that was 100-200 calories over
the average, and do it again. At 5 meals a day, I can be
500-1000 calories over and hardly notice.

All that stuff about food composition and glycemic levels
and meal timing can modulate your loss rate by maybe 20%.
But sometimes focussing on that can help you get the
calorie balance right in the first place. Which may
be why every diet has a gimmick.

>Any experiences are welcome. Please no flaming. I'd just love to hear a
>sampling of what's worked for those of you out there. Especially those of
>you who have struggled with, and moved off of plateaus.

Look for Tom Venuto's "Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle"
online. It's only available in e-book form (as a PDF file
you can probably read if you've ever used Adobe Reader in
your web-browser), but that means you'll have it in hours
instead of days.

It's kind of geared towards athletic people looking to
get ripped by cutting to very low bodyfat percentages, but
it's also applicable to anyone at any bodyfat percentage.
He doesn't have a fad or a gimmick to sell. He just
did the homework we all should have been forced to do in
grade school.

He'll spend 337 pages telling you what I told you above,
and then detail why it's that way, and then discuss the
things you can do to tweak it. If you're like me, you
won't be able to put it down.

And you'll probably be able to build your own working diet
out of the foods you like to eat now. Which is the point.

--Blair
"Lose 30 lbs in 30 days^h^h^h^hweeks!
Ask me how!"

12-27-2004, 09:54 PM

This is what works for me
(1) Read food labels and calculate your total energy intake
(2) Calculate energy expenditure: Baseline is 10.000KJ plus what
spend training. Polar HR-monitors are very handy for counting KJ'
spend during training
(3) Keep a daily energy deficit of max(!) 2000KJ and you drop 0.5kg
week continously

I kind of eat what I fancy, while keeping a lookout for getting th
recommended amounts of fat, protein & carbohydrates

Tips (all learned the painfull way)
- I never exeed the daily deficit of 2000 KJ, more than that impair
my training and makes me very prone to bying and eating all sort o
sugary stuff ;
- Always keep a little bag(50-80 grams) of candy in my home, that wa
I'll dont have to hit the supermarked when I get a lust for somethin
swee
- Don't go shopping hungry, that way you don't bring back loads an
loads of 'nice' things :eek
- Keep eating the food you really, just in smaller amounts so tha
you still keep the planned deficit. Personally I'm a sucker for Nutell
and cupcakes, and any longer time without that makes me a very crank
customer:

*Tommy

--
toa

12-27-2004, 09:54 PM

This is what works for me
(1) Read food labels and calculate your total energy intake
(2) Calculate energy expenditure: Baseline is 10.000KJ plus what
spend training. Polar HR-monitors are very handy for counting KJ'
spend during training
(3) Keep a daily energy deficit of max(!) 2000KJ and you drop 0.5kg
week continously

I kind of eat what I fancy, while keeping a lookout for getting th
recommended amounts of fat, protein & carbohydrates

Tips (all learned the painfull way)
- I never exeed the daily deficit of 2000 KJ, more than that impair
my training and makes me very prone to bying and eating all sort o
sugary stuff ;
- Always keep a little bag(50-80 grams) of candy in my home, that wa
I'll dont have to hit the supermarked when I get a lust for somethin
swee
- Don't go shopping hungry, that way you don't bring back loads an
loads of 'nice' things :eek
- Keep eating the food you really, just in smaller amounts so tha
you still keep the planned deficit. Personally I'm a sucker for Nutell
and cupcakes, and any longer time without that makes me a very crank
customer:

*Tommy

--
toa

12-27-2004, 09:54 PM

This is what works for me
(1) Read food labels and calculate your total energy intake
(2) Calculate energy expenditure: Baseline is 10.000KJ plus what
spend training. Polar HR-monitors are very handy for counting KJ'
spend during training
(3) Keep a daily energy deficit of max(!) 2000KJ and you drop 0.5kg
week continously

I kind of eat what I fancy, while keeping a lookout for getting th
recommended amounts of fat, protein & carbohydrates

Tips (all learned the painfull way)
- I never exeed the daily deficit of 2000 KJ, more than that impair
my training and makes me very prone to bying and eating all sort o
sugary stuff ;
- Always keep a little bag(50-80 grams) of candy in my home, that wa
I'll dont have to hit the supermarked when I get a lust for somethin
swee
- Don't go shopping hungry, that way you don't bring back loads an
loads of 'nice' things :eek
- Keep eating the food you really, just in smaller amounts so tha
you still keep the planned deficit. Personally I'm a sucker for Nutell
and cupcakes, and any longer time without that makes me a very crank
customer:

*Tommy

--
toa

12-27-2004, 09:54 PM

This is what works for me
(1) Read food labels and calculate your total energy intake
(2) Calculate energy expenditure: Baseline is 10.000KJ plus what
spend training. Polar HR-monitors are very handy for counting KJ'
spend during training
(3) Keep a daily energy deficit of max(!) 2000KJ and you drop 0.5kg
week continously

I kind of eat what I fancy, while keeping a lookout for getting th
recommended amounts of fat, protein & carbohydrates

Tips (all learned the painfull way)
- I never exeed the daily deficit of 2000 KJ, more than that impair
my training and makes me very prone to bying and eating all sort o
sugary stuff ;
- Always keep a little bag(50-80 grams) of candy in my home, that wa
I'll dont have to hit the supermarked when I get a lust for somethin
swee
- Don't go shopping hungry, that way you don't bring back loads an
loads of 'nice' things :eek
- Keep eating the food you really, just in smaller amounts so tha
you still keep the planned deficit. Personally I'm a sucker for Nutell
and cupcakes, and any longer time without that makes me a very crank
customer:

*Tommy

--
toa

12-28-2004, 03:08 AM

Blair P. Houghton wrote:
|| Atkins is nuts. All the research shows that it just bores people
|| into eating fewer calories.

Nonsense