Cycling and weight loss

[Fenix11]

Good morning.
How much time per week should you practice cycling to effectively lose weight please?
THANKS

 

[JayKosta]

Every day would be best, but done at a moderate intensity and duration that allows you to be fully recovered by the next day. Most important is to not increase your daily calorie intake - DO NOT treat yourself to a high calorie snack as a 'reward' for doing the exercise, and you probably do not need to eat more to 'fuel up' due to doing 30 minutes of exercise.

Cycle (or any other exercise) at a moderate intensity for about 1/2 hour - hard enough to feel that you are working, but not so hard to become exhausted. Afterwards, DO NOT eat or drink more calories for about 2 hours - that is the time period when your body continues to 'burn fat' to replace the blood sugar that you used during the 30 minutes of exercise.

If you enjoy cycling for longer period - perhaps several hours, then you will need to eat or drink during the ride to maintain enough fuel for your muscles. But again, avoid eating more for a few hours AFTER the ride.

 

[Miss Violet Smith]

Only personal experience, but. For medical reasons, I decided to lose 8 kgs and to get my resting pulse down under 60 bpm last year. Of course, I also stopped sugar, alcohol and most carbs, which could have contributed to the weight loss.

I would ride my bike 5 days (3 days, rest, 2 days, rest) a week, different loops and terrains, on average 45 mins at moderate intensity which for me is about 130 bpm. Then recover the 2 days in between with yoga or walking for about an hour. I was very hungry a lot of the time, but ok. No issue to lose 8 kgs in about 10 months.

Oh, and always brought water and a snack, but unless I was feeling really bad, I did not eat the snack.

 

[cogwheel]

Every day would be best, but done at a moderate intensity and duration that allows you to be fully recovered by the next day. Most important is to not increase your daily calorie intake - DO NOT treat yourself to a high calorie snack as a 'reward' for doing the exercise, and you probably do not need to eat more to 'fuel up' due to doing 30 minutes of exercise.

Cycle (or any other exercise) at a moderate intensity for about 1/2 hour - hard enough to feel that you are working, but not so hard to become exhausted. Afterwards, DO NOT eat or drink more calories for about 2 hours - that is the time period when your body continues to 'burn fat' to replace the blood sugar that you used during the 30 minutes of exercise.

If you enjoy cycling for longer period - perhaps several hours, then you will need to eat or drink during the ride to maintain enough fuel for your muscles. But again, avoid eating more for a few hours AFTER the ride.

I am regularly doing a few hours rides (and eat something light during them), would not eating after the ride increase muscle catabolism or would it use just the fat?

 

[JayKosta]

This article provides a lot of related info - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577439/
An important consideration are the goals of doing the exercise - weight loss, performance increase, general conditioning, etc. Also, how soon after an exercise session do you need to perform other activities, or can you just relax.

 

[cogwheel]

This article provides a lot of related info - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3577439/
An important consideration are the goals of doing the exercise - weight loss, performance increase, general conditioning, etc. Also, how soon after an exercise session do you need to perform other activities, or can you just relax.

Thanks!
This is exactly what I needed, some well researched, credible article on the subject.

 

[Unchained]

Only personal experience, but. For medical reasons, I decided to lose 8 kgs and to get my resting pulse down under 60 bpm last year. Of course, I also stopped sugar, alcohol and most carbs, which could have contributed to the weight loss.

I would ride my bike 5 days (3 days, rest, 2 days, rest) a week, different loops and terrains, on average 45 mins at moderate intensity which for me is about 130 bpm. Then recover the 2 days in between with yoga or walking for about an hour. I was very hungry a lot of the time, but ok. No issue to lose 8 kgs in about 10 months.

Oh, and always brought water and a snack, but unless I was feeling really bad, I did not eat the snack.

Super cool story, good luck with your goals. Lots of current data is leading us to get nutrition on the bike for longer efforts and to have proper calorie consumption before exercise. I came from the old school of go out and ride and try to eat a tiny something or nothing. Old thinking was your body would find something to use for energy and the net outcome would be you were lean and mean. Turns out you are not doing yourself any favors, short or long term by not having ready calories while exercising

 

[Sciatic]

Super cool story, good luck with your goals. Lots of current data is leading us to get nutrition on the bike for longer efforts and to have proper calorie consumption before exercise. I came from the old school of go out and ride and try to eat a tiny something or nothing. Old thinking was your body would find something to use for energy and the net outcome would be you were lean and mean. Turns out you are not doing yourself any favors, short or long term by not having ready calories while exercising

You may be referring to old-school eating during racing, which I didn’t do. But I was an old-school “ride lots”, in pre-Power Bar days and could stay well fueled on 200–300 km rides with eating loads of bananas and oatmeal cookies while riding. Only problem was getting stuff down towards the end of the ride.

 

[red_flanders]

Only personal experience, but. For medical reasons, I decided to lose 8 kgs and to get my resting pulse down under 60 bpm last year. Of course, I also stopped sugar, alcohol and most carbs, which could have contributed to the weight loss.

I would ride my bike 5 days (3 days, rest, 2 days, rest) a week, different loops and terrains, on average 45 mins at moderate intensity which for me is about 130 bpm. Then recover the 2 days in between with yoga or walking for about an hour. I was very hungry a lot of the time, but ok. No issue to lose 8 kgs in about 10 months.

Oh, and always brought water and a snack, but unless I was feeling really bad, I did not eat the snack.

Always curious when folks mention this. Wondering what is meant by "carbs"? Fruit? Veggies? Pasta & white bread? All carbs, but all have very different metabolic effects.

Also for cyclists, when I tried keto my cycling performance absolutely tanked, and it took me months to get back to the level I was at before I started. I'm not riding competitively, but the fitness level matters with the crazed MTB group I ride with.

Sounds like your rides were pretty short at 45 mins where it might not matter. My weekend rides are more on 3 hours, I can't perform w/o proper fueling.

Just curious about all this for other folks. No doubt doing keto will drop that 5 lbs of water weight quickly and help after that if it's adhered to, but it's pretty hard to adhere to if the folks around me "doing keto" are any indication. Seems like they all eat fries and other crap anyway.

 

[red_flanders]

To the thread title, I've found that cycling doesn't matter much as it comes to weight loss. Diet matters a whole lot. 80/20 Diet/Exercise IMO. One would have to be single, unemployed, or both to ride enough to make a difference in weight loss. I remember the days of being single and racing, sure, that level of training helps a lot. But 5-8 hours a week? Not gonna make a huge impact, has to be mostly diet. In my experience.

 

[red_flanders]

Cycle (or any other exercise) at a moderate intensity for about 1/2 hour - hard enough to feel that you are working, but not so hard to become exhausted. Afterwards, DO NOT eat or drink more calories for about 2 hours - that is the time period when your body continues to 'burn fat' to replace the blood sugar that you used during the 30 minutes of exercise.

Not sure I understand this. One's body burns fat...to replace sugar? I thought we burned fat to fuel zone 2 and lower activities. Don't see how it would replace blood sugar or why that would be a good thing? Maybe this is just a semantic question, I realize the body burns some amount of fat after some kinds of exercise.

30 minute efforts sound really short to me. Not sure what kind of difference this would make, even at high intensity that's going to be max 300 calories, rider weight depending... Thoughts? Would like to understand a bit more here.

 

[Miss Violet Smith]

Always curious when folks mention this. Wondering what is meant by "carbs"? Fruit? Veggies? Pasta & white bread? All carbs, but all have very different metabolic effects.

Also for cyclists, when I tried keto my cycling performance absolutely tanked, and it took me months to get back to the level I was at before I started. I'm not riding competitively, but the fitness level matters with the crazed MTB group I ride with.

Sounds like your rides were pretty short at 45 mins where it might not matter. My weekend rides are more on 3 hours, I can't perform w/o proper fueling.

Just curious about all this for other folks. No doubt doing keto will drop that 5 lbs of water weight quickly and help after that if it's adhered to, but it's pretty hard to adhere to if the folks around me "doing keto" are any indication. Seems like they all eat fries and other crap anyway.

Diet definitely more important than exercise, but moving around was helpful in its own way. Not sure I could have combined any kind of performance with losing weight sustainably; the rides were pretty short for a reason.

As for carbs, I did stop eating fruit, pasta, rice and bread to live off green vegetables and steamed fish for a while. Keto is really not my thing.

Six months later, I'm back on moderate carbs, no weight gain. Also, trying to recover from a fairly severe shoulder injury, so stationary biking in the living room it is.

 

[JayKosta]

The idea is that for weight loss, you can exercise for a while (say about 30 minutes) without the need to consume more calories (and without the need to consume beforehand) - just use the glycogen that is already stored in your muscles / liver / blood to fuel the energy (calories) burned doing the the exercise. But afterwards don't immediately 'refuel' - allow your body to restore the glycogen by using the body fat that is available within a few hours. And don't 'reward' yourself by eating high-calorie treats because you did that exercise.

If someone does get-ready eating beforehand, and then after-exercise eating to recover, it's difficult to lose weight - there needs to be some calorie deficit (more calories burned than are consumed).

Not sure I understand this. One's body burns fat...to replace sugar? I thought we burned fat to fuel zone 2 and lower activities. Don't see how it would replace blood sugar or why that would be a good thing? Maybe this is just a semantic question, I realize the body burns some amount of fat after some kinds of exercise.

30 minute efforts sound really short to me. Not sure what kind of difference this would make, even at high intensity that's to be max 300 calories, rider weight depending... Thoughts? Would like to understand a bit more here.

 

[red_flanders]

The idea is that for weight loss, you can exercise for a while (say about 30 minutes) without the need to consume more calories (and without the need to consume beforehand) - just use the glycogen that is already stored in your muscles / liver / blood to fuel the energy (calories) burned doing the the exercise. But afterwards don't immediately 'refuel' - allow your body to restore the glycogen by using the body fat that is available within a few hours. And don't 'reward' yourself by eating high-calorie treats because you did that exercise.

If someone does get-ready eating beforehand, and then after-exercise eating to recover, it's difficult to lose weight - there needs to be some calorie deficit (more calories burned than are consumed).

So fasted riding then? I hear ya, some folks are trying that. I was just reacting to your phrasing about replacing blood sugar, but I get what you mean. Cheers.

 

[JayKosta]

So fasted riding then? I hear ya, some folks are trying that. I was just reacting to your phrasing about replacing blood sugar, but I get what you mean. Cheers.

This is directed towards the goal of 'weight loss', not athletic improvement or long term endurance.

As you said earlier, an exercise session of about 30 minutes would typically burn about 200-400 calories - depending on intensity, and that amount is usually 'stored' (unless significant work was done in the preceding several hours) in the muscles and liver for easy access without need for any get-ready fueling.

For 'serious athletic training' the situation would be different, depending on the intensity and duration.

Yes, my mention of 'blood sugar' was misleading, glycogen storage, utilization, and replacement are the important considerations.

 

[Valv.Piti]

High carb, low fat, lots of water and exercise. It aint rocket science at all to me. Look at the best endurance athletes and how lean and strong they are and do the same as they do and look at diets in Africa, Asia etc. No wonder they are way leaner than the general dude in USA or GB or whatever. Rice, vegetables, pasta, tomato sauce, fruits, bananas, water and sugar and try to just cut most of the fats

 

[RakellyMoon]

When I was trying to lose weight, I found that aiming for around 4 to 5 hours of cycling per week worked well for me. I started with shorter rides and gradually increased the time as I got more comfortable. A while ago, I decided to buy steroids to help with my training, which gave me a bit of an edge in terms of performance and recovery. It’s not necessary for everyone, but it helped me get more out of my workouts. Mixing up cycling with other activities like strength training and being consistent with your routine can really make a difference.