Cycling is a reason to eat

[Twilkes]

I love my little commute, up to 110 miles a week, and I'm feeling and sleeping much better than when I spent a few hours on a bus each day. And I can pretty much eat what I want, although to be honest I've always done that, and am lucky enough to have been the exact same weight for the last twenty years.

But some website reckon that cycling for an hour at decent effort can use up to 1000 calories. So some days I'm expending 1500+ more calories than I used to, even though I'm not eating more than usual. I manage 16 miles uphill on no breakfast, have a big bowl of muesli at work and that does me until lunchtime. Soup and a sandwich at work, some nuts and snacks in the afternoon, then back home for an ordinary-but-large-ish dinner.

So where is this 1500 calories coming from? I once cycled ten hours a day for a week, but there's no way I took on an extra 50,000 calories during that time. Is there a reliable measure of how much energy a cyclist uses?

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I eat the same as when I wasn't cycling - but lost a couple of stone without trying.
I guess your metabolism adapts. After a certain amount of time exercising you need to reduce your calorie intake or you will stay the same weight.

 

[gaz]

I can quite easily consume over 5,000,000 calories in a day and still burn it off.

 

[Pat "5mph"]

I can quite easily consume over 5,000,000 calories in a day and still burn it off.

You mean 5000?

 

[gaz]

You mean 5000?

nah. Just being controversial. there is a difference between Calories and calories

 

[Matthew_T]

I have to be very careful in our house. I tend to raid the buscuit tin and then blame it on my brother when my parents ask about it.

I dont really have anything that I 'eat and go' with, I just try to go out on a full stomach or after I have eaten something.

 

[Miquel In De Rain]

I can consume a chocolate bar and put on 14lbs.

 

[Hip Priest]

I eat absolutely loads of food. Armfuls of the stuff. My table groans under the weight of pies, cakes, pizzas, burgers, chips & chocolate. I haven't lost any weight through cycling, but it may well have prevented me from being as fat as a house.

But I need to get better on hills, so I may need to cut down in the new year.

 

[Moodyman]

I think calories per hour using various online measures is a bit unreliable. I think 4-500 calories is a more realistic number.

Like Hip priest I eat anything and everything, but cycling helps me stay fat rather than obese.

 

[Sandra6]

I don't think you can trust these calorie calculators, they don't take into account the weight you are or the effort you are actually putting in.
According to my fitness pal -online calorie counter - I should've been a size 10 months ago.

 

[Tynan]

defo gives me an appetite and generally raises my metabolism, I think

lets me drink lots of beer with no more than a very slight tyre