...is it better to ride shorter and more frequently or longer and less frequently?

[bof]

I'm not sure it will help weight loss per se, but I felt it has better helped me cope with long rides living largely off fat, is what is called 'bonk training'. The idea is that you go for a 90 minute ride after you get up having consumed no calories (ie just water/black coffee or whatever) and it is supposed to make the body cope better without carbs.

The name is misleading because you should not bonk - stopping after 90 minutes should ensure this. The only time I did was because I was up a couple of hours first and doing stuff round the house before I set off - so bonked after quite a short time.

Incidentally I only consume water on any normal ride up to around 2 hours. I just take a snack in case. You may find it makes no difference to your pace swapping to water for your shorter rides.

 

[Blonde]

BTW - by 'long' rides. I was actually thinking of those of 100 miles plus (so, say 6 hours plus) rather than those of two hours.

I cycle to work (about 42 mins/13 miles both ways) usually at a moderate to high intensity (sprinting between lights etc) so I guess those could be used as 'shorter intense' rides - 5 times a week, plus a longer ride of about four to eight hours at weekends.

I don't seem to need energy drinks even on 100 milers any more, as long as I eat proper meals at my usual meal times - so I stop for lunch etc. I prefer to eat 'normal' meals anyway, rather than substitute real meals with energy drinks. I use energy bars for topping up with, if needed. I used to get low blood sugar (whether on or off the bike) and, when cycling, needed to eat a half bar or piece of malt loaf every 20 to 30 miles! I discovered that this was due to my high GI (high sugar - in my case, mostly fructose in fresh and dried fruit) diet and to a Candida infection in the gut and since addressing this (by following an anti-Candida diet for two months and now eating mostly low GI food and rationing my fruit intake to one or two pieces a day) I don't get low blood sugar at all any more, so don't actually need to eat at all between meals now, whether on or off the bike. I get through less than half the amount of energy bars on a ride that I used to - maybe just one or two maximum, on a 200km ride and using plain water, with no energy drink added.

 

[Bigtallfatbloke]

wow...it must be great to be that fit

I will keep on keeping on and one day will get that fit as well.

 

[stevenb]

All good advice here.
You have to find the best training method to suit your needs...once you try out a few things over a period of time then see what works best for you.

 

[greenmark]

Basically, the higher the intensity then more of your calories are burned from your glucogen (a complex carbohydrate) stores because its the fuel that is used for anaerobic energy release.

For lower intensity you'll be burning mostly fat. There is a limit to how fast you can metabolise fat - if you use too much power then you'll you hit that limit and for any extra energy you'll be burning glucogen. Actually after a certain intensity you start reducing your fat burn in favour of glucogen.

Every person has about a two hour store of glucogen for higher intensities. When you run out of it, you don't start burning fat - you'll experience the bonk and then simply stop.

So in order to burn fat - you're best bet is low intensity because you can keep burning the fat for longer before getting tired.

You can replenish your glucogen stores by eating carbohydrates - but once you've replenished them beyong what you're able to store then any further carbohydrate you eat gets converted to fat. The best time to maximise conversion of carbos to glucogen is to eat them immediately after exercise or even during exercise - so the energy drinks you consume aren't going to be converted to fat.

If you want to get fitter rather than trying to lose fat then you'd want to try going at high intensity. Your body then tries to compensate to try to burn fat for any future high intensity episodes - by increasing the rate at which oxygen can reach your muscles with bigger lungs, more powerful heart, increases blood supply to the required muscles.

If you eat fat it never gets converted to glucogen. It just remains as fat. So a diet high in carbos will maximise the chance that the calories won't get converted to fat. Strength training will also mean increase in muscle mass which use up more energy when you're resting.

 

[stuart]

although new thinking says that given a fixed amount of time, you are better off going as hard as possible during that time - if your only goal is to lose weight - as the overall increase in the body's metabolism will burn more calories when you are not exercising

 

[bonj2]

greenmark - I think you mean glycogen, not glucogen