Nutritional advice for loosing weight

[Roaders]

I am a big guy and I started to cycle to loose weight. When I started
around 3 years ago this went pretty well and I lost around 2 and a half stone. Over the last year or so though I have been struggling to continue losing despite having between 3 and 5 more stone to loose.

This morning I weighed myself and was disappointed to see that I had put around a stone on since the start of January and am back up to nearly 21 stone

I cycle to work 3 days a week. The cycle is 18 miles each way so 36 miles a day. The ride takes me between 1 hour 15 and 1 hour 30 and it doesn't really stress me fitness wise much, my heart rate stays pretty low. When I was wearing a heart rate montior I was struggling to get my HR above the minumum level of 120.

I know that loosing weight is easy, exercise more and eat less! I am
planning to start doign around an hour ride on Monday and Friday when I work from home and maybe try to get some weekend rides in.

Food wise on the days I am cycling I typically eat:

Breakfast (after my cycle into work)
muesli with natural yogurt
Trpoicana orange juice
Coffee

Lunch
Soup with largish chunk of brown bread
Fruit smoothy

Supper
Ready meal of some sort
(or quite often an indian / chinese takeaway or pizza)

Obviously I know that takeaways and pizzas are not good and I realise that this is my main problem.

What I want to know though is what I should have for lunch. I want
something that doesn't have too many calories in so that I lose weight but something that will give me enough energy to cycle home and enjoy it - not having a horrible long slog whith dead legs.

Over the last few days I have switched my morning Orange Juice to around a half hour before I cycle home. This seems to give me good energy on the way home but does this mean that I am just burning the sugar in the OJ rather than my fat reserves? In the morning it can still feel like hard work though.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

 

[ColinJ]

I think what you are doing sounds pretty good except for those takeaways - those are the main cause of your weight problem! A takeaway should be a treat, once a week, tops. You could probably lose a pound a week just by switching to healthy evening meals 6 nights a week.

I don't think your dead legs on your ride home come from lack of calories in - I think you are tired! You are big. Those longish commutes are going to take a lot of effort.

I think you will end up overtrained and exhausted if you do your 3 days of commuting plus rides on Monday and Friday plus a weekend ride. You need recovery time.

If you want to do more than you do now I'd suggest a Saturday or a Sunday ride. That would give you 3 recovery days a week. If you wanted to get out of the house on a recovery day, just go for an easy walk.

Once you stop feeling tired on your commutes, perhaps you could then ride both days at the weekend but I'd keep the Mondays and Fridays for recovery.

Oh, and if you are serious about losing weight, I suggest that you check the scales at least once a week so you don't let a stone slip back on unnoticed!

 

[amaferanga]

I think what you are doing sounds pretty good except for those takeaways - those are the main cause of your weight problem! A takeaway should be a treat, once a week, tops. You could probably lose a pound a week just by switching to healthy evening meals 6 nights a week.

I don't think your dead legs on your ride home come from lack of calories in - I think you are tired! You are big. Those longish commutes are going to take a lot of effort.

I think you will end up overtrained and exhausted if you do your 3 days of commuting plus rides on Monday and Friday plus a weekend ride. You need recovery time.

If you want to do more than you do now I'd suggest a Saturday or a Sunday ride. That would give you 3 recovery days a week. If you wanted to get out of the house on a recovery day, just go for an easy walk.

Once you stop feeling tired on your commutes, perhaps you could then ride both days at the weekend but I'd keep the Mondays and Fridays for recovery.

Oh, and if you are serious about losing weight, I suggest that you check the scales at least once a week so you don't let a stone slip back on unnoticed!

I doubt it - not from pootling along with HR below 120 most of the time.

I'd say he needs to eat BETTER all round (not more). Sorry to say, but your diet sounds crap Roaders. Eat proper meals with fruit, veg, brown rice, wholemeal pasta, fresh fish, chicken, etc. then you might actually have the energy to cycle a bit harder and burn more calories riding your bike. You might want to think about spreading your calorie intake through the day so you eat something not long before you head home (like a banana or a muesli bar).

 

[EdgEy]

Seems to me you're basically eating rabbit food in the mornings and gorging at night!
You'd be much better off eating before cycling.

Chicken breast is high in protein, healthy and low in calories. So is tuna.

If you eat properly in the day you won't be as hungry at night.

"Eating less" shouldn't take priority over eating properly. As a big man, you'll be burning a lot of calories cycling, even your BMR (basal metabolic rate, how much energy your body needs to idle) will be fairly high.

Don't worry about dieting or losing weight, if you eat healthy and continue cycling the job will do itself. We're not small animals, we need more than soup !

 

[Garz]

Losing weight is all about how much your consuming. You have to gradually eat less each day/week to a sensible level, which with added exercising is harder to manage but do-able.

Smoothies are great but for loosing weight they are terrible. Home made ones are far better but still can be high energy if your not careful.

I dont need to say anything about ready meals and takeaways, that's self explanatory. I will highlight though - enjoy your riding firstly, the weight loss will come eventually. If you try too much too soon then you will end up hating the training/riding/dieting and give up, so slow and steady wins the race!