Recommendations for Very Overweight Beginner

[Breeder]

Thanks for your all your advice!

 

[AuroraSaab]

Weight loss is 90% diet. Even when I was regularly going to the gym and doing a bit of cycling, I didn't lose weight, though I toned up and built muscle. You have to do a heck of a lot of cardio to lose fat by exercise alone.

Having said that, exercise is great for mental health and hopefully will help get you into a 'healthy lifestyle' frame of mind.

I prefer my mountain bike (£30 on ebay) for day to day riding. It's heavier than my carbon road bike but I feel safer on the wet, potholed, leaf strewn roads, and it feels like a more all round usable bike than one with drops.

My Fitness Pal is a good counting calorie app. Personally, I find low carb a good way to lose weight, if you can stick to no pasta, rice, spuds, or bread. It's all gone to pot in the lock down unfortunately though and I'm at least 10lb heavier than last year. Good on you for taking some steps to improve your health though.

 

[Lovacott]

Weight loss is 90% diet. Even when I was regularly going to the gym and doing a bit of cycling, I didn't lose weight, though I toned up and built muscle. You have to do a heck of a lot of cardio to lose fat by exercise alone.

I agree on the diet part but exercise is a good way to boost the effectiveness of a diet. Since I started to commute by bike, I've got rid of that last stone which has stubbornly hung onto me over the years in spite of my general overhaul in diet.

 

[matticus]

... also, some sort of endurance exercise is a good carrot; as you get keener on the <riding, running, etc> you'll be motivated by the performance gains from weight loss. And you'll make some gains just with practice - even without much weight loss; all rosy!

 

[straas]

I wouldn't do both at once - a significant calorie reduction and increase in exercise nearly always leads to low mood.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

People: you DO NOT need to do special fitness and diet stuff before getting on a bike !!!

No you don't, but you don't get up to 25 stone in the first place by having a sensibly active lifestyle either.
If you want to lose weight, or avoid gaining weight, it has to be done by a combination of activity and consumption restraint. A mixture of walking and moderate intensity cycling is a good one but expect it to take a couple of years to get down to a normal weight from that starting point.

 

[Lovacott]

No you don't, but you don't get up to 25 stone in the first place by having a sensibly active lifestyle either.
If you want to lose weight, or avoid gaining weight, it has to be done by a combination of activity and consumption restraint. A mixture of walking and moderate intensity cycling is a good one but expect it to take a couple of years to get down to a normal weight from that starting point.

Nobody wants to be 25 stone but it takes a fair deal of effort to get that big.

You have to consume excess calories in vast amounts to be double the average human weight.

To undo this, you will never do it by going for a bike ride twice week or by following Joe Wicks on TikTok.

It's complete lifestyle overhaul that is needed.

I got up to 17 stone 5 years ago and I hated myself because of it. I tried crashing off weight and could lose a stone in a week by eating nothing but lettuce, but I would put it straight back on again after a few days.

The biggest change I made was giving up sugar in all of its forms. It was hard for the first month or so. The headache was really bad.

But as I got used to not having sugar in my tea and on my cereal, I noticed that I didn't feel so hungry for the rest of the day.

No Mars bar cravings at 3 o'clock, no bowl of ice cream just before bed.

My sense of taste began to lean towards the savoury and things that I found bitter before began to taste really good.

Mushrooms, Avocados, Spinach, Kale.

I started to cook more, play around with ingredients and slowly but surely the weight started to drop (I'm talking about a pound a month maybe).

But a pound a month is two stone in two and a half years and four stone in five years.

And here I am today, five years later, a 13 stone skinny arse cyclist.

 

[SkipdiverJohn]

In the three years I've been actively riding again (as opposed to occasionally going for a ride) I've only lost about ten pounds, although the weight has stayed off and my legs have got stronger, so the fat loss will be greater than the scales suggest.
I haven't made any serious changes to diet and consumption though. I have a smaller spoon of sugar in my tea, I eat slightly less chocolate snack bars, and I generally drink a bit less beer than I used to. I haven't actually given anything up completely though. If I want a doner kebab, I have one and don't feel bad about it. Same goes for the odd drinking session, where I might consume a whole weeks recommended beer quota in one day. Most of the time I try to be somewhat sensible though, and I find overall it works because I can stick with a limited degree of self-restraint, and combined with more physical activity, its enough to keep things going the right way. I was nowhere near as overweight to begin with though, so I'm only aiming to be able to reduce my weight by around a stone from the starting point then maintain it. Having better fitness as I get older is also a goal not just weight control.

 

[Lovacott]

In the three years I've been actively riding again (as opposed to occasionally going for a ride) I've only lost about ten pounds, although the weight has stayed off and my legs have got stronger, so the fat loss will be greater than the scales suggest.
I haven't made any serious changes to diet and consumption though. I have a smaller spoon of sugar in my tea, I eat slightly less chocolate snack bars, and I generally drink a bit less beer than I used to. I haven't actually given anything up completely though.

I was about 14 stone when I started going out on the bike back in March. I got noticeably slimmer without losing an ounce as my legs developed a bit and my upper half toned up.

Since late July though, the regular commute has knocked about a pound a week off me but I will admit to feeling bloody knackered a lot of the time.

I'm obviously running a calorie deficit which I am try to address with the odd banana now and again and half a dozen bottles of lager on a Friday night.

I'm going to have large cod and chips from my local chippy tonight with four slices of white buttered bread.

 

[jay clock]

little and often when you get out. Reading other reports on here suggests that people can find half a mile a massive challenge. So start short, day on day off, and build up little by little. Keep us posted!

 

[RichardB]

As someone who has lost 5 stone this year (through diet, not exercise), I can say:

1. Cycling can be hard when you are heavy. Roads are log, hills are endless, and the riding position is often torture, with a sore bum and numb hands. Low riding positions put all your internal organs in the wrong place and can be very uncomfortable. Persist, because -

2. As you lose weight, cycling becomes easier and much more fun. Hills get flatter, saddles get comfier, hand positions get better and - best of all - you can adopt lower riding positions and cheat the wind in complete comfort.

The exercise helps with the weight loss, and the weight loss makes the cycling better. A virtuous circle.

If you exercise to lose weight, you will be disappointed. Look at the calorie burn for an hour's hard cycling - it's about three peanuts and a celery stick. Get the diet right, stick to it, and the weight will fall off. I can recommend the Fast800 Diet by Michael Moseley (that doctor chap off the telly) - the only diet that has ever worked for me. I restricted carbs severely and I had more energy than ever.

Agree with a lot above - a decent rigid or hardtail MTB will be a great place to start.

 

[Lovacott]

If you exercise to lose weight, you will be disappointed. Look at the calorie burn for an hour's hard cycling - it's about three peanuts and a celery stick.

Although the above is true, regular exercise does increase your metabolic rate which in turn burns off more calories during the rest of the day.

That's why sixteen year olds can eat whatever they want and still be stick thin whilst older adults only have to look at a donut to put on five pounds.

 

[RichardB]

Although the above is true, regular exercise does increase your metabolic rate which in turn burns off more calories during the rest of the day.

That's why sixteen year olds can eat whatever they want and still be stick thin whilst older adults only have to look at a donut to put on five pounds.

You are right, of course, and I was slightly exaggerating. But the truth remains that if you want to lose a little, exercise more; if you want to lose a lot, diet. And if you want to lose even more and be fitter into the bargain, do both.

(The key thing is to increase your metabolic rate by exercise, but don't then fall into the trap of thinking that by jogging for ten minutes you have 'earned' a cream cake.)

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I’d start with a mountain bike and don’t worry about speed. The mtn bike will give you a better workout. Get something second hand and reward yourself next summer if you’ve hit a target weight loss.

 

[Lovacott]

The key thing is to increase your metabolic rate by exercise, but don't then fall into the trap of thinking that by jogging for ten minutes you have 'earned' a cream cake.

I have a work colleague who equates a ten minute walk with a full English breakfast and ten pints of beer and can't understand how he is still putting on weight with all of that exercise?

It's a pretty simple equation really. Put more in than you use and you will gain weight, put in a little bit less that you use and you will gradually lose weight.

I've gone for the very gradual approach by doing simple swaps like a spoonful more of sprouts and one less roast potato.

Crash diets simply don't work because when you starve yourself, your body tries to protect its fat reserves by lowering your metabolic rate.