When do you start to lose weight?

[Racing roadkill]

Maybe try and log your calories on something like My Fitness Pal for a week or two to see how much you are consuming. It is really easy to overeat without knowing. You might find this is the case and then you can amend your diet accordingly if you want to lose weight.

MFP, is actually quite useful, but you do have to be careful to be 100% honest with it, if you want it to work.

 

[smutchin]

commuting 11x2 miles several days a week ... not really cut back on socialising so alcohol and restaurant meals either.

Can you be more precise than 'several'? Three? Four? And how much are you drinking?

If you want a reality check, each time you ride your bike to work, you're probably burning off around one pint of beer's worth of calories. So if pints consumed > commutes ridden, you're cancelling out your efforts.

I must be gaining muscle and losing fat to loose waist inches

Are you losing waist inches? If so, that is good news and you have nothing to worry about, so just keep doing what you're doing. A shrinking waist is a far more meaningful sign of health improvement than a reduction in BMI.

 

[Bodhbh]

Well, you could certainly do something about the alcohol intake!

^^ this. It's really hard to loose weight while doing much in the way of boozing - the calories from the booze, plusthe havok it plays with any kind of restraint on what you eat. I'll loose a kilo a week if I'm teetotal and doing the usual commute, with 2 square meals aday and without much in the way of dieting. Otherwise, nothing shifts very fast. Drives a coach and horses thru any motivation to do anything active at the weekend too.

 

[pawl]

So, I've been commuting 11x2 miles several days a week for eight months now. Starting out at 108kg for just under two metres so a BMI of about 27.5. Slightly overweight.

In eight months of cycling without especially restricting food I've lost quite a few cm from the waist but not very much weight. I guess this is fat into muscle, which is of course no bad thing. Certainly I find hill climbing much easier.

I was wondering how quickly people find they start to lose weight? I've been trying to eat high quality protein where possible but not really cut back on socialising so alcohol and restaurant meals either.

I'm potentially relocating jobs which will double the commute so thinking that hopefully that will start to drop the kg. I have suffered from food disorders in the past so trying not to get too hung up on it. But it would be good to know what to expect, partially to check I am not dropping weight too fast either.

I underwent heart surgery three years ago.

I wasn't allowed to ride the bike for eleven weeks.Rehab new I also enjoyed walking.They gave me a programme of walking a minimum of one hour a day five days a week increasing the time and distance over the eight week period

While waiting for surgery my weight increased from around eleven and half stone to twelve and a half.stone.My.phyisio opinion is that that the one hour of power walking I would need to do two hours of cycling at the same intensity. You meh need to break your ride down into hard And easy intervals
Good luck

 

[keithmac]

I went on 500kcal deficit a day for nigh on a year to lose 2 stone.

Unfortunately the body is quite efficient, especially when joined to a bicycle!.

You can't outrun/ outride a bad diet..

 

[Alan O]

My general rule of thumb in cases like this is that if my weight falls I'm losing fat, and if it rises I'm gaining muscle... it keeps me happy.

 

[mjr]

Crude body fat % measurements are given by some scales and blood pressure monitors, so you don't have to guess. Does anyone know how accurate they are?

A better alternative to that is to have a heart attack. I for one cant stand veg. I love fruit tho. Is it even possible to eat healthily without vegetables? That said I do often eat salad, burgers and kebabs always come with some.

Really? No vegetables? There's a huge range, including different methods for cooking most, and even if you don't like some, you may find others acceptable. If you like salads, then experiment with salads and you can probably get enough although I suspect (OTTOMH) that you may struggle for brassicas.

But if you think that the slow hell of a heart attack is better than changing your diet, I suspect many people are going to find that difficult to understand and struggle to give relatable advice.

 

[Alan O]

Crude body fat % measurements are given by some scales and blood pressure monitors, so you don't have to guess. Does anyone know how accurate they are?

Something I read a while ago (can't remember where it was - I'll post a link if I find it) suggested scales that measure body fat are hopelessly inaccurate - because they're checking a current flowing through your legs, and that's usually not where the fat is.

Alan

 

[jarlrmai]

If you want a truly accurate body fat then you need a Dexa scan, otherwise body fat calipers used by someone who knows what they are doing is best.

 

[ColinJ]

In case it helps (though the actual weight loss numbers would vary from person to person) ...

You say that you are nearly 2 metres tall. I put the numbers into the BMI calculation and that suggests that you are about 1.98 m (6' 6") tall. 108 kg (17 stone) is quite heavy, but for someone of your height it isn't terribly overweight. And as suggested above, BMI isn't the best way of choosing a target weight anyway, but assuming that you do want to go by that and get down to a slimmer BMI of 23, you would need to reduce your weight by 18 kgs.

I lose approximately 1/4 kg in weight per 100 kms of cycling providing I don't eat or drink extra to fuel the cycling. (If I were riding 4 x 25 kms I could do those rides without extra food. If I rode 1 x 100 km I would have to eat more, so from a weight loss perspective, lots of shorter rides are better than fewer, longer ones.)

If you absolutely insist that you just want to do lots of cycling to lose the weight and don't want to change what you eat and drink, then here are the numbers for me: 18 kg = 18 x 4 x 1/4 kg = 72 x 1/4 kg. That corresponds to 72 x 4 x 25 km of cycling

I would have to do about 288 rides of 25 km to get that amount of weight off. 7,200 kms! To translate that into the 11 mile commutes ... 7,200 kms = 4,473 miles. 4,473 / (11 x 2) = 203 commutes (to work and back).

I think that illustrates why it is taking you a long time to get the weight off solely by commuting on your bike, and why taking another look at your food and drink intake would be a good idea!

You don't have to count calories. Just decide that you will not drink alcohol (say) 4 nights a week and don't drink to excess the other 3 nights. As for food - categorise it into Healthy/Calorie-dense (eat/drink in moderation); Healthy/Lower-calorie (eat/drink as much as you want); Unhealthy/High-calorie (eat/drink sparingly as occasional treats and don't binge on those occasions).

 

[KnackeredBike]

Thanks all for your input. I'm thinking of using something like Huel for a bit so I can control the calories, I work 13 hour day so it is difficult to cook and eat healthily every day.

 

[Big Andy]

In my opinion and experience losing weight is about 80% what you shove in your gob and 20% ecercise related. 7 stonesin a year by joining Slimming world.

 

[colourspinner]

Firstly, I think it's great that you're riding to work. It would be easy to just hop in the car every day to work or the pub, but you chose to get on the bike.

I work 13-hour days sometimes (and a sedentary job too), and I am just an all round lazy person. In order that I don't just plonk on the sofa with a family sized bag of crisps at midnight and have that as dinner, I work out what I don't mind eating every night during the week and batch cook and freeze during the weekend. I guess I am lucky in that I don't mind having the same thing over and over again. Sometimes I might leave one or two portions in the fridge for Monday and Tuesday. I also make sure that whatever I cook can be eaten with pasta/rice/boiled new potatoes/some form of carbs that is quick to prepare. All I have to do when I get home is heat the frozen stuff, cook the carbs and some veg in the same pot (yes I am lazy and I have figured out when to add the veg so it doesn't turn to mush), and dinner is ready.

Some days I feel like a pizza and I will listen to my body and have a pizza. As long as that's not every day of the week... It's hard at first, but when I see that at least I'm not gaining weight it motivates me to stick to making my own food and not just eating any edible grub I find on my way home.

 

[ColinJ]

Thanks all for your input. I'm thinking of using something like Huel for a bit so I can control the calories, I work 13 hour day so it is difficult to cook and eat healthily every day.

When I was a student I used to cook a huge vegetable curry on Sunday afternoon, eat one portion of it that evening, and freeze the rest of it to eat during the week. It meant that I always had something healthy to eat when I might otherwise have been tempted to nip out and buy junk food. I also knew exactly what I was eating because I had bought the ingredients and cooked them!

 

[KnackeredBike]

When I was a student I used to cook a huge vegetable curry on Sunday afternoon, eat one portion of it that evening, and freeze the rest of it to eat during the week. It meant that I always had something healthy to eat when I might otherwise have been tempted to nip out and buy junk food. I also knew exactly what I was eating because I had bought the ingredients and cooked them!

It's a really good idea. Part of the reason I struggle with food is that I do one job but work for two different employers (thank you bizarre public sector) so tend to do days midweek then nights over the weekend, then back to days, which means your body clock is always out and so you don't have the standard breakfast/lunch/dinner that you get if you are working 9-5 (what a way to make a living).

I've always wanted, but never been organised enough, to cook large batches and freeze it in portions so I can take have something quick and healthy. Might pop down to Poundland and see if I can get some cheap containers.