I get my workouts up to 6 days a week and I want to eat everything every where all day long. And often crappy food too. Trouble is I’m overweight and need to drop pounds. I do eat on the bike about 200 cal/hour.
Days when I don’t workout aren’t any easier.
Tips to help me drop pounds?
I’m 5’11, 220, 48 years old, 210 ftp, 30% bf, bike an average of 5-8 hrs/week and 1 weight session. One session week intense, 1 long ride and several short easier. My body won’t take more intensity right now.
Probably not eating enough on the bike. You’re likely burning 600 kcal at a minimum and eating 200. Also check hydration.
Not gonna lie, you’ll probly lose more weight if you actually eat more and eat whenever your body when is physically hungry… The caveat is it has to be with good nutrional food not junk!
More often people crash diet while doing too much physical activities. With that you will damage your metabolism, and your body with take extreme measure to make sure you survive. Most cases you will lose not only fat but muscle along the way, specially in extreme hunger situations.
If you are priorities is to lose weight, try to eat more lower GI carbs while you’re not working out, and don’t stave of from healthy fats. With those two things it will help to satiate your hunger better.
just try it for couple of weeks, my guess is the first week you’ll stay the same weight or gain a lbs or two (body is recovering and adjusting) week two you’ll start losing weight again but the hunger will be more in control, and metabolicly more stable.
PS I would probly not eat if you’re biking an hr or less…
My sense is that the problem isn’t eating, it’s the crappy food. Can you adjust the crappy food to things like fruit, black beans (even canned or frozen), nuts?
Do you eat regular meals at regular times? I find that this really helps me. For instance, I know when I’m going to have my lunch so I allow myself a snack/treat between that and my evening meal. That treat is not something huge, like a burger etc, more like my favourite chocolate. It’s like striking a deal with myself and I know that it’s coming so I don’t crave it.
If it’s binge eating, ie you can stuff yourself without feeling full then it’s a blood sugar spike most likely. You can reset this in a couple of days and return your values back to normal. Get all the junk food out of the house along with white carbs and get some eggs and vegetables. Eat small low carb meals for a couple of days and see if that puts things back to normal.
Unfortunately when dieting it’s easy for your body to rebel (blood sugar spikes, lowering leptin etc). It has quite a few ways to get you to return the deficit.
Dieting long term is actually easier without exercise, you can simply cut cals and eat the same safe stuff daily without worrying about loading for workouts which can get you in trouble. Long sweet spot sessions need big cals which makes it attractive for dieters, but it’s not sustainable for long if running a high deficit (probably 500ish for most people would be a rough boundary).
You can also experiment with a bit of trickery- your blood sugar levels will spike shortly after eating, and high if they were low from dieting - you can make sure you’re out for an evening stroll or busy doing something away from any source of food until the levels die down, ie once you feel satiated. This can take hours.
Either way, stick at it. Just make sure you learn the danger points and have a plan to deal with them in advance so you don’t keep getting caught out and lose all your hard weight loss work. Good luck and persevere!
Here’s my experience. Before I started counting calories and actually making sure I replace all the calories I burn working out, I probably had days with net calories of around 300 or something. The effect was that I lost weight up to a point, and then binge ate junk food like crazy and gained a few pounds, which I then worked to lose again, which perpetuated the cycle. Eventually, I started eating more for my baseline and made sure I eat everything I burn in reasonably healthy foods. But I also made sure I have small servings of things to satisfy my cravings: a 130 calorie brownie from the grocery store with my late afternoon coffee, etc.
It turns out that the need to binge completely disappeared when my body didn’t think I was starving anymore, and I eat mostly healthy foods with some little treats thrown in for the soul. Within a week I had dropped to the lowest weight I had been to and I am still adjusting my baseline upwards to make sure I don’t get any skinnier because my partner is starting to complain. 
TL;DR: Eat as much as you need, establish a solid baseline, eat replace everything you burn. I don’t think you need to do it on the bike. If you have a solid meal 3 hours before your workouts and you eat 200cal/600cal you burn per hour, then just replace the other calories with slow carbs, protein and fats afterwards. Also, recovery shakes are a revelation. I follow Amber’s Gatorade+Tera’s Whey formula. I haven’t had a pint of icecream and a whole box of double-stuff oreos in months.
Been there before. You need a good nutritionist, but a good sports nutritionist. Period.
3 months back I was weighted 94 kg at 240 FTP. and we are almost same age. I am 46.
Whatever I did, I was not able loose any weight. Training on bike 6 times a week, running, weight lifting, etc.etc. No luck.
That was because the all that crappy food I was getting during the day or after the workouts.
Then I started this nutritionist. She is not a regular one but a proper sports nutritionist.
Everything you do, you do online with her. First, I did my full blood test and sent to her. She also asked me to send her my weekly TR schedule. Then I bought one of this online scales (Nokia+) and gave her the username and password so that she can follow my body weight, fat, etc. Every Saturday morning morning is the body weight check day.
Believe me, I started eating more than ever. I stopped using all artificial nutrition such as protein powders, pre-workouts,etc. I am getting everything that my body needs from proper natural food now. I eat meat, chicken, fish, vegetables, beans, etc more than ever
She is not encouraging a fast weight lost. Our aim is around 500 gr per week. Guess what, I lost 6kg in 4 months ( I messed up during Christmas and New year holiday season) and add 44 watts to my FTP. Plus I feel so strong and faster then ever.
One last thing but the most important one, is your partner. If you can not get her help in the kitchen, forget about everything I wrote above. She is the key player.
Good luck.
Sure, if that’s how you guys play it. Or you can be in charge of your nutrition (and help out your partner if they’re up for it).
EDIT: Just re-read that and wanted to make sure that this doesn’t come across as an affront to anybody’s lifestyle. You know, to each their own. My partner is a type 1 diabetic and we have radically different diets but I realize that that is a luxury that might get a lot more difficult with kids and all. 
I am terrible in kitchen so I definetly need help
The OP is the same age and almost the same height as me, I also do about 8 hours a per week, currently on SSBLV2, adding in extra outdoor rides, mostly easy commutes. I eat like a horse but have dropped about 6lbs in a month, everyone I know eats less food than me. I have simply made an effort to cut the rubbish. No biscuits, no cake, trying my best to only eat at meal times. Just don’t buy it in, if it isn’t in the cupboards, you not going to snack. Hearty breakfast is key for me but I usually clear a pretty big plate most of the time.
Can you please tell us her contact information?
Did the nutritionist say there is anything inherently wrong with protein powder?
I like to add it to my oatmeal for flavor.
Thanks
I made long-term sustained progress to keep off ~10 kg of excess in my 40s with a few things that I see emphasized again and again here -
TBD this year if more liberal quality eating also helps me break through FTP ceiling - last season I think I didn’t eat enough and probably cheated myself out of some watts; setting all time highs in April is a good sign this is helping, and weight is still going down slightly as good weather and volume is ramping up.
Making real food at home has gone a long way to feeling better in general. We always have really good leftovers for lunch which replaces garbage food and/or another dinner - that makes the time to cook pay extra dividends.
For inspiration - I highly recommend cookbooks from Americas Test Kitchen that my wife got which helped get us on better track. It’s not obsessively health-food focused, but lots of practical yet VERY good recipes that got me eating things like beans, chickpeas, brown rice, farro, etc. Same people that put out Cook’s Illustrated but (mostly) much more practical recipes to make. At least 2/3 are very well balanced healthy, and for the others, well, some fat is still needed once in a while
We have both of Flanagan’s books Cook Fast etc. plus the feed zone. All are great for real food recipes.
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please check her instagram account at Dr.dyt.Sündüs Paker (PhD) (@dytsunduspaker) • Instagram photos and videos
She basically stopped me drinking all kinds of artificial stuff. I think we get enough protein from food such as Turkish yogurt, milk, etc.
You can check her inst account and ask her directly. She is so helpful.
Recovery shakes are amazing! Honestly if I were to recommend just one nutritional/fueling change for people, I’d go with this one. I’d be torn between taking in adequate calories before/during the ride and the recovery shake, but the recovery shake takes the W as it is the basis for refilling your glycogen stores for the rest of your day (mood!) and for your workout the next day (gains! confidence!) - both super important for performance. Getting in the necessary kcal before/during/after, though, is ideal. I just love touting the recovery shake for the magic it really is. Thanks for sharing your experience!
I was in your same shoes, until i read the book “The Endurance Athlete’s Diet.” It is my most humble opinion that a sports nutrionist is a bit overboard for what your goals are. I need to say, in advance, I mean zero disrespect to anyone on this forum who has decided to go this route. Drink water…a lot of water. Cut out crap-carbs (candy, soda pop, cookies, cake, etc). Eat clean meats. Someone asked about protein powder. As a former amateur bodybuilder, I consumed a LOT of protein powder. Guess what, there’s a lot of BS additivies in protein powder that are pure junk. Supplements? Supplements are garbage. They do not work. Nothing will work until your diet is on par. I promise you this, and you can take this to the bank: if you train hard, and you eat right, you will see the pounds melt off. I was stuck in limbo, and I couldn’t find out how to go from 200 pounds to 190, until I read the “Endurance Athlete’s Diet.” I am now at 181 pounds, and looking at cutting 10 more. This is the best I have felt in years. All you need is a clean diet, and listen to your body. My body tells me when I’ve had enough food. My body tells me when I need to rest. Paying for a nutritionist, at this point, I feel is a waste of money. This is coming from someone who has spent thousands of dollars on BS supplements, and one who never had a true clean diet (I did when I was competing, but other than that, I did not). EDIT: YOU DO NOT NEED A NUTRITIONIST TO TELL YOU COMMON SENSE EATING/DIETARY NEEDS
hey Deablo!! Way to get it going on the bike, that’s exciting!
so maybe
Tues: your intense interval. eat carbs the night before this to have the fuel
Wed: endurance
Thurs: endurance
M/F off
Sa; long ride
Su: medium ride possible?
Have you tried intermittent fasting?