With the discussions in other threads about the TrainerRoad competition, wouldn’t it make sense to have a dedicated weight loss plan? I am sure not everyone is interested in racing or getting faster, but may be looking for some sort of structure that is less intense to help guide their weight loss efforts.
What do you all think? 
Did you read my post? lol It’s a great idea, leverage the accuracy of calorie burn estimation with a power meter vs. HR (notoriously high, in my estimation), it would really help people realize the work they need to put in. I’ve put on TR for my wife when she occasionally rides and in a 20min ride it’ll be like 100-200 calories. Frankly, if someone is interested in using exercise to facilitate weight loss in addition to diet, that is barely a dent. So, if someone isn’t drastically cutting calories and just doing short workouts like this and aren’t seeing weight loss, they get discouraged and quit. “I’ve been doing all this work and not seeing any progress” is something I’ve heard. If you dig in, it’s easy to see why people don’t progress.
I agree, diet is more important than exercise. However, the SSB plans, for example, may be more intensity than someone getting into indoor riding for weight loss would need, while the TB workouts may be too big of a time commitment.
This segment of people just seems to be an untapped market for TR.
You work out to get fit. You eat less to lose weight. There isn’t really a ‘plan’ for losing weight.
While I don’t disagree with this entirely, I think it’s entirely possible to use exercise to lose weight, at least in my experience. I’ve had a much better success rate eating normally and riding more to create a caloric deficit, at least as far as getting my targets much faster than diet alone. When I started cycling I lost 70lbs, I of course cut calories, but the cycling really helped me lose the pounds. Asking someone to cut, say 500-1000 calories a day to lose a pound a week, seems a lot more challenging to me than have someone do a workout that uses 400 calories and just cut 100-600calories in the diet.
The problem is, in general, people that are overweight don’t understand how to portion food. You tell them to do 2000 kJ of work per week and they’ll just eat 3000 more kCal. If you want to learn to control your weight you have to learn to control your diet.
Well it has to be in tandem, for sure. And that’s where I think some of us here were seeing an opportunity with TR to educate folks on working out to lose weight as well as advice on the diet modifications needed to make it happen. Caloric restriction alone is really difficult (speaking as someone who has done it in the past).
I respectfully disagree with this premise.
You can do 5000kJ a week and gain weight. Abs are made in the kitchen.
Have to agree, this is a ridiculous idea. Doing one of the current plans offered by TR will be perfect if you can get your nutrition right. It’s diet, not specialty weight loss cycling.
I respectfully disagree…in one (or more) of the podcasts, Coach Chad mentioned it’s a bad idea to try to lose weight and build FTP at the same time. Most of the TR plans are FTP-build focused, no? So, therefore counterproductive to weight loss.
I would think a “weight loss” plan would be heavier on butter-burner rides with some percentage of FTP-sustaining (or FTP-loss-minimizing) workouts. I’d like to see one created too.
I don’t want to oversimplify things, but both quantity and quality is the key. Chad does advice that FTP building and calorie deficits aren’t ideal which brings me to the point on quality. In my case, I eat a mostly raw plant based diet, I eat until I’m full, I snack, and eat before, during, after most rides but never gain a kg and don’t have much, if any weight to lose. That’s the quality aspect of diet…eat natural and weight won’t be a problem. I’ve never met anyone who has gained weight eating too many fruits and vegetables.
How bad do you want it? The weight loss that is, cut out the garbage and diet gimmicks, get lean, go fast. Simple.
This is actually a feature that’d probably get me motivated and back on the Kickr. With our second child on the way, sold my mountain bike to apply to debt and am now bikeless (absent the low level road bike on the trainer).
With no bike it’s been hard to see far enough forward with respect to competition and FTP goals.
But a weight loss focus plan to bridge the gap would help greatly and most likely create a better foundation to then build from.
Traditional base mid-high volume would effectively be a weight loss plan. The comments are focused on the point that there is no such thing as weight loss cycling or weight loss exercise, food intake (lack of) nets weight loss. It seems what people are really asking for is low impact plans, and those exist in the form of traditional base. Sure TR could call it weight loss, but that would be misleading.
Healthy diet for training, yes. 
(I requested this, they’ve declined to get into dietary plans )
Weight loss plan, no. 
There’s a number of popular misconceptions in this thread that I don’t want to pull out, but clearly Chad et al are working to overcome so people are thinking about health and performance. A “weight loss” plan would be reaffirming the wrong-think. Imho. 
I believe you could use this forum to create a weight loss challenge. The whole premise is accountability. If you are accountable to the group and must report your weight every week, you have the incentive to cut the snacks or do the extra miles. You can eat healthy, you can exercise more, you can do both, but you manage it yourself and are publicly accountable. Publish your goal and report on your progress on the appointed day of the week. Someone could keep a spreadsheet if they like and calculate the increased W/kg from the weight loss for each of the participants.
For accountability the Dexa/scales thread is awesome, I encourage everyone to get a baseline; Dexa, calipers, measurements, etc then push to get to your ideal/goal weight. Without a baseline it would be hard to truly measure success/failure. Again, the Dexa thread is a good start.
I asked a general question about nutrition plans previously. Nate replied and basically said it’s not gonna happen.