The way its talked about and discussed, to me at least does not point to or relate to significant obesity or weightloss. Its a personal observation which I found quite obvious. YMMV.
I agree, and I bet most of them, stereotypically, just need to cut out a bit of the beer and pizza, improve their overall diet and fuel the rides and they’ll drop it 
Also dont disagree with this either. I just think this is the kind of thing those of us being shirty(never heard that term 
) are a bit annoyed by…it’s both that TR is not addressing people that need to lose more than a few pounds, and they are also not breaking down who their message is for.
That distinction might be obvious for you…and it more or less is for me. But I DON’T think it is obvious for anyone that this info would actually be relevant to…
You can’t just leave all of this open to interpretation or assumption…being clear matters. Just like they’re being very clear about addressing eating disorders and having clarity in their message on the underweight side, they should do the same on the overweight side. Because I would bet for most very overweight/obese people, none of any of this is obvious.
@Calle have you read any of Tim Noakes work? I’m so curious to see if you get diabetes 10, 20 years down the road from eating like that. I’m not saying you will, we are all special snowflakes and maybe you are just meant to run on sugar with no negative consequences… But I can’t imagine how this can be healthy in the long run.
They sell a trainer control app. Are they supposed to sell a calorie counter too and become nutritionists?
The diet area is a minefield. Some believe it’s CICO, and some believe in too much insulin (carbs are bad!). On the fringes you have the keto people, the carnivores, and the 20 bowls of rice per day people.
How is TR, a software as a service company, going to make an meaningful impact in this area?
I haven’t read the entire thread- but here is my view as to why they don’t discuss weight loss strategies as they used to:
The disordered eating movement has more or less deemed any weight loss strategy disordered eating.
All of my strategies that have proved effective in the past would be considered signs of disordered eating (more on that below). Nearly 12 years ago I followed the primal blueprint diet (similar to paleo but less restrictive). I felt incredible. Lost 40 lbs, had tons of energy, and got way stronger in my lifts. Other times I have stopped snacking. Not allowing myself snacks is a sign disordered eating. However, I am very routine based so if snacks are in my routine I will crave them. When I stop having them for a week or two, I stop craving them. I have also used the diet quality score to great success (lost 12 lbs from Jan - March while increasing FTP). I aim for getting 20 points a day. However, tracking my diet quality score is considered a sign of disordered eating. Or rather, could lead to symptoms of eating disorders
Back to the podcast: Jonathan weighs his food once a week each month (at least he used to). Weighing food can be a sign of disordered eating. Welp, there goes his strategy.
Nate used to frequently talk about the diet quality score. As mentioned, this is a sign of disordered eating.
Coach chad, when he was on, restricted certain foods. E.g., he did not eat fried foods (although I think he was referring to battered and fried). Restricting foods is a sign of disordered eating.
What is also interesting to me is that they chose to answer a question that might actually exhibit an unhealthy relationship with weight and food to answer, but tell people who need to lose weight/want to lose weight in a healthy way to work with a nutritionist/dietician. This seems completely backwards to me. Shouldn’t their response be “If you think you need to lose weight close to a race you should work with a sports nutritionist to get a plan to ensure you maintain energy levels” and then give reasonable strategies to people who are overweight?
Regarding the “more on this below”, but potentially unrelated to the discussion at hand, I would argue having symptoms of disordered eating is not necessarily a negative thing. Indeed, disordered eating is considered anywhere on the spectrum between “normal eating behaviors” to eating disorders. Using coach Chad as an example - he is better off not eating fried chicken. If nutritionists/dietitians would recommend he start eating it again, it would legitimately make me question the relevancy of the field. Now, if coach Chad loved fried chicken, constantly tried to give it up, and kept bingeing on it, that would be a different discussion.
As for me - I feel that tracking my diet quality score takes all thought out of eating. I eat a healthier, more well-rounded diet when I use it and it reduces the mental capacity around meal planning. If adding a side of vegetables to my dinner to get to 20 points for the day is considered disordered eating, then I don’t care if I have “signs of disordered eating”. I am healthier, have more energy, have better BMs, and also happen to lose weight.
The original question is pretty spot on for me and what I try to do. I’m 6’3 and 205lbs and have been trying to cut to 190. Over winter I did 500 cal deficit to get to 205, but to get further the fueling work becomes an issue where now I’m taking their recommended approach.
The comment from Nate though about being 180lbs and doing better at 190lbs misses a lot of context other than we are all bigger riders. Nate would have to weigh 220 for our BMI to be equivalent. That guy asking in question would be 167lbs going to 180 to be equivalent to Nate’s composition changes. I guess I would ask the podcast crew how Leadville would go carrying an extra 30lbs. I can try to train up to 4wkg by upping myself to 370W which feels lofty, or I can drop 10lbs and train to 345W which feels way more realistic and keep a BMI in the higher end of healthy.
Im okay with their line being eat healthy and train more, but people asking this aren’t exactly emaciating themselves either.
Good point! So I played with the numbers a bit more.
On the calculation for Alpe d’Huez length+gradient (using the calculator I linked to before), a 90kg 250W (2.78 W/kg) rider would take 1h17m25s
Drop 10kg
80kg 250W (3.10 W/kg) > 1h10m05s
Drop 20kg
70kg 250W (3.57 W/kg) > 1h02m52s
Or just increase FTP and stay the same weight:
25W / 10% FTP increase
90kg 275W (3.05 W/kg) > 1h10m40s
up to 4 W/kg (110W or 44% FTP increase!)
90kg 360W (4 W/kg) > 54m48s
If our rider stays the same weight, but does the same time as for a 70kg rider
they need a 61W / 24% FTP increase
90kg 311W (3.45 W/kg) > 1h02m52s
Really, I imagine that most people are going to end up dropping weight AND increasing FTP:
drop 10kg and gain 10W
80kg 260W (3.25 W/kg) > 1h07m32s
That’s nearly under an hour, so what would it take to go under 60minutes by dropping weight AND increasing FTP ?
70kg 263W
75kg 279W
I’ve sort of lost track of why i’m doing this now… looking at the numbers above it seems that our hypothetical 90kg rider can get faster by the same amount by dropping 10kg (14% of bodyweight) or increasing FTP by 25W (10%).
@voldemort hit the nail on the head with this.
I have been Paleo for close to 15 years. And it drives me bonkers that that is considered orthorexia. If on the other hand, I decided to exclude all healthy foods in the interest of eating, Twinkies and Ho Hos all day, well, then that would be fine.
I have issues with paleo being arbitrarily restrictive without benefit. That said, it clearly is a healthier alternative than the average american diet.
I’d argue that americans (and much of the rest of the western world) have eating disorder as a standard part of the culture - it’s just overeating/obesity… One NEEDS restrictive eating in order to stay at a healthy weight in modern culture.
I think the takeaway here is that if there is 20kg to lose, that is unquestionably going to make you faster up a climb vs trying to raise ftp. No trained and amateur cyclist is going to raise their ftp 110 watts in a reasonable amount of time. Lots of people drop 20kg though.
More importantly - losing the 20kg has all kinds of benefit BEYOND cycling.
Ordered eating is a disorder 
You need an instagram account with videos of your meals. I’d follow in a second.
The lines between healthy, unhealthy, and disordered eating are tiny and usually dependent on many factors outside the actual eating. This is why you will see nutritionists who have seen the whole range walk on eggshells with every statement.
Personally, I’ve seen it from a friend who is a successful master’s athlete. He always was the one with the healthy habits, ate well, and trained consistently into his mid 40’s. At some point when 50 started looming it started to derail. He was used to the positive feedback of getting a salad/healthier option while everyone else ordered burgers. Then he started having negative feelings about getting older and not being able to drop the final 2kg for “race season”. This turned into a cycle with a couple of great blocks of training surrounded by longer periods of burnout, sickness, and training that went nowhere. He didn’t recognize the patterns he had developed with eating until his daughter had a more serious burnout in high school sports and they identified the same patterns as an eating disorder. Both athletes focused on performance through nutrition and a couple of benign control behaviors lead to long-term underfueling or disordered eating. They were both able to bounce back and recognize how quickly healthy habits can turn into restrictive, ultimately damaging behavior.
I’ve heard so many versions of the question they addressed on the podcast where a trained athlete is trying to lose that last bit of weight for whatever reason. I’ve seen a lot of them get halfway there and suddenly have issues with performance or recovery leading to burnout. There are a lot of posters on this forum who have had similar issues, so I’m sure the queue of questions for TR/coaches and a dietician are full of people trying to optimize weight/performance who are ruining it with unsustainable calorie deficits.
There are 419 podcasts, there are plenty of topics they’ve covered that are much more niche. Go for a group ride in base season/winter and I’m sure you can get half of the group to say something about losing a bit of weight before racing/summer.
The problem is that going from 90kg to 70kg is no easy feat. That is 44 pounds.
I’ve personally lost 50 pounds from my all time high. I’m 56 now and fitter and thinner than the average guy my age who doesn’t train on a bike but I still struggle to lose those last 15-20 pounds.
I also find dieting while training 8-10 hours per week doubly hard.
Alpe d’Huez is one thing but I modeled up a normal climb we do on our Saturday group ride. It’s two climbs linked together. A sharper 8 minute climb followed by a flat section and then 12 more minutes. About 20 minutes in total for me.
I modeled out how much faster I’d be if I lost 10-15 pounds. That only yielded me a 10 second faster climb which didn’t really change my position in the club pecking order.
No I would suspect not. Like most things…there’s diminishing returns. I bet those first 50lbs you lost sure changed your pecking order though…nice work.
I think honestly weight loss should be looked at in the same way as training/ftp.
If you JUST start riding/training…you might go from 175 ftp to 250 awfully quickly. That is MASSIVE. Gains sure start slowinf down awfully quickly for most people then.
At that point…take the OTHER easy, fast gains. Sure 10-15 pounds might not be easy or massive. But you already got the “easy” gains…you’re in diminishing returns territory at that point. If someone has that first 50 pounds, or even 30, or 25…that’s a a relatively easy and fast performance gain vs trying to go from 250-260ftp after already raising it 75watts.
Not that you cant try to do both of course.
No idea. Personally, I suspect my FTP is volume limited. I can go through a base-build and hit 240-250 watts and then it seems capped out on my usual 7-8 hours per week. I just don’t have it in me to put in 10-12+ hours a week.
A few years ago, I experimented with weight loss during base. I calorie counted for 3 months with the intent to lose 1 pound per week. I ramped up to 13 hours a week on the bike over that time. Lost 7 pounds in that time and then gained back 4 (glycogen water weight) almost immediately after stopping counting. So a net loss of 3 pounds in 3 months. A little depressing for all that work. On the good side, I was hitting all time recent lows in weight, but still around 10 pounds away from goal weight and 20 pounds away from my racing weight in my 20s.
He really didn’t and it really isn’t.
Key parts left out in the previous post that many of the things CAN BE SIGNS OF, not they in and of themselves signs of or even disordered eating in everyone.
Being Paleo is not orthorexia if you are not obsessed with it and it is not causing other issues because of the attention that you give it, especially after 15 years when you probably don’t need to give it a second thought. Technically bringing it up is a sign, however since you brought it up in the context of a diet thread, bringing it up in this case would not be a sign.
My partner is a pescatarian, that is restricted eating, restricted eating in some people is a sign of a disorder, it is not in her.
I count calories on and off, I don’t obsess, I don’t care if I miss a day or a meal. It very well may include takis and half a pizza for a single meal. It is not a sign of disordered eating in me, the half a pizza is though.
But my partner will not count calories, she said she did in HS and knew she would be obsessed and stopped. For her calorie counting would a sign of a disorder.
It is important to understand that just because something can be a sign of disordered eating in one person does not mean that it is a sign in another. There are physical and mental qualifiers that go along with them.
There are people eating paleo that have orthorexia, there are also many that don’t.
My training age is 7, so different dynamics even though I’m ~5 years older. Unfortunately I’ve seen some weight yo-yoing over the years, but thats a lack of discipline on my part - knowingly eating too much and/or drinking too much beer. Thats my disordered eating - larger portions than I need.
My wife has stayed the same healthy weight her entire adult life, and I bow down to her discipline, stepping on the scale every day of her adult life, and using that info to manipulate portion sizes. And she doesn’t do things like deprive herself of some ice cream or other dessert.
So I’m back at it again, and lost 10 pounds between March 7th and June 1st. Took a 3 week break on May 1st and plateaued for a bit, its like staying at base camp while climbing Everest, or taking a recovery week on a 3week loading / 1 week recovery training schedule. Its pretty much the same 10pounds I lost back in 2017, during the same time frame. And similar in 2021.
Both now and 2017 was during a build phase, or rather, a switch from base to race phase. It was not during a base phase with lots of easy riding, although I’ve done that twice.
FWIW both times during builds, I ate a LOT of carbs and protein. More than I thought was necessary, and at the risk of losing weight. Eating around 4-6 times a day to spread out the protein. At times if I’m pushing more intensity, then I’ll push carbs from 450 to 600 grams/day - even though my calories in are higher than calories out. And the amazing thing is that feeding myself more carbs and calories didn’t stop the weight loss. Mind blown.
How can you hit 400g or 600g without a lot of effort? With my current 1 cup of Simply Granola Oats/Honey/Almonds/etc with blueberries and milk I can hit 400+g with 4 moderate size bowls of granola/blueberries/milk spread out thru the day. Or 600+ with 6 moderate size bowls. To be clear I’m not doing that, the most I have is a bowl for breakfast and bowl before bed. Rice for lunch, and some carbs for dinner (or post-ride).
During the last 3 months, while cutting 10lbs excess weight, my power curve has some power PRs when looking at January 2018 thru today:
Some of that is because my training age is 7, and I’m following best practices and doing a lot of endurance and just the necessary amount of intervals. And slowly raising volume year-to-year with 2022 at 400 hours.
I’ll be the first to say it takes both discipline and some homework to figure out what to eat/buy + timing. And then a leap of faith on carbing up at 6-10g/kg lean body mass. Or hiring someone to help.
Hope that helps someone. For myself, I’m channeling my wife’s discipline and hope to report back in a year or so that I finally took off that last 20lbs (before hitting my mid sixties).
I totally agree. IDK how to do a real quote, so I’m going to retype:
"The lines between healthy, unhealthy, and disordered eating are tiny and usually dependent on many factors outside the actual eating. "
I easily fall into disordered eating. It is related to stress, which primarily comes from work but can be pushed over my limit by family stuff. When I’m getting close to my limit, trying to train and fuel becomes too much and pushes me over the limit. My flavor of disordered eating is simply to not eat, or to eat very little, like just dinner, but even that being a small meal. Sometimes this goes on for weeks.
Not sure exactly why I’m writing this except to say that I feel seen and appreciate the sentiment.
I feel like very very few people [that train at all] are eating too much. The problem is they’re eating the wrong things. If you want to get lean (guaranteed) you have to cook your own food, and eat identifiable, mainly plant based food. You have to eat enough to rebuild from workouts or you are going to burn out. Otherwise you have to hope for good genetics, but most people can’t maintain any kind of lean-ness with a crap (western) diet full of processed food and sugar.
One way to approach this would be to maintain the amount of food intake you would need for your ideal/goal weight but it’s complicated. My suggestion would be eating as much as you want, but clean, and obviously don’t drink calories; if the goal is to lose weight and get stronger at the same time.
If you want to lose weight ASAP take riding down to just base levels because you won’t have the energy to train.
