is cycling a good way to lose weight?

gercoral

not sure if there are any recent threads on this but just wondering is cycling a good way to lose weight? i really enjoy it but havent been out on the bike in about 2 months. don't really wana go to gym when i have a good hybrid bike and plenty of roads :P

i need to lose about 2 stone. is cycling a good starter?

Bigus

Yes it's good , particularly if you like it and keep doing it ,

and I also find that unlike other excercise where giving up when the going gets tough,is an option, if you set yourself destinations you tend to go all the way, ie , it's not easy to give up half way there , if you get my drift.

Just don't fall into the trap of rewarding this excercise with high energy foods , during or after. Make sure you have water with you in the bottle cage .

pick a sportive / charity run of say 60 km to do by a certain date as a goal to build up to, and get the free strava app for your smartphone.

Cee-Jay-Cee

if you truly want to lose weight then you need to look at your diet and portions. Cycling will help a little but weight loss in the vast majority of cases is down to diet.

Exercise/cycling will help you keep the weight off but unless your doing big mileage 4 or 5 times a week don't expect to see huge losses from it alone.

Pawlie

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

unless your doing big mileage 4 or 5 times a week don't expect to see huge losses from it alone.

Sorry but you do not have to be doing huge km's to see huge loses in fat mass, as the quickest way to loose the puppy fat is get up an hour earlier every morn and jump on a turbo or hit the road before breakie for 30 - 45 mins building up to and hour where you spin in zone 1 with a high cadence, you are teaching your body to burn fat as fuel, once you have trained your body to do that you will regularly burn fat during the day walking around etc.


You do need to look at diet too and cut out the excess carbs you eat, if you do not burn off the carbs consumed from morning to night they will just turn to fat over night.

NeedMoreGears

The usual "lose a pound a week" diet will take you a little over six months.

If you could include a commute of say 8 or 9km each way, you'd burn off another 1/2lb a week (assuming you don't eat extra to make up). That could speed things up a bit in terms of weight loss and you'd get to your goal about two months earlier.

fcon

Eating less is a good way to lose weight.

I know it's harsh but it's the truth. You can't "out-exercise" a bad diet.

mrcheez

A coffee in the morning (no milk/sugar) also helps reduce appetite. Small thing I've noticed since I started drinking coffee in the past few years.

Porridge in the morning will also fill you up enough so you won't need to snack before lunchtime.

gercoral

fcon wrote: »

Eating less is a good way to lose weight.

I know it's harsh but it's the truth. You can't "out-exercise" a bad diet.

I don't eat a lot! I don't eat sugar, take away, crisps, chocolate etc. Portion size is small.
Think one of my only downfalls is I don't do enough exercise

mrcheez

gercoral wrote: »

I don't eat a lot! I don't eat sugar, take away, crisps, chocolate etc. Portion size is small.
Think one of my only downfalls is I don't do enough exercise

If you can cycle to work, and it's a decent enough distance (say over 5km each way), that should be enough exercise for you.

I've been doing 8km each way every day rain/snow/shine (when at work anyway) for 3 years and I've dropped sizes so much none of my clothes fit me

Pretty much same diet as I had 4 years ago too.

fat bloke

Is cycling a good way to lose weight?






I'm going to go out on an emaciated limb here and say

yes.

Wobs

Cycling is like any exercise, if you do enough at the right intensity and watch what you eat you will loose weight.

Jcarroll07

Depends, if you are very out of shape then you will see results if you are putting in the effort pretty quick which is encouraging for most. But it gets harder as you go on. You can be quite fit and still carry around some annoying hang on fat around the edges or the stomach area. At that stage its diet and intensity of the workout that matters weather that be on the bike or in the gym. But reality is that it's intake vs output if you are taking in more energy i.e food then you need or can burn well then surprise surprise you won't get the results you want. It requires a broad approach, very doable if you commit to it.

Pawlie

Pawlie wrote: »

Sorry but you do not have to be doing huge km's to see huge loses in fat mass, as the quickest way to loose the puppy fat is get up an hour earlier every morn and jump on a turbo or hit the road before breakie for 30 - 45 mins building up to and hour where you spin in zone 1 with a high cadence, you are teaching your body to burn fat as fuel, once you have trained your body to do that you will regularly burn fat during the day walking around etc.


You do need to look at diet too and cut out the excess carbs you eat, if you do not burn off the carbs consumed from morning to night they will just turn to fat over night.

Hope I'm not rude here but I'm not a fan of all that exercising while fasted mularkey.

If you teach your body to burn fat as a fuel eventually (all going well) through exercise you end up with a lean body mass and in order to continue as before you'd need to eat more fats as you would have "trained" your system to use fats more efficiently as a fuel source.

After several thousand years of adaptation due to the invention of farming the human body has developed a propensity for complex carbohydrate as its preferred primary fuel source.

While you can indeed "train" the body to use fats more efficiently as fuel I cannot believe at all that it is a better system in the long run despite what may or may not be in fashion.

Losing weight = calorific expenditure higher than calorific intake.... Simples:)

Year in year out far too much emphasis is placed on "systems", "diets", new workout machines, training zones, fads, gym membership sales, and my F$%ki%g pet peeve PROTEIN.... (what the F*&k is going on with all the protein ****e and protein bars and protein weetabix..... have they taken it out of the chicken I eat or what FFS).

Anyway apologies for the rant and hope I've not been too rude.

BTW had breakfast out today, Cappuccino, 2 sausages, 2 eggs, 2 rashers, black and white pudding, 2 hash browns, a ton of brown bread and I couldn't resist a slice of cheesecake with extra cream (got a funny look) so perhaps I'm not best positioned to give advice after all............

Mind you herself says I'm skeletal, must be the cycling.....:)

Widdensushi

Deleted User wrote: »

Hope I'm not rude here but I'm not a fan of all that exercising while fasted mularkey.

If you teach your body to burn fat as a fuel eventually (all going well) through exercise you end up with a lean body mass and in order to continue as before you'd need to eat more fats as you would have "trained" your system to use fats more efficiently as a fuel source.

After several thousand years of adaptation due to the invention of farming the human body has developed a propensity for complex carbohydrate as its preferred primary fuel source.

While you can indeed "train" the body to use fats more efficiently as fuel I cannot believe at all that it is a better system in the long run despite what may or may not be in fashion.

Losing weight = calorific expenditure higher than calorific intake.... Simples:)

Year in year out far too much emphasis is placed on "systems", "diets", new workout machines, training zones, fads, gym membership sales, and my F$%ki%g pet peeve PROTEIN.... (what the F*&k is going on with all the protein ****e and protein bars and protein weetabix..... have they taken it out of the chicken I eat or what FFS).

Anyway apologies for the rant and hope I've not been too rude.

BTW had breakfast out today, Cappuccino, 2 sausages, 2 eggs, 2 rashers, black and white pudding, 2 hash browns, a ton of brown bread and I couldn't resist a slice of cheesecake with extra cream (got a funny look) so perhaps I'm not best positioned to give advice after all............

Mind you herself says I'm skeletal, must be the cycling.....:)

Pawlie hasn't posted in five months so is unlikely to be insulted

Widdensushi

Widdensushi wrote: »

Pawlie hasn't posted in five months so is unlikely to be insulted

:D:D I really should take note of the posts date ......

Hope he/you/someone lost that weight........:):):):)

I give up, I'm clueless, I blame the aging...