Eating properly

[r2160]

Hi all

I have been riding for a while now, and while I feel fitter, the weight loss isnt coming. I have lost a little, but at 88kg would still like to lose a little more.

The biggest problem I have is I dont really know how much, when and of what I should be eating. I eat vegetables pretty much every day, and my cholesterol level is below 4, but I would like to lose the belly.

Is there a website somebody can recommend which shows me what I am doing wrong or better still, what is right?

cheers
Glenn

[sogood]

Weight loss is dead simple. You just have to make sure your energy intake is lower than expenditure.

In terms of a healthy weight to target, then look up BMI (Body Mass Index) and you should aim for a number b/n 20-25.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

In terms of cycling. You should try to do some longer distance endurance rides (2-3 hours) where the energy expenditure becomes significant. If you restrict your intake at the same time, then you will lose weight.

[Strawburger]

Hi all

I have been riding for a while now, and while I feel fitter, the weight loss isnt coming. I have lost a little, but at 88kg would still like to lose a little more.

The biggest problem I have is I dont really know how much, when and of what I should be eating. I eat vegetables pretty much every day, and my cholesterol level is below 4, but I would like to lose the belly.

Is there a website somebody can recommend which shows me what I am doing wrong or better still, what is right?

cheers
Glenn

Ditto what sogood said, plus you have to be pretty strict about what you eat if you want to lose the weight. Smaller servings for a start, then introduce healthier options bit by bit (a radical diet change is way too hard to maintain early on).

When you say you eat vegetables pretty much every day, try to aim for eating fruit & vegies every day (and every meal). Replace your snack foods with fruit. Make sure you watch what foods you are eating with those vegies. It's no good having vegies with a fat enriched sauce or deep fried. Lower your meat intake & replace with fish. Cooking/preparing what you eat gives you greater control of your intake (who knows how much fat is in take away meals). Try to change your white breads / staples to whole grains (brown rice / pasta / breads). Try to avoid high processed foods if you can.

Watch the alcohol consumption - beer & cider have got heaps of calories, so switch to wine / light coloured spirits and be careful not to have too many mixers (soft drink is pretty bad too).

As for weight, i have lost what i needed to (4kgs), however my body shape changed significantly (lost 3 inches off the belly). The body will replace fat with muscle, so rather than weigh yourself, measure the waist, arms, hips, chest, thighs instead.

[wombatK]

Hi all

I have been riding for a while now, and while I feel fitter, the weight loss isnt coming. I have lost a little, but at 88kg would still like to lose a little more.

The biggest problem I have is I dont really know how much, when and of what I should be eating. I eat vegetables pretty much every day, and my cholesterol level is below 4, but I would like to lose the belly.

Is there a website somebody can recommend which shows me what I am doing wrong or better still, what is right?

cheers
Glenn

+1 for sogood's advice.

If BMI is in the right ballpark, a flabby belly could be due to poor muscle tone. Maybe some situps and other exercises to strengthen the stomach and core muscles would help you feel better about your progress.

If BMI has some way to go before its in the right ballpark, calorie awareness can help - see http://www.calorieking.com.au (there's lots of others like it, google for more).

Cheers

[im_no_pro]

+1 to pretty much all the above. Dont go for weight loss, go for measurements. Muscle weighs more than fat, but increasing muscle will allow you to burn more fat for the same effort (and ride harder to boot ) so you may end up weighing similar or even slightly more as you build muscle, but this will allow you to burn excess fat quicker.

[r2160]

Hi all

Yeah, the BMI is 28. Not bad I guess, but not as good as I would like.

I guess the biggest problems is meal size and what to eat when. I don't really drink, the occasional SoCo with a friend, not even weekly.

The goal I have is to be 'B' grade competitive by christmas. Don't know if that is realistic, but we all have to have somewhere to go.

You are right. Don't really care about weight. Just want to get rid of the stomach and be healthier. I also have a 12 year old daughter that is overweight, and a 6 year old that has energy to burn and I want to lead them down the healthy path, not the path I have been following.

cheers
Glenn

[ni78ck]

i agree with so good on the mention of the longer rides. it helps a lot. finding the time to do them seems to be the only problem. keep up the good work!

[r2160]

Thanks Guys

WombatK, that is exactly what I was after. The software helps me figure out portion sizes and how much I should be eating.

Perfect, Thanks!!

cheers
Glenn

[wombatK]

I also have a 12 year old daughter that is overweight, and a 6 year old that has energy to burn and I want to lead them down the healthy path, not the path I have been following.

cheers
Glenn

Good on you for setting a great example for the children. Dunc Gray Crit track might be the ideal healthy path for the 6 year old with energy to burn. Wonder if the 12 year old and mum might enjoy a regular gentle ride there too ? But you'd have to make sure your good work at the track doesn't get destroyed at the nearby Macca's/Red Rooster

+1 on strawburgers advice. In a nut shell, the less processed the food is that you eat, the healthier you will be. The less you eat of the kind of things the fat people are putting in their supermarket trolley (or eating at restaurants and take-aways), the healthier you will be.

Keep up the good work Glenn

Cheers

[r2160]

Hi Wombat

As it turns out, i live about 1km from the Dunc Gray. I quite often go there and ride on the crit track, or lansdowne.

The only problem I have at present is, the guys at BSCC helped build a bike for her, but it is just too big at present. I didnt particularly want to buy her a bike that she grows out of in a couple of months.

I have already bought my wife a CRX4 and she is currently using it a bit on a trainer while she figures out the gears on it.

I have been overweight most of my life and getting on the bike regularly only makes me wish I had done it a long long time ago.

Already shown my wife the software and we are going to start planning meals tomorrow for all of us.

cheers
Glenn

[the dang]

Everything everyone above said, especially sogood who said energy in less than energy out...that is fundamental.

Also smaller portions spread out over the day. So e.g. instead of 3 main meals, reduce the size of them and then add a small snack in between.

And one other thing is soft drinks. A normal 600 ml bottle of coke has like 60gm of carbs (for a diabetic like me, that same amount of carbs would almost be a whole meal). Diet soft drink on the other hand have 0 carbs. But obviously the best is water! Same goes with fruit juice...it can contain a lot of carbs compared to a piece of fruit. Things like this can significantly impact your energy in vs energy out. When I tell people who are trying to lose weight about this, I almost always hear "but diet soft drinks taste like crap"...well losing weight doesn't come for free!! But I think the effect of liquids can sometimes be underestimated...especially with something like juice which is seemingly healthy but can contribute a lot of carbs to your diet.

Good luck

[mikesbytes]

Set up a food log on http://www.calorieking.com.au/ you will learn a lot about your eating habits

[casual_cyclist]

Diet soft drink on the other hand have 0 carbs.

I am not sure sure about diet soft drinks. There is anecdotal evidence that artificial sweetners can cause some people to gain weight. I have not seen any proper studies though to support that claim. Just in case, I don't eat or drink any food with artificial sweetners. Figure it can't do me any harm to give them a miss. As the result of an argument in another thread I ended up tracking down some pretty interesting articles on weight loss and nutrition. They are pretty technical (for me, anyway) but do make sense if you can get past the scientific mumbo jumbo. The first article discusses the effect protein has on feeling full after eating and makes some suggestion as to foods to eat with your meal to make you feel fuller longer: Strategies for Healthy Weight Loss: From Vitamin C to the Glycemic Response

The other article discusses the importance of glycemic load as opposed to glycemic index in quantifying the glucose-raising effect of foods Intake of Refined Carbohydrates and Whole Grain Foods in Relation to Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and Coronary Heart Disease

I used to eat way too much refined sugar in all sorts of food. Besides making me fat I had no idea of the risk I was putting myself at for developing type 2 diabetes. I have drastically reduced my intake of refined sugars and have increased non-processed and minimally processed foods. On that regime I am finding it pretty easy to drop fat.

[r2160]

I drink diet drinks, pepsi max being the main one.

I am certainly not a chemist, however, one thing I have noticed as have a number of my friends, is that after having a diet drink, we always feel hungry, whereas if I have a coke or pepsi (on the rare occasion that I do) we feel full.

Just an observation

cheers
Glenn

[the dang]

casual_cyclist...you could be right...to be honest I havent looked past anything but the carb content.

Glenn...I would say that may have something to do with the amount of carbs in normal softdrink vs diet soft drink as carbohydrate is one form of energy and hence eating lots of carbs can make you feel full and not eating carbs may leave you feeling hungry.

Its great that you want to set an example for you kids...you should be proud of yourself!!

[slane]

There's a nice article on bicycling.com
http://bicycling.com/article/0,6610,s1- ... -1,00.html

Cut out white carbs (except maybe before a ride), and make sure you're eating enough fat from fruit, seeds and fish.
Fish oil has been shown to aid weight loss, that's why body builders take so much of it!

I eat lots of oats, fish oil, flax seed, tuna, avocado, fruit, vegies, legumes, nuts, roo, eggs, milk. And try to avoid pasta, bread and white rice. Don't eat anything you can't pronounce, or your grandmother would not recognise as food.
Today I'll probably eat
home made unsweetened muesli with milk
flax seed / muesli bar (home made from my home made muesli)
roo curry or tin of baked beans
home made unsweetened chocolate custard (oh yum!)
couple of apples
tuna and avocado
another roo curry

that's 6 meals plus a small meal post workout (just 30min on the trainer).

[1q2w3e4r]

If your eating the right stuff, it must be your portion size. You may just be eating too much of it.

Buy Men's Health, they have a good recipe each month to either slim down or bulk up. Consider adding kidney beans into your diet via some of your meals, they make you feel full quicker and satisfy your hunger longer.

Also, make sure you drink enough water each day, you should aim for around 2 litres per day.

[whitty]

Diet soft drink on the other hand have 0 carbs.

I am not sure sure about diet soft drinks. There is anecdotal evidence that artificial sweetners can cause some people to gain weight.

My dad always said this is because fat people drink diet coke/pepsi max and then tell themselves it's ok so smash down a bag of chips and a packet of tim tams...

The main problem with some sweeteners (aspartame in particular) would be the links to MS and other similar diseases/conditions. Generally sucralose is accepted as ok and is derived from sugar. Don't forget though that even artificial sweeteners contain some energy (kilojoules/calories) and should be counted if you're keeping track of everything.

Calorieking is pretty handy. I kept a log of what I was eating and it helped me to realise what was in my food. If you actually weigh ingredients you also realise how oversized the portions you eat actually are.

[Grant W]

How hard are you riding when your training?

I got into cycling to loose weight as well, and made a fatal error of starving myself and riding too hard.

I'd ride as if I was TTling high HR excessive work loads and no results bar sore joints, had the misconception of the harder you work the quicker you loose.

I was lucky enough to have a sister in law who is a dietition her advise was pretty much the same as above and I started using the home trainer more. It is as boring as Bat Sh*t (being honest) and now I have a large collection of cycling DVD's. But the home trainer gave me the basis to keep my HR around the 120-135 range and it's consitent training, not the best for race training but I lost alot of weight quickly. was 88kg's now 72.5kg's in 6 months BMI of 18.

I got into the habbit of training hard for races one day and the next using my weight loss ride as a recovery ride the next.

This advise may be wrong, but it worked well for me.

Good luck

Grant

[tripstobaltimore]

Losing weight can be difficult, and a lot of the time (especially as age increases) it takes a long time. You really need to foster a healthy lifestyle.

I lost a bit of weight when I was younger, not heaps, but lost most of the 'puppy fat'. I had a pretty unhealthy diet, and one day I decided to go vegetarian. Basically cutting out all the crap I used to eat was enough for me to drop about 15kg. After this time I also became a lot more active (i was never innactive, but just increased the amount of activity) and found I really enjoyed exercising. I also found I prefer fresh, healthy food. I feel sick eating fast food these days.

If weight loss is a major goal for you, I think you should consider weight training as well as the aerobic exercises. If you can fit a couple of gym sessions in a week (doing low weight, high reps) you will begin to maintain and build muscle while losing fat. Muscles use calories all the time, so if you have more muscle you will burn more energy as well.

I guess what I am trying to say is try to develop a healthy life style that you enjoy. Goals are also great - by setting yourself the goal of being B grade competitive by a certain date you are giving yourself something to work towards and this will help with the motivation. Maybe setting yourself the goal of being competitive in the B grade might be a bit ambitious if you have never done any racing before. Maybe set yourself the goal of competing the next season, then once you have an idea of where you sit you can begin to set more realistic goals.

Good luck

[casual_cyclist]

Diet soft drink on the other hand have 0 carbs.

I am not sure sure about diet soft drinks. There is anecdotal evidence that artificial sweetners can cause some people to gain weight.

My dad always said this is because fat people drink diet coke/pepsi max and then tell themselves it's ok so smash down a bag of chips
and a packet of tim tams...

seems like it. A quote from an admittedly hysterically anti-aspartame web site:

1. According to an article in Technology Review, "aspartame may actually stimulate appetite and bring on a craving for carbohydrates" (Farber 52). 2. An article in Utne Reader claims, "researchers believe that any kind of sweet taste signals body cells to store carbohydrates and fats, which in turn causes the body to crave more food" (Lamb 16). 3. From the San Francisco Chronicle, Jean Weininger states that "studies have shown that people who use artificial sweeteners don't necessarily reduce their consumption of sugar -- or their total calorie intake. . . . Having a diet soda makes it okay to eat a double cheeseburger and a chocolate mousse pie" (1/ZZ1). 4. "The American Cancer Society (1986) documented the fact that persons using artificial sweeteners gain more weight than those who avoid them" (Roberts 150)

Whether you are trying to lose pounds or maintain your weight, using an artificial sweetener such as aspartame does not seem to have any significant effect on weight control. Those extra calories you saved by drinking a diet pop won't make much of a difference if you still need to satisfy your hunger and indulge in several cookies later. If it is actually increasing your appetite, why use it? Common sense tells you that proper diet and exercise are more beneficial. Even if you believe that aspartame may aid in dieting, is this worth risking your health?

Is all of that true? I don't know. The bit that sticks with me is: "is it worth risking your health?". I think not, so I avoid all foods and drinks with artificial sweetners.

[wombatK]

A quote from an admittedly hysterically anti-aspartame web site:

1. According to an article in Technology Review, "aspartame may actually stimulate appetite and bring on a craving for carbohydrates" (Farber 52). 2. An article in Utne Reader claims, "researchers believe that any kind of sweet taste signals body cells to store carbohydrates and fats, which in turn causes the body to crave more food" (Lamb 16). 3. From the San Francisco Chronicle, Jean Weininger states that "studies have shown that people who use artificial sweeteners don't necessarily reduce their consumption of sugar -- or their total calorie intake. . . . Having a diet soda makes it okay to eat a double cheeseburger and a chocolate mousse pie" (1/ZZ1). 4. "The American Cancer Society (1986) documented the fact that persons using artificial sweeteners gain more weight than those who avoid them" (Roberts 150)

Whether you are trying to lose pounds or maintain your weight, using an artificial sweetener such as aspartame does not seem to have any significant effect on weight control. Those extra calories you saved by drinking a diet pop won't make much of a difference if you still need to satisfy your hunger and indulge in several cookies later. If it is actually increasing your appetite, why use it? Common sense tells you that proper diet and exercise are more beneficial. Even if you believe that aspartame may aid in dieting, is this worth risking your health?

Is all of that true? I don't know. The bit that sticks with me is: "is it worth risking your health?". I think not, so I avoid all foods and drinks with artificial sweetners.

The jury might still be out - but these claims are given credence by academics in leading university nutrition depts (from the dietitian in my family). My personal experience was that substituting zero cal soft drink for coca cola (about 1 litre per day) made no difference to my weight. Substituting soda water for it did. This was before I'd heard of any such research, and I wasn't conscious of increasing carb or other food intake. Who knows, I could have been fooling myself on that, but I think it more likely researchers will provide more solid evidence of why the zero cal or low cal soft drinks and products don't work.

It was also before I'd learned simple and effective rules like the less processed a food is, the better it is likely to be for you. This is basic advice that professional dietitians dispense. Looking for magic bullets runs contrary to this advice - most magic bullets are complex highly processed stuff.

Zero cal soft drinks and artificial sweeteners are highly processed foods and you will be healthier for cutting them out of your diet.

[casual_cyclist]

It was also before I'd learned simple and effective rules like the less processed a food is, the better it is likely to be for you. This is basic advice that professional dietitians dispense. Looking for magic bullets runs contrary to this advice - most magic bullets are complex highly processed stuff.

I have been adding chick peas to a lot of my dishes lately. I really like the flavour and find them filling. Also after eating food like that I stay satified for longer than a meal of processed food.

[Wayfarer]

since you're amped to lose weight, i'll recommend you what i say to all my clients at uni who're decently willing to try to lose weight. eat 4 weetbix with muesli on top (fruit free, just for extra flavour) for breakfast, and drop beer and coffee..

one clients already lost 10kg

[whitty]

since you're amped to lose weight, i'll recommend you what i say to all my clients at uni who're decently willing to try to lose weight. eat 4 weetbix with muesli on top (fruit free, just for extra flavour) for breakfast, and drop beer and coffee..

one clients already lost 10kg

Dropping beer and coffee? Sounds like one of those fad diets on daytime TV