muscle from cycling

treesaaaaap

I've been following a strict diet, and started bicycling a little more than a month ago. I've lost a decent amount of weight so far with just diet, but wanted to add in more exercise. I ride my bike 13-20 miles 3-4 days a week, tracking it with the mapmyride app, etc...

Everytime I step on the scale it seems like my weight is going up and it's really discouraging because I cant figure out why. Seems like I've gained roughly 11lbs since I started riding. Is it normal to gain that much muscle from riding a bike? I cant tell. Feels like my legs are getting pretty solid. (I'm 6'4 and up 11lbs from 271.)

glevinso

No - you wouldn't gain that much muscle that quickly even if you are lifting heavy weights. You are likely retaining water, and possibly overeating leading to actual weight gain.

DevilsFan1

treesaaaaap wrote: »

I've been following a strict diet, and started bicycling a little more than a month ago. I've lost a decent amount of weight so far with just diet, but wanted to add in more exercise. I ride my bike 13-20 miles 3-4 days a week, tracking it with the mapmyride app, etc...

Everytime I step on the scale it seems like my weight is going up and it's really discouraging because I cant figure out why. Seems like I've gained roughly 11lbs since I started riding. Is it normal to gain that much muscle from riding a bike? I cant tell. Feels like my legs are getting pretty solid. (I'm 6'4 and up 11lbs from 271.)

Be careful with MapMyRide. In my experience, it seems like MMR is extremely optimistic with regards to calories burned when cycling. It usually reports about twice the actual number. If you're eating back all these calories, you could be overeating and thus gaining weight you don't want to gain.

SuggaD

You're probably overeating. I see this happen with cyclists all the time. They eat way more than they need to fuel their workouts and then eat huge meals after, thinking they burned enough calories for it. Not so.

cwolfman13

glevinso wrote: »

No - you wouldn't gain that much muscle that quickly even if you are lifting heavy weights. You are likely retaining water, and possibly overeating leading to actual weight gain.

glevinso

SuggaD wrote: »

You're probably overeating. I see this happen with cyclists all the time. They eat way more than they need to fuel their workouts and then eat huge meals after, thinking they burned enough calories for it. Not so.

Depends on how much you ride though. This is likely the case with the OP. However this is the time of year I say "screw it" to tracking nutrition because I can't eat enough to maintain. I just stuff my face, and despite my best efforts the scale goes down a few lbs.

SuggaD

glevinso wrote: »

SuggaD wrote: »

You're probably overeating. I see this happen with cyclists all the time. They eat way more than they need to fuel their workouts and then eat huge meals after, thinking they burned enough calories for it. Not so.

Depends on how much you ride though. This is likely the case with the OP. However this is the time of year I say "screw it" to tracking nutrition because I can't eat enough to maintain. I just stuff my face, and despite my best efforts the scale goes down a few lbs.

Not for most. In my cycling club, I see this with a lot of riders who don't lose or actually gain regardless and seem truly perplexed as to why though they ride almost every day. As an example, we'll do a rally on a Saturday and do the 62 mile route and average around 17-18 mph. Some guys think that gives them carte blanche to eat several cookies, gatorade and fruit at every rest stop and then huge burgers, fries, and beer afterwards (not including breakfast and dinner). The math won't add up there. The rest stop calories alone usually puts them over what they burned on the ride per hour. Now, if you're more like me and only eat 120-200 calories per hour (which is all most average riders need for endurance riding), then it is hard to eat enough. I tend to look really gaunt during the summer as a result.

MeanderingMammal

glevinso wrote: »

SuggaD wrote: »

You're probably overeating. I see this happen with cyclists all the time. They eat way more than they need to fuel their workouts and then eat huge meals after, thinking they burned enough calories for it. Not so.

Depends on how much you ride though. This is likely the case with the OP. However this is the time of year I say "screw it" to tracking nutrition because I can't eat enough to maintain. I just stuff my face, and despite my best efforts the scale goes down a few lbs.

Not on 60-80 miles per week though

CarlydogsMom

With those Map My Whatevers, it's my experience they WAY overestimate calories burned, even more than 2x. I think they overestimate (my rides anyway) by a factor of 3. I usually use a calorie estimate of about 1/3 of what they say I burned. I estimate about 50-60 calories per mile on my mountain bike rides. If I was a wild-*kitten* single-track rider, then maybe more. Certainly no more than that if I was road riding on paved roads on fairly even terrain.

Machka9

treesaaaaap wrote: »

I've been following a strict diet, and started bicycling a little more than a month ago. I've lost a decent amount of weight so far with just diet, but wanted to add in more exercise. I ride my bike 13-20 miles 3-4 days a week, tracking it with the mapmyride app, etc...

Everytime I step on the scale it seems like my weight is going up and it's really discouraging because I cant figure out why. Seems like I've gained roughly 11lbs since I started riding. Is it normal to gain that much muscle from riding a bike? I cant tell. Feels like my legs are getting pretty solid. (I'm 6'4 and up 11lbs from 271.)

I use a calorie estimate of 100 cal for every 5 km of cycling ... and that seems to work for me.

So, 13-20 miles is 21 - 32 km.

If you rode 13 miles (21 km) that's ... 21/5 = 4.2 * 100 = 420 calories
If you rode 20 miles (32 km) that's ... 32/5 = 6.4 * 100 = 640 calories.


Many online calorie counters will give you number half again that amount or possibly even double that amount. I have found those numbers are very optimistic. As I said, for me, the numbers above seem to work ... they seem to be reasonably realistic.


Also ... you won't have put on much if any muscle weight from rides that short.

And ... you shouldn't be retaining water from rides that short either, although it is a vague possibility. You'd know if this possibility were true because you'd put on a small amount of weight (couple pounds) on the morning after a ride ... and then 2-3 days later you'd wear a path to the toilet ... and then you'd be back to whatever weight you were before the ride. This often happens to cyclists who do long rides.

SingingSingleTracker

treesaaaaap wrote: »

I've been following a strict diet, and started bicycling a little more than a month ago. I've lost a decent amount of weight so far with just diet, but wanted to add in more exercise. I ride my bike 13-20 miles 3-4 days a week, tracking it with the mapmyride app, etc...

Everytime I step on the scale it seems like my weight is going up and it's really discouraging because I cant figure out why. Seems like I've gained roughly 11lbs since I started riding. Is it normal to gain that much muscle from riding a bike? I cant tell. Feels like my legs are getting pretty solid. (I'm 6'4 and up 11lbs from 271.)

Your answer is right HERE.

glevinso

MeanderingMammal wrote: »

glevinso wrote: »

SuggaD wrote: »

You're probably overeating. I see this happen with cyclists all the time. They eat way more than they need to fuel their workouts and then eat huge meals after, thinking they burned enough calories for it. Not so.

Depends on how much you ride though. This is likely the case with the OP. However this is the time of year I say "screw it" to tracking nutrition because I can't eat enough to maintain. I just stuff my face, and despite my best efforts the scale goes down a few lbs.

Not on 60-80 miles per week though

Certainly not. I am at the point in my season where I am on the bike for 150 miles, running 40 miles and swimming 10,000yds all in one week. I literally cannot eat enough.

tdatsenko

You're probably eating too much. Be careful with the calories given to you by Map My Ride. I'd probably only trust them if you're riding with a power meter, even a heart rate monitor might not really give you the most accurate results.

Strava tends to give me around 1000 calories per ride(~18mph for an hour) now a days. I've been eating back 100-300 of that and sticking to the calorie goal set by MFP for about a month now and generally lose ~2lb a week.

_lyndseybrooke_

You're asking if you gained 11 lbs of muscle in one month from riding a bicycle?

...no, dude. No.

jeffpettis

If you have gained 11 pounds in a month you are simply eating at a surplus. You wouldn't gain that much muscle lifting weights so it's absolutely not muscle gain from cycling.

It's probably a case of eating back more calories than you actually burned. This is very common problem with most people when using any device that tracks calorie burn. Calorie burn is much harder to estimate because of differences in body composition, metabolism, etc.