Exercise bike to help lose weight

Mannojunior

Hey everyone!

Basically, I started my weight loss journey around 6 months ago. I’m a 21 year old male, and 5foot 10inches tall. I initially weighted 21 stone 6 lbs at the start and I am now weighing in at 18 stone 4 lbs. So I’ve lost 3 stone and 2 lbs so far. My goal weight is to be around 12-13stone as I believe thats optimum for me.

Anyway, I’ve just bought an exercise bike to use at home. I’ve had knee problems in the past so the doctor advised exercise that didn’t bear too much weight on my knee over the winter because I play cricket through the summer and I want to be in good condition in terms of me knee.

So I’ve bought the exercise bike to try and aid my weight loss and also help build up my physical fitness as I creep towards being my goal weight. I’m not a totally inactive person. I play sport 6 times a week in the summer and during the winter I walk to uni which gives me an hour of walking a day.

I’d like to know you opinions on what I should expect to see as a result of having the exercise bike and using it. I aim to use it for 30-45 minutes 5/6 times a week.

Also how should I use it to gain the best results?

NorthCascades

You should expect a modest calorie burn and more food to eat most days.

BrianSharpe

Congratulations on the weight loss so far. You can lose weight without exercising at all but I would never try to dissuade someone from improving their fitness.

I recently installed a power meter on my bike and that was a real eye opener in respect to calories expended biking (previously I had relied on a GPS/heart rate monitor watch). My bike commute is about 20km each way and at an average of about 28 km/h my power meter was recording about 17 cal / km so take whatever estimates your bike gives you (if it does) or HRM gives you with a grain of salt.

Having said that, cycling is a great workout for your cardiovascular fitness and pretty much zero impact.

Given the parameters you've suggested I'd be inclined to alternate rides between interval workouts (lots of free videos on YouTube, I'm partial to ones done by some Aussies that go by CTX training and they have workouts raging from 30 to 90 minutes) and lower intensity steady state.

One thing you also want to consider it making sure you set up the bike to fit you as well as it can (different bikes will allow more or less in the way of adjustments as you want to set up both saddle height & saddle fore & aft -if possible- and the height / distance between the front of the saddle and handlebars to get the most comfortable / efficient riding position)

Here are a few tips on setting up an exercise bike

https://washingtonian.com/2012/12/13/how-to-properly-fit-yourself-to-a-stationary-bike/

BrianSharpe

Duplicate post.

Tweaking_Time

I cycle and in the icky winter months I do a spin class at the gym. I too have bad knees and cycling/swimming are both low impact. When I am sprinting on my bike (14-15 mph on the trails) I can easily burn 750+ calories per hour.

FWIW - the spin class can be really demanding. I would suggest looking up some YouTube videos too watch when you are on your exercise bike. Instead of a gym membership, you can use the YouTube video as a virtual trainer.