Calorie Goal for a cyclist.

BrentMacNichols
BrentMacNichols Posts: 7 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I am a serious bike rider usually 80-100 miles a week about 800-1200 calories per workout. I’m 60 years old I weigh 190 my Calorie goal was 2400 per day I have cut it to 2000 to help me lose weight.

I want to go from 190 to 178lbs. Let’s say I do a 2 hour bike ride and burn 1200 calories, according to my daily diary I would need to eat 3200 calories a day. This seems like a lot to me! Do I really need to eat that much or can I use the 2000 as my daily goal. My macronutrients are 60/40/20.

Replies

  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 25,599 Member
    I am an avid long distance cyclist who also climbs stairs and walks 5 days a week, and throws in some things like running and rowing and weightlifting into the mix.

    I entered my details into MFP and selected sedentary as my activity level. Right now I'm sitting at 1350 calories, but I have been as low as 1250. I'm female, so if you are male, the lowest you should go is 1500 calories.

    When I exercise, I enter that, selecting the low/light/slow options.

    My own person calculation when cycling is 100 calories for every 5 km. At 20 km/hour, that's 400 calories per hour. A nice realistic number. At the same time, Strava and MFP both give me approximately that many calories too, especially since I select the 16-19 km/h choice for cycling in MFP (low/light/slow). So a 2-hour bicycle ride would be about 800 calories

    When I'm actively losing weight,

    If I exercise just a little bit (like a 1-hour walk), I'll eat about half my exercise calories back.

    If I exercise a moderate amount (like a 2-hour bicycle ride), I'll eat about 75% of my exercise calories back.

    If I go out and ride a metric century or imperial century, I'll probably eat about 90% of my exercise calories back.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,522 Member
    You need adequate calories. Under eating and cycling is dangerous. Get a good calorie estimate from a tracking app (e.g., ridewithgps) and a heart rate monitor. Shoot for a daily deficit of 500 to 750kcals. Make sure you have some carbs before you ride. Bring Gu or something in case you need a boost during a ride. Best of luck!

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