Too much cardio?

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jirwin323
jirwin323 Posts: 40 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Some background - I'm 52, 6' tall and weigh in at 268 pds. According to MFP, I'm allowed 1650 calories a day to lose 2pds a week. I work at a desk all day and I've recently moved to a bike desk - I have setup my road bike on a trainer and built a desk around it. On average I do about 50-60miles a week with somedays 30miles. I'm not going all out - 17mph - but on a trainer if you are not peddling you are not moving. I've noticed that I'm not losing any weight and am totally confused. I feel better both physically and mentally and I'm eating about 2000-2500 calories on the days I bike (I burn at least 800 calories when I do bike and somedays over 2000 i.e. when I do 30 miles) but every time I weigh myself the scale does not budge.

I'm totally confused about when to do strength training and/vs. cardio to lose weight. Maybe someone out there could explain to me what I need to do.
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Replies

  • alicemelinda1
    alicemelinda1 Posts: 22
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    You might be building more muscle with all that cycling!!
    If you are feeling better mentally and physically then that is GREAT!!!
  • Hellbent_Heidi
    Hellbent_Heidi Posts: 3,669 Member
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    Its unlikely you're building a enough muscle from biking to offset any significant fat loss.

    How long have you been at this? Maybe you just need to give it time to work.

    Another possibilty is that your diet isn't as good as you think. Do you measure everything out or could you be eating more calories than you're logging? Eating a lot of sodium?
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
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    You're eating too much. Cut the exercise calories in half, make sure your log is accurate (weigh food in ounces or grams, measure liquids). Give it another 4 weeks. If you still aren't losing (which would surprise me...) tweak it again.


    You are not building muscle while eating at a deficit, BTW. I wish people would stop saying that.
  • _Zardoz_
    _Zardoz_ Posts: 3,987 Member
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    You're eating too much. Cut the exercise calories in half, make sure your log is accurate (weigh food in ounces or grams, measure liquids). Give it another 4 weeks. If you still aren't losing (which would surprise me...) tweak it again.


    You are not building muscle while eating at a deficit, BTW. I wish people would stop saying that.
    This
  • LishieFruit89
    LishieFruit89 Posts: 1,956 Member
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    You might be building more muscle with all that cycling!!
    If you are feeling better mentally and physically then that is GREAT!!!

    LOL NO.

    Listen to Achrya's advice
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
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    Soooooo.....how many days have we been at this?
  • toddis
    toddis Posts: 941 Member
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    You are not building muscle while eating at a deficit, BTW. I wish people would stop saying that.

    But if you are new to training your body will retain fluids and such gunk that will increase mass and weight.
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
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    You are not building muscle while eating at a deficit, BTW. I wish people would stop saying that.

    But if you are new to training your body will retain fluids and such gunk that will increase mass and weight.

    This guy isn't new to training, he's had his bike desk since at least September. Soooooo...thanks?
  • DavPul
    DavPul Posts: 61,406 Member
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    Where are we getting the dates and time frames from? Is it in the appendix? I'm exhausted so I could be missing it.
  • Achrya
    Achrya Posts: 16,913 Member
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    Where are we getting the dates and time frames from? Is it in the appendix? I'm exhausted so I could be missing it.

    I'm history creeping...don't judge me. Its 3am and I'm wide awake, nothing else to do.

    Anyway OP claimed to have biked 375 miles in September.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    How are you calculating calories burned?
    Do you weight all your solid foods and measure liquids? If not you may be eating 10-50% more than you think you are.
  • LishieFruit89
    LishieFruit89 Posts: 1,956 Member
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    You are not building muscle while eating at a deficit, BTW. I wish people would stop saying that.

    But if you are new to training your body will retain fluids and such gunk that will increase mass and weight.


    Gunk....
    How scientific
  • jirwin323
    jirwin323 Posts: 40 Member
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    I started using the bike desk in September 2013 and between then and end of November I've lost 20 pounds. But since that point I've been stuck at 268.

    I do monitor my food intake using MFP, but not regularly or to the extent some of the users do.

    I'm just interested in understanding the relationship between lots of cardio and weight loss. There seems to be a lot of information out there that says "do cardio and eat less" and other information that says "NO cardio and eat less". Maybe I'm just over thinking this.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    I started using the bike desk in September 2013 and between then and end of November I've lost 20 pounds. But since that point I've been stuck at 268.

    I do monitor my food intake using MFP, but not regularly or to the extent some of the users do.

    I'm just interested in understanding the relationship between lots of cardio and weight loss. There seems to be a lot of information out there that says "do cardio and eat less" and other information that says "NO cardio and eat less". Maybe I'm just over thinking this.

    A deficit = weight loss, cardio or no cardio.

    Cardio allows you to eat more while still being in a deficit, or gives you a larger deficit (larger isn't always better). The only issue with lots of cardio, is it will not help retain lean muscle as you lose weight, so a larger % of your loss will come from lean muscle than if you program consisted mainly of strength training.
  • JoRocka
    JoRocka Posts: 17,525 Member
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    most people OVER estimate calories burned- and grossly under estimate calories eaten.

    So there are two ways to combat this- one be ultra conservative on work out numbers and more generous with food stuff- meaning guess higher. This is usually enough to sway the battle in the right direction and only doesn't work as you get lower in the body fat range- like for men low teens/single digits and women mid/low teens.

    Otherwise- averages makes it work so the trend continues down.

    The other way to do it is to only eat back a % of exercise calories. I typically shoot for 50-75% of my exercise calories.

    Again- trend lines and averages win- not day to day numbers.
  • Azdak
    Azdak Posts: 8,281 Member
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    most people OVER estimate calories burned- and grossly under estimate calories eaten.

    So there are two ways to combat this- one be ultra conservative on work out numbers and more generous with food stuff- meaning guess higher. This is usually enough to sway the battle in the right direction and only doesn't work as you get lower in the body fat range- like for men low teens/single digits and women mid/low teens.

    Otherwise- averages makes it work so the trend continues down.

    The other way to do it is to only eat back a % of exercise calories. I typically shoot for 50-75% of my exercise calories.

    Again- trend lines and averages win- not day to day numbers.

    Your first sentence has about a 95% probability IMO. It certainly is the first thing you would consider.

    I am dubious about the long-term effectiveness of these "active" work stations. I don't see how you can do effective exercise while working, so that means the movement has to be low-level. It's not that the body "gets used" to the activity and stops burning extra calories. It's that the overall energy burned is relatively low and gradual, so the person tends to adjust their overall food and activity patterns to restore an energy balance.
  • johntconklin
    johntconklin Posts: 2 Member
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    I have setup my road bike on a trainer and built a desk around it. On average I do about 50-60miles a week with somedays 30miles. I'm not going all out - 17mph - but on a trainer if you are not peddling you are not moving. I've noticed that I'm not losing any weight and am totally confused. I feel better both physically and mentally and I'm eating about 2000-2500 calories on the days I bike (I burn at least 800 calories when I do bike and somedays over 2000 i.e. when I do 30 miles)

    I think you're totally overestimating calories burned.

    On my Kurt Kinetic Road Machine trainer, 17mph is about 180W (calculated by their published power curve formula and verified by my power tap). 180W is 660 kJ/hour, which I convert to Calories at par assuming 20-25% bio-mechanical efficiency. So with my trainer, a 30 mile day at 17mph would be less than 1200 Cal.

    One nice feature of a indoor trainer with a known power curve is that you can get a much better estimate of Calories burned compared with the typical gym machine. What trainer are you using?
  • jirwin323
    jirwin323 Posts: 40 Member
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    I'm using a CycleOps and in conjunction with my Garmin Forerunner 305, I have installed the Garmin Cadence Sensor and am using the heart monitor. According to the Forerunner, I burn about 440 calories per 5 miles biked at approximately 17mph.
  • johntconklin
    johntconklin Posts: 2 Member
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    I'm using a CycleOps and in conjunction with my Garmin Forerunner 305, I have installed the Garmin Cadence Sensor and am using the heart monitor. According to the Forerunner, I burn about 440 calories per 5 miles biked at approximately 17mph.

    CycleOps doesn't publish a power curve formula for their trainers, but they do publish a graph; and folks have taken the power at different constant speeds and fit an equation to the data. For example, The formula "p = ((0.0115*s^3) - (0.0137*s^2) + (8.9788*s))" is claimed to convert power in watts from speed in miles/hour for the Fluid2 trainer (from http://thebikegeek.blogspot.com/2009/12/while-we-wait-for-better-and-better.html).

    This is about 205W for 17 miles/hour, or around 740 kJ/hour. A bit higher than my Kinetic, but still ends up with only around 1300 Calories for a 30 mile effort.

    Since you have the Cadence/Speed sensor, I'd strongly recommend converting your average speed to power, power to energy in kJ, and then using that as a Calories burned instead of the Forerunner estimate. Before I bought my power tap, I used a Garmin Edge 305 in exactly this way. I found that the Edge's own Calorie computation to grossly over-estimate.
  • jirwin323
    jirwin323 Posts: 40 Member
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    thank you. what's funny is if you go into MFP and record BIKING 14-16MPH for 120mins - for me it determines I have burned 2411 calories which is inline with the Garmin.

    I guess I'll just cut all exercise calories in 1/2.

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