Biking enough?

Calorie deficit for weight loss.
Cardio exercise for cardio health and fitness.
Strength training for improving strength and retention of as much muscle mass as possible whilst losing weight.

You should be eating back your exercise calories so the exercise shouldn't be a factor in your weight loss. Please tell me you aren't exercising two hours a day and only eating 1200cals.

0.5kg is only suitable as a paper weight, completely and utterly useless for strength training.

Add some of these everyday too!! http://darebee.com/workouts.html

Put simply cardio is primarily a workout for your heart, lungs and circulation.
Strength training is primarily a workout for your muscles.

If you are eating back exercise calories then no they won't enhance losing weight if you mean speed up rate of weight loss. That's not the point of exercise.

You don't get to look muscular by accident, it doesn't happen overnight. The "girls" who look muscular probably have low body fat and/or have done years of heavy strength training.
As you aren't doing any strength training it's a bit irrelevant right now!

cycling is a great way to burn lots of calories but you have to make sure that you work at a level that will challenge you. my husband is a serious cyclist and the training program he does (during the winters on his trainer) burns nearly 2000 calories per workout. not that you have to exercise like that but do make sure that your'e not going at a steady pace for like an hour; turn it up a notch and go hard for 2 minutes, then recover for 1, then increase the intensity and bike hard for 2 mins, then recover etc. by trying to mimic the road, you'll burn more calories and get a better workout.

Riding a bike is definitely a cardio based exercise. It is also one of the easiest on the joints to do. As a cardio exercise it will benefit your hearts health. Your heart is a muscle and cardio training helps strengthen it. Whether you do it indoors or out makes little difference. The point is to do as much as you can each time you get on the bike. There are plenty of resources out there that you can do searches for to find training plans to start learning to increase the cardio benefits for you while riding your bike. Choose a plan that is not to aggressive for your current endurance level as you will be less likely to follow it through to completion.

Using any amount of weight, including your own body weight or resistances bands, is considered strength training. There are many exercise plans that use only body weight as a form of strength training. Again, do some research on how to perform each movement properly in order to prevent injury. You can also find a strength training plan that will fit into your goals.

Cardio and Strength training will both help you burn calories and get you closer to your weight loss goal. Try to include both as part of your plan. They will both enhance each other. As you build endurance doing cardio your heart will be able to better supply blood/oxygen to your muscles as you do strength training. As you do strength training you will tone your muscles making them more efficient in burning calories not only while you do cardio they will also burn more calories during the rest of your daily activities.

Make sure that you have talked to your doctor about your plans in order to identify any underlying health issues that may prevent you from doing certain types or intensities of exercise. Good luck in achieving your goals.

I love to bike 15-20 minutes to my YMCA--do a hour of gravity boot camp/or just regular boot camp--and push myself all the way home for another 15-20 minutes. I also do 4 minutes intervals of Slam ball when I get home. I do this 2 (or 3) times per week.

I cycle (spin class indoors) and have lost weight. Really you only need a calorie deficit and you'll lose, even without any exercise.

I burn about 600 (per my HRM programmed to my stats) calories in a 55 minute class but I work very hard; my heartrate stays between 150 and 180 BPM for the majority of the class. While I wouldn't trust the bike's calculation of calories it very well may be 600 for you depending on your weight. Personally, I wouldn't eat ALL of those 1200 calories back, but if it's working for you then go for it.

And I agree you should take your bike outside, but only because it's fun. I LOVE to ride outdoors but I wouldn't necessarily agree that riding outdoors is tougher than on a stationary bike. On a stationary bike I NEVER go downhill. Outdoors I fly down hills after every climb. Personally, I think the key is finding something you like to do, something that you do because you want to.

LilyBeeMe wrote: »

All that to say, do you think I shouldn't trust the numbers on my bikes monitor? Do you think burning calories while exercising on a stationary bike is enough for weight loss?

And while I have you, I am another victim of the jelly belly! Do you think I should pull my belly in while exercising or should it hang about? lol Which is better when you're on the bike and want to get rid of a big fat belly!?

Thanks a million!

I wouldn't necessarily trust the numbers on the monitor ... those things are notorious for over-estimating the number of calories burned.

Try the 100 cal for every 5 km thing and see how it matches up with the bike monitor.


I find that a strong core helps a lot with cycling comfort. I have described it to others as kind of perching on your sitbones. So if you sit bolt upright on a hard chair, then suck in your abs, your pelvis will tuck under a little bit. Now lean forward. That's the sort of posture to hold on a bicycle.

It's not easy at first ... takes quite a bit of practice and the strong core helps.