Cyclist trying to balance weight loss and training

Hello! I thought I'd introduce myself, with a bit of backstory.

In 2004/2005 I weighed 260lb. I decided to lose weight, joined a gym and sorted out my eating. My approach was roughly CICO but I didn't track anything other than my weight. I just moved more and ate better (not actually less, but more veg, less junk). Over the next few years I lost over 100lb. I set myself a target of staying thin until my 30th birthday (2008). I ran several marathons and ultras.

However, I didn't feel like my lowest weight was particularly sustainable for me, and got to the stage where I was happy to eat roughly what I wanted (still healthy but a bit less focussed) and keep active and see where my weight settled. I *almost* got it right In the last 10 years my weight has crept up slowly to 190lb. Breaking it down, the 30lb gain above 160 is 3lb a year, 1/4lb a month, or about 200 calories too many per week. Which considering I've never tracked a single calorie isn't actually that bad! I still class myself as a long term maintainer, as I'm still 70lb below my highest weight.

But that still brings me to today. I'm now a cyclist, and accutely aware of my w/kg numbers. Being a regular zwifter helps with that as it's on screen while you ride. I know I'd climb better if I was lighter (I'm relatively fast on the flat, but die on hills), and working on my weight actually looks an easier win than increasing my power. I race, and while I pick up podiums and age group wins, I've never actually won a race, and I'd like to. Plus lycra isn't very forgiving and I look like a whale on some of my race pics...

So, the challenge for this winter's training is to cut the weight while not compromising my training - sustainable weight loss but fuelling enough for the rides I want to do. I have a target event in April (Tour of Flanders sportive) which I'd like to be in good shape for.

So far I've been doing OK. After about 6 weeks I'm about 5lb down, back to 185. That's partly due to cutting out alcohol for Sober October, the rest is from not snacking on rubbish at work and eating slightly better lunches. I started tracking on here more out of interest to track patterns but after a couple of weeks I'm now paying more attention to the numbers and getting a feel for what fuel I need on different types of training days and how to balance what I eat across long ride days and rest days. My logging at the moment is still somewhat approximate - coming from a background of not tracking anything I'm happy to ease myself in gently and tighten up if needed. Plus bike rides tend to involve cafe stops at the sort of place with no calorie count on the menu. However, I have noticed that my diet is quite low on protein so I'm trying to focus a bit more on that.

Having done 6 weeks I'm about to take a week off logging - I'm going on a cycling holiday and I'm fairly confident that the number of calories I'm going to burn riding will need me to eat a fair amount, so I don't want to be in a mindset of trying to restrict anything - plus we'll be eating out a bit more so anything I would log would be an estimate anyway. But my experience over the past 6 weeks has convinced me to jump back into logging when I get back with the aim of having another solid spell in the run up to Christmas.