Weight loss and Endurance cycling

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Cowphilosopher
Cowphilosopher Posts: 52 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
I've signed up to ride the London Revolution in October. Its 156 miles over two days and both days will each be further than I have yet cycled. So I am considering this to be an endurance activity. But I am also cutting calories in an attempt to lose weight mostly because I think the hills will be slightly easier if I'm not carrying quite so much.

Are the two activities mutually exclusive? If I plan carbs per kilo, is that per kilo of my current weight or my goal weight? I am doing much more activity now and eating fewer and better quality calories than I was 5 years ago and I'm nearly the same weight. The only thing leading to weight loss now is cutting calories, but that has impacted my time on the bike.

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  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    No they aren't mutually exclusive in the slightest, it's a positive factor and not a negative as you can maintain a sensible deficit while getting to eat far more food. BTW - it's very common for pro cyclists to be heavier in winter and take off weight in pre-season training. Even an old duffer like me does the same every Spring to lose "The Christmas Pudding".
    But it's a good idea to get to goal weight and maintain at the very minimum a week before the event - longer would be better.
    You have loads of time between now and October, how much are you aiming to lose?

    If I'm doing an event where I'm targetting high performance (rather than just finishing) I will often drop a few pounds ahead of the event, normally at 1lb / week for a limited number of weeks and taper off training and eat at maintenance for the week running up to the event. Stress of an intense training block and stress of dieting do need to be looked at together.

    A small deficit is required to get the most out of your hard training sessions/training blocks and recover well. I also find that everyday deficits are not a great way to go about things when training hard. For ordinary volume rides it's not such an issue.

    I don't work out my carbs by bodyweight, why are you?
    I do set a minimum protein goal by estimated LBM, fat looks after itself and carbs are effectively the "filler" to meet my calorie goal. On a long ride day I'm often simply trying to maximise usable carb intake to maintain performance/endurance.

    PS - The British Heart Foundation have some well designed programs if you want a structured training plan.

    PPS - Being reasonably accurate in your cycling calorie expenditure does help when you have a big training volume. I wouldn't recommend using MyFitnessPal speed related estimates at all, they tend to be pretty dreadful.

    PPPS - Global Cycling Network have quite a few videos on losing weight and cycling.

    PPPPS - Riding big distance on consecutive days raises the importance of being comfortable on the ride, you can push through soreness on one day events but it's no fun starting a big ride already sore.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Not necessarily mutually exclusive, but I think this is also kind of individual...and probably also depends on how much weight you're trying to cut. Not so much anymore, but I did quite a bit of endurance cycling and training for about five years, most of which was more or less in maintenance. Dropping a little weight wasn't too big of a deal, but one season I thought I would try to drop about 15 Lbs (already at a healthy weight) to see how much a lower riding weight would improve my performance. My biggest issue was that with my training and trying to maintain a deficit, I was hungry and I just couldn't maintain any real consistency in my diet. I ended up only cutting about 7 Lbs from 180-173...which still made a difference, but I really wanted to see what it would feel like at 165 Lbs.

    I'm trying to lose about 25 Lbs of COVID weight I put on over the last couple of years right now (5 Lbs down). I've decided to put off any kind of real endurance training at least for the moment while I try to get back down to 180. For myself personally, it's just easier for me to maintain a steady calorie deficit when I'm doing a moderate amount of exercise...but like I said, this is very likely an individual thing.
  • Cowphilosopher
    Cowphilosopher Posts: 52 Member
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    As for how much I'm looking to cut, overall, I would like to drop 50kg. I don't think that is going to happen before October.

    How do you work out calories burned on the bike? Is it just with a power meter? I have tried using a heart rate monitor but then it thinks I'm burning about 1000 cal/hr which is a severe overestimate.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Cowphilosopher wrote: »
    As for how much I'm looking to cut, overall, I would like to drop 50kg. I don't think that is going to happen before October.

    How do you work out calories burned on the bike? Is it just with a power meter? I have tried using a heart rate monitor but then it thinks I'm burning about 1000 cal/hr which is a severe overestimate.

    I use a power meter indoors and outside - it gives a very accurate net calorie estimate (as well as being a brilliant training tool - its main purpose of course).
    You would have to be putting out on average over 270watts to burn 1000 net cals in an hour - a very strong club rider pushing hard perhaps?
    It's hard to generalise though as people's cyclng performance is such a wide spectrum and follows your fitness level rather than your size to a very large degree.

    Your HRM though is giving a gross calorie estimate and that will be quite skewed as you are heavy, it's including what you would have burned anyway in that time slot and so double counting that element.
    Using my own rough numbers my non-exercise day maintenance calories are about 2,400 so I would take off 100 for an hour's exercise to get a reasonable correction factor.

    Correcting from gross to net estimates will help but beware if you aren't currently very fit and have a high exercise HR its estimates are going to be possibly quite a lot too high as it's just counting heartbeats rather than energy.

    With that much to lose you can afford to be quite aggressive with your deficit at first but taper off as your weight drops and the event gets closer. You will have to use the feedback loop of how you perform and how you recover - as @cwolfman13 points out people's response to training in a deficit is very varied. A couple of maintenance breaks along the way might help.

    The course looks interesting, I live near the Surrey Hills and have also cycled in Kent and the Chilterns - should be a lot of fun. Losing weight will make a massive difference on the hills.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Cowphilosopher wrote: »
    As for how much I'm looking to cut, overall, I would like to drop 50kg. I don't think that is going to happen before October.

    How do you work out calories burned on the bike? Is it just with a power meter? I have tried using a heart rate monitor but then it thinks I'm burning about 1000 cal/hr which is a severe overestimate.

    I have a smart trainer for use indoors that I use along with Zwift and my trainer has a power meter and cadence sensor. I don't have a power meter on my bike for when I take it outdoors, but I can generally make an educated guess as per my indoor rides. These days much of my riding is indoors as time constraints with work and other goings on limit me to early mornings when it's dark and cold...I usually only ride outdoors these days on the weekend. And then, I'm more often on my hard tail trail riding our mountain biking than road riding.
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    The only down side to power meters are that they are expensive! Other than that, I'd have one. I use a spin bike for indoor training, so I'd want one for it as well. Thus, ideally I'd have two of them. But then, I like riding my mountain bike on off season days (lots of sand and other debris on the road-- I use "city" tires), so maybe I want 3 of them. OK, that would get rather expensive. Also, I'm not sure I want to know how weak I am at my age. (And, getting weaker.)

    My friends above have heard me point out that to translate power applied to the pedals to calories consumed by your body, you need to make an assumption about your "gross efficiency," which means that you burn 4-5x as much energy as you are able to apply to the pedals. (The software generally does this for you.) That's either good news or bad news, depending on your perspective. It means that, like all calorie burn calculations, there is some uncertainty in the calorie burn number. But, at least it should be very consistent ride-to-ride.

    I can report that, without a power meter, you can do pretty well with a Garmin watch or a Garmin bike computer if it also monitors your heart rate. It is definitely not as good as using a power meter. It doesn't account for which bike you ride or if you had a headwind, that sort of thing. Still, I've used those estimates exclusively in my weight loss program and they've worked well enough for me.

    As for carb breakdown: I like to pre- or re-feed with mostly carbs in balance with my endurance training. (With also some fats, which are excellent long term fuel.) I really don't track macros that carefully, but what I mean is that, if I do a big ride, burning 1500kcals, I'd eat up to 1500kcals of carbs and fat to balance it, going heavy on the carbs. An example would be pancakes, syrup, and butter. If I were trying to reduce, I might drop some of the carbs first (e.g., leave off a pancake). Tracking can be a little tricky if you eat at a lot of restaurants, but if you do it at home, you can track quite accurately.

    Best of luck!
  • Cowphilosopher
    Cowphilosopher Posts: 52 Member
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    I don't have a power meter on my bike, but the smart trainer has a power output calculator. Haven't tried Zwift but I find indoor riding rather tedious. Although I guess it's the best place for HIIT.

    @sijomial can you explain the gross versus net calculations, please? I'm new at this. Finally started losing weight by cutting down to sub 1700 calories per day, but I bonked recently on a very flat, easy 80km ride that I have previously done with no problem.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    Cowphilosopher wrote: »
    I don't have a power meter on my bike, but the smart trainer has a power output calculator. Haven't tried Zwift but I find indoor riding rather tedious. Although I guess it's the best place for HIIT.

    @sijomial can you explain the gross versus net calculations, please? I'm new at this. Finally started losing weight by cutting down to sub 1700 calories per day, but I bonked recently on a very flat, easy 80km ride that I have previously done with no problem.

    I was the same way before I found Zwift. It's a much more engaging indoor ride as the app talks to the trainer so you feel inclines and declines and flats and even drafting much like you would outdoors and have to work your gears accordingly. In addition to just free riding around one of the maps and routes, they also have good individual workouts as well as full training programs that have been written by pro riders and coaches. Since you already have a smart trainer, it is well worth looking into and doesn't cost much.

    As indoor riding goes, it was a game changer for me. I can still only suspend disbelief for so long...as in I'm not really going anywhere, so I can't spend hours on it...but a 45-60 minute ride goes by pretty easily compared to my days of staring at the wall or tv while I pedaled and the workouts are very engaging. It is also set up so that your efforts are a certain % of your FTP...so you can do the same workout, but it progresses with you in difficulty as your FTP increases.

    I used to use it primarily for times of bad weather or excessive heat or cold, but right now it's my primary riding as my current life goings on relegate me to early mornings if I want to get my training in. One nice aspect of it is that I can just get up and grab a cup of coffee and shake off the cobwebs and throw my shorts on and ride. I don't have to spend time gearing up, putting my bike on the car and driving somewhere to ride...in that regards, it saves me a lot of time. Outdoors is still more enjoyable, but I find the workouts and programs to work me harder than I would on my own and even on a free ride, I find myself giving more effort than I usually do outdoors on a road ride as I chase down other users and try to keep pace with them and whatnot...more like I would outdoors if I had a few riding buddies with me or something.
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
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    Cowphilosopher wrote: »
    I don't have a power meter on my bike, but the smart trainer has a power output calculator. Haven't tried Zwift but I find indoor riding rather tedious. Although I guess it's the best place for HIIT.

    @sijomial can you explain the gross versus net calculations, please? I'm new at this. Finally started losing weight by cutting down to sub 1700 calories per day, but I bonked recently on a very flat, easy 80km ride that I have previously done with no problem.

    Your average watts per hour X 3.6 gives you the net calories. Or if total KJ burned is reported that's plenty close enough. You could try a steady state ride indoors and outdoors at the same heartrate to get an idea how inflated your outdoor estimates are.

    As for the difference between net and gross.....
    You are burning calories all day and night and the way MyFitnessPal accounts for that is by estimating your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) from your stats. That's the calories when you are at total rest and in a fasted state, bare minimum to power your bodily functions.
    But of course you are neither at rest or fasted all day long so the site multiplies your BMR by an activity setting. So now you have a number to maintain your current weight but excluding exercise which is only added after the event.
    The gross vs. net calories problem is that for the time you exercise you don't want to double count that time period's BMR x activity.
    For me if I set my goal to "maintain current rate" I get a daily allowance of 2,400cals (yours will be higher).
    So if I use a gross calorie estimate (Strava, Garmin or Polar HRMs, even MFP's own database due to poor programming) I'm double counting 100cals for every hour of exercise. Not a big deal for moderate exercisers but when you are doing many hours it starts to be more significant.
    But for perspective even with 35 hours riding a month that's a pound of fat loss and most sensible people will adjust based on results over time and of course there's a very good chance inaccurate food logging has a bigger impact.

    1700 cals is very, very low - far lower than you need to go, far lower than you should go if you are trying to train and improve performance. Bonking is nasty, dangerous and a big warning sign for you.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    The only down side to power meters are that they are expensive! Other than that, I'd have one.

    For what it's worth, power meters have become very economical in the last several years compared to what they used to be. I know somebody who just bought a PT hub for $80! 🤯
  • Djproulx
    Djproulx Posts: 3,084 Member
    edited February 2022
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    Some great discussion points here. OP, you have received some very helpful insights from several knowledgable cyclists posting above.
    I'll add my experience around dropping weight during endurance cycling training, as well as avoiding a "bonk".

    Several years back, I worked to become leaner during a training build leading up to a half ironman distance race. A HIM race consists of a 1.2m swim, then a 56 mile bike, then a 13.1 run. I worked with a registered dietician as well as a tri coach during this time.

    Over 16 weeks, I lost roughly 15lbs going from 190 to 175lbs, while consuming roughly 2600 calories/day PLUS calories consumed during long bike(2hrs or more) and long run (90 minutes or more) workouts. This was not always a static calorie counting exercise, since we had to balance and adjust calories upwards occasionally if I was not recovering well enough after long sessions on the weekends.

    As far as performing on the bike during long rides, proper hydration and fueling are key to maintaining your output. My approach is to take in fluids and electrolytes in one bottle, and liquid calories in a second bottle. Real food works fine too. My goal is to consume roughly 50% of the calories I'm expending while on the bike, since I don't want to be depleted for the run to follow. Bottom line is that you need fuel during an endurance cycling event, so don't be shy about eating while underway. :) Hope this helps.

    ETA: I use a power meter at all times. Once you train with power, there's no turning back. ;)
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    Something I'm learning is the nutrition isn't very important when you're young, but it gets more important as you age. In a way like the saying about boiling a lobster slowly, you don't really notice it happening. One day it's just really critical.

    You can lose weight and do big miles. You're going to have to limit your intensity though. Race pace on a calorie deficit is a ticket to bonk land. That doesn't just mean sprinting to pass somebody, you'll want to keep the intensity as low as possible on hills too. It might be worth looking into a cassette with a granny gear.

    Eat at a surplus a couple days before big rides and take calories in while you ride.
  • ciaoder
    ciaoder Posts: 119 Member
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    I know a lot of guys have a lot of success using indoor trainers, but I still think it's best to get out on the road (or trails) as soon as possible. The challenges associated with riding as a bigger guy don't translate well to indoor cycling and so the added capacity you would gain from that training doesn't develop the same way. Things like your mobility on the bike, conditioning upper body to deal with road chatter, or spending time in your aero position

    I personally have never trained harder than I do when riding a simple fixie in the hills. Power, cadence, conservation of momentum...there's no better tool to brake cycling down to it's purest elements. It's probably as "anti-Zwift" as training gets, and is by no means better or worse. It certainly strikes a different chord.

    Best luck.
  • Djproulx
    Djproulx Posts: 3,084 Member
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    ciaoder wrote: »
    I know a lot of guys have a lot of success using indoor trainers, but I still think it's best to get out on the road (or trails) as soon as possible. The challenges associated with riding as a bigger guy don't translate well to indoor cycling and so the added capacity you would gain from that training doesn't develop the same way. Things like your mobility on the bike, conditioning upper body to deal with road chatter, or spending time in your aero position

    I personally have never trained harder than I do when riding a simple fixie in the hills. Power, cadence, conservation of momentum...there's no better tool to brake cycling down to it's purest elements. It's probably as "anti-Zwift" as training gets, and is by no means better or worse. It certainly strikes a different chord.

    Best luck.

    Assuming that there are no other limiting factors in play (weather, available time to ride, traffic conditions, etc) I really like the combined approach. In my case, that means indoors in cold weather, then most weekday rides on the trainer(to work on specific facets of training such as FTP, single leg drills, etc.) and then long rides done outdoors on weekends. (I recognize that I'm more geeky about this than some others may be, lol).

    Lots more fun riding outdoors and I agree that bike handling and time in the saddle outdoors are key to building bike fitness. I especially enjoy group rides, not only for the social aspect, but also since I tend to push harder and longer when part of a group.
  • Cowphilosopher
    Cowphilosopher Posts: 52 Member
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    ciaoder wrote: »
    I know a lot of guys have a lot of success using indoor trainers, but I still think it's best to get out on the road (or trails) as soon as possible. The challenges associated with riding as a bigger guy don't translate well to indoor cycling and so the added capacity you would gain from that training doesn't develop the same way. Things like your mobility on the bike, conditioning upper body to deal with road chatter, or spending time in your aero position

    I personally have never trained harder than I do when riding a simple fixie in the hills. Power, cadence, conservation of momentum...there's no better tool to brake cycling down to it's purest elements. It's probably as "anti-Zwift" as training gets, and is by no means better or worse. It certainly strikes a different chord.

    Best luck.

    You road a fixie in hills?? Whoa! I started riding on a 3-speed Brompton and thought that prepared me for something. But honestly, it was just a sort of gateway drug to a proper bike that I can't just fold up and put in a cab if I gas out too far from home.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    I've never had a fixie as an adult, I've always lived in hilly places and wanted gears. But the people I've ridden with who've put in miles on a fixed gear bike are strong riders.

    In spite of the stereotype (no brakes), they've all been skilled cyclists who chose good lines. Coming down steep hills with your legs connected to the wheel seems to have been good for their awareness.
  • BrianSharpe
    BrianSharpe Posts: 9,248 Member
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    Cowphilosopher wrote: »
    I don't have a power meter on my bike, but the smart trainer has a power output calculator. Haven't tried Zwift but I find indoor riding rather tedious. Although I guess it's the best place for HIIT.

    Zwift can be a lot of fun but you may also want to check out TrainerRoad, it's very useful if you want programmed rides (with the paid version it will set up training plans for you and adjust them as you go & it's also got a reasonably accurate ladder test if you're trying to determine your approximate FTP)

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