A question about weight

[rocknrollgirl]

Hi Guys,
I have had this question rolling around in my head that I want to ask. I do not want to offend anybody, but it is bugging me, and if I can't ask here, where am I going to ask. Right?

I have in more than one instance noticed that some of the hardest training people here have made comments about their weight. How come when doing this much training, the pounds don't just melt away?

I know calories in, calories out. I teach Bio, I get it. But with the number of calories that we are burning, why is it even an issue?

I don't have a weight issue, I am not a picker, or an emotional eater. I am careful about my fuel choices. Yea, I indulge every now and then, but for the most part, I am a clean eater.

How come I am not desperately fighting to keep weight on? Are we not really burining that much? I am freakin' hungry all the time, and I am not even doing IM distance.

What is the physiology behind this?

Confused and hungry in New Jersey...
( and hoping not to offend)

Ruth

[Offthegrid]

I can't speak for others and I'm certainly not one of the hardest training people here, but I've lost 35 pounds since September. That's an average of about 5 pounds a month or a bit more than 1 pound a week -- the exact amount recommended for permanent weight loss.

If you're interested more in the psychology, check out the book "Mindless Eating" by Brian Wansink, who studies food psychology. Basically he says people drastically overcompensate for the calories they burn through exercise. He's also the guy who studied how much people eat when they have bottomless soup bowls and how the size of the popcorn bag influences how much people will eat.


One risk of exercise is that some people subsequently overeat, thinking they are compensating for the calories they burned. They almost always overeat. The key to Mindless Eating isn’t in necessarily giving up all the foods a person loves. It’s being more naturally mindful (not obsessively mindful) as to some of the tradeoffs required.

In one study we’ve done, we found that listing the number of miles a person would have to walk if they consumed a 300 calorie bag of granola lead them to eat less than if we just had the calorie count in it. For many people, it’s not necessary that they eliminate all "bad” food, just that they trim it down.

The key to Mindless Eating, is that you can set up some of your own rules and trade-offs so nothing is off-limits as long as you see the bigger picture.

Here's a NY Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/11/dining/11snac.html?ex=1318219200&en=6db57e8afe38e6e2&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss)article about the same person.

[HillSlugger]

I wish I knew! I ride 4 days a week, run 2, and swim 1-2, and I'm not losing any weight at all. I assume I'm eating too much, but I secretly hope it means that I'm converting fat pounds to lean muscle pounds.

[mimitabby]

Not too concerned about my own weight, but what i have read is when you exercise you speed up your metabolism. So the furnace wants more wood to burn whether you exercise that day or not. So it's really tricky because you feel hungry. The book I just read "Younger Next Year" suggests you exercise EVERY DAY.. then you can moderate your intake better. If you ride (like I do)
2 hours one day, 4 the next and not ride 5 days in a row, the food management gets harder. I get SOOOOO hungry every day, it's annoying.

[Offthegrid]

I wish I knew! I ride 4 days a week, run 2, and swim 1-2, and I'm not losing any weight at all. I assume I'm eating too much, but I secretly hope it means that I'm converting fat pounds to lean muscle pounds.

If you really want you could track measurements, too. I took mine in October or November but haven't taken them again. I should get on that.

I have noticed that if I work out in the morning (be it swimming, spin class or running) I get ravenously hungry afterwards.

[rocknrollgirl]

Nah,
I do not want to track or measure or calculate... I just want to know the basic physiology behind this phenomenon.

What the heck?

[KSH]

It is very interesting.

I can also say, that I know that you can't judge an athlete by his/her cover. For example, when I started racing... I would see someone who didn't look as fit as me... but I tell you what, they kicked my butt. I typically cycle with people who don't look really fit, but gosh, they go REALLY FAST on a bike. So weight does not determine performance in my book.

As far as people not losing weight when training... I bet that's a huge question for a lot of people out there.

I wonder if it has to do with the fact that a lot of training might be out of the "fat burning zone" and into the aerobic zone. I have a friend who has purposely done some long slow rides on his bike (14/15 mph average versus a 18/19 mph average)... to lose weight, and it has worked.

For me, I struggled some with keeping my weight below 130 last year. I was riding all the time with some swimming... but whatever I was eating... was making me gain weight.

Last October I buckeled down on my eating habits and lost 9 pounds. Now days, I fluctuate between 121 and 125.... but I am eating like I did last year... ???? Gosh, even the other week, I seriously ate out 5 days... and I lost weight... whereas last year that would not have happened.

Of course, this year I am running... that might be the difference?

Otherwise, just because I am at a healthy weight... it doesn't mean a damn thing on the course. I am still a slow runner and mediocre on the bike. I get passed by a ton of people!

[KnottedYet]

I know my body has set points where it "likes" to be. Both size and weight.

When I'm active and happy I'm 145 lbs and a size 10-12.
When I'm sedentary and happy I'm 165 lbs and a 12-14.
When I'm miserable I can be up to 200 lbs and a size 20, whether I'm active or not.

I have the same pair of size 12 jeans that I've been going back and forth with for the last 15 years.

When my bod is at one of it's set points, it stays there. I won't weigh 140, no matter what I try. I won't settle at 160, it's gotta be 165.

Maybe yours has a set point it wants to stay at, and your metabolism adjusts to your activity to keep you there?

[Eden]

I think that it is a combination of what OTG and KSH were talking about. When we first started to do a lot of cycling my husband and I would come home ravenous. Seriously we would want to eat and eat.. (still happens after races sometimes :p ), but now it seems like even long rides as long as they are not really fast - a lot of zone 4, zone 5 stuff don't affect us like that. I can go out and do 4 or 5 hours on the bike and still feel like a small lunch will do fine.

I don't have a before V02 to make a comparison, but I did get one recently and I found on it that I burn a majority of fat calories well into Zone 3. I'm assuming that before when I would come home feeling starving I was burning up mostly my ready carbs, and because of this I would feel very hungry and eat a lot. Now because I am burning more stored fats I don't get the feeling that I am hungry as much so I don't eat as much.

My weight loss history over several years has been - 10 lbs lost very quickly over about 2 weeks when we did a bike tour in Spain. Believe me I was not eating terribly healthy foods during this, so it had to be that it was just not possible to eat more calories than I was burning. After that I gradually lost another 10 or 12 over about 1/2 a year, since then my weight has been very stable, though I think I still have been building muscle and losing fat.

For some people I think that it must take a huge amount of base training to get the system trained to use fats rather than carbs - and it can be very difficult to actually go as slow as you are told you must, but it you don't do that slow speed training you won't get your body burning up those fats so the cycle of training hard and feeling very hungry continues.

[Grog]

Hum, that's interesting Eden. It does remind me that whereas I became REALLY hungry the first few months I was cycling for "real" (i.e. more than 100km/week), it's now much calmer on that front, even if I exercise more overall than I did back then. Or maybe I've just gotten used to eating more or adjusted my nutrition accordingly? But I think what you say makes sense.

Other factors I think would include some genetics, metabolic rate, % body fat vs. muscle, the "age" of the fat (supposedly fat takes as much time to leave as it took buildilng up, so the "older" the fat the longer it takes to go away... but I don't know whether there is more than anecdotal evidence for that), nutritional habits, exercise habits, number of years practicing endurance sports, etc. I think someone who's been mostly sedentary for most of their life would have a steeper curve to face compared to a person who's been into sports for ever.

But I'm no physiologist.

[HappyAnika]

I said this in another post somewhere, I like to say that I defy the laws of thermodynamics. :p I do not obey the law of conservation of energy, I feel like I burn more than I take in, and still manage to gain weight. :confused: This winter I tracked every calorie I ate and that helped some, but I should do that again now that I've increased my activity and see how the equation balances out.

I am still confused about the "fat burning" vs. aerobic exercise. You have the camp that says you must exercise longer at lower intensity to burn fat. Then the other camp that says you should exercise at a higher intensity to burn more calories overall. Anyone have any scientific evidence to support either of these theories?

I've never had my VO2 max measured, but what Eden was saying kind of makes sense to me. Last year (my first year riding, but I'd been doing other exercise for years) I was starving all of the time and gaining weight. I know I was eating too much to compensate for the calories burned in cycling, but I was ravenous. This year I am not so hungry. My goal was to eat on long rides and some recovery food after, but otherwise to keep my meals pretty much the same. I've been able to do that without feeling like I'm starving (so far, knock on wood). I know I've made some improvement in my overall fitness, I believe I've increased my lactic acid threshold since I can go much harder for longer without getting leg cramps. So perhaps my body is burning more stored fats than carbs now . . . I'm very sloooooowly dropping a couple of pounds, as in 2 lb in the last month. That corresponds to an increase from about 3 or 4 hours a week of various exercises to about 8 or 9 hours (and 3 of those are pretty high intensity). I'd be so happy if I could loose 8 more lb by the end of the summer, but I feel like I'd have to train for 20 hours a week and only eat 500 calories a day to make that happen. :rolleyes:

[Grog]

Oh, and I wanted to add:

- I've often read that when you're training for something is not the time to try to loose a lot of weight. Ex: it's not a good idea to train for a marathon in order to loose weight. It's already enough of a stress for your body to run that marathon, trying to loose weight by buildling a calorie-deficit every day would not be a good thing, energy-wise.

- It takes more energy to get a heavier body to move (simple physics). So the heavier the person, the more that person will have to eat in order to exercise more. Bigger athletes just can't live on 1200 calories a day, or they wouldn't have the energy to be athletes.

- Now the psychology: People of all body shapes are concerned about their weight. My whippety sweetheart, with a BMI of about 20 if not 19, and about 3-4% body fat, keeps an eye on what he eats and often feels "fat". If you just had a soundtrack of him, no video, you'd think maybe he's indeed overweight. Sure, in his case, having 1 pound more fat and 1 pound less muscle would mean loosing precious seconds up that hill he's racing on. Competitive runners can get similarly, dare I say, obsessive about having the perfect body mass composition. It's all relative...

Again not sure this helps but you sure raised an interesting topic.

[Grog]

I am still confused about the "fat burning" vs. aerobic exercise. You have the camp that says you must exercise longer at lower intensity to burn fat. Then the other camp that says you should exercise at a higher intensity to burn more calories overall. Anyone have any scientific evidence to support either of these theories?

Can't provide a source, but my understanding from talking to various coaches and sports specialists is that both are actually true. It's just that most people can't sustain the higher intensities (that burn more calories) for very long, so it's better to keep a lower intensity going for longer, more often, hence the higher calorie expenditure at the bottom line.

[Wahine]

I have in more than one instance noticed that some of the hardest training people here have made comments about their weight. How come when doing this much training, the pounds don't just melt away?

I know calories in, calories out. I teach Bio, I get it. But with the number of calories that we are burning, why is it even an issue?

How come I am not desperately fighting to keep weight on? Are we not really burining that much? I am freakin' hungry all the time, and I am not even doing IM distance.

What is the physiology behind this?

Confused and hungry in New Jersey...
( and hoping not to offend)

Ruth

Gotta keep this short. So ask questions if it doesn't click.

Physiologically speaking, new activity will burn calories at a higher rate - simple biology there. As we exercise longer, our efficiency changes and we may not burn as many calories for the same amount and intensity of exercise. This has to do with efficiency of metabolism as well as efficiency of movement/biomechanics.

Also, while many of us are burning fat, we are also storing glycogen in our muscles. For every 1 gram of glycogen stored, you have to store 3 grams of water. That's a lot of extra weight in the muscle. This would be particularly true for you because you're doing a lot of work at LT so you're body will be tending toward storing glycogen in the muscle.

I actually gained weight when I trained for my first IM, I think mostly due to glycogen storage.

Metabolic hormone levels drop drastically in trained athletes if they restrict their caloric intake below 80% of required calories for normal daily function + caloric expenditure during exercise. This is in effect a physiologic starvation response and will pre-dispose storage of fat when the athlete does eat more. So a lot of athletes may be shooting themselves in the foot by not eating enough for 3 to 4 days, (changing their metabolic hormone profile), then binging because they think it's OK once in awhile.

Finally, a lot of people eat on rest weeks and rest days the same as they do on training days and I think that tends to cause some fat storage. Your body is trying to make rain while the sun shines. I don't have anything to back this up, it's just my opinion from experience with my own body and from discussions with other athletes.

Personally. I seem to have hit my set point at 140 lbs. To lose more I will have to change something. As you know, I'm training a lot. You'd think I'd be as skinny as a rail. Nope. I don't know that I will try to drop another 5 lbs. That was my goal as it would seriously improve my climbing. But I also don't want to get into that nasty situation of messing with my metabolism.

[rocknrollgirl]

Yep, that is me. Queen of LT....no long slow distance here. Long slow distance would be pretty couterproductive for the races I am training for. Xterra is going to be 2-3 hours of brutality. Especially the bike!

I am trying so hard to eat well, and eat enough to keep fueled, and not too much to avoid the gain.
But God I am friggin' hungry

I have not gained fat( yet), but I am a bit paranoid about it. I have put on muscle from mt biking over the past two years.

The food part should be easier.....

[Bluetree]

Wahine, I always learn something every time you post. Thanks.

[Eden]

Yep, that is me. Queen of LT....no long slow distance here. Long slow distance would be pretty couterproductive for the races I am training for.


No! LSD is not couterproductive for racing!! Always training at LT though is counterproductive. It may feel like its not hard enough to do slow rides, and it is easy to feel that it is a waste of time, but always training full out is one of the most common mistakes that new racers make. If you are always going full tilt you are much more likely to overtrain, plus you will never train your body to be more efficient. The LSD work is necessary to get your body using more fats longer so that you are not immediately burning up all your supplies of ready energy when you do have to go all out. Don't skip your base training! If you do it you will be able to go faster for longer periods.

[rocknrollgirl]

Thanks for the input.

Eden- I do have a very structured program with slower days built in. I also have a very solid base for endurance.

I am not a new racer, especially to mt biking. I was speaking from my own frame of reference. What I meant was that I would not be out doing a 70 mile road day to train for a 15 mile mountain bike race. That would not be a productive use of my training time.


I do hard interval days with active recovery days and rest days. Two hard weeks and one easy week.

It is a pretty balanced program. ( ok where is the food)


Thanks.

[Eden]

Thanks for the input.

Eden- I do have a very structured program with slower days built in. I also have a very solid base for endurance.

I am not a new racer, especially to mt biking. I was speaking from my own frame of reference. What I meant was that I would not be out doing a 70 mile road day to train for a 15 mile mountain bike race. That would not be a productive use of my training time.


I do hard interval days with active recovery days and rest days. Two hard weeks and one easy week.

It is a pretty balanced program. ( ok where is the food)


Thanks.

That sounds more like it! Your first statement was a bit misleading.....

[rocknrollgirl]

Yeah, I was probably just dizzy from HUNGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok enough stalling..off to the pool now.

[Wahine]

Wahine, I always learn something every time you post. Thanks.

Thank you Blue. I try to help.

[rocknrollgirl]

Yoda....now I am assuming that my body would be storing that glycogen in an effort to bank for the next workout?


And, thanks from me also. I agree with BT, I always learn a thing or two from your posts.

[Reesha]

With my cross country ride right around the corner, I am starting to worry about this. what
If I don't lose any weight on the trip? I am sure I will have a blast
Blast regardless but it would be fantastic to drop ten to fifteen pounds
On this ride. At an average of eighty miles per day you would think it would be easy, but i'm concerned that my hunger will best me. Should I heart rate monitor it the whole time?

[lovelygamer]

I can never figure this out either. I have lost plenty of weight in my day but it was never due to the same method, attempt, or situation. I have sort of noticed that as I age, it's harder for me to lose weight.

Currently, I've been cycling 40 miles a week for five weeks straight and watching my diet and I've gained weight which I assume is muscle weight. I'm hoping that starts burning fat on the scale soon. I did see a pound or two of that gain come off recently.

40 miles a week may seem like nothing to some of the people here but before that I was working out in a gym maybe three hours a week. It feels like a ton of work on my 200+ body.

I'll never ever understand it all.

[Reesha]

Yeah your body composition will certainly change first. I worked to lose weight this winter and changed my body composition fairly significantly... probably lost ten lbs of fat and gained another five in muscle. Once racing season started I stopped worrying about losing weight because I just wanted to make sure that my body was flooded with the necessary calories during rides so I could keep up (I'm a high school coach-- it's tough keeping up with 17 year olds!). Now I can shift gears so to speak. Our rides this summer will be long and mostly pretty medium intensity. I certainly won't be hammering.

I suppose if I keep track of my calories on my HR monitor and avoid junk and try to keep caloric intake just under my expenditures every day that would work, but I don't really want to have to worry so much. My body is clinging to these last ten-fifteen pounds hardcore. I've been lighter before, (rarely fitter) so it's frustrating that the same things I'd done before don't work now four years later.

Anyway, this came up because I'd been reading on bike forums about people going on tours and either gaining weight or just not losing any because their eating gets out of control. I can't reallllly imagine over doing it on cereal, yogurt and peanut butter and jelly, but you never know!

[lovelygamer]

Reesha, You certainly look fit. I know what you mean about weighing more and being more fit too-that definitely happens. Sometimes, we get too "inside" of our heads about the number on the scale when in reality our bodies are healthy and happy. This might surprise some but for me, I used to be 300 lbs so 215 is really not so bad however, I was down to 185 two years ago and I need to get there for health's sake. Large people run in my family. My brother is 6'7" and 350 lbs. I am probably the most athletic person in my whole family.

Aren't you going to average 80 miles a day on your tour? Even at medium intensity that's a lot of exertion. I would think you wouldn't gain either, unless you got totally out of control on calories and fat. I think fattening liquid drinks are one thing that it's easy to lose control of. I constantly battle with myself to cut them down or out of my diet.

I'm determined to just keep at it. Eventually, something will shift. I just know it. As they say "energy begets energy" and how can you go wrong there?

[Crankin]

I've been on 3-4 tours, none of them as long or as many daily miles as your ride across the US. While I have never gained weight, I don't lose, either, despite the fact the daily mileage and climbing is more than what I'd be doing at home. Eating is a major part of the tours I've been on and like you, I get ravenously hungry from that level of intensity. Sometimes, when I am riding 40-60 miles a day, with lots of hard climbing, I have trouble eating lunch, especially when it's hot out. I've found that I need to to eat more, in little bits, as I ride, and then eat a small lunch with nothing that will upset my stomach. I can't sit around and have lattes, or beer :eek:, as other riders I've been with do.
My attitude is enjoy the trip, you've earned it, so to speak. Your main thing should be to fuel your body for the work it's going to be doing. You can back to your regular plan when you get home.

[Reesha]

My family is predisposed to curvyness on both sides-- my mom's side the women and men are built like linebackers (tall, heavy boned) and on my dad's they are much shorter but are curvy and mediterranean.

One of the reasons I am worried about this is that I want to be ten lbs or so lighter for the next racing season-- it just makes a big difference, especially in climbing and ESPECIALLY trying to keep up with skinny teenagers on bikes. If I can lose those lbs on this tour, I will have fewer problems maintaining it when I get back. Maintaining is easy for me when I am riding lots. Losing is not.

It's incredible that you've lost so much weight-- I can't imagine the willpower that must take. I'm fortunate to only have to worry about ten to fifteen stubborn pounds and I really applaud you on your success so far. I am sure that bicycling will help you!

[Reesha]

I've been on 3-4 tours, none of them as long or as many daily miles as your ride across the US. While I have never gained weight, I don't lose, either, despite the fact the daily mileage and climbing is more than what I'd be doing at home. Eating is a major part of the tours I've been on and like you, I get ravenously hungry from that level of intensity. Sometimes, when I am riding 40-60 miles a day, with lots of hard climbing, I have trouble eating lunch, especially when it's hot out. I've found that I need to to eat more, in little bits, as I ride, and then eat a small lunch with nothing that will upset my stomach. I can't sit around and have lattes, or beer :eek:, as other riders I've been with do.
My attitude is enjoy the trip, you've earned it, so to speak. Your main thing should be to fuel your body for the work it's going to be doing. You can back to your regular plan when you get home.

Well, there's no question I will enjoy it. Thankfully I do not like coffee and alcohol and bicycling do not mix for me. Even if I cut back my calories slightly from what I'll be burning it will still look like 3000-5000 calories per day. That's a lot of food! I am still trying to wrap my head around that. I suppose the best people to ask would be previous Big Ride participants.

Thanks for the tips on fueling though. I will have my handlebar bag fully stocked with spare gu brew/accelerade and snacks.

After my 200 mile memorial day weekend, I can't really fathom not losing weight, but I'm just a little worried about it. I suppose the awareness might be all I need.

[lovelygamer]

Reesha, I won't say it was easy but I will tell you I had a surgical procedure oh, maybe five years ago? I still have control from that. Thank goodness for medical intervention, I was headed for diabetes and heart disease big time. You are going to ROCK this tour thing. Leave those pounds in-between the west and east coast somewhere. :)

btw, so they really do drink beer when out cycling? I had heard this recently and wondered if it was a big joke.

[Reesha]

Haha I have known some to stop and have a pint during a ride. I think during our ride there's a strict "after ride" alcohol policy :) I love beer, but any amount of alcohol the day before a ride really hits me hard.

[indysteel]

I lost weight on a tour that I did in 2007 for precisely the reason that Crankin mentioned. I had trouble eating lunch and didn't compensate enough with mid-ride snacks and at other meals. I loved how I looked when I got back (I got down to my lowest weight since 1996), but I also felt kind of puny, presumably because some of what I lost was muscle mass. So, that's my caution to you. Losing 10 pounds of fat sounds great; losing 10 pounds of muscle not so much. Plus, even with fat loss, it means that you aren't fully refueling your body. Doing that for a few days of riding doesn't sound so bad, but I wonder about the toll that it would take over the course of a cross country tour. I'm hoping that some of the ladies who do ultradistance events will chime in here with their perspective.

[Reesha]

Well our ride director basically told us that we will never really be able to eat enough, most due to stomach capacity and no one on the ride is really going to be eating a pile of junk every day. It's possible I'm worried about nothing.

I am bringing copious amounts of gu brew and accelerade as well as recoverite, and hopefully we'll be able to get a good amount of protein after. Lunch is usually unlimited PB + J. I guess this will be a grand 'experiment'. I won't be trying anything new really, but it will be interesting to see.

[Crankin]

Just wondering what they do for people like me who can't eat peanut butter?

I always bring my own soy nut butter sandwiches on the few charity things I do. Good thing I did on my one and only century. The only food was pbj and bananas.

[Reesha]

They are very accommodating! They have also promised almond butter, and I suspect that if someone was allergic to ground/tree nuts they would have an alternative for them too.

I'm glad they have almond butter on the trip, but I'm not a fan of almond butter + jelly sandwiches lol. I prefer almond butter with bananas or raw honey but I'm not sure we'll have those at lunch stops!

[Tri Girl]

I haven't read all the comments, but I'm going to answer.

For me, I think you get to a certain level and your body gets comfortable at the amount of training and it takes SO much more to drop any pounds.

I'm 5'3", 157 lbs (overweight by 10 lbs for a healthy me- my doc will wrongly say I need to lose 25- which I cannot maintain without starving myself).
Anyway- I've done 2 Ironman triathlons. I am currently training for a 3rd. I can't possibly train any more than I do. I eat a plant-based diet, so I don't eat junk. I have to eat to fuel. It's hard to over-eat on plants. :rolleyes:
I can't lose this 10 lbs to save my life. I need to. I'm still chubby in my thighs and my middle. I do strength training, cardio, yoga, and yet the pounds just don't fall away. I think that when you get to a certain level, it's really hard to do more to challenge your body.
When I first started working out and doing Weight Watchers, I dropped 30 lbs in 3 months. I was running for the first time and it just melted away. It's just not as easy now. I'm also 40, so age probably has something to do with it, too. It was much easier losing weight at 30 (and I know it only gets more difficult with age).

Just my thoughts on what I observe from me.

[Giulianna23]

I started commuting to work a few days ago and I also get extremely hungry during the morning after my ride and in the evening when I get home ...way more than ussual..so I don't know If thats going to affect my weight. I am not really into a strict diet but I do try to snack on healthy stuff and eat healthy. Maybe every other day I eat things I shouldnt but hey I am human :) ...

[Reesha]

Giulianna, I keep greek yogurt, bananas and honey at work for after my 11 mile commute to work. Is there a fridge anywhere you can do this? Alternatively you could wrap up an egg, ham, and cheese sammy in foil and take it with you. I've done that before too. Both always tide me over til lunch.

[Reesha]

I haven't read all the comments, but I'm going to answer.

For me, I think you get to a certain level and your body gets comfortable at the amount of training and it takes SO much more to drop any pounds.

I'm 5'3", 157 lbs (overweight by 10 lbs for a healthy me- my doc will wrongly say I need to lose 25- which I cannot maintain without starving myself).
Anyway- I've done 2 Ironman triathlons. I am currently training for a 3rd. I can't possibly train any more than I do. I eat a plant-based diet, so I don't eat junk. I have to eat to fuel. It's hard to over-eat on plants. :rolleyes:
I can't lose this 10 lbs to save my life. I need to. I'm still chubby in my thighs and my middle. I do strength training, cardio, yoga, and yet the pounds just don't fall away. I think that when you get to a certain level, it's really hard to do more to challenge your body.
When I first started working out and doing Weight Watchers, I dropped 30 lbs in 3 months. I was running for the first time and it just melted away. It's just not as easy now. I'm also 40, so age probably has something to do with it, too. It was much easier losing weight at 30 (and I know it only gets more difficult with age).

Just my thoughts on what I observe from me.

I would definitely agree with this. I need to strongly modify my diet to get results (like going very low carb-- heck I even did raw vegan for a while)... and that works, but it's not sustainable for my training volume. We'll see how we do this summer!

[lovelygamer]

I started commuting to work a few days ago and I also get extremely hungry during the morning after my ride and in the evening when I get home ...way more than ussual..so I don't know If thats going to affect my weight. I am not really into a strict diet but I do try to snack on healthy stuff and eat healthy. Maybe every other day I eat things I shouldnt but hey I am human :) ...

I second what Reesha said. Keep those healthy foods around because when you first start commuting-gosh the hunger is INSANE. I just got over that hump in the last two weeks. I'd say for the first three weeks I ate everything in sight and was constantly starving. I've adjusted back down and learned to keep healthy foods around me at all times. The worst thing you can do is be unexpectedly hungry and only have a vending machine nearby.

[Giulianna23]

Giulianna, I keep greek yogurt, bananas and honey at work for after my 11 mile commute to work. Is there a fridge anywhere you can do this? Alternatively you could wrap up an egg, ham, and cheese sammy in foil and take it with you. I've done that before too. Both always tide me over til lunch.


I second what Reesha said. Keep those healthy foods around because when you first start commuting-gosh the hunger is INSANE. I just got over that hump in the last two weeks. I'd say for the first three weeks I ate everything in sight and was constantly starving. I've adjusted back down and learned to keep healthy foods around me at all times. The worst thing you can do is be unexpectedly hungry and only have a vending machine nearby.

Thanks for your input..and yes we do have a refrigerator at work and I went to the grocery store nexto door and bought some multigrain bars , some fruit and baby carrots , yogurt and jell-o to snack on in between meals.

[Reesha]

Personally a higher protein content helps keep me satiated between meals. Greek yogurt with 8+ g of protein is good. Two eggs is really good. Man those will keep you full for hours! (I learned that the hard way on an 85 mile ride-- wasn't hungry for four full hours even though I was riding hard)

[chatnoire]

They are very accommodating! They have also promised almond butter, and I suspect that if someone was allergic to ground/tree nuts they would have an alternative for them too.

I'm glad they have almond butter on the trip, but I'm not a fan of almond butter + jelly sandwiches lol. I prefer almond butter with bananas or raw honey but I'm not sure we'll have those at lunch stops!


I am allergic to peanuts, and I've never been able to stomach the other butters, like almond, cashew, sunflower seed, etc. Something about it being too similar to peanut butter puts my instincts on high alert and I can't eat them.

I eat cashews and almonds straight though.

This conversation is great, because it's something I've been obsessively worrying about. I've dropped 14 pounds so far this season, with calorie counting, riding, cardio on off days, and now I'm picking up weights for strength and resistance training - but I don't want to be big and bulky, just strong and lean, and not fat. I'm *technically* just fine, but I still feel bigger than I want to be, you know? But I want to 1) avoid over eating post ride and 2) properly recover post ride for muscle building for performance (but not bulk).

I've been thinking I should get a trainer for a couple sessions, despite not racing or anything yet. I'd like to get to a point that I could say "yes, here is my fitness baseline, and now I can push myself to much more productivity for racing" (or endurance, or whatever).

I do notice that I'm not as ravenous post ride as I was at the start of the season. I've been eating things like fish and veggies, not so much with the white carbs (except for sushi today! NOM!) and cutting down on the beer and salty foods. Still - I'd like to feel strong and raring to go each time I get on my bike, and I don't always feel like that...partly because I am uncertain about the food in/energy out equation, and partly because I forget, early on the ride, that I love the feeling of riding.

[azfiddle]

I lost a lot of weight when I first started riding and was tracking faithfully on weight watchers. I would sometimes have an after-ride mocha but would not eat pastries, ice cream etc. I was only riding about 15-25 miles most of the time and didn't need to refuel too much on the rides.

Now I ride further and like Mimi said, am often really hungry even on days I don't ride. It's a balancing act. I eat extra if I know I'm going to ride a long way on consecutive days, and I'm still really hungry on the next day.

So I can't seem to get rid of 5 lbs that crept back on, but I'm not actually gaining weight back even though I'm not quite as careful about tracking.

[Crankin]

Chatnoire, I am just like you; in my head I start thinking I'm reacting to walnut or almond butter, so I stopped eating it! I *do* use soy nut butter, but only a certain brand, called Simple Foods. It's made locally here in MA, but you can order it on line. It's made my life a lot easier when I have to take a sandwich on a ride. And, it tastes good. I eat a lot of nuts, though, and they really have helped me maintain my weight loss.
I also lost a lot of weight when I started riding. I had been thin, at the same weight for many years, when I started gaining and getting burned out on the exercise I was doing previously about 2 years before I started riding. I wasn't huge, but about 15-20 pounds heavier than I am now. It was not boding well for the future. I've been able to maintain this for 10+ years, but it's only been recently that I've gotten below my "set point" and I seem to have reset my body by changing my eating habits a bit. For me, it's all about upping the protein and limiting the carbs, especially white flour products. I won't say I never eat it, but, it's pretty limited.

[rocknrollgirl]

I have not been on here in AGES and I pop on this morning and see a dragging out of one of my old threads. It made me smile.

So I will update. I am not longer racing off road triathlons. I am now raing on the road and have moved up to the half ironman distance. My hubs and I just did Mooseman 70.3 two weeks ago. Our first mdot race and his first 70.3

While we trained together this winter, he lost 10 pounds that he did not need to lose and I gained 3. HA! I love being a girl.

Those few pounds hung around all winter and then disappeared after the race. Go figure.

I think it is even harder to stay on the straight and narrow now that I have moved up to this distance. The long rides and runs make me very hungry. We were very careful this winter to refuel with healthy food.

So four years later...I still have no answers! I shudder to think what will happen to the beast that is my appetite if i make the next step up to a full.

[Tri Girl]

I have not been on here in AGES and I pop on this morning and see a dragging out of one of my old threads. It made me smile.

I never looked at the original date on the thread. Funny that it was 5 years old! :)

Yeah, that monster of an appetite gets hard to deal with while training for a full (for me). You have to eat SO MUCH fruits and veggies to fill up and get enough calories (and sometimes all that eating gets exhausting). Why is it so much easier to fill up on calories with crap food? And when I eat healthy I'm hungry every hour or two. ;) C'est la vie!

Congrats on Mooseman! Way to go you two!! :)

[rocknrollgirl]

Congrats on Mooseman! Way to go you two!! :)


Tough day, we had horrible weather. Everyone that finished this year is a winner.

[Bethany1]

So how do glycogen, calories, fat and muscle work together? How do you know if you depleting muscle mass or fat? Does oxygen play a role in this as well?

Great topic.