Gaining weight after a long ride?

[tctrek]

I think I am going crazy and I need to ask if this happens to anyone else. I am 56 years old and this is my second season of riding a road bike. I workout at the gym every day. Cardio + resistance training. I eat around 1500 calories a day - 50-60% carbs, 30% Protein - 20% fat. During the week, I do cardio at 65% of my maximum heart rate, which should be fat burning zone. On the weekends, I ride on the road and spend about 30% of every ride in a high heart rate - 90% of max.

That's the background. Here's the problem - every weekend, I go into it weighing 2-3 pounds less than I come out of it. I don't over-eat or eat "bad" foods on the weekend. The main difference is that I ride my bike 50-60 miles each day of the weekend and workout really hard. I may go into the weekend weighing 140 pounds and come out of it weighing as much as 144 pounds!! Then I go to the gym all week long and slowly it comes back down... just in time for the weekend and then it goes back up!!

My husband says it is water gain, but surely with the amount of exercise that I do and the sensible way that I eat, I should be losing weight, not gaining it!!!

The irony of it is that if I stopped working out and stopped riding my bike, I would lose weight. Before I started riding, I lost 30 pounds. As soon as I started exercising, I became unable to lose anymore weight.

And no, I am not losing inches either! So, it's not that I'm gaining muscle and losing fat.

Holy cow... I am losing my sanity. I've been one year at the same weight even though I am more fit and eating better than I ever have in my life.

Any ideas?

[maillotpois]

Are you sure you are (1) fueling yourself enough while you are on the bike and (2) not over fueling yourself once the ride is over?

In order to ride well and not go into a starvation mode, you need to be sure you are getting at least 250 - 300 calories per hour ON THE BIKE. While you are riding. When you are done, you need about 400 - 500 calories of a good quality recovery food.

Beyond that, really watch what you are eating and be sure that you are not approaching your weekends as a free for all "because I'm doing these long rides". Be honest with what you are eating while you are off the bike.

I used to have a very similar story to yours. Weekends/long rides would cause a bit of a weight gain. Then something finally clicked. I started eating MORE on the bike and LESS the evening after the ride, etc. I have lost 11 pounds of FAT (per body comp tests performed by the same guy) in 2 months. I have stopped (for the most part - no one's perfect) saying to myself "Oh it's OK. I can eat this entire pizza because I had a long ride this weekend."

[tctrek]

Hmmm... I do eat while riding, but definitely not 250-300 calories per hour. And I do eat quite a bit after the ride, although it's not junk food.

It's certainly worth a try... at this point, I'm desperate to figure it out.

I go to Lifetime Fitness gym and they have a philosophy of "eating your exercise calories". In other words, say 1200 calories is what you need to lose weight. And your workout burns 500 calories. They want you to eat 1700 calories on that day -- 1200 + your exercise.

I tried that for about 6 months and didn't lose a pound. Now I'm trying to just stick with 1300-1500 calories a day. Except on long ride days when I eat more... but the "more" is definitely after the ride and not during the ride.

I'll try it next weekend and see how it goes.

[ny biker]

How tall are you?

I always gain weight after a long ride, but it's water, so it's gone within a day or so.

My trainer told me to forget about the "fat burning zone" for cardio workouts. Interval training that gets you up to a higher heart rate is better. A lower percentage of the calories you burn might be fat, but you'll burn more calories overall, and as a result will burn a larger total number of fat calories.

[jobob]

MP's point is to get those calories in during or immediately after the ride.

Eating those exercise calories is important - but the timing is important as well. If you wait until later to ingest those calories, the benefits from all that exercise are going to diminish. Those are the calories that wind up on your gut or on your butt.

I'm in your same situation. I managed to gain about 6 pounds in the last few months but I've been falling into that "I burned thousands of calories today so I can eat whatever I want this evening" trap.

But by not eating enough during and immediately after the ride, what I've been doing is effectively putting my body into a short-term starvation mode, so that when I did pig out later in the day my metabolism did not burn those calories but instead converted them into fat.

As a result, I found out yesterday that my body fat percentage is 33.9. Gaaaahhhhhhhh.

So I'm going to take mp's advice and load up on the calories right before, during, and within about 30 minutes after my rides, and go easy on the pigouts thereafter.

Check out this article. While it's geared towards runners rather than cyclists, the concepts are similar.

http://www.enduranceptc.com/images//weightlossmd.pdf

[maillotpois]

Ah - Dixon's article. That does put it really well. The idea of breaking it into the fueling and nutrition windows really simplifies things. sadly, my nutrition window really needs to lose some wine and beer.

[tctrek]

Thanks for the article! I'm reading it now. I had my body fat tested last week where you go into the tank of water -- it's the gold standard for calculating body fat. I'm 5'2" and 140 pounds. My doctor tells me I'm 26% body fat, but this test says that I'm 34.8%.... There's 50 pounds of fat on me and it's all in my torso! I have lean, muscular legs, almost no hips or butt, muscular arms and big everything else!! Maddening. This all happened in menopause when I found out I was apple shaped. I've been a normal weight all my life and I just don't know what to do with this fat!

Anyway - just reading this makes perfect sense - I need to eat my calories closer to the actual exercise timeframe. I can't imagine this old body is burning fat for too long after exercise.

I'll let you know how if it works!

[Karma007]

Ah - Dixon's article. That does put it really well. The idea of breaking it into the fueling and nutrition windows really simplifies things. sadly, my nutrition window really needs to lose some wine and beer.

I feel your pain! My recovery meal on Saturday was leftover pizza and a beer. You are not alone.

[katluvr]

Ah - Dixon's article. That does put it really well. The idea of breaking it into the fueling and nutrition windows really simplifies things. sadly, my nutrition window really needs to lose some wine and beer.

Yep, I agree about that. I made a mistake early in my introduction to a biking lifestyle and did a bike vacation. Everytime we got off the bike at the end of the day we went to the cooler and grabbed a beer. Now it is like Pavlov's dog...biking = beer!

I need to check out that article. I am also trying to read the Zone--since it appears elite atheletes do this one. Beginning of book is VERY dry!

[beccaB]

I think I am going crazy and I need to ask if this happens to anyone else. I am 56 years old and this is my second season of riding a road bike. I workout at the gym every day. Cardio + resistance training. I eat around 1500 calories a day - 50-60% carbs, 30% Protein - 20% fat. During the week, I do cardio at 65% of my maximum heart rate, which should be fat burning zone. On the weekends, I ride on the road and spend about 30% of every ride in a high heart rate - 90% of max.

That's the background. Here's the problem - every weekend, I go into it weighing 2-3 pounds less than I come out of it. I don't over-eat or eat "bad" foods on the weekend. The main difference is that I ride my bike 50-60 miles each day of the weekend and workout really hard. I may go into the weekend weighing 140 pounds and come out of it weighing as much as 144 pounds!! Then I go to the gym all week long and slowly it comes back down... just in time for the weekend and then it goes back up!!

My husband says it is water gain, but surely with the amount of exercise that I do and the sensible way that I eat, I should be losing weight, not gaining it!!!

The irony of it is that if I stopped working out and stopped riding my bike, I would lose weight. Before I started riding, I lost 30 pounds. As soon as I started exercising, I became unable to lose anymore weight.

And no, I am not losing inches either! So, it's not that I'm gaining muscle and losing fat.

Holy cow... I am losing my sanity. I've been one year at the same weight even though I am more fit and eating better than I ever have in my life.

Any ideas?

I do that. gain weight after a hard ride. I am on the "Curves" diet and have lost 7 pounds. I'm curious to see what will happen once bike weather comes here (consistently) I don't feel deprived like on previous diets, and haven't felt that "crash and burn" feeling either.

[ny biker]

You know, this is very interesting. Every article and book I've read about nutrition for cycling and other endurance activities assumes you will lose weight after a ride. I thought there was something wrong with me because I always weigh more after a long ride than before it.

It's good to know that I'm not the only one who experiences this.

[shootingstar]

Seems my eating habits for cycling have changed over the years.

10 years ago, I used to cycle for 15-20 kms. with only 1 c. of juice or milk before eating something more.

Now for breakfast, I have 1/2 -1 c. of milky oatmeal and fruit or tea. Cycle fine for up to approx. 35 kms. which includes several long hills. Then I must eat something like a small bun or pastry or fruit plus drink something (coffee, natural juice). Before continuing onward for another 35-40 kms. After this segment must eat some more, approx. same amount of food as before or abit less. Depends on immediate availability. So a 75-100 kms. ride does mean about 3 little different snack times, with 1 of them being almost a light lunch-size. If I know I am starting off a long ride 4-6 hrs. long, that will not give me enough stopping time or there just won't be enough places to get proper food along the way, then I will eat a bigger breakfast. With 1/2-1 hr. pause afterwards before starting off on bike.

But I don't have any of the sport drinks, bars. Really, it's pretty rare for me to buy and carry granola bars around.

And I don't eat anything while I'm biking. I prefer not to. Would like to digest my food properly off-bike.

If it's cold weather, ie. today was several degrees F below freezing, then tend to eat abit more for breakfast with some warm food in tummy.

[Veronica]

Well, gee I guess my body knew what it was doing.

Sustained energy for breakfast... yummy.

Veronica

[ny biker]

Most of the time, my pre-ride breakfast is Eggo nutri-grain waffles. Lots of carbs, not too heavy, not a lot of fiber to cause GI issues.

For longer rides, I bring 1 packet of gu per 10 miles, plus 1 for good luck (I usually can't tolerate solid food during a ride.). For rides longer than 2 hours, I have one 20 oz. bottle of gatorade, otherwise I drink water. For really long rides, I have 2 bottles of gatorade plus water.

I read Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook back in 2001, and used that as a starting point for figuring out what and how much to eat.

Immediately post-ride, I drink orange juice. Other post-ride nutrition varies depending on where I am (home or in a parking lot somewhere), but I try to lean towards a mix of carbs and protein with not too much fat. Smoothies, cereal with milk, or a cheese sandwich are good. After a really hard ride I'll have Kashi Heart to Heart cereal, which has lots of antioxidants.

If I ride 60 miles or more, I treat myself to dinner at Five Guys (awesome cheeseburgers and fries).

By the way, re: Hammergel or other gel for breakfast, I used to know a guy who did lots of inline skating. For his pre-skate breakfast, he put vanilla gu in his coffee.

[shootingstar]

Dr. Misner suggests the athlete “leave
three hours minimum to digest foods
eaten at breakfast. After breakfast,
drink 10-12 ounces of fluid each hour
up to 30 minutes prior to the start
(24-30 ounces total fluid intake).”

I'm still trying to digest this observation. Presumably he means the calorie expenditure from that breakfast will occur approx. 3 hrs. after it's been eaten.

I consider myself lucky to have at least half hr. rest time after breakfast before jumping onto bike.