With respect to cycling and losing weight, we can classify our calories to 1) calories consumed on the bike, 2) calories consumed off the bike and 3)calories burned while on the bike.

If you are an active cyclist who is counting calories and trying to lose weight, my question is how many calories do you eat per day and do you count your bike calories as part of the total?

I ask this question to see if there is a better method for what I am doing. I am sincerely interested to learn what others do, particularly because it takes a lot of diligence to eat nutritionally so as to replace the nutrients the body burns while cycling. I want to avoid diseases brought on in my senior years due to not eating enough nutrients because of my cycling.

I have to look at my weekly average, not my daily average, because of the days when exceptional amounts of calories are burned. I have total calories consumed (including bike food), less calories burned on the bike, and that leaves Net Calories Consumed. It is this weekly average that I keep around 1200. I use a HRM to estimate calories burned because it is more accurate than any chart.

I am wondering if the 1200 should be lower. The reason is on my longer rides I may burn 2500 calories or more and it can be difficult to eat enough to get the weekly average to hover around 1200.

I should say I am losing inches, but the scale doesn’t move much. I suspect I’ve burned out the fat around the organs, which is critically important to long-term health, and I believe I’ve burned the fat out that marbles the muscles, and so I am left with surface fat. The doctor says I reversed my hypertension and insulin insensitivity.

Please tell me what you are doing and if you are having any success, and maybe we call all learn from each other and adapt our own procedures for how we calculate our calories.

Darcy