Quote Originally Posted by Pedal Wench View Post
I wonder if your exercise is intense enough to provide weight loss. I used to spend hours on the treadmill, but once I got a heart rate monitor, I realized that I was going to slow to get much of a benefit. Once I upped the intensity, on the treadmill and on the bike, I burned the calories I needed to burn.

This is a valid point. I think if you can use a treadmill to jog on it, you can get the heart rate up. I can't because I am lame in the left foot. I found that in order to get my heart rate barely into the fat burning zone I have to push the elevation all the way to 8 and the speed to 4, and of course I risk tearing tendons on my lame foot with the treadmill positioned like that. It is the same for walking outside with the dogs too. Walking used to be my cardio, but now I have to go up and down the steep hills for two hours or more in order to burn any significant calories; if I walk on moderately flat ground my heart rate doesn't go up. The only activity that gets my heart rate up and burns calories is the long-distance cycling.

Also, Donna, in your initial post you used the word "cheat." That is really a dieting word, for people who like to join corporate diet groups. Long term weight loss is best achieved by permanently changing food and exercise behaviors, and if one doesn't eat perfectly for a day or two, it merely gets absorbed into the week's average. Also, losing weight and getting fit is mostly a solitary journey, an individual experience, and that is found to be the common denominator among people who have lost a lot of weight and kept it off for over 5 years; the lightbulb clicked over their head that the journey was not about yo-yoing on different diets, but permanently changing the behaviors, and that it came from within and was a uniquely individual experience for each person as they taught themselves how to react and cope with the emotions, stress and responsibilities of their daily lives with respect to nutritional intake and daily exercise.

I speak from experience. I may say I haven't lost weight in awhile, and the body composition test says I have 40 pounds of fat to lose, but I am a person who used to weigh in excess of 300 pounds, and I can tell you with certainty that my lean body mass was certainly not 145 pounds back then. Therefore I am delighted that I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that it is down to the final 40 pounds for me. I've had the majority of my weight off now for about 4 years, so I am on the countdown to the magical 5 year number.

Also, weight gain is normal during weight loss. I've learned to live with long plateaus and unexpected weight gains. As I said, use the tape measure, and stop using the scale.

Darcy