Heart rate monitors, and Ride Yourself Lean

[rollinat]

I do weight watchers and I find cycling very hard to track. Always go on the low end. I track my rides as low intensity, even though, realistically, they are medium based on HR and sweat loss. I try not to eat my exercise points, unless it was a long ride day. Eating healthier, like avoiding soda, drinking more water and picking better snacks (string cheese, handful of nuts, fruit, yogurt) has made the biggest difference in my weight loss. Cycling alone doesnt keep it off (for me). It is a motivating factor--losing weight and eating healthier give me more energy for riding--and riding makes me feel like eating healthier

Good luck on your goals

Thanks - sounds like you're doing really well. I do try to eat pretty healthily, and I definitely find that the more I exercise the better I eat, and mentally I feel so much better - actually, the mental benefits are my main motivation for exercising and eating better, the weight loss and looking better are a nice bonus.

This is good advice. Also make certain your HRM is set with your current weight. I do use the calories from my HRM report - but automatically knock off about 15% of the calories. If you can fit in any kind of strength training that would be helpful as well. Muscle burns more calories and will also help you on the bike.

Right now I am frustrated by a weight plateau...but I keep slogging away at all of the above. With my activity level I am not about to cut back on calories any more than I have.

Thank you too - I am getting back into strength training too, my OH and I made it to week 8 of P90X a couple of months ago and will start again soon and make it all the way to the end! Hope your plateau ends soon.

Strength training is a great idea and if you want to increase your calorie burn on the bike, push yourself with some intervals or a couple of challenging hills. The key is to keep your body on its toes, so it's forced to do work and not plateau because your ride is predictable. Good luck!

And thanks to you as well. The Ride Yourself Lean program includes intervals so that will be good for me. As for hills, we live in Colorado so no shortage of those! I will know when I have got fitter when I can manage to cycle straight out of our house without dying! - I tend to go to trails which aren't as hilly right from the word go.

Oops, missed out surgtech - well done on your weight loss, very impressive, especially with a broken ankle. I've lost 60lbs but it's taken me longer than you. I've done WW in the past but now I use Sparkpeople.com - it is a supportive site with the huge advantage that it's free!

Thanks again all - I'll let you all know how I get on!