Want to lose a stone and improve fitness at the same time, don't get the opportunity to ride every week but have gym access.

How? Eat healthier. How long will it take? Give me an axe and you'll lose weight pretty quickly. Which limb do you like the least? 😉

Eat less,exercise more. Don't eat in the evenings. It's all common sense.

7-8 weeks could see you a stone lghter. 1000 calories deficit per day. You may not keep it off, you may lose performance (muscle atrophy) and you may not feel great for the duration.
A much better idea would be take longer losing it and lose it by slowly increasing activity and gradually changing your diet to a more healthy regime if it's not the best at the moment.
Try to match your diet intake to fuel the activties your going to ask your body to carry out.
"Don't eat in the evenings" Why do you say that youngdaveriley?

I lost half a stone last summer doing three or four, three-hour to four-hour bike rides a week. And my legs got massive:) That took 5 weeks.

However I put that back on and have since lost it due to breaking up with my wife.

I also lost a stone in 6 weeks in Thailand. The food was 3/4 rice 1/8 veg and sauce and 1/8th meat/ fish. Eating like that plus mega food poisoning and loads of walking saw my mum feed me back up on the scottish portions of 3/4 meat 1/8 salt 1/8 deep fried something or other.

I heartily recommend option one over options two and three:)

Monksie, a riding mate of mine is a keen roadie.He's a big,strong lad(no lard). He was talking to the Nutrionist at work,about diet/losing weight and she said to stop eating at night(cos you tend not burn off the calories). He's lost a stone without altering his intake,just the timing.

This worked for me.

1. Move house.
2. Birth of child.
3. Wife and child catching infection with 20-50% mortality rate.
4. Cut down on drinking for 6 months.

For best results do them all at the same time. 😀

Probably best just to try 4. though.

Run a 500 cal per day deficit and you should lose a pound a week.

I've just lost half a stone over about 7 weeks but that includes cycling 5-6 hours a week.

If there is a stationary bike in the gym you go to I suggest you get on that and bang out 2 x 20 min intervals 2-3 times a week if you aren't riding outside.

Cut down on the booze and stickies as well.

Just managed to do just this after months of trying. It is not easy. There had to be some sort of mental shift for me around food as major change in habits was needed, but quickly found that I did not need to eat as much (often eating out of boredom at work etc). Also have increased mileage when I do ride. Don't have gym membership, but have also used Wii fit to monitor progress and add some more exercise as it is easy to fit in when I have a spare 30 mins or so. Feel much better and now working on losing a bit more….Good luck!

YDR. Ask for a detailed explanation of how that works. It doesn't make sense mate. The calores go in and don't go anywhere until they're used up or stored and used up or not at a later date.
500 calores in at lunchtime wlll be exactly the same as 500 calories going in at 9:00pm (unless of course the 500 calories in at 9:00pm is in addition to the 500 calories at lunchtime – that would be 1000 calories :-).
It's as simple as basic maths. Amount in – amount used up – amount left over.
Subtle temporary changes to metabolc rate and homostasis aside (based on somatatypes) your body will do what it wlll do with the basic formula of amount in -v- amount used.
The legendary breakfast like a king, lunch like a merchant, dinner like a pauper always makes me smile. Almost sounds like something out of a fairy tale. It should certanly be treated as one.

I used to be able to lose half a stone in a week in my much much younger days. Diet coke and Malboro Lights worked a charm !

But seriously you are better losing it slowly, if you are combining it with training you will just make yourself ill otherwise, and where will that get you. More fruit and veg, less processed rubbish and sugar, eat carbs before and after exercise. Drink loads of water.

He was talking to the Nutrionist at work,about diet/losing weight and she said to stop eating at night(cos you tend not burn off the calories).

Eating at night being any worse is a myth, a fact probably backed up by the info coming from a nutritionist and not someone with actual qualifications like a dietician .

Eat carefully, exercise a bit, don't drink, and it's pretty easy to lose a pound a week. I try to get 3 hours a week on a bike / an exercise bike (that's 3 hours of actual riding), and bit of other excercise thrown in (mainly weights, situps, rowing machine etc.). And when I exercise, I go for it, no half measures – time myself on the road bike, follow the same route and try to be faster each time.

My diet is fairly sensible – home made granola (porridge, honey, nuts) with fruit and yoghurt or toast for breakfasts, soup or a sandwich for lunch (always with some meat or fish in) and a dinner with some protein, fruit and veg, yoghurt or fromage frais for pud. In terms of snacks, no crisps or biscuits in the house, but stuff like 2 finger kit-kats, fun size bars etc. so you can have something sweet if you fancy it, without comsuming 300 kcals.

Alcohol is a fantastic thing to cut out, it's very easy to consume lots of calories in the form of drink without realising, and snacks almost always seem to follow.

Oh, and I drink loads of milk. There's no marg, and very little ready made stuff in my diet. Only real concession to diet food is light mayo. I'm never walking about the place starving hungry either.

I don't subscribe to any of this no carbs, no eating at night rubbish. I have plenty of carbs, plenty of protein but try to avoid fat – read the labels on stuff before I buy it. Fat is hugely dense in calories – one of those little packs of mayo you get in a pub is about 70kcal. Any sauce in a ready meal / chain pub meal is likely to be full of fat, vinegar , sugar and salt. I did a brief stint working in a food lab, and that is the recipe for anything that needs a long shelf life.

Can't repeat enough, eat less & exercise more. Cutting down/out alcohol makes BIG difference. I've lost almost 2 st since Christmas mainly through stopping drinking and reducing portion sizes, not been this weight for ~10 years!

Anybody want the Endura Singletrack & Spesh enduro XL baggies I bought this time last year? Too big for me now!

What worked and is still working for me, is to cut out caffeine, white bread (currently only on wholemeal pittas) potatoes, pasta, (subbed with spelt pasta), as well as refined sugars, and ensuring i eat a good breakfast, normally porridge and fruit, carb based lunch, pittas and houmous with salad, and a good dinner, meat/fish/poultry with salad, occasional glass of wine, bottle of red opened on a friday night will still be on the go on sunday evening, that and upping my riding, darkside saturday (min 45 miles), mtb sunday normally 3 hours, that and mid week pilates for core strength and a swim another night, i don't get a lot of free time in the evenings.

Thanks to the artist formally known as Foxychick (Angela) for the heads up and push in the right direction

I eat fairly healthily – I have put weight on since having our daughter 3 months ago and i have cut drinking – unintentionally – to the odd pint or 2 here and there. once every 3-4 weeks at the mo!
Started riding the short journey to work, don't laugh but 5 mins each way 4 times a day and i try and sprint it as fast as possible! I may try and start running again in the space i have when i get in at 6 until baby's bath at 7, she's in bed for 8 but usually to tired from work to go to the gym at that time, maybe i need to push myself to do that.
Hopefully will be able to fit some riding in every other Saturday if i'm lucky.

@Ron Jeremy:

How does cutting caffeine help?* Also what is spelt pasta?

*Genuinely interested.

I`ve lost 1 1/2 stone since January.
Its been mainly a case of common sense stuff like reading labels on food,cutting out between meal snacks and cutting out booze.
I am also training for my first triathlon,which has been,great as it has given me further incentive to lose weight and to train more.

Monksie,I can't give details.I took what he told me in good faith. He's a physiotherapist,a serious road racer. He wanted to lose a stone and that's how he did it. As an aside,he doesn't drink alcohol and is incredibly fit. When he comes mountain biking,he gives us a good kicking.

@ Jamie, for me caffiene was a big part of my diet (sometimes 4/5 double espresso's in a morning), I found that I was drinking that instead of eating food during the day, so when I was getting home and sometimes mid afternoon I was getting a major crash/craving so I decided to cut it out, felt like crap to start with as my body adjusted to the lack of caffiene, but drank more water than usual and herbal teas, Rooibois is a favourite, now I don't even miss coffee, did some research and found a fair bit of info like this as well, but it's alldown to what works for you, and I must admit I do feel better for it.
As for spelt I find it doesn't bloat me like white pasta does, I was introduced to it by a friend who was coeliac, and I now prefer the taste. Next time your shopping pick up a pack and give it a go.

Monksie you are right

He was talking to the Nutrionist at work,

anyone calls themselves a nutritionist be very careful. Some are good but in the main they are dangerous charlatans. Anyone can call themselves a nutritionist – you need no qualifications whatsoever and they are responsible for some of the funniest "bad science"

My son lost a stone yesterday. Dead upset he was. Fortunately he found another nice one a bit later on.

Eat raw chicken.

Tj – for once I agree with you!!! 😉

aracer – you should be on stage…….sweeping up.

Here you go a health nut who wrote a book my partner just read has said just stop eating suger and white flour products! This helps balance your blood suger and of cause will help drop you weight toother than that as people have said eat good balance'd foods and ride, gym more.
Good look.
Batman11.

Use a calorie counter, easy if you have an iphone or android phone but otherwise there must be free ones online.

I used one for a couple of weeks as a colleague was teasing me that I ate too much, turned out I was eating between 2200 to 2800 calories a day, but fat/protein/carbs all within guidelines, it changed my eating habits and made me realise I was eating out of habit/boredom most of the time.

Also an eye opener – surprising when you see that a big bowl of bran flakes and a few bits of toast can have more calories than a reasonable cafe fry-up!

I'm lucky that my BMI is bang in the middle of healthy, but I consider myself a little podgy so still keep an eye on my trouser size 🙂

I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you. A work mate has lost 15lbs in two weeks and is still dropping nicely. I'm still dropping 1-2lbs a week 😀

work on a crack cocaine habit – once you get going its rather easy to keep motivated – moustache friendly too

😉

Change the way you eat and go Primal

Have a look here

Primal Blueprint 101

Basically a low carb diet which has worked well for me and a few mates (just make sure you eat carbs when you need them before and during rides)

Qwerty-So that's how you got a cx bike round the SSEC10! 😀

Really good article on the healthy way to loose fat

Big dump?