I just coming back from an illness where I lost 1 1/2 stone, which to be honest has probably left me at my ideal weight. I’ve been steady at that weight now for 4 weeks or so without execising and just eating my normal diet.

I’ve always had a high metabolic rate, and if I dont eat enough regularly I start to go shaky and unable to function. Biking and exercise only makes this worse.

I know all the eat less, loose weight, but that doesnt work for me as it would leave me unable to function. I did start eating porridge before going out for rides, which has made a huge difference during the ride, but I would still basically have a slightly larger meal than normal when back from a ride, as this would stop me getting too low on energy.

So what should I be doing differently, my diet cant be that bad as I am currently not put weight on. What food should I be eating post exercise that will keep my energy levels up, but not put the weight on?

Ta

Eating healthily and eating not to put on weight are too different things.

Excellent article here

Swedish – Thanks thats an good article, and very relavant to none cyclist too!

From reading it, I’m probably not doing too much wrong, but in reality I probably am eating smaller portions now then when I have been biking, I obviously need to be carefull when I start biking again and only have the bigger portions on days when I am exercising, where as before I would probably keep portion size at the higher level.

Any other thoughts welcome too though!

Become an iDave convert like the rest of us.

Dont panic if you do put some weight on, muscle tissue is heavier than fat and people often panic when they start exercising and the scales tell them they are getting ‘fatter’….they arent, they’re losing fatty tissue and building muscle tissue….a good thing.

My advice would be to abandon the scales altogether and gauge your diet and body composition on how you feel and what the mirror tells you….if your body starts to look softer then scale back on the food and/or exercise more….if you start to look emaciated then increase your food intake and/or scale the exercise back slightly.

Excellent advice deviant. Scales can become defeating after a while.

Smaller portions more often does it for me. I eat a lot less in one sitting now than I did 10-15 years ago when I was twenty something.

Dont panic if you do put some weight on, muscle tissue is heavier than fat and people often panic when they start exercising and the scales tell them they are getting ‘fatter’….they arent, they’re losing fatty tissue and building muscle tissue….a good thing.

The second is true, the first isn’t (ok, it is slightly).

“Fat” i.e. fat cells, ‘fat’ and water, has a density of arround 0.995kg/dm3

“muscle” i.e. muscle cells, connective tissue, water, has a density of 1.005kg/dm3.

Overall you should still lose weight at the gym, otherwise you’re just putting on muscle (hopefully anyway) and not loseing the fat. A better/more structured way is to cycle it so that you put on muscle/weight for a few weeks/months, then shed it again, whilst aiming to maintain the muscle.

The first few weeks/month are an anomoly to the trend, you can put on weight as existing muscles addapt by swelling up (‘toneing’ in lady gym speek) with water which aids strength, biger cells can deform more and pull more load, and cussions them from injury. You’re not putting on ‘new’ muscle. Similarly you can not put on weight when you stop going to the gym desite eating the same as you lose the mucle tone (and associated water) but pile on fat to replace the weight.

Yo-Yo gyming is not too disimilar to yo-yo dieting.

I’ve never had scales in the house, and never really weighed myself to be honest, but I used to be a 30″ waist and until recently have been a 34″ and I’m now back at 30″, which is what I want to keep, obviously thats where I had been storing excess fat.

If my waist line creeps up again then I know I’m putting weight on, I bulk up muscularly very easily so avoid the gym, but I am aware I will put weight on as my legs are currently puny. I just want to keep my waist at 30″, without becoming non functional at home or work due to not having eaten enough!

and never really weighed myself to be honest

Sounds like you need to change this based on your goals.

It seems odd that your body keeps telling you it wants food, then stores it as fat. I’m similar, in that I have to eat about every 4 hours, and this includes waking in the night to eat. But I couldn’t put weight on for love nor money; I have even tried augmenting my diet with body builder type weight gain products, but nothing, my body just burns what I throw at it, exercising or not. This is not a gloat, I would rather have some more meat on my bones. But back to my original comment, have you had a chat to your GP about it?

eat more protein than you normaly do and cut (white carbs) and sugars … the carbs and sugars are your enemy if you want to keep the fat off!

Yes Ive had my blood sugars checked and they do drop low, but its not diabetic type response.

It can be very difficult to look at yourself objectively, and I think what I have done is that when I do big rides etc I eat more to what I need, which is fine, but then when I have been off the bike for 3 or 4 days or so I will keep eating the same quantity of food rather than cutting back down again.

When I start exercising again I’m just going to be more careful that I reduce portion size again on the days I am not exercising, and see how that goes for now.

Joe Friel’s Paleo for Endurance Athletes (or whatever its called) would be worth a read, there is a lot in there about portion control and trying to restrict carbs to fuelling and recovery.

Another very good read here

muscle tissue is heavier than fat

Surely this ins’t true – 1kg of fat weighs the same as 1kg of muscle

drink water before (and during) every meal.

Johnny-met

‘Heavy’ was a bad choice of word, i should have said muscle tissue is more dense than fat.
Thisisnotaspoon also outlined what i was trying to get across about a fat cell having a different density to a muscle cell.

Try cutting out sugar (drinks, cakes, biscuits, sweets etc), white bread, rice, pasta, stick to low GI foods to keep your blood sugar at a decent level and prevent dips and spikes. This might help with the shakiness, and weight loss.

Also try eating 6 small healthy meals a day, rather than 3 big meals, this will help you lose weight because it actually speeds up your metabolism.

If you want to take it further, buy a HRM, don’t eat 2 hours before riding, and stick to HR zone 1 and 2 for a month.

Sounds boring but it will teach your body to burn fat instead of carbs.