Showered/ate* this morning and then:

Left Right
134/83-43 137/81-44
139/79-40
131/81-40

(Im lefthanded- hence more on the left)Jesus, the thing MUST be faulty. If its not faulty, if I lose the excess blubber I've got a right cracking little engine under the hood. 😆

Boxelder, keep up- hes been here 3 weeks already.

Congrats
😀

Ooh missed that too.

Grats Hora.

Thanks guys 😀

Ti29er, have you even read my post back on page 1? I can lose 1lb a week eating a fairly normal diet (very little chocolate, occasional "proper" desserts and just cooking low fat food / avoiding drink), whereas you're on the Gillian McKeith flavour free special to lose 1lb a month.

My point is that you can lose weight without making ridiculous changes to your diet. Most people simply do not read labels and end up eating high calorie foods without realising, rather than living on a diet of chips followed by fried breakfasts.

Come on Robdob.

Ton.
You need to lose fat, not weight per se.

You might well be able to shed some weight if, as this week's Supersize "v" Superskinny amply illustrates. If that guy cuts back to 1 bags of crips and 1/2 a cake and 10 & not 25 meat balls etc etc, he'll perhaps not put so much on or even lose some, but just consider his start-point!

When next you're in a butchers, ask to see 1lb of meat and try and equate that to 1lb of stored fat in your body & you'll see that it's a substantial amount for the body to have self-consumed in the course of 7 days. You have to be realistic and honest – something I think many dieters simple are not.

I'm not Ton by the way.

I admit it. You are right and I am wrong. I'm losing water and muscle every week rather than fat. The wattbike & weights down the gym are lying. My scales are wrong too.

I'm actually sat here typing this looking like a sultana that's been rubbed down with lurpak.

My point is that you can lose weight without making ridiculous changes to your diet

Some folk can.. it's different for everyone tbh.

Tron.

I believe the calculation is something like 3000 calories = 1lb in that if you use up 3000 calories more than you consume, you'll have to find that from stored muscle & fat.

Losing weight is not difficult. It's losing fat that is needed for long term weight loss & that's the hardest part. Especially as you age, this becomes more difficult.

Then you have to consider how this weight loss is sustainable. That's where the change of life-style becomes all-important. You can spend hours in the gym and on the bike but it's not sustainable at that level for the next 10+ years. So weight loss for weight loss sake is not the solution in the long run & should be viewed at best as a short term solution to a particular problem, but ultimately, it’s Fools' Gold.

Much of this should also be viewed as % of one’s overall size and shape. 4lbs to you in a month might have little visible impact if you’re built like Arnie, but 4lbs to me would show.

PS – Wrong form of the verb; "Sitting" is what you meant to say.

Sounds daft but I can tell its coming off me already. I guess its the top layer. 😆

Come on Robdob.

Are you calling me in for dinner? 😉

Are you calling me in for dinner?

I've been calling you from the backgarden for half an hour. Your tea's in the dog.

Then you have to consider how this weight loss is sustainable.

Exactly. It's easy for me to sustain a diet that consists of eating normal food cooked and selected carefully so as to avoid consuming daft numbers of calories, rather than unwittingly eating stuff with a lot of calories in it (ie, typical sausage roll is 600-700 calories, a lot of yogurts are knocking on 250kcal, the same as a tiramisu!), and 5-6 hours a week spent on exercise – a couple of hours during the week and a Sunday morning ride.

I can't see how it's sustainable to go on a diet where you eat 2 meals a day, no bread, no butter, no marge, no fried anything, no cake, no chocolate. That list precludes nearly all tasty food, almost all food that you can buy ready made (what on earth do you do if you need to get lunch out?), and sounds like a fad diet (and therefore less likely to be sustained change) to me.

That said, I'd be interested to hear what you consider to be normal food. You mentioned oven chips earlier in the thread, and to me, they're a good example of what you shouldn't eat – they don't taste too good, and they're not that low in calories. You'd be better off having new potatoes with a smidge of butter on them.

ti29. I must admit such a strict diet would make me a pain to be around. Difficult, grumpy and short or distant with friends. It would be obvious.

Eat (and drink) what you like and ride more…. Simple!

Or take up smoking to suppress your appetite. 😯

You mentioned oven chips earlier in the thread, and to me, they're a good example of what you shouldn't eat – they don't taste too good, and they're not that low in calories

Not really – oven chips are pretty low in fat, and have plenty of carbs. And when you really fancy chips they are a pretty good option for keeping you happy. Which is important.

Tron.
You're so far off centre to be quite alarming really!

A good illustration of that is in deed the Oven chips, which are everything you presume to them not to be.

Much weight loss, be it on a bike or in the gym during sustained heavy loads is water. After a 12 or 24hr ride for a few days my weight is lower than at the start, it's not the fat content that's being consumed, but water loss. Look at the F1 drivers – they're in the race for a relatively short period, but they lose a great deal of water from their bodies. This is a fact you're failing to comprehend I feel.

That's why a fat reading is what you need not weigh loss for weight loss sake.

Hora – I'm not saying you adopt my feeding plan, but don't assume that a small adjustment in your own feeding is going to have the desired result – you may simply stop putting the weight on – obvious really.

Ok. Oven chips, to me, taste like cardboard. They are not an enjoyable thing to eat, and they are usually 5-6% fat. Lets assume a 100g portion size, you end up with 200 calories or so (google it if you don't agree).

New potatoes on the other hand taste nice, and contain as much fat as you want them to, because that's added in the form of butter. Say you add 5g of butter to a 100g portion of potatoes (5g is half of one of those packs of butter you get in cafeterias, and what I'd regard as quite a lot). You still only end up with 112 calories (because the new potatoes contain more water than the oven chips).

So I end up with something containing less fat and less calories, and fresh, rather than frozen. And I enjoy eating it.

As for weighing myself, I normally weigh myself on a Sunday, 2 days after my Friday gym session. If I'd lost 4lbs of water a month, I'm fairly sure I'd have died by now.

F1 Drivers lose up to 3kg in fluids in a hot race. NOT fat!
You are unlikely to be losing 4lbs of fat per week – just think that one through!
However, if you seriously think you are, then the best of luck to you.

I would suggest a fat-content check if you are trying to lose fat. Going at it hammer and tongue you will possibly lose as much, if not more muscle as fat in this drive to lose weight.

Slowly-slowly, catch a monkey. Gradual, sustainable weight loss is more than achievable if you're honest & realistic in your aims and methods. There's nothing to be gained by feeling lethargic and short of energy on a 2-3hr training ride as this achieves bu££er all.

To combine a high work load in your training and in the frequency of this training (let's say 3 rides a week of 2-3hrs duration), you need some restrained measure and level of common sense in your approach. Longer rides at the 60-80% HRmax is more aerobic and better for weight loss than going anaerobic into Zone 1 at 75- 80%+ which in turn is not going to result in your body utilising fats stored in the body.

That's why a max of 1lb of fat per month over 18 months is achievable and sustainable and honest and realistic (at 45yrs of age).

After a 12 or 24hr ride for a few days my weight is lower than at the start, it's not the fat content that's being consumed, but water los

I think he was talking about weight loss over a long term, was he not? Not just one ride?

As for oven chips, I quite like the McCain ones, but I find new potatoes rather dull. So up yours. According to the website, the rather nice McCain's rustic oven chips have 136kcal per 100g cooked, and 2.3g of fat. That's pretty damn low.

In contrast, if you have 100g of new spuds with 5g of butter, that's 4g of fat (butter being 80% fat) so you are actually eating more fat than me with my oven chips.

Anyway this debate is absolutely bloody stupid. Quibbling over a gram or two here and there is not going to make any difference to your life.

New spuds vs chip shop chips – no contest. New spuds vs oven chips – take your pick.

Try getting your facts right mate.

We can argue over which particular brand of chips we benchmark against if you like. I went for McCain's homefries.

That's why a max of 1lb of fat per month over 18 months is achievable and sustainable and honest and realistic

Nah.. you can easily go to 1lb of fat per week. I've done 2lbs per week, and it's a fairly common goal to be set by the professionals.

better for weight loss than going anaerobic into Zone 1 at 75- 80%+ which in turn is not going to result in your body utilising fats stored in the body.

Btw you were here for the HIIT thread the other week, were you not? There are studies that have shown that high intensity may work in some circumstances.. If he says he's losing weight and gaining fitness, then surely that's evidence you should be considering? People are varied and complex, your theories are not.

What if the heat melted some congealed fat on the walls of your oven and it dripped into your oven chips? Your calculations would be screwed.

Having read Ti's last post, it's clear that not being an old gimmer makes all the difference. 😆

An oldie but Tron recently..

Tron.
You're still missing the point.
In this I also added that age of course makes a difference, it's harder to see muscle growth / repair or fat loss as you age. Or are you immune to physics in this regard?

Mol: I'm not a professional and nor are 98+% of this forum. The OP wants to know if it's like giving up tobacco, which I wouldn't know about, but as you are illustrating, as middle aged non-professionals, we (?) have to be careful in citing unrealistic, unobtainable and dishonest aims. This is what I think needs to be better understood, that a gradual, sustainable, realistic weight loss of fat over a reasonable time frame is possible without too much disruption to life-styles.

Much else seems fanciful, unrealistic and extraordinary and therefore utter unhelpful to Hora’s plight. Don’t make it too technical and a task-too-far.

Ti29er, you're the one getting super technical I believe. I am just chipping in because it looked like you were missing the point a bit and not quite reading the posts correctly.

The point I always try to make is that clearly eat better and ride more usually works. However if you struggle, or if you are just curious, there's good science behind it that helps.

The problem is most people don't understand the science and spout on a bit.

As for goals – arbitrary numbers of lbs are a bit pointless anyway. Especially as the OP was just chatting, not asking for advice.

Sooo, using the livestrong fitness/weight free online thing (which is realy good and you can upload .gpx files to create fitness routes) I have lost 6lbs so far and feeling much better. Really loving the extra exercise (been out on bike 3 times last week, and a big walk in Derbyshire) and actually liking the whole weight loss thing. 🙂

BMI now 33…. 🙂

Went for a BBQ yesterday and rather than mu usual 6 burgers and a steak etc etc I had a load of peri peri home marinated chicken and salad, no bread! (DO NOT ASK ME HOW I DID IT!) Felt much better for it tbh.