I have managed to lose 9kgs in the last three months or so, and have done it by ‘eating less and doing more’. In the process, myfitnesspal has been almost as indispensable as my bikes, even if my exercise has been pretty bicycle focussed.

In August, I managed to put in about 25kms a day on the road bike, and although since the end of summer holidays I have not had as much time to ride during the week, I still commute 12kms a day by bike, and try to run when I get home. I continue to do the 25 km road loop on the weekends.

In terms of intake, I probably average about 1600 calories, with some days closer to 2000 and some closer to 1200. I tend to have one day a week of ‘regular’ eating – that is, somewhere around 2200 calories.

Anyway, I find that most days recently, my legs have felt like rubber. I can push myself up a hill, say, but then die on the flats. And when I get home, I have to absolutely force myself out again for a run (or whatever).

And to top it all off, I seem to have plateaued in terms of weight loss. My aim is to get back down to 77 kgs from an all-time high of 94, but I haven’t been able to get below 85 for a couple of weeks now.

So what’s wrong with me? And what’s wrong with my legs that they feel this way?

So no rest days?

25k is not really a quality ride, if you doubled or tripled the distance and did that on one day and had a rest day before and after you would see a benefit.

Sounds like not enough calories in to support the effort to me. The engine needs fuel!

There’s nothing wrong with you. You’re probably losing muscle now that the easy bits of fat have been burned off. That’s not a bad thing on a bike.

A couple of questions – despite your legs feeling like rubber do they still work? Mine feel like rubber for the first couple of miles then they wake up and all is good in the world again. Are you good at motivating yourself?

You might benefit from having a bit of a rest week and then get back on it next week – maybe try some longer rides.

You may need a week off exercise (one in four is reasonable rest period, with 1 day off a week). And probably could do with upping your calorie intake by 1000 cals given your exercise regime.

Do you not eat back your exercise calories (if 1500 is your daily base in mfp, before exercise for example)? What you’ve been doing has obviously worked, so subtle changes may be all that’s needed, and rest!

I have no idea what I’m talking about, but that does sound like not very much food to support a lot of activity. You can probably get away with it for a while, and have some weight loss, but it’s going to catch up with you. What sort of timescale has that weight loss been over?

The body takes time to adjust to weight loss, it’s why those “I lost 40Kg in 4 weeks” stories always end up with them putting the weight back on. Think how long you took to go from 77Kg to 94Kg and you’ll realise that your body has had all that time to get used to being that weight and consuming that amount of food. Half a kilogramme a week of weight loss seems to be about the upper limit of what you can do without the body overreacting.

Maintaining a restricted calorie diet over an extended period of time is hard work and as you’ve found, your body begins to fight back.

A couple of years ago I lost 15Kg over the course of about six months using the 5:2 diet (which is almost the opposite of what you are doing), I actually lost about 20Kg at the maximum point but have rebounded a little bit and seem to have settled on my current weight +/-1Kg.

As others have said, you need some rest days.

Meh – weight loss is hard. Feeling crap and hungry and tired and wanting to give up are par for the course. You just need to push on through. A couple of years ago I was the wrong side of 15 stone, I went down to 11.5 stone within 6 months have recently reduced it further to 11 stone and am absolutely flying on a bike (for me anyway). It was hard, very hard, but worth it.

Congrats on the weight loss, never easy. Agree with others though that you should rest up a bit and do something decent at the weekend – a 25k road loop sounds like a study in mediocrity – you need to do something more substantial that will put a smile on your face.

For BMR + moderate exercise (ie 25km bike ride) then 1600 cals sounds about right, and congrats on the weight loss so far.

6kg in 7 weeks here. I did it by eating 1280 cals/day + half of exercise calories. I’ve found that macronutrition is very important. Eat clean protein sources and get your carbs from veg. Have a filling, high-protein dinner then eat nothing after 7pm. Exercise at high intensity. So a 25km pootle (even if you think you’re working “hard”) might burn off a few cals but you actually want to blitz your major muscle groups to exhaustion and avoid “empty miles”. If cycling is your main form of exercise then this means structured quality sessions, such as intervals or hill reps, to actually get some intensity into your rides.

Otherwise, check out other high-impact activities to do when you don’t ride. Lots of HIIT videos on Youtube, but I like calisthenics. In fact, I’ve got right into it in the last 2 months, and my sore muscles eat those calories while I’m sleeping. And you can exercise in front of the telly 😉