I need to get some motivation to get out on my bikes.
I’ve just gone 45. I like beer a lot.
I have a lovely carbon road bike that hardly gets used.
I have a lovely new Cannondale Trigger that I intend to use a lot.
I find it very easy NOT to go out biking (either bike) which is lame.
The pool of people I used to ride has dwindled to hardly anyone.
I know historically I’m much more likely to make the effort if I have someone to ride with.
I really fancy doing a sportive in the spring so I have to train or at least get out consistently over the winter – if I have a target I’m more likely to get out now.
I like the idea riding on a Sat or Sun AM not-competitive road club where the pace is ‘relaxed’ but building up to a decent amount of miles.

Sorry for the ramble…I need to get fitter – I’ll be a fat fifty year old fecker before I know it if I don’t nip this lethargy in the bud. Anyone in a similar boat? Any tips?

Yep, 47 here.

I only allow myself beer, pizza etc on a day I have earnt them by going out on a pretty long ride. Other days, low carb, high protein and lots of veg.

From near 20st down to just under 15 now.

Probably not what you want to hear but…..

Drink less beer
Eat better and use an app to get a idea of daily calories
Walk around a bit more
Put time aside to ride your bike every week – you won’t actually melt if it’s raining – just get out and do it.

If your initial response to any of the about starts with ‘but’ then that’s your problem

🙂

Where are you based Rascal? I know a club close to me that would fit the bill. If not, see if there are any Skyride Locals near you. The longer routes can be pretty good, very social and not racey at all.

Where are you OP?

I would always go out for a ride on or off road .

I know your struggle with weight.

I am now 15.5 stone down from nearly 26st

All through change of diet and rising my bike.

I was similar, to kick myself up the arse I started blogging, taking on photo every ride & logging the mileage, 1st year I did 1.5k miles, now 5 years on I do 6 thousand a year & am 3st lighter

You’ve certainly identified the main two “encouragements” to go cycling – having a target and having made arrangements with others. As a started, I’d just follow up these two.

That was working for me for a while – doing the bivvy-a-month thing really helped. I have, however, let it lapse and haven’t been getting out near as much. I plan to fix that starting in January.

I’m in Loughborough.
I’m going to look into doing something like 80-100 miler in March…get booked in then get my arse into gear.
I know I need to cut down on the ale (currently drinking Rev James!).
I’m not as fussy on what I eat as I perhaps could be. I’m 15 stone-ish so not hideous – yet – just don’t wanna get bigger which is inevitable to this rate 🙁
December is not the best time to make this decision with lots of nights out over the next 4 weeks or so is it!

Good luck with it, try using myfitnesspal to keep track of the calories. When you cant or dont feel like getting out try a turbo, yes most people hate them but i use mine alot and have learnt to enjoy it. I just hook the laptop up to the spare tv and use one of the many workouts on youtube. Stick at it and set achievable goals and dont beat yourself up if you miss the odd one just make it fun and enjoyable.

Try vodka and diet coke instead of beer
should save a few calories!

Just looking at sportives:

Meon Vale Spring Classic (Stratford) 100km – March 20
Velothon Wales (Cardiff) 120km – May 22.

Wondering if I should push myself further for the 2nd one though…quite fancied it after a mate said it was a brilliant event (and that’s my original neck of the woods).

Maybe look at audax events – more relaxed than sportives.

If you want to pootle over Derby way my email is in my profile.

‘OI fatty! Put down the pies and pints and go for a ride!!’

My work here is done.

I don’t think “relaxed” is what he wants/needs. 😆

I think this time of year is kinda harsh on most folk and there’s a lot of us in the same boat dude. I’m 45, the group that I’ve ridden with for 15+ yrs has dwindled away to a handful who, like me, struggle to get out either because of work commitments or family, and the motivation just isn’t there anymore to go out on a cold wet night, especially as for me, mountain biking is very much a social thing, it’s not about who’s fastest or bestest.

I’m kinda hoping it’s just a dip, and not a pit of despair!

What about trying these ‘meetup’ thingys you can join and get ride updates on your phone? I’ve managed to have a good laugh with quite a few new riders through the ‘Meetup’ phone app. Not really working great for me as I don’t drive and ‘Central Scotland Meetup’ covers a fair bit of territory, but you might have better luck! If you do Facebook, a search might find local groups there as well.

Just blethering from my point of view, but it’s company that makes a ride for me, and motivates me to get out the door. Get ye on t’internet and have a search for local ride groups!

Craig. xx

Felt the same a few years back, wasn’t massively overweight at 5ft11 and 14odd st but enough to notice it and also unfit depressed and under motivated.

I found cutting back on the treats\beer helped, kept them to the weekend and cut out the overly sugary drinks.

I got a Wifi weighing scale with app so I could keep a brutally honest daily record of my weight (syncs to app), cant lie to yourself that way. The daily weight in itself isn’t so useful as it fluctuates, but the overall downward trend is motivating. http://www.withings.com/uk/en/store/details/ws_30

I found Strava about 3 years ago, you can ignore the competitive side if you want. It’s really good for a genuine I cant lie to myself record of what you have\haven’t done. Either gives you a kick up the arse or makes you feel better for doing what you intended to. Set weekly goals, or just pick one climb to try hard on and watch the time improve. My riding time doubled each year for the first two years.

I met an informal “bunch of mates” type club, funnily enough through Strava, great people to be around and riding budies for life. Definitely got me riding more.

After doing increasingly longer road rides I started riding to friends\relatives that were further and further away (last was 107miles, my longest ride). The guilt of not turning up distracted me from the lack of motivation, and unlike a local loop once you set off that’s it, no backing out. I’ve had some brilliant solo rides.

I also found the value in short post work evening rides. Either making myself go the longer way home, or riding the same short road or offroad route really hard for 30-60mins and seeing the slow improvement in pace over time.

I learned to love climbs, I found they helped a lot. It’s difficult to make a climb easy, I annihilated myself on hills for a while and it was hard during but really rewarding after, especially when I slowly chipped away at my PB’s on Strava with the same effort.

Despite really enjoying riding I do still struggle with motivation, that transition of wanting to go riding and actually getting on the bike. I always remind myself no matter how crap I feel I know I’ll feel much better for riding my bike!.

Can you commute to work on your bike?
What about posting another thread to see if anyone fancies a ride. I’ll be surprised if there isn’t someone else in the same situation and area.

Hopefully there’s something useful in all my waffling.

My love of fine ales drove me to buy a mountain bike…it’s a good half hour ride between decent ale houses on canals and bridle ways so I’ve managed to reach a kind of equilibrium!

Although I’ve been known to get a train home on occasion, not so much from tiredness, but for fear or riding into a canal or crashing into a sheep.

I don’t go out on the bike to exercise as such, that happens by itself.. I like to make a day of it on weekends, or during the week, ride to the next town, consume pint, head back.

Eat less, poo more.

I’m going to look into doing something like 80-100 miler in March…get booked in then get my arse into gear.

do it tomorrow

Try vodka and diet coke instead of beer

Steady on.

Done it!
71 miler – Mad March Hare, Worcestershire 6 March.
Now, where did I put that pie? 😉

I realised on my 50th birthday that I was the heaviest I’ve been! Since March I’ve really cut out everything I could from my diet and twice a week I’ve ridden as hard as possible for 2 – 3 hours but with the added nastiness of riding fasted. It’s been very hard but I’d lost 2 stone by August and it’s stayed off.

Lost another 10 pounds by getting a really nasty sickness bug that left me so badly constipated that I couldn’t eat without throwing up!

Hopefully over the worst of this 3 week bug but not kept the whole 10 pounds off I assume because most of it was fluid.

I need to get some motivation to get out on my bikes.

This may be semantics in some ways, but try to re-frame it if you can.

What you need is the discipline to get out on your bikes, even when you do not have the motivation to.

🙂

I bought a road bike to get fitter for MTB, it’s taken over somewhat now though…..

I’m not over weight, was 11 4, been that for years, but wanted to shift the start of a gut and love handles. I m 45. Came back off holiday in August and thought I needed to ramp it up a bit.

Bought a Garmin, HR monitor and cadence sensor, tracked what I ate for a couple of weeks on myfitnesspal, did this being really honest, and just made some adjustments – cut out fatty foods, reduced beer during the week. Now invested in a turbo, which is working out ok. I got into Strava, but not interested in the competitive side too much, more against the numbers I do.

Have dropped down to 10 9 now and want to keep it around that. Trying to get min of 50 miles in a week, but don’t beat myself up if I miss. Enter the Strava GF monthly challenges to provide some focus. Most rides on my own, and tbh, the last one was a bit boring at times, which means I need to get the MTB out….

Good luck with it!

Diet = weight
Exercise = fitness

Sugar and alcohol are your enemy if you want to lose weight.
Try not drinking for a month to crack the ale addiction.
Cut out as much sugar from your diet as possible.

Now that bike thing.. You need to enjoy it. You also need to learn to enjoy pushing yourself right into the pain zone.. Once you get some fitness and your weight drops the easier it will be and the faster you will get and in theory the more you should enjoy it.

You need to learn some self control and a big dose of motivation. Don’t take the soft option of sitting in front of the TV drinking beer. The lazy option is the easy option. Its up to you to toughen up.

Get a decent jacket, i mean, HOW MUCH!!????!!!!, sort of money. It’ll work at keeping you dry and warm and you’ll be inspired to get your moneys worth

After years of half arsed jackets which don’t work i went to the german site and got a really good jacket for almost not eye watering money and now i’m not getting cold and wet.

You’re not struggling with anything other than motivation. You need to speak to someone who can help you with this.

For me diet – and by that I mean quality of food not calorie restriction – is the key .. One can’t motivate themselves to do more exercise on will power alone .. Eat clean and the rest falls into place ..

Nutritional Ketosis.
im 50 and now 11.5 stone and ripped, was Easy too 🙂

I was 51 in October. I’ve cycled 9,000km so far this year but still managed to hit my heaviest ever (14st at 6’2″) a few weeks ago.

I decided to go on a carb-free diet and lost a stone in two weeks. Still riding the same, circa 220km per week commuting and it’s hard to ride with no carbs/energy but the weight drops off.

Screw the sportive in March, go out and ride it now on your own, the weather is no different to what it will be in March.

When I hit 13 stone I had three rashers of bacon, mushrooms and a cheese omelette to celebrate; carb-free!

yep, carb/sugar free = Ketosis (if you keep easting that way) 🙂

and if you UP your (natural animal fats) you will have more energy than you thought possible.

71 miler – Mad March Hare, Worcestershire 6 March

Tougher than it looks that one, especially if the weather is as awful as the last two years & the feed stop is as poorly organized

OP firstly good luck, its good news you are thinking of addressing this issue. I’m 52 and have had a si ilar experience and it was part of my decision to do a lot more mountain biking starting in my early 40’s. The weight gain is “normal” as your metabolism is slowing, unless you eat less/excersize more you will keep gaining weight.

Suggestion 1 – cut down the beer, its about the worst booze you can drink for weight gain. Wine or vodka/gin and tonic is much better. Ideally drink less full stop.

Suggestion 2 – look at your diet, eg less bread, potatoes, rice, pasta. Its a bit boring to say so but Christmas is a terrible time for earing too much and doing too litltle. Take care this year.

Suggestion 3 – as you say more riding will help a lot and its fun and social. You know yourself and if you need riding buddies then find some. I personally prefer riding alone, mainly as I’m always last and hate holding people up. If you are different then work with that. I’d also suggest you mix up the riding a bit road vs mtb and make sure you get out every weekend. To make a real transformation you’ll need to do some excersize midweek too.

Get out there now

Alcohol is good at making the boring acceptable.

Do stuff and you don’t need to drink. The first couple of months are hard but near total abstinence (ie apart from Xmas, birthdays, anniversaries etc) is much easier than moderation from my experience.

If you’re social it’s harder but if it’s good social it doesn’t need booze – you’d be surprised how much fun you’ll have stone cold sober with good mates. If it’s crap social then it’s harder.

I’m 51, 6′ and 11.7 stone. I train a lot now but before I started training hard I lost a stone from not drinking yet eating as much as I wanted. At 36 I was 13.5 stone due to a 4 year pause in exercise (kids). To lose a few pounds while having half a bottle of wine most nights took not eating breakfast, loads of fruit, low fat etc etc.

Cut out alcohol and gluten and go on an organic diet. Look up something like ‘Clean & Lean diet’ – alot of the hormones in processed foods make you put on weight. Stop drinking coffee.

Do it for a month and the weight will drop off easily.

Loughborough?
There are several clubs within easy striking distance, all the way from lean keen racing snakes across to the slightly tubby middle aged tourists.

You need to exercise the googling muscles and find a few.

OP: get the Joe Friel book about fitness for the over fifties “Fast after Fifty” (given that Friel is 70 and still going strong he might be doing something right). The takeaway point from the first part of the book is that regular high intensity exercise is important to prevent muscle/performance loss.

Crash diets don’t really work in the long run – your body has taken ten or twenty years to get used to the slowly increasing weight, if you shed half of that in a month then it’s just going to think that there’s a famine ahead and store stuff away. General guidance for sustainable weight loss is half a kg per week. Not sexy, headline grabbing but you want something that works in the long run(cycle).

Go out, enter an event that is well beyond your current abilities.
Brag about it on here. Lots.
Keep us updated on your progress.

Lands end to John o Groats is a nice ride.

Ok, the simple solution here is to stop drinking, watch what you eat and start doing a lot of exercise. Learn to hate flab, become self-fattist and keep running and cycling.

Just keep saying that beer is bad for you and go for a run every time you think that eating a pie is bad for you.