OH is doing one of the 3x meal replacements a day for 3 months to cure T2 diabetes type diets and I’m joining as a) it’s easier than cooking 2 meals, b) it reckons 15kg weight loss which is only slightly more than I’d need to make me look a bit more “cyclist” and a bit less “pie shop enthusiast that happens to arrive there by bike”. I lost about that much weight last year, so this is just front loading that, so if it takes 9months to regain my FTP afterwards it’s not great deal.

Allowable “meal replacements” boil down to high protein / complex carb “milkshakes”, soup (1 can = a meal, more likely home made), and evening meals are vegetable based (soup, stir fry etc).

Anyone tried one whilst still riding a bike a fair bit? I’ve ground to a bit of a halt this week with a back injury but a normal week for me is ~70 miles on a Sunday, 5 miles each day commuting, 15 miles Wed, 45-65 Thurs, 20 Fri. So not masses, but still upto 150miles if the weather’s nice. Kinda figure I can cheat and eat a load of fruit or bowl of porridge as required in the run up to those as long as the calorie deficit for the day is roughly BMR-800?

And before someone says “it’s better to lose weight slowly, fast diets lead to yo-yo-ing “, From the BMJ and Lancet:

Astbury, N., Aveyard, P., Nickless, A., Hood, K., Corfield, K., Lowe, R., Jebb, S. (2018) Doctor Referral of Overweight People to Low Energy total diet replacement Treatment (DROPLET): pragmatic randomised controlled trial. BMJ, 362:k3760.

and

Lean, M., Leslie, W., Barnes, A., et al. (2018). Primary care-led weight management for the remission of type 2 diabetes (DiRECT): an open-label, cluster-randomised trial. Lancet, 391(10120), pp. 541-551

Both showed that participants in 800 calorie/day diets for 3-4 months were more likley to lose weight and lost more weight than those on slower diets. And had kept more of it off a year later

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)33102-1/fulltext
https://www.bmj.com/content/362/bmj.k3760

No but gut feeling is you’ll struggle. Have you considered the iDiet that was popular here a few years back? I had massive success with it, losing 3+ st in about a year. Restrictive diet obviously but not calorie restrictive, and designed with very active people in mind (allowances for extra simple carbs when exercising).

Anyone tried one whilst still riding a bike a fair bit?

If I calorie restrict whilst riding, I can only ride slowly i.e. zone 2, otherwise I get absolutely exhausted. I can’t run, or do weights either, as there’s just no energy to repair the muscle stress as your normal training response would be.

Almost all the literature for highly calorie restricted diets refers to sedentary people – and for the ones that discuss exercise they are talking about 20 minns of cardio in the gym. A three hour ride is outside the scope of most studies. Try it, but I would suggest you would need to take on additional carbohydrate after the first 45 mins of a ride otherwise you will be a mess within a week.

Basically, take it really easy.

Good luck to you and mrs TINAS.
I think one of those authors was on R4 yesterday espousing the benefits.

Try it, but I would suggest you would need to take on additional carbohydrate after the first 45 mins of a ride otherwise you will be a mess within a week.

Basically, take it really easy.

Yea, I’m sort of thinking rides will just be like they are normally when doing 4+ hour rides, i.e. pretty much 200-300 calories an hour of fruit and sweets, except from the start rather than getting the first 3-4 hours free like normal.

And had kept more of it off a year later

And therein lies the problem, a year is seen as long term follow up whereas it’s no such thing, 5 or 10 years down the line is where you might learn something.

However it does seem that these rapid weight loss plans are good for reversing type 2 diabetes and I can see how they might work for other people in that a quick result which makes them feel better might be the encouragement to change their diet for life. And you can’t get away from the fact that that is what is needed. A more gradual loss and improvement in how someone feels might not trigger that desire and willingness to make permanent changes.

As for the cycling I’d think you need to think about keep more of your riding in zone 2 and use it as a time to lose weight and build up your base rather than trying too many high intensity sessions which might be counterproductive.

Got to agree that a year seems quite short term.  I remember seeing an analyis of results from one of the weight loss tv programs in the US where the people the majority of the people who lost a lot very quickly had more that regained it a few years later.  The theory was that their body had reduced their basic metabolic rate quickly and that it took years to get back to where it was rather than months.  So once they returned to normal eating they automatically overshot.

From the second of those reports

There is absolutely no way to tell if TDR group weight is going to continue to rise at that rate or not but it’s not looking good.  They just stopped measuring at that point

and with both of the reports the groups were given help to maintain healthy lifestyles and that seems to be key.  I wouldn’t want to be doing it myself as not being able to keep it up and then depression from failing leading to overeating is another of the yoyo mechanisms

but, in it’s favour, I have seen one person I know who I didn’t see for a few years and came back amazingly trim from a weightwatchers plan where they replaced meals with various ‘shakes’.   For him it worked well but again he was part of a group there was support

There are also the group of january dieters who I know who yoyo…

I have used it and reversed diabetes type two by losing around 30kgs.
Truth be told, I am on it again, as with a lot of travel etc, I have put on 10 kgs – so that is coming off, as I do not want to be a medicated diabetic again (As far as the NHS concerned I will always be a diabetic – but in remission). I am entering week 3.

I end up putting of weight, not because of a yo-yo effect but because I sit on planes/ hotel rooms etc.
I would say that you should try it in with exercise – you body will adapt. Perhaps not to hugely difficult climbs – but doing so will keep the metabolism up and stop it from thinking you are in a famine state.

It is not a healthy diet – the original designers of it ( Newcastle University) suggest and absolute maximum of 12 weeks ( I id 10 originally). I will do 6 weeks this time. The trick is then to completely adapt you lifestyle afterward – and have a diet very low in refined carbs ( I work a lot in Germany, where the diet is based on bread, potatoes, bread and a bit more bread).
Use it to take down you weight – but your OH will then need to look at going forward with a different diet to stabilise things …
BTW, I find it quite easy and cathartic!

And therein lies the problem, a year is seen as long term follow up whereas it’s no such thing, 5 or 10 years down the line is where you might learn something.

I was never really convinced either and I did wonder that, but it seems like most kept most of the weight off. And once you’ve changed your habits I don;t really see why you’d be more likely to “relapse” whether that’s in 3, 6, 9, 12 months or 5 years.

And probably better a number of years healthy than a number of years gradually getting healthier.

Also, seems like a lot of the results focus on all the people in the study, not just the successful ones. So it might be the case that ~40% of people starting the diet are 15kg lighter at the end of the year, which they argue is better than a much smaller number of people losing the same weight slower and the remainder failing and giving up (the control groups seem to be a net 0kg, which implies as many people lost weight as gained it!).

Months 3-6 and onward is still pretty restrictive, but with more protein and low-starch veg (basically the iDave diet).

I’m on high protein 140g and low carb also 140g per day, with a net calories of 1200 a day after bike training.   Lost 4kg since November and increased FTP by 4% last night son I’m retaining muscle/mitochondria.  I’m not “big” at just under 6ft and 76kg.

I has a similar conversation last night – part from the fact I’m going to have to re-learn appropriate carb loading before races, I’m sticking with this diet as I feel so much better.   I’ve learned my foods, so its an easy win.

Hill climbing and big efforts are hard because there’s little or no glycogen from carbs to support the effort.

Lost 4kg since November and increased FTP by 4% last night son I’m retaining muscle/mitochondria. I’m not “big” at just under 6ft and 76kg.

Out of interest, what’s your FTP?

I was playing around with the BF calipers and at 76g (I’m also 5ft11 and a bit) I’d be 6% BF if I don’t lose any muscle. Hence why I reckoned it wasn’t a bad target to be aiming for at that stage of “the season” (i.e. plenty of time to worry about 2 minute power before hill climb season)

I have done two of these diets.The first time I did the Newcastle diet and lost the 15kg and came off the meds as blood sugars were back to normal.

I then had two bad cycling accidents in the space of a year,put back on weight while not exercising and went straight back on the pills.This time I did the blood sugar diet,lost the weight and came off the pills again.

In both cases I kept up the cycling because you quickly go into fat burning mode and the cycling speeds up the weight loss.Six months after the second diet I have still not put on any weight,so success.

A few years ago I was eating 1500 calories and 600 calories on alternate days. I lost 3 stone but really struggled on longer rides (200km) as I bonked badly even if I ate 2000 calories the day before and whatever I wanted whilst riding.

Some reading I have done has suggested a keto diet can fuel exercise through burning fat rather than glycogen and this is something I am considering but it is a big lifestyle change.

I think you will struggle to do the riding you describe on the proposed diet but could you not just eat back some of the calories you burn?

Best of luck TINAS.

Have you checked out the Fast 800 by the ubiquitous Dr Michael Mosely? Strikes me as a better approach than shakes.

I started it, was doing well then stress and depression bit and I fell off the wagon. Plan to start again soon as we have made some big moves to simplify life which should help.

I would say that you should try it in with exercise – you body will adapt.

I think this varies by person. Our physiologies vary, obviously, we know that some people are sprinters and some endurance riders. This is determined by our muscle fibre compostion, and that in turn determines how easy it is for us to burn fat.

If you have more type II fibres (i.e. sprinter) then it is possible to train yourself to have more type I, but not the other way. In other words, a sprinter can become reasonable at endurance, but not so much the other way round.

But if you are a natural sprinter you will struggle more with the fat burning, as you are worse at it to begin with. So to answer that point – some people adapt more readily than others because they have less work to do.

Some reading I have done has suggested a keto diet can fuel exercise through burning fat rather than glycogen and this is something I am considering but it is a big lifestyle change.

This is essentially whats I’ve been doing.  Having some carb intake after workouts also helps develop mitochondria.  On Z2 rides at 1:50 – 3hrs I’m burning 1000 to 2000 cals and leaving at least half of those on the table.

Out of interest, what’s your FTP?

272 – bear in mind I’m not a power athlete and defer to 4-12hrs so endurance rather than power is my thing.  We’re targeting 3.8w/KG by April amongst other things.

Tinas – given you are mainly aiming at the t2 diabetes I would have a discussion with your GP about it.

Seems to me the are two parts to this – the initial short term severe calorie reduction to start the process of reducing weight and then long term you need a lifestyle change to keep the weight off.

Its not the way I would approach it but its nice to see you have done your research and have selected good sources of info to follow

diet is ( yet another 😉 ) area that I will always suggest folk try to avoid the charlatens there are a lot of them out there.

Good luck!

Does anyone have a link to a diet plan? I seem to only find ones I have to pay for.

Thanks

Hmm, relevant!

Was 85kg, 5’11, 287W

Now 88kg post injury, trying 5:2 diet using 2000kC as BMR and doing 600-800kC on fast days.

Targetting 80kg and ~340W by next summer, although hope to achieve most of the weight loss now before I start training properly again.

Can sympathise with the stress/depression thing! Had a bad day tosay, crisps and wine are calling me…

Had a bad day tosay, crisps and wine are calling me…

I’d neglected to say that actually the protein based diet has accidentally kind of removed most alchohol from my diet, and also in discovering the low carb booze options discovered the high yet useless (Alcohol doesn’t metabolise into useful / stored carbs) carb ones.    I pretty much drink one glass of Red on a Sunday now and thats it.

4.25 w/kg 13th…. nice!

I’m currently having a crack at a slightly different (medicalised) fad approach and am eating only within a 6(ish) hour window in the day. No breakfast, late lunch and tea fairly late at 8ish pm

I’m a T2 diabetic but even at diagnosis wasn’t very “big” – nurse specialist commented on it 😃 and then said she reckoned I’d be on insulin before any of her others ( 😎 – that’s good, right ?)

Anyhow, stopped eating chocs and lost about 5 kilos (seriously, that’s pretty much all I did). Have kept that off but my sugars and A1c still weren’t “proper normal” so started metformin and I also (just to muddy the scientific waters and worry you all/some about acidosis !) began this diet. I’m not currently commuting by bike as there’s a problem with our showers, so we’ll see how I tolerate 12 miles on an empty stomach and then another 6 hours before I eat. So far so good though and a few random BMs have been quite convincing

Have you checked out the Fast 800 by the ubiquitous Dr Michael Mosely? Strikes me as a better approach than shakes.

Does anyone have a link to a diet plan? I seem to only find ones I have to pay for.

Its basicly the fast 800 (its the 5:2, without the 5).

Step 1) 800 calories a day, shakes, soup and veg really. That lasts 2-3 months or untill you reach your target.

Step 2) similar to iDave. No “carbs” but things like chickpeas are allowed. The aim is to maintain the weight loss and reintroduce the calories gradually.

Step 3) back to normal but healthy eating.

Its not all shakes, there’s options but mostly its shakes and soup for 2-3 months. Shakes at least take the faff out of breakfast so ive got USN meal replacement from lidl. And tins of soup are an easy lunch option. Just leaves dinner, and things like stir fry, veg curry, lentil soup etc are quite easy to make very low calorie.

I think some people do nothing but the shakes but I enjoy cooking so will focus on soups and very low calorie meals.

4.25 w/kg 13th…. nice!

Lol, that’s just based on how light I think I can get, and how fast my summer riding buddy is! Don’t want to spend the whole Raid Pyrenees 2021 staring at his rapidly disappearing arse on every climb…

Lost 4kg since November and increased FTP by 4%

Good job, I’d happily take that right now!

Sitting replete after an exceptionally tasty veg stir fry (won’t mention the wholewheat noodles). Think I’m probably 1500kCal today and feeling pretty good on it, Wattbike said 510kCal for a fairly easy 40 minute workout but based on the average power I reckon 385kCal…

I find the 8:16 method of eating really useful in losing weight. Basically you consume all your food in an 8 hour window, then fast for the remaining 16. I dont have breakfast, so lunch is the first meal of the day. I find it really useful as you dont have much time to snack. You dont have to be crazy restrictive with what you eat, but obviously if you’re looking to lose weight, sensible choices get better results. Not eating for 16 hours can seem daunting to begin with, so start with 12:12 and work it over a week or so. Once you’re used to it, it’s no bother whatsoever.

I think if you try and ride those distances on a Kcal intake of less than 1000 a day you will run into a wall sooner rather than later.
Unless you really ease off at pootle everywhere you risk bonking on every ride apart from your commute
I know its the dropping glycogen stores to zero to force the body to burn lard for fuel, but if you are starting depleted and attempting say , a 50 miler at a sedate 12.5mph , thats 4hrs @ ~ 300cal /hr , thats a substantial cal loss when you take into consideration there are still 20hrs of staying alive , and 12 of those being ‘up and about’
My mates wife is a diabetes nurse and has seen reversals in people who follow the advice and bulk up on vegetables grown above ground, cut the crap food and simple carbs.
Good luck with it , but I would be attempting maybe 300 -400 cal a day depletion, not 2000
Disclaimer IANADietition , but my mum was.

I think if you try and ride those distances on a Kcal intake of less than 1000 a day you will run into a wall sooner rather than later.

The average person has about 60000 fat calories available.  You’d have to ride carefully and be fat adapted to tap into most of that though.

Ive always found keto brilliant for weight loss. If you like low carb / high fat foods it’s easy to stick to, or I find it easy anyway.

The weight comes off quick – 2 stone in 2 months for me. I didn’t calorie restrict either.

It’s all about insulin really. Not eating (many) carbs means you don’t stimulate insulin production nearly as much as usual. This in turn allows you to access your fat stores, hence the weight loss. Insulin is a really important hormone that does a lot more than just process glucose.

It’s also proven, tens of thousands of times, to reverse T2D.

You do need a bit of patience and to stick with it before becoming fat adapted though, and the odd bonk in the adaptation period is to be expected if you push it and fully deplete. Once you’re there though, endless energy, steady energy through the day, more mental clarity…. it’s worth it for me.

It’s all about insulin really. Not eating (many) carbs means you don’t stimulate insulin production nearly as much as usual. This in turn allows you to access your fat stores, hence the weight loss. Insulin is a really important hormone that does a lot more than just process glucose.

True, and one of the things it does is promote muscle building in response to exercise. Which also burns energy.. and helps you recover too.

Just goes to show it’s complicated and there’s more than one way to lose weight.

70 miles on a Sunday, 5 miles each day commuting, 15 miles Wed, 45-65 Thurs, 20 Fri. So not masses, but still upto 150miles

Dont know about your question bit I hope your calorie counting is better than your mile counting!

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Indeed. IGF1 does promote growth but there are other compounds / processes that do also, like mTOR.

There’s an awful lot of bodybuilders and athletes who use keto these days, this demonstrates that building and maintaining lean mass can be done in a low insulin / glucose environment.

I recommend recommend ‘The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living’ by Phinney and Volek for some cycling specific info.

A few years ago I did a 5-2 diet to lose a bit of weight. Didn’t go silly, on the 2 restricted days I had 35g of healthy cereal for breakfast, a salad for lunch with a little dressing, and a bowl of soup for dinner. I did the 2 days back to back, and continued my normal exercise regime throughout the week (typically 45mins of cardio or weights in the gym daily, and a 2-3 hr ride once a week). I can’t say I felt any weaker or more tired on the ‘fasting’ days. I did manage to drop 20kg in 8 months though and most importantly, keep the weight off.

There’s an awful lot of bodybuilders and athletes who use keto these days, this demonstrates that building and maintaining lean mass can be done in a low insulin / glucose environment.

I’m not a body builder but it’s often said that you can’t bulk up and get lean at the same time – you have to alternate building and cutting.

But it depends heavily on what you do and who you are, I think.

You do need a bit of patience and to stick with it before becoming fat adapted though, and the odd bonk in the adaptation period is to be expected if you push it and fully deplete. Once you’re there though, endless energy, steady energy through the day, more mental clarity…. it’s worth it for me.

This sounds quite attractive to me, think my diet has been getting far to carb-y recently (not to mention sugary, I blame injury induced comfort eating).

How does Keto play with normal training regimes, e.g. polarised 80/20? I can imagine the 80% Z2 is fine, but what do you do when you want to put in a hard 1hr session?

In order of ‘I’m not sure I could do without’ –

Pasta
Pizza
Crisps
Beer
Porridge (the convenience and fillingness really)

How do these work with Keto? Just limited doses?

Think I’ll take a look at that book…

Regarding the Michael Mosely diet; my FIL was recommended to go on that for t2d and he did really well. In view of offering support we bought the recipe book and have ‘Loosely’ been following it ourselves the last couple of weeks. It’s actually got some really good recipes.

By Loosely, we’re having overnight oats for breakfast which is obviously carb heavy and we have been ending the day on 1,100 – 1,200 cals a day. It’s basically just meat and above ground veg & surprisingly we haven’t been hungry on this diet and lost 4kg’s over the last 10 days..

It’s basically just meat and above ground veg & surprisingly we haven’t been hungry on this diet and lost 4kg’s over the last 10 days..

Quoi? 4kgs over 10 days? I thought 0.5kg/week was considered healthy?

Is there something else like lack of water retention that has helped with the 4kgs?

At 1200kCals/day I would have thought the max you could lose in 10 days (rough maths…) would be 1.5kg

It is quite a lot, quite fast. I personally suspect it’s more to do with my starting point being straight after the festive period where we were drinking every day and eating cheese by the fridgeful so the 0.4kg/day is unrepresentative of “normal” on the diet. I would expect the rate of change to tail off as we go though the month, but I’m only looking to lose around 12kgs to get back to finding running easier once more.

Dont know about your question bit I hope your calorie counting is better than your mile counting!

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Haha, true, 150miles would be a very good week in nice weather, most weeks something get’s skipped due to rain or other commitments. I don’t think the Thursday ride’s happened since November😂

I’m not a body builder but it’s often said that you can’t bulk up and get lean at the same time – you have to alternate building and cutting.

It does seem like a diet and nutrition has got a lot more scientific over the last 10-20 years. There’s loads of stuff that’s received wisdom, but doesn’t survive scientific scrutiny.

Anyway, soup for lunch and dinner yesterday, shake for breakfast this morning and feeling surprisingly good. Have already promised myself a cheat meal out on Saturday night and haven’t given up my morning latte (but it is semi skimmed milk and only a mug, not a pint from costa)!

My full-fat cheat days are a depressing reminder of how bad my ‘normal’ days were previously!

1 bowl of crisps and 1 or 2 beers IF I’ve been good the rest of the day… That’s having assumed 750kC for dinner tonight, Mediterranean roast veg and feta stirred through cous-cous with a saffron stock. I suppose I could pick out the feta (my wife’s fave) and just eat less of the rest, earn myself a whisky and/or piece of chocolate.

Will get easier once I’m allowed to start exercising in earnest again, using a BMR of 2000 with no exercise on top is pretty limiting.

After being chunky for ages and ages in 2017 I dropped my weight to 86kg (I lost 14kg in 3m 19d) and had an FTP of 312 (those legs had been used to shifting 100kgs for 10 years)

I’d been doing quite a lot of riding previously and kept it up as well as running but just downed my calories to 1500 a day (tried to stick to iDave principle and avoided bad carbs) and stuck to it best I could. Any exercise was a bonus.

Results!

– Hills that I used to struggle with just didn’t exist anymore

– I ran a sub 4hr marathon

– I loved not struggling (and even leading when out on the bikes with my mates)

Now I have all the weight back and none of the power and can’t run 5k at the same pace I did for 26 miles and its back into Chub club so hey ho, the cycle begins again. Good job it’s a cycle forum.

– So in short yes you can,

– it’s hard work

– once you achieve it you’ll probably have to adapt as its not sustainable (i didn’t adapt I reverted to type got very down about it stopped cycling altogether and hated myself for going back to being a lazy fatty)