Whatever you do, keep it sustainable. I’m not sure that keto/fasting/no carb/whatever are something that your average Joe can keep doing, as Tiger alludes to in his efforts.

Even a conservative estimate suggests that cycling 150 miles per week is burning 7,500 calories.

What is your estimated total calorific intake per week, pre-diet? Surely masses of scope to make some simple swaps without being reduced to a liquid diet.

Whatever you do, keep it sustainable. I’m not sure that keto/fasting/no carb/whatever are something that your average Joe can keep doing, as Tiger alludes to in his efforts.

I think it is at the “right” calorie levels.   However, your body continues to crave carbs and its the non exercise days that are tricky.   I’m sitting here right now waiting for my Chicken & Carrots to warm up and I could absolutely smash Belgian bun and some crips.

Whatever you do, keep it sustainable. I’m not sure that keto/fasting/no carb/whatever are something that your average Joe can keep doing, as Tiger alludes to in his efforts.

I see your point, but equally “sustainable” might not work either, or be worse, and it’s not sustainable anyway.

In order:
1) I don’t think that anyone would argue that a diet that results in noticeable weight loss is going to be easier to stick with in the short term than one that’s so slow you can only really see a result that’s not within the margin for error 4 weeks on. I can ‘lose’ 2kg in a hard ride just from water and sugar, a change to the right of the decimal point at a weekly weigh in isn’t anything at all. As the research shows, if you take the starting group as a whole the faster diets work better rather than trying to extrapolate back from the very few people who succeeded in loosing weight slowly and blaming other factors for those who failed. When in reality the common factor appeared to be diet (I’m separating the meaning of the word diet to mean a short term change in what you’re eating from say “nutritional” being a longer term thing) advice they were given.

2) Better to be a healthy weight for the majority of period of time than an unhealthy but slowly decreasing weight for that same period of time? If all goes to plan then 9 months as a lean mean hill climbing machine is better than 12 months of trying (both from a cycling up hills perspective, and a health perspective).

3) No one ever claimed any diet was sustainable. 1500 calories/day is no more sustainable than 800, but you have to sustain it for about twice as long ! Both rely on the subject re-adjusting to a normal diet. The advantage I can see in the fast800 method is the first 3 months is so far removed from what I would normally eat (it’s a joke in our house that my GF will only eat foods that end in “and chips”*) that going backwards actually seems less likely, whereas a conventional diet swapping that to “and salad” is only a short step back to “and salad with chips”

*it’s not that bad, but she wont eat rice or pulses, only certain types of pasta and is fussy about veg. But will eat roast potatoes and chips by the tray full. So weekday meal options tend to get whittled down to potato.

What is your estimated total calorific intake per week, pre-diet? Surely masses of scope to make some simple swaps without being reduced to a liquid diet.

Admittedly, a lot of crap.

Breakfast is usually pancakes (which aren’t that bad, it’s an egg, some water and some flour), but then get filled with fruit which is mostly sugar.

Lunch is a packed lunch, so a sandwich, yogurt, crisps, chocolate biscuit, and 3 portions of fruit to snack on.

Dinner is my biggest downfall as the OH is a fussy eater (she denies it but when it comes to picking a dinner she’ll veto everything until we get to the “and chips” option mentioned above. And I CBA cooking 2 dinners (she’d be even worse if left to her own devices).

Also the house is packed with treats, and I have zero willpower! I’ve asked her to stop but she’ll buy cash and carry quantities of penguins, rocky bars, crisps etc with the justification that “well you don’t have to eat them”, errrmmmm yes I do! **crumbs fly everywhere**. And she has a tendency to buy extra “treats” every time she shops (pastries, cakes, cream eggs). Left to my own devices I’d be a lot healthier!

Interesting point re: sustainable and sudden.

I used to be amazed that neither calorie control nor binging seemed to affect my weight, until I spent a solid 5 months not exercising, then it finally rose 5kg.

Almost 2 weeks in to a 5:2 plan with slightly restricted calories on the 5 days and I’m seeing negligible results, in fact since I bought some new scales I’ve even gone up!

Wondering if I need to go mega restricted in the short term just to get back to normal weight, then relax a bit once I’m back on bike and hopefully burning cals again.

Interesting…I’ve been on a 5:2 diet since before Christmas, and cut out meat during the week since the new year, rather than ramble on I’ll keep it brief.

– The 5:2 is great (for me), I feel lighter and fresher etc, and I’ve been successfully loosing weight. However one thing to note is that its not recommended for diabetics, however research suggests it does increase your sensitivity to insulin, so I don’t know how it would work for your OH.
– The fast diet is essentially 5:2, however you have 800 calories for the first 2 weeks, then carry on with the 5:2, only having 800 calories. The reason for this is in the first 2 weeks, you’ll get motivated by the rapid loss, and the extra 300 calories over the 5:2 has roughly the same effects, only you won’t be as hangry.
– I’m also doing a bit of 16:8…also works great and you feel great.
– Finally cutting out meat makes a huge difference to my perceived endurance, I feel much more energised on longer rides.
– No notable loss in fitness on rides, and strength seems to have gone up.

N.B. I may be wrong on some of the fast diet info, but this is how I interpret it from YouTube interviews with Dr Michael Mosley.

used to be amazed that neither calorie control nor binging seemed to affect my weight, until I spent a solid 5 months not exercising, then it finally rose 5kg.

My weight slowly crept up from about 78kg at 16 to 115kg at 32. Always going up a bit each time I had a break from regular exercise (or I’d build muscle, then get fat but maintain the same weight, then build muscle, but not loose the fat), but never dropping until I was in the high 90’s. Then I hit 30 and put on about 2 stone very quickly!

Wondering if I need to go mega restricted in the short term just to get back to normal weight, then relax a bit once I’m back on bike and hopefully burning cals again.

This is part of the reason I’ve decided to start this week, my backs so bad I can barely hobble around the office let alone walk any distance. So 800 calorie intake might unfortunately not actually be all that big a deficit!

 I’m sitting here right now waiting for my Chicken & Carrots to warm up and I could absolutely smash Belgian bun and some crips.

Well you may be losing weight but it sounds like you’ve still got the same issue that led you to wanting to lose weight.:-)

I could sit in front of those and have no desire to eat them, I’m not sure how exactly I changed my mindset towards food but change it I did and given that it was some 35 years ago I’d say that it’s probably permanent. The way I look at something now is well I could eat that if I want to it’s just I don’t right now. I’m not a vegetarian just someone who hasn’t eaten any meat or fish for well over 3 decades. I’m not a vegan but goes weeks at a time without eating anything that’s come from animals. If I want a steak today I’ll have one, it’s highly unlikely but you never know.

Food is not a religion, dieting is not a religion, you are not going to hell if you eat something. Once you have that mentality the devil has a much harder time tempting you.

Having demolished most of the Xmas chocolate/cookies I really didn’t want by around 3rd Jan (because some days I cannot stop satisfying my carb cravings if there are “sweets” in the cupboards), combined with exercising less over the previous ~14 days, my general trend weight loss from 24th Oct went a bit backwards. ~83.6Kg down to ~79.1, then rose to ~79.7Kg.

I started the Zwift “TT Tune-Up” on 6th Jan, a lot of ~60min z2 power stuff which I’ve found quite boring, so I’ve thrown in the odd bit of extra riding like Zwift TTs, event rides etc. Endulged in the odd 200g bag of chocolate raisins roughlt every other day (one of my main reasons for weight gain over past almost 2.5 years, along with cold x buns and peanut butter & jam sandwiches), but I’m down to ~78.2Kg.

I suspect the ~1.5Kg loss since 3rd is some carbs restraint, but mainly a ramp up in cycling (919 TSS on turbo, plus cyle commuting and delivery 3 days last week, plus a couple of ~40min gentle hilly rides this week while on annual leave).

My worry is that no matter how hard I was training, my weight wasn’t going down! So I can’t rely on cycling for weight loss.

Having said that, I think I was over-doing the recovery shakes which was short circuiting any weight loss after high intensity stuff, and I was probably over-estimating calorie burn on longer cycles (pretty sure I was using 50% of whatever Strava said) and probably also ignoring calories during rides e.g. soreen, energy bars, coffee, cakes etc.

GCN did a useful, lighthearted video on it

I’m still on a lot of painkillers due to back surgery, wonder what effect they might be having.

80kg seems a long way off!

This one’s a bit drier but I just picked up some useful tips

But you are aiming to do a hell of alot of miles on a lettuce leaf and a slice of cucumber.
Throw all the rubbish in the direction of a foodbank
Plan meals properly, on advance, fish, chicken, pork plus veg, no pudding ot maybe a satsuma
Bin off the crisps at lunch add a boiled egg, 8 cherry tomatoes, maybe a small bit of beetroot
Then do a ride over lunchtime and have no lunch, just a few oatcakes

I am at my winter weight of 78kg now, usually drop to 75 or 74 by September, 5ft 11 and light build. I cut right down on carbs after lunch, beer is my weakness

Breakfast is usually pancakes (which aren’t that bad, it’s an egg, some water and some flour)

Almost pure white flower, which is packed with high GI carbs. They are very bad. But delicious. But bad.

Well you may be losing weight but it sounds like you’ve still got the same issue that led you to wanting to lose weight.:-)

Only because I was hungry.  There’s kitchen drawer full of shite and a cupboard full of booze which I haven’t touched for months and wouldn’t.

Cut out the pancakes at breakfast and 90% of the crisps and chocolate biscuits. Just have 3 eggs for breakfast (scrambled, boiled or poached). Stop weighing yourself. In 2-3 months you’ll be able to see the difference.

Oven chips with every evening meal probably isn’t the worst thing in the world as long as there’s some lean protein and veg on the plate too. But cupboards full of sugary snacks will always be your undoing. Just stop buying them. They are literally killing you.

If you plan proper meals and get it all in one shop, that’ll also cut out the ‘top-up’ shops where the extra cakey crap is sneaking in.

Keto isn’t entirely all or nothing but it’s close.

Ketosis is essentially the physiological state of ketone production, ketones agre then used for energy instead of glycogen. This only happens in low glucose environments so if you eat say 30g of carbs/sugars your body stops ketone production and you are ‘kicked out’ of ketosis.

If you’ve been keto for a while this doesn’t matter that much (every now and then…) as you have increased metabolic flexibility and are more effectively dual fuelled. In the early weeks though, it’s to be avoided as it sets you back from becoming adapted.

In terms of 80/20, the 20 is hard to start with. I find I lack that top end sprint performance. This comes back over time however, 2 months onwards, until you’re back to equivalent or better. The 80 is great though, even fasted you can just keep going.

The biggest thing for most people is relearning about nutrition, especially fats and the whole ‘healthy carbs’ thing.

Dr Gary Fetke / Dr Tim Noakes on YouTube are a great place to start, as is ‘The big fat surprise’ by Nina Tiecholz.

So OP, how will your OH respond when she realises these meal replacement ideas don’t include chips?

Looking at your earlier post it seems to me sugar is your problem (and OH). Not carbs or fat.

N.B. I may be wrong on some of the fast diet info, but this is how I interpret it from YouTube interviews with Dr Michael Mosley.

Speaking of Doc Mosley, I posted links to his site on another thread (Slimming World recipes) with particular reference to diabetes.

https://thebloodsugardiet.com

Home

In terms of 80/20, the 20 is hard to start with. I find I lack that top end sprint performance. This comes back over time however, 2 months onwards, until you’re back to equivalent or better. The 80 is great though, even fasted you can just keep going.

This is what I found.  Even though I “rode” the last Gorrick instead of racing it I wasn’t able to inject any oomph into anything.   I’ve then slightly undercooked my recent FTP test because I was holding back on numbers I didn’t believe I could maintain, but likely could have for longer than I thought.

So OP, how will your OH respond when she realises these meal replacement ideas don’t include chips?

Thankfully this is her idea. Like most men I’d be posting this from beyond the grave if I’d had the balls to suggest their OH went on a diet 🤣

I’ll weigh myself tomorrow morning and get the BF calipers out to take some measurements and keep this thread updated.

91.2 kg and 23.2kg BF, so +3kg of fat over December.

Things can only get better

3) No one ever claimed any diet was sustainable.

I wouldn’t ever entertain the idea of going on a diet, so I’d agree. A lifestyle change is what I mean by sustainable.

Lots of folk on this thread who seem to think they know what they’re talking about eat a load of shite.

Yay… well after 3 weeks of 5:2ish calorie restriction I’ve finally seen some results, 1kg less on the new digital scales, although unfortunately they seem to read 2kg MORE than my old scales, so on paper anyway I’m only half way back to my starting point LOL.

Not taking it too seriously, still not really able to exercise like I used to so using a BMR of 2000kCal for a 5’11” 89kg office worker is probably still generous.

Also taking advice of GCN above I’m adding 20% to the ‘label’ calories of food, especially relevant as I’m not finding the calorie restriction too difficult so far, so could probably afford to restrict more!

Depressing side note: my phone is still trying to auto-correct ‘calories’ to ‘Calobra’. Was obviously spending more time planning routes on Mallorca last year than worrying about weight loss…

Started Keto at 14st8lbs on Monday with a 36 hour water fast. 14st dead this morning so 8lbs off.

Of course, that’s just the weight of the glycogen I’ve burned through – so I haven’t lost any *actual* weight. But still – dropping that much in such a short time means I already look amazing in the mirror 😉

I’m finding that as this is my second time around for keto (did it last year and dropped loads, before rebounding like a ****t when canning it – because 15 hour stressful days at the office don’t go hand in hand with the willpower to not throw crap down your neck) – that it’s *much* easier. I’ve very little noticeable “keto flu” (which was hard first time around). Presumably because I’ve retained the cellular adaptations made when you switch from burning sugars to burning fats.

Going to do a long zone 2 (ish – I won’t actually measure it) ride on Sunday – 7 or 8 hours of canal towpath and gentle spinning up hills – without any food in me at all. It was a pleasure last year to know that low-intensity exercise was being purely fuelled by your love handles. If I can knock off, say, 3500 calories then that’s a pound lost.

Obviously, I’ll come home, eat a sensible sized keto meal. Bit of protein, try to get most of my fats from vegetable sources (avocado-o-matic but olives and some nuts too) and shedloads of above-ground veg of different colours. (There’s nothing I don’t like).

This time round I’m going to double down on the OH when she cooks to ensure she’s measuring what she’s cooking before sticking it in the pan. She won’t let me cook (which, frankly, is great because it’s her hobby and she’s good at it) but being a butchers daughter her idea of portion control is cooking for 12. We eat good food, just wayyyyy too much of it.

If I bring my little nazi out then I’ll whip her into line soon enough 🙂

Two and a half stone loss is my target. Will put me at, say, 12st6lbs at 6’2″. My family can call me belson boy all they like. The fat f*cks can f*ck off 😉

If I bring my little nazi out

TMI…..

My family can call me belson boy all they like

Think this is part of the problem- chubbiness has become normalised. I’m 5’8″, when STW Chub club first started in 2017 I was 85kg and dropped down to 70kg. At 70kg I still had a bit of fat round the waist but lots of people were asking me if I was ok and “you look ill”. Some colleagues even wondered if I had cancer*!

In typical fashion I’ve crept back up (*Mrs FB being diagnosed with cancer mid 2017 was the first wobble to knock me off course) so I started Chub club this year at 86kg.

Totally this:

chubbiness has become normalised

Holidays in europe, you come back to the UK and you’re like “WTF, you’re all soooo ugly”.

What we’re used to seeing isn’t good. 70% of us overweight. It’s not how humans should be.

chevychase

Totally this:
chubbiness has become normalised
Holidays in europe,

Shouldn’t you have said European Vacation instead?

😀

Weigh day tomorrow, I’m hopeful as I’m a notch down on my belt already! But did have 2 large Cornish pasties that the OH brought back from Cornwall for a couple of dinners, a couple of slices of toast with the soup one night, a slice of cake, some mince pies, some marshmallows, and 2 penguins!

Sounds bad, but when you consider that’s spread over 7 days and everything else has either been soup, shake or veg it’s pretty good going. And the best bit is I’ve not actually craved any of that, they’re just things I’ve eaten when they’ve been offered.

Actually bad stuff; zero exercise because of my back.

@thisisnotaspoon. Not trying to be de-motivational or mean or anything – but don’t kid yourself that it’s not bad because it’s “spread over 7 days”.

Counting “some” mince pies as one thing, that’s still eight things, with cornish pasties being two of your evening meals.

Kind of means that *every day* you’re eating junk of some sort rather than saving them for a couple-of-times-a-week treats.

🙁

It’s hard when you live in an obeseogenic environment. Everywhere you go things you shouldn’t eat (at least often) literally surround you. And willpower doesn’t work all-day – it works for a short time. We counter that in our shopping – willpower in the supermarket means that we never, ever, have any “bad” in the house. No biscuits, no sugar, (at the moment on keto, no milk even!)

It means that when I look in the fridge for something to snack on then pretty much all that’s there is vegetables.

Yes. I’ve been known to eat raw cabbage.

No expertise in this – I’ve always relied on exercise before breakfast if getting tubby, ie the old style cyclist’s “diet”.

Good luck.

I’m going for the ‘ride tons’ option this time which for me is a target of 40hrs per month, whilst trying to follow iDiet which by default means calorie and carb restriction.

I’m on 29 hours so far in Jan. I’m feeling tired, but I can still ride at low intensity – I just back off when my legs start to ache. I haven’t got a power meter any more but I think I’m on a mix of z2 and z3.

I’m away from home this week but last week I lost about 0.6kg.

btw , if you re-name Mince Pies as ‘Fat Bombs’ they suddenly become less appealing.
Nice of your OH to bring you back 2 x cornish nasties as well, i think she isnt helping much, or doesnt understand what a diet is

I’m with Chevy a bit.  You didn’t crave them because you had them, that’s a pretty calorie dense set of poor options right there.

I say that while tucking into a pot of cheese and chive cottage cheese and a whole meal bagel after a 2h z2 And in my way to a 1000 cal deficit today.  Yum.

‘Fat Bombs’ ………….. cornish nasties

Wheres that killfile when you need it!!!!!

Yes. I’ve been known to eat raw cabbage.

You mean coleslaw? Today’s menu has been imaginative. Toast and jam for breakfast then went out for a long walk and didn’t eat until tea time. Fancied a fry up, so had one. Sausage, egg, mushrooms, beans, fried bread and some more bread to mop up. Lashings of tea. Then for supper, blue cheese, red wine. Now I’m scoffing salted peanuts. Not every day has to be perfect!

It’s hard when you live in an obeseogenic environment. Everywhere you go things you shouldn’t eat (at least often) literally surround you.

Agreed. I retired last year and once away from the Greggs, Co-op and pub over the road from work I lost weight without trying (and I wasn’t trying).

Yeah, coleslaw (though I wouldn’t eat that on it’s own out of the fridge – in my mind it’s an accompaniment to other food). But I’ll cram a whole cabbage down over the course of a day for some reason.

I’d snack on carrots but too much sugar for ultra low carb keto 😉

89.7kg, kilo and a half down, not bad for a week when my only exercise has been about 6 hours of gardening and tree planting.

89.1, not as good as last week, but then i did have fish and chips on Thursday. Also got back into riding so possibly Ive retained some more water.

Found that although I felt fine on the bike, I completely lacked energy afterwards, so Ive added a few calories back in. Morning coffee is now back to a latte (so 150 or so), lunch is doubled to soup before riding and a shake afterwards, and ive doubled up the protein in the shake with more whey (so theyve gone up 50 calories, and an extra one is 250). Ive also stopped counting the calories in veg, so dinner is usually a propper plate full of non-starchy veg.

Average daily calorie intake is therefore about 1100-1200, and ive done 4 rides this week averageing about 700 calories each. Hopefully that should start to take effect next week.

Down to 22.1kg of bodyfat though, so thats progress.

The nobeer plan lost me 25kgs, and is entirely sustainable, forevermore, Been over 2 years now.

No.

Beer.

Lots of running, hill walking, cycling, dumbbells and eating good fresh food, 3l of water a day minimum.

3l of water- that seems quite a lot, especially if you’re having plenty of fresh fruit and veg.