Started cycling again

[Fuzzzie]

Packaged Iced Tea is just as bad as soda too. If you're not burning these calories then they're going to stick with you.

[Deleted]

I haven't touched Ice Tea in years now. Made me throw up once and sick for a week. The only soda I like is coke atm I try to drink water in the form of tea, but only with milk

[Fuzzzie]

I guess the bottom line is really to just look at your diet and how many calories you're taking in. If you can cut excess sugar out then go for it. Drinking soda doesn't benefit you at all.

[Deleted]

I guess the bottom line is really to just look at your diet and how many calories you're taking in. If you can cut excess sugar out then go for it. Drinking soda doesn't benefit you at all.

Yup that will probably be my hardest task. I love cycling, so that would not be a problem. Just tackling this whole soda shit is going to take me a few tries. Luckily I have only 1 2l bottle left and I am to lazy to go to the store

[Lyriok]

No offense but that meal made me cringe.

Just going to throw down some good pointers.

Exchanging water from coke will cut your calorie intake by ALOT and when i don't feel like water i make my own green tea
Eliminate sugar as it promotes storage of fat and is fat itself.
Allow yourself 1 cheat meal per week if a diet is difficult to stick to.
Instead of 3 meals a day maybe spread it out to be 6 meals as suggested by others, The small meals keep your metabolism going which is great.
If your cycling regularly you'll need carbs preferably complex carbs.

A diet doesn't have to be like a job and there are alot of recipes that are healthy and taste great. As i can't stress it enough soft drink is bad as Fuz has stated
The way i imagine it is, Imagine having dinner and you drink 2 glasses of coke, The calorie intake of the 2 glasses is basically like 2 healthy meals. so in that sitting your calorie intake is almost equal to 2 full sized meals.

Edit: My sister recently cut back the amount of coke she drinks (She has a major problem with coke although she is a normal weight) and she lost weight without even excercising at all just by cutting out coke, It's pure evil!

[Fuzzzie]

Yup that will probably be my hardest task. I love cycling, so that would not be a problem. Just tackling this whole soda shit is going to take me a few tries. Luckily I have only 1 2l bottle left and I am to lazy to go to the store

You'll probably just notice the lack of energy from the caffine. Drink tea without sugar if you need the boost. I personally just slept a lot.

Keep up with your cycling. Also try varying your workouts to maybe include walking/running and make sure you stretch.

as for diet.. I'm sure lots of people can tell you lots of things. Common sense is a good place to start. Grilled chicken and rice is going to be 10x better than a cheeseburger and fries etc.

Good luck and keep us posted on how it goes.

[Lyriok]

If you were really skinny you might be a Ectormorph which is a great advantage to losing weight.

As for diet I don't know what you like so I can't make any suggestions but when I decided to change what I ate I would always look on the back of the box/packet for the contents table or just ask "Is it natural?" and if you have to wonder if something is healthy it most likely isn't

Note: If you want some help just give me an idea of what you enjoy and maybe I can share what I eat or lead you to where you can find some great healthy recipes.

[Horatus]

I kind of got off track but I couldn’t bring myself to delete what I typed >.>

In terms of tips for tying everything together I think you should do a little more reading on fitness and anything that relates to men specifically. Stay away from the idiotic online articles about what’s good and what’s not. Half of the material published (unless it’s from a major university, NASM or ISSA disregard it) is total garbage. It’s really boring, bland and makes you want to gouge your eyes out but, it helps to understand your body a bit better.

Also, do not just jump on your bike and start peddling as hard and fast as you can. Give your muscles some time to warm up before you really get into it (please read the next 2 paragraphs to see why this is not good for your muscles). In cycling the first 15 minutes of the ride is pretty much your heart rate going up (stabilizing), blood vessels dilating and the muscles getting past the ATP/CP pathway, Glycolytic pathway and into the Oxidative pathway. Here are a few bits of information on these and I will tie it all together at the end.

1st energy pathway: ATP (adenosine triphosphate) and CP (creatine phosphate) are anaerobic sources of phosphate-bond energy. CP from muscles contributes a (P) phosphate to ADP which becomes ADP+P and is resynthesized into ATP. ATP intern releases a (P) to create muscle contraction. This is your burst energy pathway. The human body only contains 5 mmols of ATP per kg of muscle and 16 mmols of CP per kg of muscle. In the end this pathway is expired in 60 seconds and most of the time (excluding trained athletes) within 10 seconds of the start of this pathway it drops very quickly. I’ll get to the point in a moment.

The 2nd pathway is Glycolytic pathway. Once you have depleted the readily available stores of ATP/CP the body must break down carbohydrates to produce more ATP. This takes either Glycogen (from muscle cells) or glucose (from blood). The resulting chemical reaction produces Lactic acid.

Glucose + 2Pi +2ADP + 2NAD +------- 2 lactic acid + 2ATP + 2NAD

The major issue here when you burn through both of those pathways without a proper warm up is your body produces lactic acid faster than it can be flushed out of your system. This results you reaching the anaerobic threshold a.k.a muscular fatigue. Once this sets in at the start of any type of exercise you risk injuring yourself. Your muscles pretty much don’t contract properly. When you do reach this point your body has to convert lactic acid (which is toxic by the way) to lactate which via a process called gluconeogenesis converts it back to glucose which helps you create more ATP/CP.

Once you get through those two path ways (with a proper warm up) you get into the Oxidative pathway. This pathway is aerobic (versus anaerobic like the other two pathways) and uses oxygen to produce ATP via the Krebs Cycle and electron transport chain. It’s also important to note that this is the ONLY pathway you can burn fat in. The oxidative pathway produces Pyruvate (by product of glycolysis) which goes through the Krebs Cycle and converts several coenzymes that lost an electron back into their original state. In a nut shell the electron transport chain causes coenzymes to undergo oxidation to convert ADP back into ATP.

It is important to note that around 70% of energy in the oxidative pathway is derived from fat and not protein or carbs. However, when you start to reach to the upper limits of the aerobic pathway the body stops using fat and switches to carbs exclusively which if not replenished will cause the body to catabolize muscle.

This brings me to my next point, after you get off of your bike you need to consume some type of sugar (clean sugar pref). Please not a soda >.>. Eat a piece of fresh fruit (I prefer bananas) and have some water. On the flip side, I was once told by another trainer that sugar after a tough work out is so important that he would make his clients drink a coke if they didn’t bring something to eat. If you don’t get sugar back into your body it will continue to catabolize muscle until it is replenished. You want to burn fat not muscle.

As far as diet tips go, if you want to PM me I can send you book to read that will explain a lot of it to you. The time of the day and the amount of food you take into your body are just as important as what you put into it. I can post it on here but I think after everything I just typed out it might be a tad overkill. Also if anyone wants any advice or tips please feel free to PM me.

[Seegtease]

You'll probably just notice the lack of energy from the caffine. Drink tea without sugar if you need the boost.

It's probably a regional thing, but I know in the south people don't dare drink tea that isn't loaded with sugar.

Personally, I could drink a gallon of tea without a thing in it. I likes me bitter drinks, and it's oh-so-refreshing on a hot day. It makes me feel better than soda, too.

[Fuzzzie]

It's probably a regional thing, but I know in the south people don't dare drink tea that isn't loaded with sugar.

Personally, I could drink a gallon of tea without a thing in it. I likes me bitter drinks, and it's oh-so-refreshing on a hot day. It makes me feel better than soda, too.

I personally just drink water and vodka. :P

[Lyriok]

SNIP

Studied fitness Horatus?

Completly back Horatus up, Although you REALLY went into it lol.

Since it's been touched on your body has three energy systems Aerobic, Anaerobic and ATP-CP

Aerobic: Low intensity
Anaerobic: Moderate-High intensity
ATP-CP: Very high intensity

Being at the threshhold of a system can change your work out completly and is great to know. Monitering your heart rate during excercise can be a great tool for fitness and understanding your body.

Feel free to ask more about this.

Heres a link to one of my favourite websites, It's a great source of information for practically anything releated to health and excercise.
http://www.livestrong.com/

[Horatus]

Studied fitness Horatus?

Yes I actually dug out my trainers material for that post.

Just to give a little background, I am 5'10" and I use to weight 205lbs and had a 40" waist. I got tired of people telling me what to do at gyms and started reading material and got my self down to 134 lbs in about 5 months. So I completely understand how hard it is to get fit. Now I sit at around 180 lbs and 10-15% bmi. So I can give you the low down on how bad much getting into shape sucks. >.>

[Lyriok]

Pretty much same story for me growing up i was overweight, Took up PDHPE in my senior years and loved it, Turned myself around completly and fitness is now one of my favourite things to read/do now.

Never measured what i was at but i was a bit over what you were thats for sure, used to get told by my friends to go for a run and now they come to me for knoweledge on fitness lol
Really is something great to get into, Unfortunatly i don't have a career in it

[Kawwah]

It's summer and I'm trying to loose weight...

I'm 101 kilo's ( 222.2 lbs ) and since 2 days ago I started to cycle. I try to cycle as fast as possible and I drive about 20km's a day. Next to the trip to my work I think I cycle about 1,5 hours a day. I have no clue how much calories I'm burning and how long it will take to get rid of 10 kilo's ( 22 lbs )

Now, the bad thing is that when I come home I drink about 2 ltr's of coke... and I don't eat reguraly in terms of 3 meals a day.

Any tips or tricks? I would like to start losing some weight so I can be in shape for when I go back to college


EDIT: Maybe someone can post a litle "diet" when it comes to eating?

Im cycling every day to school. Have done so for about 1½ years. The "problem" with cycling is that its basicly your stamina and legs you train. I myself are a thin guy, but have a very annoying stomache that I want to go away. Cycling isnt really helping. Sure I get more energy and as I said better stamina, but when thats said and done it dosnt do a thing for my weight. Maybe its just me. So I have to agree with some others in this thread. My fitness obsessed friend has written down a food schedule for me, so maybe I can give it to you if you want it. And you can find some pretty good exercise videos on youtube as well.

[crakerjack]

OMFG??? Are you serious? 2 liters of coke a day? Come on man... that's probably the reason you are the way you currently are. Losing weight and building muscle or getting fit overall is 70% diet. If you can't get a diet down, then you should give up. People think, "oh I went into the gym and worked out for 30 minutes, I can now go home and eat w/e I want" It doesn't work that way. The best way to lose weight is to workout consistent, not just going on a stationary bike, but to do actual lifts. You'll need a routine to follow so that you're allowing certain muscle groups to recover while you work on other groups that you've yet to touch that week. you NEED sleep so that your body can fully recover. You'll find yourself aching and constantly tired if you're only getting 6 hours of sleep. I can't sit here and type away a list of things to do, If you truly want to lose the weight, the information is out there, not here on an video game website.

[Lyriok]

So many times Crackerjack i've seen my oldest sister come home from a run and eat a few blocks of chocolate, Each time i tell her she just ate all the calories she's burnt plus more but i have to say your way is harsh but true.

His doing better than other's by discussing it. I had a friend that literally wanted me to do everything for him to improve his health but ultimately you can only lead someone in the right direction, it's upto them if they keep with it.

Once you begin noticing the results that you want you'll notice your motivation shoot through the roof, it's only hard for the first week or so and then it becomes a well welcomed way of life.

[Kawwah]

Thats true. You will also notice if you have been drinking coke and eaten unhealthy, and you take a few days with healthy stuff like fruit, vegetables and what-not, your desire for sweets will go away. Ive also been eating quite unhealthy, and then I started eating healthy. Its been about a week now, and when im standing in the store im always more in the mood for some fruit now than a chocolate bar.

[Lyriok]

To remove temptation of foods i'll just look at it and call it what ever it has in it thats bad.

For example:

Soft drink: Sugar
Mcdonalds: Oil
Salt: Sodium
Chips: Carbs/Fat
Cake: Sugar/Fat

[Deleted]

Yup that will probably be my hardest task. I love cycling, so that would not be a problem. Just tackling this whole soda shit is going to take me a few tries. Luckily I have only 1 2l bottle left and I am to lazy to go to the store

Some motivation to give up Coke...

[Lyriok]

Jamie Olivers scare tactics on unhealthy food has really helped me keep at it, Heres part of a post from his website made by a viewer

After watching Jamie Oliver's series "Jamie's School Dinners" and who can ever forget the part on how to make chicken nuggets, I started to pay more attention to the ingredients listed on packaged foods. The other day I was looking at the side of my can of Coke and read that there was 42 grams of sugar in the 350 ml can. Now I don't know about you but I haven't the foggiest idea how much sugar this is, or at least I didn't. At home we have sugar cubes, so I pulled out my scales and started to measure out 42 grams of sugar. I was shocked, I still am, and it has been over a week. There are twelve cubes of sugar in one can of coke. Twelve!

When its put into perspective it is actually somewhat scary what some people are consuming on a dailey basis.