# Weight gain after a hard ride



## Twinks (5 Apr 2015)

I had noticed that my weight goes up a couple of pounds the day after a hard ride. Didn't think too much about it as it goes back down in a day or two but my OH said this morning that he's put on nearly half a stone after yesterdays ride which was a long hilly one. He's trying to lose a few pounds so he would notice. Can anyone explain why this happens?


----------



## ColinJ (5 Apr 2015)

Drinking a lot more water than you actually sweated off!


----------



## Drago (5 Apr 2015)

Are they weighing themselves the same time each day after , to put it bluntly, a good poo and a wee? A couple of pounds is a helluva lot of inhaled insects.


----------



## Twinks (5 Apr 2015)

^^


----------



## vickster (5 Apr 2015)

Fluid retention or just one of those things. Advice if trying to lose weight is weigh yourself once a week at same time in morning


----------



## nickyboy (5 Apr 2015)

Must be a timing thing. When did you/he weigh yourselves? All I can think is that you were dehydrated when you did the first weigh, then full of liquid at the second weigh

That or you need to cut back on your café stops


----------



## Twinks (5 Apr 2015)

I have a funny feeling it's more to do with not drinking enough, especially in my case as I have to force myself to drink during a ride as I just don't seem to get thirsty. Also yesterday was not too warm up in the Peak so didn't feel to be sweating. I wonder if you actually get dehydrated then the body hangs on to fluid when it does get it, a bit like when it goes into famine mode if you don't get enough to eat.


----------



## buggi (5 Apr 2015)

Lactic acid build up??


----------



## Cuchilo (5 Apr 2015)

Lilmo said:


> I have a funny feeling it's more to do with not drinking enough, especially in my case as I have to force myself to drink during a ride as I just don't seem to get thirsty. Also yesterday was not too warm up in the Peak so didn't feel to be sweating. I wonder if you actually get dehydrated then the body hangs on to fluid when it does get it, a bit like when it goes into famine mode if you don't get enough to eat.


Famine mode ? Are you serious ?


----------



## Twinks (5 Apr 2015)

Cuchilo said:


> Famine mode ? Are you serious ?



Yeh, if you don't eat enough your body metabolises more slowly.


----------



## nickyboy (5 Apr 2015)

Cuchilo said:


> Famine mode ? Are you serious ?



I would have thought Glossop would be the last place in the world to be worrying about water famine


----------



## vickster (5 Apr 2015)

Lilmo said:


> Yeh, if you don't eat enough your body metabolises more slowly.


Not after one day though, takes a while I think!


----------



## Twinks (5 Apr 2015)

@nickyboy Haha ain't that the truth


----------



## Twinks (5 Apr 2015)

vickster said:


> Not after one day though, takes a while I think!



I know but I meant on the same principle


----------



## vickster (5 Apr 2015)

Highly unlikely. Weigh yourself once a week if weight loss is an objective after eating fewer calories and exercising more


----------



## Pale Rider (5 Apr 2015)

Don't underestimate @Drago point about toilet movements.

Jockeys take an overdose of diuretic 'water' tablets if they need to lose a few pounds quickly to make the weight for a race.

As @vickster says, weighing yourself too often will give a confusing picture.

Once a week at the same time is best.

It's also very easy to replace calories burned and then some.

I probably replace most of the calories I burn during the ride or just after.

But I can also be extra hungry the next day, which is annoying.

Thus I can manage to cycle and gain weight.


----------



## Twinks (5 Apr 2015)

@vickster No it was just an observation on my part. OH does want to lose a few pounds so I think he weighed himself this morning expecting yesterday's ride to have done it for him. Scales probably aren't accurate anyway as they're ancient.


----------



## Saluki (5 Apr 2015)

I know why.
It's one of those things that happens and the body goes back to normal by the next morning.

Seriously, it's one of those inexplicable things that the body does. I asked my doc about this once and that's what he told me. He was a triathlete and I reckon that he knew a thing or two.


----------



## Cold (5 Apr 2015)

When you exercise harder than normal your body is using the water you take on to help the muscles that are working harder and your body will retain the water as it doesn't know if more will be coming.
If you drink enough when exercising then it won't retain as much.


----------



## G3CWI (5 Apr 2015)

Too much cake.


----------



## Twinks (5 Apr 2015)

Ahh @Cold that's what I meant. I didn't put it very well.


----------



## Steady (6 Apr 2015)

Whilst I don't have the experience from 'hard rides', I know that when I go distance walking and I push out a 50k walk, the next day I'll always expect to be at least to see a little downward trend on the scale but the opposite is always the outcome and the scales can be up on what I was prior to the walk and take a while to settle back down.

I've always put down to fluid retention/inflammation, muscle repair etc.


----------



## jefmcg (6 Apr 2015)

This seems wrong to me. I put on about 5kg (a bit under a stone) after London-Edinburgh-London, as did many other riders. But that took 4 days solid riding, and it was obvious what and where it was: water retention. You could hardly make out my knees or ankles, and my fingers were swollen sausages that didn't want to bend. Oh, and this was while I wasn't drinking enough water, so that part is right.

After Saturdays much shorter 300km (> 190miles) ride, I lost about 3kg, which I assume was mostly dehydration. I really doubt you'd retain that much water in a single day. So I agree with the others: full bladder.

There's another possibility, if your OH is detrained. I once heard some preliminary research that unfit people who start training can increase blood volume but 2 litres. That's 2kg and most of the half stone right there. But I don't think that could happen over a single ride, but over a few weeks - where you could lose 2kg of body fat, but with the increase in blood volume, the scale would look the same. Unfortunately I have never seen this research paper, so I don't know if the results held up and it was ever published.


----------



## Twinks (7 Apr 2015)

It's all very interesting. 190 miles...., the ride that I was talking about was probably only around 40 miles, though it was hilly. We have both only been cycling since last August and are both aged 59 but had a reasonable fitness level otherwise. By the way we are both back to previous weight now. Curious.


----------



## Sittingduck (7 Apr 2015)

I must be a freak because if I weigh myself in the morning after the bathroom then go on a long ride and weigh again, I am likely to be 1-2 Kg lighter, post ride. I think there is something else going on here. Probably inaccurate scales or the individual is eating too much on the ride.


----------



## nickyboy (7 Apr 2015)

Lilmo said:


> It's all very interesting. 190 miles...., the ride that I was talking about was probably only around 40 miles, though it was hilly. We have both only been cycling since last August and are both aged 59 but had a reasonable fitness level otherwise. By the way we are both back to previous weight now. Curious.



Well done on 40 miles riding. In this area, that is a serious ride in anyone's book. Where did you get to?

I've been riding for about 3 years and have done about 10,000 hard hilly miles and haven't lost a single kg. Mrs N does occasionally comment that our Tesco bill is creeping inexorably upwards though.....


----------



## jefmcg (7 Apr 2015)

Not dissing 40miles. That's a good show, and you should be pleased. I live the the flat lands, and aren't good at hills.

But it's not enough to make physiology change. It's simpler than that, you have just taken in a lot more than you have put out. Inputs are food and drink, outputs are sweat, expiration and um ... 1&2  So if you drank 3 litres of water, didn't have a toilet stop and ate a little food, it would be easy to be 1/2 stone heavier.

Note: cycling alone is no guarantee to weight loss. You need to think about diet. One year I cycled 5000miles and lost about 8kg. The next year I cycled about the same distance and put 10kg on


----------



## Citius (7 Apr 2015)

Weigh yourself every couple of days and look for trends over a period of several weeks - not specific numbers on any given day.


----------



## Hip Priest (7 Apr 2015)

Try getting off the bike.


----------



## Twinks (7 Apr 2015)

@nickyboy we left my brother's in Whitehough, Chapel en le Frith and went Buxton, Harpur Hill, Longnor, Glutton, Hartington, Newhaven, Friden, Youlgreave, Over Haddon, Sheldon, Chelmorton and back route to Chapel. Then had a DRIVE up Peaslowe Lane.......just WOW! Won't be attempting that anytime soon.
@jefmcg am thinking it's all to do with fluid, I do remember similar experiences to yours when fell walking in the Lake District......the swelling etc. Probably wouldn't have noticed if my husband hadn't said about it and he only noticed because he's hoping to lose a few pounds and thought a good ride would have shifted a couple.


----------



## nickyboy (7 Apr 2015)

Lilmo said:


> @nickyboy we left my brother's in Whitehough, Chapel en le Frith and went Buxton, Harpur Hill, Longnor, Glutton, Hartington, Newhaven, Friden, Youlgreave, Over Haddon, Sheldon, Chelmorton and back route to Chapel. Then had a DRIVE up Peaslowe Lane.......just WOW! Won't be attempting that anytime soon.
> @jefmcg am thinking it's all to do with fluid, I do remember similar experiences to yours when fell walking in the Lake District......the swelling etc. Probably wouldn't have noticed if my husband hadn't said about it and he only noticed because he's hoping to lose a few pounds and thought a good ride would have shifted a couple.



That's a hard ride but some lovely roads that I ride on every now and then. I'm going to give Peaslowe Lane a miss in the future. It's just too hard to be enjoyable, Rushup Edge is a much more pleasant alternative


----------



## uclown2002 (12 Apr 2015)

Citius said:


> Weigh yourself every couple of days and look for trends over a period of several weeks - not specific numbers on any given day.


To add to the advice above, as someone else has alluded to, weigh yourself at the same time of day, preferably first thing in the morning.


----------



## vernon (14 Apr 2015)

Pale Rider said:


> Thus I can manage to cycle and gain weight.



I've gained weight on two cycle tours, LEJOG and Prague to Berlin. The first one saw a weight gain of a pound. The second one saw a weight gain of nearly half a stone - I discovered the pleasures of excessive amounts of Czech beer and cheap food.


----------

