Lose weight & maintain intensity ?

[WelshJon]

Looking at shedding around half a stone which naturally means cutting back on calories, and remaining in a daily calorific deficit.

Question is , has anybody successfully been able to remain low on calories, yet been able to keep pushing hard and fast on club rides ect ? I tend to over eat on the bike i think.

My idea atm is to eat low calories on non riding days and not worry too much on training days ?

 

[Racing roadkill]

Looking at shedding around half a stone which naturally means cutting back on calories, and remaining in a daily calorific deficit.

Question is , has anybody successfully been able to remain low on calories, yet been able to keep pushing hard and fast on club rides ect ? I tend to over eat on the bike i think.

My idea atm is to eat low calories on non riding days and not worry too much on training days ?

Yes. I dropped a whopping 6 stone, a few years back, by restricting my calorie intake to around 1000 a day. If I need to trim any weight off nowadays, I'm coming from a much lower start point, and I'll aim for 1500 calories, during the weight loss phase. I can still go out on club rides, and get into the 17 -18's without any issues on that sort of intake. As long as you don't go to the extreme ( sub 1000 calories ) most healthy adults shouldn't lose enough strength / endurance, to affect a short ( ish ) intense ( ish) blast, I.M.E.

 

[WelshJon]

Great, sounds do-able. My main worry would be the post cafe stop where everyone fuel on cake!

 

[Racing roadkill]

Great, sounds do-able. My main worry would be the post cafe stop where everyone fuel on cake!

That's what you have to be careful of.
I do ride with 'leisure riders' more than any other group. Some of them eat for England on the ride, then wonder why they aren't losing as much weight as they thought they would. Even some of the 'sportier' riders, stock up with a weeks worth of whatever they prefer, be it 'gels', fig rolls, malt loaf, energy bars , Jelly babies, or whatever, then do a hefty 20 miles, and wonder why they can't quite get down to Whippet size. Also the fitter you get, the more efficiently you tend to use fuel up, so what used to be required for a ride, when you start, soon becomes too much / excess. People often forget that.

 

[WelshJon]

A problem for me currently is that im in between groups on club ride. Im pushing quite hard to keep with team 1, or finding it easy with team 2.

So i either consume calories and stick with the fast group, or go fairly empty and take a step back with team 2

 

[Racing roadkill]

A problem for me currently is that im in between groups on club ride. Im pushing quite hard to keep with team 1, or finding it easy with team 2.

So i either consume calories and stick with the fast group, or go fairly empty and take a step back with team 2

That's about it.

 

[screenman]

Or create a middle group,you may find there are plenty who want to ride that one, fact when I was doing club rides and running reliability trials the middle group was always the best subscribed.