Slow?

[Jimmy Doug]

Myself personally, I've never enjoyed riding so much as when I learned to stop worrying about average speeds and times and so on but to just, as another user has said, get out and ride. You don't need to try to break personal records to get fit: just get out, spin the pedals, have a good diet and, most of all, just enjoy being outside in the sun...or rain...and have fun! I learned all that in your neck of the woods - Wiltshire man myself, or was until I became a Picard. I used to time myself riding up the White Horse. Now I just let the pedals turn and listen to the birds singing. Age maybe?

 

[lulubel]

lose weight by cutting out carbohydrates altogether

If you want to lose weight, just eat less or exercise more (or both). Carbohydrates are your cycling fuel, and cutting them out just makes everything harder. Plus, some of your weight loss will be down to your glycogen stores being empty, and as soon as you start eating carbs again, you'll gain weight as your glycogen stores refill.

Eating a healthy, varied diet, and sensible amounts of food for the amount of exercise you do is the best way to lose weight and keep it off.

 

[Seigi]

Eating a healthy, varied diet, and sensible amounts of food for the amount of exercise you do is the best way to lose weight and keep it off.

^ This.

I've lost a considerable amount of weight over the past 4 months, granted I am younger, but what I find is that I eat less on days that I'm more sedentary, and eat more on days that I'm more active. I do try to aim to cycle 5 times a week, but that totally depends on the haphazard weather. As a basis I try never to eat over 2500kcal per day, and if I do it's because I've cycled a fair distance.

A good tool that I use (If you have a GPS smart phone) is called "Cardiotrainer", it tracks your route with a variety of different exercise types (Cycling included), tells you how far, how fast, shows you on a map and also tells you how many calories you burnt during the work out. Really handy tool. Aside from this it also has a weightloss diary (Which I find a bit finicky), and a history page which tells you how far you've gone in total/month/7 days, amongst other statistics.