Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

I am now 46 years old, 5'10" about 165lbs, I wear a size 12.  I'm not fat, but not skinny.  I gain a few pounds over the winter due to the reduction in riding, but will take that off by May when I'm back to the activity level I used to be at.  I eat about 2200 cal/day to maintain 165.  When I used to hit the gym everyday, I was around 160, body fat of 16% (I'm about 22% now), and ate about 2700 cal/day.  You are all probably saying that I must have a high metabolism, born this way. Not!  Up until I was 33 years old I always was fat.  At 33, the age my Mother developed diabetes was a wake up call for me and I lost 70 lbs.  All by diet and exercise.  Ate about 1800 cal/day, walked 4 miles every day or did 45 minutes of aerobics. Lost the first 50 lbs in 6 months, the remaining 20 lbs took another 6 months. 

 

I have nothing scientific to back me up, just a one rate study, but the one thing I found about this is that unless you keep a food diary, you might think you are eating 1200 cal/day, but you are not, you are eating much, much more than that.  To me, it has been a simple math equation: eat more than you need, store it as fat, eat less than you need, access those fat reserves.  

 

Covert Bailey, a well know fitness and nutrition expert talked about burning fat, and human beings are designed to walk all day long, so walking is not a great fat burning exercise.  We can do it all day and not burn alot of fat.  So choose some other form of exercise that uses those big muscles (butt and thighs) to burn that fat. 

 

A study was done many years ago on a marathon runner, in terms of when he started to burn fat (most of us have to be doing an exercise for 20 minutes or more before our bodies start burning fat - efficiency at burning fat is something our bodies have to learn).  The hooked him up to the equipment and they found out that his body started to burn fat as soon as they turned on the treadmill.  His body was so well conditioned to burn fat that he started burning it in anticipation of the exercise.

 

I always lose weight at a ride.  Somewhere around 5 - 7 lbs.  I am well hydrated during the ride, but even after rehydrating after the ride, I am still down 3 - 5 lbs.  I can keep that weight off by eating normally, but if I eat what my body wants me to, it take about 7 - 10 days to put that weight back on.

 

Carolyn Burgess