What is effective?

Z

zebrasinamerica

New member
Hey everyone, I'm looking to drop weight. I used to race road bicycles and weighed about 165-170 lbs but then I injured my leg and as that was healing I broke my hand at work and could not ride for about 6-9 months. In this time frame I put on about 30 lbs and my damenor (sp?) has dropped astronomically whit this weight gain. My sex drive is about 1/4 of what it was and I assume that it is tied to the fact that I am embarresed of my body once again.

What I am curious about is what would be a good starting point for someone like myself? I am 22 years old, I'm not looking to build muscle as much as I am looking to drop body fat. Right now I'm considering pretty much a complete cardio workout program consisting of Running/Jogging, Riding, Swimming and also doing core exercises such as sit-ups and things of that sort.

If anyone could give me any thoughts on this I would greatly appreciate it. Also what is a good and easy way to monitor your daily caloric intake?

Thanks

Marshall
 
If your leg allows it, get back on the bike. You obviously love it, so that would be your best bet for success. Just go for long training rides and forget about intervals or anything for now, and don't eat like I'm sure you did when you were racing. That's probably most of the problem right there. I did the exact same thing last year, I didn't realize I was gaining weight. Right at one year ago I banged my knee on my trailer while loading it up to donate to Goodwill. A couple weeks after that, my knee started popping horribly while riding. Any time my knee flexed past a certain position on my upstroke, when I expanded it again on the downstroke, my knee would pop. About 30 seconds of that and I was toast, it was sore for 2 days. So, I went the entire winter not being able to sit on the trainer. Spring came and I still couldn't really ride unless I was using platform pedals. I couldn't ride long and hard until mid-summer, and even then my threshold was only about 20 miles off-road. I could go a little longer on the road, but I'm not a roadie. :D Anyway, I just had to gradually work back into it, but the problem was that it never occurred to me that I was gaining weight, I was eating exactly the same as I had for a long time while training hard. I know how to manage it and lose it if needed, but crap, it never crossed my mind at all. So now I'm back to losing that weight for spring. I was 170 during the summer and fall and got down to 167 at the end of racing season. Since then I've lost about 10 pounds, I'm about 157-158, something like that. I'm hoping to get close to 150 by the end of December then start training hard in January for the races starting at the end of March.

I'll tell you what exercise has been helping me more than anything though - jump rope. Yeah it looks weak as compared to blasting through the wind in a paceline at 30 mph, but trust me, it'll kick your butt. I've been doing about 700 reps every other day, usually doing 100-200 then dropping and doing push-ups or some other exercise. I dont' want to get burned out on bikes too early, there's like 3-4 more months of cold weather to suffer through.
 
thanks for the reply and my leg and hand have both healed I just have very little time to ride anymore with my work schedule, I do have a trainner that I can set up and ride at night and have been considering it here for the last week or so when I went to get some new pants and when I tried on the size that I got BACK UP TO didn't fit I got a little mad to say the least and decided that something is going to be done because this is unacceptable.

Also I was curious about energy drinks. How bad are they really from a nutrition stand point?

Thanks everyone
 
zebrasinamerica said:
Also I was curious about energy drinks. How bad are they really from a nutrition stand point?
Click to expand...

Well, since you used to race, I have to ask... do you mean "energy drink" as in Red Bull, or as in GU2O, Heed, or something like that?

Red Bull, Monster, Full Throttle, things like that, have no place in the nutrition world in my opinion. It's just a bunch of marketing hype. I've only seen one expert racer use Red Bull, and he has since stopped. He used to use it on long races with multiple laps, he'd grab some about halfway through. Whatever works I guess. Most people use it before a workout, which just gives you too much caffeine and also spikes your blood sugar, and you don't want either one.

Heed and other products can be effective for fueling and electrolyte/fluid replacement from a performance standpoint, but I'd say stay away from them from a weight loss standpoint, especially Gatorade. Too much sugar and calories.
 
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Yeah I was directly referring to the RedBulls and RockStars that are out there, I don't dring any cola/soda and haven't for about 3 years but I have been picking these energy drinks up on my way to work on days where I didn't get much sleep, thanks for the info on them and I will go back to water only and cut out my teas, lemonades, energy drinks, and gatorades since they are things I should have never picked back up anyway.

Thanks again

Marshall
 
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