BNA losers club - 2015

[matagi]

73.2 kg as of this morning, aiming for 66-67kg.

[CKinnard]

I float between 90 and 105 most years... I can lose it pretty quickly when motivated. Usually I am at my heaviest about now in January. At the moment I am about 102. The weather is crap, winter is long and even though I ride a fair bit in winter it isn't enough, one of the reasons is in winter you spend a lot more time inside and too easy to eat!. I also work at home in the winter.
Come the first races of the season around last weekend of Feb I am usually on the right track. Once spring arrives in April I am usually dropping a kilo a week. By June I am usually around 92-94 which is pretty good for me. I can usually hold my own in flattish race by then, obviously anything with a climb and I am gone.
July / August and some of September I am riding up to 20 hours a week for work... easy to keep weight low then, although 2 months of restaurant eating makes is harder than it should be.
October I start to slump... this year has been hard as I haven't done CX, so winter motivation is difficult. Basically I steadily climb from Oct till Dec.

My diet means no junk food ... vegan, but I do like bread... hard not to here!. My aim as always is to start a season at 90 ( BMI of under 24 ) ... but I always fail

TLL, do you do dessert, if so, what? do you snack heavily? do you drink booze? anything else you crave apart from bread? I presume you don't touch cheese/dairy.
what foods do you think you are overeating to vary your weight 15kg?
Would you ever like to get a nap during the day?
How much sleep?

[toolonglegs]

If i do dessert it is just a couple of pieces of fruit.
Alcohol, when at home pretty rarely... Maybe a beer or two ( or some red wine ), but not even once a fortnight. When I am working in the summer months we usually finish the day with a beer.
I think I just eat roughly the same all year round... In summer doing up to 400kms a week it's no problem, as the kms go down the cals per day probably don't drop as much as they should... To easy to grab a piece of fruit every time I pass the kitchen!.
Bread... Too easy to eat a baguette with tomatoes etc!.. I do eat breakfast cereals a bit too much as well... So I try not to buy them, but not the only one in the house.
Only feel like a nap when I have had a hard ride... I usually manage to sneak it in too . Normally about 7-8 hrs per night... Could probably do with an hour more usually.

[a-frame81]

I'm about 98kg (post Christmas eat-athon) aiming to be down near 90 for the Easter Solo 24hr MTB in Canberra. I'm hoping to do my first 6+6 solo there. Then hoping to be under 90kg for Fitz's Challenge in October.

[CKinnard]

TLL, two things implicated:

- when doing big k's, your stomach is getting stretched by your big main meals, which desensitizes satiety mechanoreceptors and makes it harder to drop your portions when you drop your k's.

Strategy: drink 0.5-1 liter of water 5-10 mins before main meals, eat much more slowly, lots of conversation over meals, increase salad/vegetable for increased mass (4 cups a meal), read up on satiety index for ideas on food likely to stay in your stomach longer and sustain satiety. http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; boiled potatoes score very well for sustained satiety, much better than bread, and are less Calorie dense.


- feeling the need for a sugar hit often between meals implicates you are a little insulin resistant and/or chronically fatigued and running low on adrenalin and sympathetic nerve ' tone', both these are required to release fatty acids as primary energy substrate.

Strategy: regular water intake, snack on carrot and celery sticks instead of fruit, calm your mind and breathing aiming to get more attuned to how tight or hard your abdomen 'feels' (this relates to whether it is relaxed and getting adequate blood flow), get to bed before 930pm.

[fat and old]

I'd like to get under 80kg. Even 79.99 will do me Unfortunately that means diet as well as exercise

[barefoot]

Does anyone who has lost weight in the past, then put it back on, want to share how it happened.
Why do you think you started overeating/drinking, or eating the wrong things?
I'm interested in whether people just get the portions wrong of healthy food choices, or get cravings for less healthy stuff.

In 2013, I went fairly easily from ~88kg down to ~82kg by my own variant of intermittent fasting... which essentially translated to skipping breakfast. Or, to put it in more faddish terms, confining my eating an 8-hour window, from noon until 8pm every day. I started doing this to control my late morning snacking habit (counter-intuitively,people reported that they don't get hungry in the morning if they haven't eaten anything... and I found the same). That was the first time I've ever truly reversed the slow and unrelenting trend of getting heavier every year. There are a lot of unproven claims about the benefits of fasting, but essentially in my case, the benefit was in skipping a meal's worth of kilojoules each morning (and only eating a fraction of them back later in the day).
Energy out - energy in = weight loss.

In the first half of 2014, I kept doing what I had been doing, but crept back up from 82kg to 86kg. Basically, I started gaming my own system. I was only eating between noon and 8pm, only eating my 2 meals a day (plus afternoon snacks), but I was eating stupidly. Chips and chocolates and pizzas and sausage rolls and bread and double serves of dinner.
Energy in - energy out = weight gain.

Second half of 2014 I started pedantically recording my food intake on MyFitnessPal, and learning how to count kilojoules. Still eating only 2 meals a day... but taking note of what things blow the daily energy budget and what things don't. Dropped 9.5kg in 5 months, down to 76.5kg.

Counting everything means that when I start gaming my own system (which I inevitably do), I just find tastier and more satisfying ways of balancing the budget. Working out what I have to skip if I want to fit a couple of beers in to the tally after dinner (and to be honest, I reckon I've drunk significantly more beer since I started counting calories than I did before). Working out the difference in allowable diet between a day when I've done an hour road bunch ride before work and a day when I haven't.

There are plenty of ways to achieve an energy deficit, but when it comes down to it, that really is the only proven way to lose weight. Whether you exercise more and eat the same amount, or eat less and exercise the same amount; whether you replace carbs with fats; whether you swap cows' milk for almond milk fortified with quinoa and goji berries; whether you give up alcohol or go raw vegan... any weight loss strategy that stands a realistic chance of working will involve a negative energy balance. I've found that the easiest and most foolproof way of achieving this - for me - is to count (or at least closely estimate) the energy content of everything I eat.

I'm no dietary guru with a book to sell; just consider this post as a "me too" for kilojoule counting.
Energy out - energy in = weight loss

tim

[barefoot]

Oh, and for a goal...

I started the year at 76.5kg.
39 years old, 178cm.
Can I get down to 70kg this year?

tim

[CKinnard]

good story Tim. Calorie counting (ok, kJ's counting) ime is what finally wakes people up to why they struggle with weight.

Counting everything is a pain, but if you stick mainly to healthier unprocessed food choices, it is a lot easier and not long before you can guess the energy content of a meal just by looking at it...no more counting required. I find people really committed to losing weight don't have to count for more than a month, before they are able to just eyeball the right portion sizes.

[Nobody]

Oh, and for a goal...

I started the year at 76.5kg.
39 years old, 178cm.
Can I get down to 70kg this year?

tim

So BMI from 24.1 to 22.0. Unless you are a heavy build, I'd say easy. Whether you can stay there is another matter. I'm well into my middle age spread a 47 this month, but BMI is 21.9 and staying steady so far.

[Carrots]

Second half of 2014 I started pedantically recording my food intake on MyFitnessPal, and learning how to count kilojoules. Still eating only 2 meals a day... but taking note of what things blow the daily energy budget and what things don't. Dropped 9.5kg in 5 months, down to 76.5kg.

Counting everything means that when I start gaming my own system (which I inevitably do), I just find tastier and more satisfying ways of balancing the budget. Working out what I have to skip if I want to fit a couple of beers in to the tally after dinner (and to be honest, I reckon I've drunk significantly more beer since I started counting calories than I did before). Working out the difference in allowable diet between a day when I've done an hour road bunch ride before work and a day when I haven't.

There are plenty of ways to achieve an energy deficit, but when it comes down to it, that really is the only proven way to lose weight. Whether you exercise more and eat the same amount, or eat less and exercise the same amount; whether you replace carbs with fats; whether you swap cows' milk for almond milk fortified with quinoa and goji berries; whether you give up alcohol or go raw vegan... any weight loss strategy that stands a realistic chance of working will involve a negative energy balance. I've found that the easiest and most foolproof way of achieving this - for me - is to count (or at least closely estimate) the energy content of everything I eat.

I'm no dietary guru with a book to sell; just consider this post as a "me too" for kilojoule counting.
Energy out - energy in = weight loss

tim

Pretty much mirror image for me also - did the same thing from mid/late July onwards last year. Have dropped in the realms of 25kgs without a major increase in activity - maybe one extra gym session and ride a week.

[barefoot]

Counting everything is a pain, but if you stick mainly to healthier unprocessed food choices, it is a lot easier

Also easy to count if you go the opposite way, and eat pre-packaged processed food, where the energy content is printed on the label. MyFitnessPal makes it even easier using the barcode - you just scan your lunch and it's done. I generally eat a tin of processed crap for lunch every day at work - casseroley things that claim to be "soup", or beans, or other meal-in-a-tin options - because work is too far from anywhere to get perishable food regularly and I'm lazy.

Of course, eating unprocessed whole foods is better for you - and they're also easy to count. I go all Durianrider sometimes - especially if I'm spending all day in a car - and eat a bunch of bananas for lunch. Partly because they're easy to tally . Seriously, I don't know how that guy fits 30 bananas in, I'm pretty much stuffed full after 8 of them and a big bidon of water.

The hardest thing to accommodate is, sadly, a good home-cooked meal with a variety of ingredients. A simple meat-and-three-veg is pretty easy (especially once you realise how little energy is in non-starchy vegetables... just add a cup of "steamed mixed vegetables" to the tally (or two cups... it barely rates a mention either way) and estimate the weight of the meat. For more complicated-to-count meals - things with marinates or cook-in sauces - I find it's easiest to just look up something vaguely similar in MyFitnessPal and figure it's close enough. Usually there's a few entries, and they're all around the same energy density. If there's a pre-packaged freezer meal version (apparently Tesco do a massive range of packaged meals in the UK, I've discovered), then it's a pretty safe bet that anything home-made is going to be better for me than that, so picking the Tesco meal is a conservative option. 1.5 to 2.5 "serves" is usually a fair guestimate... especially considering I eat pretty big, since I only eat two meals per day.

and not long before you can guess the energy content of a meal just by looking at it...no more counting required. I find people really committed to losing weight don't have to count for more than a month, before they are able to just eyeball the right portion sizes.

Yeah, I'm pretty good at guessing by now. I still find MyFitnessPal valuable for keeping a tally of where I'm up to for the day. Even though I can see 800kJ in a slice of cake and 450kJ in a piece of fruit, I still lose count of where I'm up to by dinner time (and thus, whether or not I can justify a beer) if I'm not adding them up.

But most of all, I now have a feel for what the numbers mean. If I look at a chocolate bar and it says 1050kJ... this time last year, I wouldn't have had a clue how to put that in context. A McCrappyValueMeal may well advertise that it's 3570kJ, but that doesn't mean anything unless you have a feel for what that means. Now I know how that fits in to a daily meal plan, what I'd need to skip in order to fit it in, and whether or not that's good value-for-kilojoules.

I Prompted my Mum to get onto MyFitnessPal too; she's always been big, and always struggled to control her weight. She's smashed about 6kg in 2 months. She's still got a long way to go (she's 5'1" and still weighs more than me), but she's learning how to play the game and winning, which is a big motivator for her.

Worth a try if you've never tried.

tim

[ldrcycles]

82kgs and 187cm, so certainly not fat, but i'm hoping to get down around 75kgs. Not so much as a goal in itself but more a byproduct of a higher fitness level .

[barefoot]

I started the year at 76.5kg.
39 years old, 178cm.
Can I get down to 70kg this year?

So BMI from 24.1 to 22.0. Unless you are a heavy build, I'd say easy.

When I was >85kg, I would have claimed to be a heavy build. I've always been kinda big. I've got a long torso and short limbs, which is obviously going to make me heavier than a normally proportioned person of the same height.

Now I'm hovering around 77kg (I've been a bit relaxed over the silly season and probably gained half a kilo), fitting in much smaller clothes, in the "normal" BMI range [1] for the first time since teenage years if ever, and still have plenty of squishy bits that could do with firming up... I'm coming to realise that I'm probably not such a heavy build after all.

I wonder how many heavy-built people have a lightly-built person hiding inside?

tim

[1] I know, BMI is a population average, blah blah, N=1 sample. I had good reasons to justify why I was a statistical outlier and would never fit the normal healthy range. Now I'm in the normal healthy range... and I can acknowledge that I'm still far from being underweight.

[jaseyjase]

174cm

Start Weight 92.4 kg

Goal weight 79.9kg

Have been doing this resolution thing for the last few years now with a recurring theme, start in Jan, lose 10kgs, then its all back by end of the year, winter being the enemy

Ive had success with simply staying off the soft drinks and fast food, increasing fruits and veg and lowering carb intake (more so in the evenings)

Exercise is mainly commuting a few times a week plus the longer weekend rides. Throw in some runs and tabata style exercises on the non-cycling days

The next 12 weeks im confident in getting into a routine and rythm, its the following 12 weeks when it gets hard, less cycling, cold weather, etc.

lets get it on!

[clydesmcdale]

Got to 88.5kg prior to Christmas. Which hit my Target of 30kg weight loss all in. Setting hill PRs all over the place now. Wiped over a minute off my local climb of Mt Gravatt the other day, and still think I can drop another 15 secs with some training. Will have a crack at doing Coot-tha sub 10 shortly.

First day back at work today and will be back on the training plan of around 250km a week with decent nutrition. Weighed in last night at 90.5kg. Want to remain sub 90 this year. Staying on target with a BMI around 22. Still have a little non functional body weight (little spare tire) to lose, but will hopefully replace with some lean upper body mass.

198cm - 36yr old
- October 2011 118.9kg
- April 2012 108.7kg
- May 2012 106.2kg
- June 2012 105.5kg
- July 2012 103.8kg
- August 2012 101.7kg
- September 2012 99.9kg
- October 2012 97.6kg
- November 2012 97.3kg
- December 2012 97.3kg
- January 2013 96.3kg
- February 2013 93.6kg
- March 2013 94.1 kg
- April 2013 92.0 kg
- May 2013 93.0 kg
- June 2013 94.5 kg
- July 2013 94.5 kg
- August 2013 93.5 kg
- September 2013 94.2 kg
- October 2013 94.3 kg
- November 2013 94.0 kg
- December 2013 93.5 kg

- January 2014 93.5 kg
- February 2014 95.0 kg
- March 2014 94.5 kg
- April 2014 94.8 kg
- May 2014 95.0 kg
- June 2014 95.2 kg
- July 2014 95.5 kg
- August 2014 96.2 kg
- September 2014 95.9 kg
- October 2014 92.8 kg
- November 2014 91.5 kg
- December 2014 88.5 kg

- January 2015 90.5kg

Goal - maintain sub 90kg for 2015

[toolonglegs]

TLL, two things implicated:

- when doing big k's, your stomach is getting stretched by your big main meals, which desensitizes satiety mechanoreceptors and makes it harder to drop your portions when you drop your k's.

Strategy: drink 0.5-1 liter of water 5-10 mins before main meals, eat much more slowly, lots of conversation over meals, increase salad/vegetable for increased mass (4 cups a meal), read up on satiety index for ideas on food likely to stay in your stomach longer and sustain satiety. http://nutritiondata.self.com/topics/fullness-factor" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; boiled potatoes score very well for sustained satiety, much better than bread, and are less Calorie dense.


- feeling the need for a sugar hit often between meals implicates you are a little insulin resistant and/or chronically fatigued and running low on adrenalin and sympathetic nerve ' tone', both these are required to release fatty acids as primary energy substrate.

Strategy: regular water intake, snack on carrot and celery sticks instead of fruit, calm your mind and breathing aiming to get more attuned to how tight or hard your abdomen 'feels' (this relates to whether it is relaxed and getting adequate blood flow), get to bed before 930pm.

Cheers CK, I have been trying to up the liquids, certainly don't drink as much over winter... even on rides you have to force yourself to take in liquids, nothing like an icey drink at -5C
Stomach is definitely stretched... will give your suggestions a go.
Winter brings on the comfort snacking... if I could arrange the perpetual summer I would be laughing.

[moosterbounce]

Come to Perth TLL - pretty summery winter here. Of course, 44.4 today but at least that saps your appetite.

[skull]

I had a good year last year. I went from 85kg to 105kg.

So this year I plan to do the opposite, with monthly additions to this thread to keep me honest. I would preferably prefer to get back down to the low 80s, maybe even sub 80 if I can do it by the end of the year. If I get to sub 85 I will register to race the ToB again.

I do have the birth of child number 2 expected in March which will make things interesting. The reason I won't be entering capital punishment which I was super keen on this year.

Height 183cm
January: 105.7kg

[casual_cyclist]

Does anyone who has lost weight in the past, then put it back on, want to share how it happened.

Me. Lots of times. I don't mind sharing.

Why do you think you started overeating/drinking, or eating the wrong things?

Mostly lack of sleep. I make less healthy food choices when I feel tired.

I'm interested in whether people just get the portions wrong of healthy food choices, or get cravings for less healthy stuff.

Most recently, I got myself down to 86 kg and then back up to 96 kg. Currently at 92 kg. I did not start overeating (as in eating too much at one meal) and I didn't get cravings for less healthy food. My weight gain is simply down to incidental calories, making excuses and falling into bad habits. I did not plan what I was going to eat for the day. I also didn't prepare any food in advance. I also did not sleep enough. My problem time was afternoons. Feeling tired and without a food plan, I visited my local supermarket and bought chocolate or discount baked goods. These are extra calories I simply didn't need.

What I have changed now is that I plan ahead what I am going to eat and make sure I have the food ready so that I can eat it at the right time. I have found since I started this that even if I feel hungry, I don't have any problems waiting until the next time to eat. If I don't plan when I am going to eat next, I don't wait, I eat straight away.

Any questions, let me know

[iaintas]

Weight loss is not as simple as calories in vs calories out, this has been tested in multiple studies.

[TonyMax]

Anyone got any evidence around whether ambient temperature affects weight loss? Today's lunch laps have me thinking, it was damn hot outside and I sweated a lot, am I just losing fluids which I will replace with the water I drink this afternoon, or am I actually burning more fat smashing out 20km @30km/h on a hot day than I would doing the same distance and speed at a lower ambient temperature?

[singlespeedscott]

Anyone got any evidence around whether ambient temperature affects weight loss? Today's lunch laps have me thinking, it was damn hot outside and I sweated a lot, am I just losing fluids which I will replace with the water I drink this afternoon, or am I actually burning more fat smashing out 20km @30km/h on a hot day than I would doing the same distance and speed at a lower ambient temperature?

I know there is supposed to be similar benefits for riding in heat and humidity as riding at altitude. As for weight loss I am not sure. I usually weigh myself after my morning evacuation and a ride. It makes me feel like I have achieved a loss

[CKinnard]

Anyone got any evidence around whether ambient temperature affects weight loss? Today's lunch laps have me thinking, it was damn hot outside and I sweated a lot, am I just losing fluids which I will replace with the water I drink this afternoon, or am I actually burning more fat smashing out 20km @30km/h on a hot day than I would doing the same distance and speed at a lower ambient temperature?

Lots of methodological issues comparing cold and hot climate exercise.
- people may seem to lose more weight in hot weather purely because they exercise longer and more ofen - longer daylight, more comfortable to stay out longer (unless heat wave hot), more motivated to exercise to improve body image in more revealing clothing.
- some people have more brown adipose tissue which has been shown in cold weather to make them burn 400 Calories a day more than people with little or no BAT. This tissue does not store dietary fat readily but converts it straight into heat. It is difficult to know who has BAT and who doesn't.
- the fatter you are, the more likely you will exercise for shorter periods in hot weather due to overheating discomfort.
- established cultures that live closer to the equator tend to be thinner because they may stay more lightly active and the heat reduces appetite for less energy dense foods. These tendencies though can be overwhelmed by fast food habits.
- cold will burn more fat to maintain core body temp when not exercising, if you actually get cold at some time. (shivering response, BAT heat generation, cold induced non shivering thermogenesis). In this day and age of air con at work and home and car, it's less common for people to expose themselves to cold.
- during exercise we burn a higher % of carbs (vs fat) in warm weather. So you may feel hungrier for carbs after a workout long enough to exhaust glycogen stores, which would be a shorter time than in cold weather. Theoretically this could cause you to overfeed (on carbs) easier. It's pretty much impossible to exhaust fat reserves.

[singlespeedscott]

31/12/14 - 79kg, 22.5% fat

I weighed myself this morning - 78kg and 22.2% body fat.

So a loss of a 1kg and 283g of fat, most probably what was in my gut more then anything else but at least a step in the right direction.