I’ve actually been riding the stationary bike in sock feet, and it doesn’t hurt to do so. Walking is what kills my feet, biking seems fine. I’ll readjust the bike for riding in shoes today and see how that feels. Obviously when I start using an outdoor bike I’ll be wearing shoes; I’ll consider your advice above re footwear when I do so. Thanks!
This is good advice. I’ll check out that web site, thanks.
Wait, what? I must be misunderstanding, but in one year of this I’ll lose only 20? Hell, I’ll take 20, but I was hoping for more efficacy for the effort.*
*Actually, my (very) long term goal is to weigh ~165. I’ve weighed that as recently as 5 or so years ago, and it’s a good weight for me, and the stuff I read says it’s a healthy weight for my height. But I know that’s a long, long way off.
I def find that’s the case when I exercise during the day. With evening exercise, it’s more an issue of eating just enough to be able to sleep. For me, most of a banana just before sleep generally staves off hunger.
Another issue is what you eat. At 120bpm on a bike you’re not really doing very much and so probably won’t crave muscle-building protein. You might want to look at good carbs to avoid energy dips.
I didn’t see above it but I guess you’re using 3500/3555 cals as the equiv of one pound of fat.
The thing many people don’t seem to grasp is what causes their bodies to store fat. It is the hormone insulin. Insulin does not just magically make excess blood sugar go away; elevate the blood sugar and insulin turns the excess sugar into stored fat. Glucose in the blood is a form of energy, and as the law of conservation of energy tells us, energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but can change form. In the case of blood sugar, it changes from an immediately available form to a stored one, which is adipose tissue, or as it is more commonly called, fat.
It is possible to lose that fat while consuming well over 3000 calories a day, or to gain more fat while eating far less; it all depends on what you are eating, not how much. Avoid elevating your blood sugar, and you will stop storing fat. Avoid elevating your blood sugar for a few days, and this signals the body to flip the switch that causes it to utilize the fat it has already stored.
I won’t bore everyone with the details here, unless anyone expresses interest. However, I will tell you that I used to be quite overweight, and now I am not, and have not been for years. I have maintained my weight without ever going hungry, and in fact can stuff myself if I want, without a bit of guilt, because I now know what will put weight on me, and what won’t.
Well, thanks for the pat on the back, dude. 
I’m actually getting steady 125-130, but I’m counting the minutes as 120bpm since I’m doing sets and don’t want to overestimate the burn. If I’m undercounting, so be it. Note that I’ve been sedentary, no exercise at all, for years, so this is a lot of effort for me. Hopefully less so over time, but not so far.
Yeah, whole gains. I’m looking at them. I don’t like them very much, but I can choke them down regular if need be.
Thanks, that’s a pretty cool little page.
(FYI, that page’s Java applet is unsigned, and it took me a while to figure out why the browser was balking and what to do about it.)
The Calorie Myth makes the same point that Cornelius made above. It quotes lots of studies that indicate why the traditional calories in - calories out approach ultimately makes us fatter.
If you don’t want to read the book you can get all the author’s materials free at http://thesmarterscienceofslim.com/. Just sign up for the free program. All his podcasts are available on youtube if you don’t want to wait for a daily email.
Jeez, can we keep the woo to a dull roar here?
I’m not sure where these insanely high calorie ranges are coming from re some of the recommendations I’m seeing in this thread. I am 55 and I exercise very intensively 3X a week. I have counted calories for decades. Unless you are an extreme athlete or have a shrew like metabolism (and chances are that you don’t if you are overweight) your typical maintenance calorie range for a 50 something person of average build who is moderately active and does some exercise is around 10-12 calories per lb of body weight per day.
Trying to force a 2 lb per week loss or 7000 calorie per week deficit out of your current diet is a very, very difficult thing to do and usually leads to diet program failure when you get mentally exhausted by your body constantly fighting starvation. You would be much better off shooting for a 1 lb a week of 3500 per week or 500 calorie per day deficit. Assuming you are looking to get to 150-160 lbs and assuming you are eating 2000-2500 calories per day if you knock 500 calories per day of junk (and alcohol is pure junk calories) out of your diet you will lose around 40+ lbs in a year and it will be sustainable. Fast lost via starvation diets is mentally satisfying but your chances of running off the rails because of your body fighting you to the death re intake is very high.
I also have spreadsheet and it works as way to keep track of and reinforce caloric intake limits. I don’t use it for calories burned via exercise as this metric is too variable to calculate accurately.
I take it this is directed at the notion from some here that my (the OPs) base calorie burn might be 2800-3300+? I tend to agree, but I’m not working with facts but my gut. I’m using 2500 cals/day as my base as a working figure, but really that’s the rub isn’t it? If my base rate figure is too low, my diet will be ineffective because my calorie deficit is also too low. If I figure my base too high, I’m starving myself needlessly to achieve too high a deficit.
Okay, I’m not sure who you’re speaking to here. I’m not advocating starvation deficits. I’m still finding my way (see base calorie rate issues I wrote about above). I’m really using the spreadsheet to motivate me - in past efforts to get in shape, successful efforts that are sadly years past, I’ve always logged my exercise every day so I’d look at that and feel motivated to continue doing as well the next day. The calorie logging is the same notion applied to diet as I try to log that against exercise. I don’t expect a magic result based on a spreadsheet, I’m just trying to exercise and eat consistently and make sense of what I’ve done and what I’ll do next. I think I’m very likely eating too little right now, and I’ve been adjusting upward the last few days, and my spreadsheet/log plus this thread have helped me with that.
ETA: also there’s things that I don’t know how to fit on a spreadsheet. (50 yo stealth brag: ) I did 270 situps (90 reps of three kinds of situps) and 50 pushups today - how many calories is that? Hell if I know. So I log that every day and see it the next day and try to do as well.
Hey dude it’s quite OK if you wish to remain willfully ignorant but there is no need to be insulting. If you did even a small amount of research you would discover that the fact that dieting doesn’t work long term is no secret. I only offered the link in the interest of increasing your knowledge. The book references lots of different studies and is endorsed by plenty of medical experts whose opinions are definitely not woo.
Sincerely all the best with your plans but think about this :
Dieting Does Not Work, UCLA Researchers Report
“People on diets typically lose 5 to 10 percent of their starting weight in the first six months, the researchers found. However, at least one-third to two-thirds of people on diets regain more weight than they lost within four or five years, and the true number may well be significantly higher, they said.”
“Several studies indicate that dieting is actually a consistent predictor of future weight gain,”
Predictors of Obesity, Weight Gain, Diet, and Physical Activity Workshop from the US Department of Health & Human Services - “A consistent but paradoxical finding in both cohort and intervention studies was that more frequent attempts to lose weight through dieting (either on their own or through a formal weight loss program) were associated with adverse weight outcomes.”
Don’t ask: I didn’t ask. Please witness elsewhere.
Those are university and gov links, it’s not witnessing - it suggest’s a narrow-mindedness on your part.
I urge caution reading those charts. I tried to follow those charts, but I’ve built up a lot of muscle and my ideal weight is actually higher than those charts. I did a body-fat check, and it was around 16% even though I weighed ~170, when the charts said max ~160.
I recommend setting a modest goal, because healthy habits are more important than your actual weight. At 180, having biked an hour+ each day, you could substantially improve your health. You may also loose more weight, but this would be a pleasant side benefit!
I find that I feel really good when I’m eating just enough, and start feeling awful or antsy when I eat too much. Using both your “gut” and the spreadsheets is a good approach! 
If someone wants to discuss how “calories don’t matter” or how awesome Jonathon Bailor is, they should start a thread on that and not hijack this one.
You did ask for critiques of your weight loss formulas and what you are (rudely) hand-waving away is quite relevant to your OP.
In this thread, calories matter. Creating a calorie deficit through carefully watching calories and adding exercise, matters. If you want a thread without those premises, please go someplace else.
I completely understand the desire to avoid a complete hijack into another one of the calories-don’t-matter against it’s-all-the-calorie-count crowds. And of course, whether you count them or not, calories matter. It is reasonable though to point out that the composition of the calories matters too. Green Rosetta’s points also are cogent: aiming for some portion of your exercise in the higher intensity range; aiming for a higher end of the protein content; and appreciating the fact that the lifestyle habits of healthier food choices and regular exercise are to small degree as much of the goal as weight loss is. Modest weight loss (generally defined as 5% of body weight, in your case therefore as little as 10 pounds) maintained long term with healthy habits, gains the bulk of the health benefits and is more likely to be achieved and maintained long term than is significantly larger loss. Nothing wrong with losing more weight … losing 35 over a longer term, gradually? Nothing wrong with that. But for health considerations achieving and maintaining a more modest loss with continued healthy food choices and exercise is all that is required. The rest is gravy. (Low fat lean gravy? Yuck.) The problem with diets is that many consider them as something that is done and then stopped once the goal is achieved and never deal with the real issue of creating a long term lifestyle that is healthy and that they can keep up with, they encourage attention to the scale as the exclusive goal rather than the scale as a secondary goal that results in response to achieving the more important lifestyle modification ones.