I’m in reasonably good shape. I would like to lose 15 or 20 pounds (for a start, at least) and I’ve got a hiking trip coming up that will be quite a workout. I’ve been riding my bike. Twenty miles a day. For the past two weeks. And not just meandering along, either, I can do it in about 1:40. I’m not really noticing any change, yet. C’mon, 280 miles has got to burn a few calories, right? I don’t think I’m eating any more than I was before. Just a bit discouraged, I guess. The trip’s not for a couple weeks, I’ll keep at it.
I don’t actually have a scale at home, so I haven’t weighed myself lately. I just haven’t noticed any effect, yet. There’s a scale at the gym, and I know about where my weight has leveled off for the last few years. I should go some evening this week, but if there’s really no progress, I’ll be quite disappointed.
You could lose 20 pounds in 2 months, relatively easy. Just remember that you need a deficit of 3600 calories to lose a pound of body fat, and at rest you burn 12 calories per pound per day (unless you’re really overweight, body fat requires fewer calories).
So, if you weight 200 pounds you burn about 2400 calories doing nothing. If you eat a 2000 calorie diet, you’ll have a deficit of 400 calories per day, so you’ll lose 1 pound every 9 days until you reach equilibrium.
If you’re doing lots of exercise, naturally you’re increasing your calorie expenditure. So if you’re doing an extra 1000 calories worth of exercise (for a total of 3400) and remain on a 2000 calorie diet, your deficit is now 1400 calories per day, or one pound every 2 and a half days.
That kind of math isn’t always 100% accurate (metabolisms are different with everybody), but it’s pretty reliable. The most important thing to remember, then, is that even with a ton of exercise you need to watch your food intake. Some people think, “Well, I took the stairs at work today instead of the elevator, so I guess that means I can eat an extra 9 cupcakes at lunch,” and undo all their work.
“I don’t think I’m eating any more than I was before” is hard to quantify. If you really want to lose weight, I’d suggest tracking your caloric intake to make sure that you’re not consuming more calories than you’re burning. Exercise burns a lot fewer calories than most people think. (Not to say exercise is bad. Exercise is great. It just doesn’t burn as many calories as most people think.) There are calculators online that will give you a rough estimate of your basal metabolic rate, i.e. the number of calories you burn every day just to keep your body running. Then add in your calories burned from exercise in on top of that, and try to keep your calorie intake from food below that level. And remember that all of this is a rough estimate, of course, but IMO it helps a lot. I thought I was eating a light, healthy diet and then started tracking my calories and found out that I was pretty far off on a lot of my estimates.
Also, since you’re not actually tracking your weight or your size, you might have lost a bunch already and not even realized. Try measuring your waist with a measuring tape once a week and see if that shows any progress. And, good luck! I’ve lost 16 pounds so far through dietary changes and running, and I feel great.
I’ve found that weight loss is about 90% diet and about 10% exercise. In my experience, exercise alone will not take off much weight, but you can lose a substantial amount of weight by modifying your diet even if you don’t exercise.
A while back I tried to diet without a scale, thinking I’d just be able to tell by looking at myself. It didn’t work. It’s very difficult to track subtle changes in your appearance. I’ve lost 22 pounds in the last month and a half and, from looking, I’d guess I maybe lost 5 pounds. Of course, other people can tell, because they don’t see me as often as I do.
When I tried without a scale, it seemed like I wasn’t losing any weight, and without any reinforcement I just gave up.
Now, I weigh myself every morning. Weighing yourself multiple times a day is a fool’s errand, as your weight can fluctuate up to 5 pounds throughout the day. A regular 16oz bottle of water weighs 1 pound, so if you drink that, you’ve “gained” a pound. Then you eat something and you’re up some more. Then you visit a bathroom and go down a little. That’s why first thing in the morning is best, because the variables are generally the same (empty stomach, empty bladder, empty veins). Plus you burn a few calories while you’re sleeping due to all the maintenance your body is doing on itself.
So, get a scale.
Digital scale with at least 1 decimal) is preferable. With an analog scale, sometimes you’re tempted to round up, and it’s hard to track pound by pound. And weighing 201.1 is different from weighing 201.9.
My experience is similar to this, although I might put the percentages at 75%-80% diet, the rest exercise. The thing to be wary of with exercising alone is that exercising can increase your appetite and, I think, we have a tendency to overestimate how much calories we’ve burned during exercise. So there’s this temptation to eat more when we’re exercising and rationalizing it with the exercise we’ve done, but eating as many or (often) more calories that we’ve lost by exercising.
Agreed, but it sure seems about the same as usual.
Well, there was that pie last week; but it was my birthday, and cherry season is so short.
I don’t have a tape measure, but I wear the same belt quite often. Still feels about the same.
Congrats on the 16 pounds.
Thanks, all, for the advice. I’ve had times in the past when I was a lot more diligent about going to the gym. I have lost weight without really tracking my calorie intake. I was hoping it would be like that again.
Posting this may just have been my way of motivating myself; nailing my colors to the mast, as it were. There will be some day when I’m tired, and don’t really feel like riding 20 miles. “Gotta do it,” I’ll tell myself, “I owe it to the 'dope.”
We don’t even have a scale in the house, and i never bother weighing myself. I’m more interested in how i look and feel, and in the changing shape of my body.
I’ve been going to the gym 3-4 times a week since March, and i also run 6km about 2-4 times a week. I can definitely see myself losing fat, as well as putting some muscle on my chest, shoulders, arms, and back. I can also now get into shirts that were a bit too tight last year, and my belt is all the way in on its tightest setting. I’m not skinny, and would still like to lose a bit around the waist, but i’m much better than i was a year ago.
I’m a Vegetarian, and my actual meals tend to be pretty healthy. The big key for me, in my diet, is to reduce the snacking on crap between meals. Chips have always been one of my biggest weaknesses; i could easily go through a 5 or 6 oz. bag while watching a TV show, and that’s a good 500-800 calories right there. But i haven’t had a bag of chips in the house in the last six months, and it really makes a difference.
I also have a very sweet tooth, and i really love chocolate and ice cream. I still sometimes eat both those things, but for dessert i’ve taken to eating sorbet instead. According to the info on the side of the container, a small bowl of sorbet gives me about 120-140 calories, whereas the same amount of ice cream is up over 300.
Another good thing for me is that running helps to reduce my crappy food intake. If i know i’m going for a run at 5.30 in the evening, i make sure i consume only water in the 3 hours before the run, because i find that if i eat too soon before a run the food just weighs me down. So i make sure i have a decent lunch, and then stay away from food during the afternoon. This is good, because the afternoon is one of those times when i’m most prone to snacking on high-calorie foods.
Pretzels can be a good alternative to chips, the same way sorbet is to ice cream. Or “terra chips.” Those are good, made from vegetables, but so heavy you can’t shovel them into your mouth like you can with greasy chips.
Back in January, I was up to 222 pounds; my wife got me a gym membership around the end of that month and I started exercising daily (treadmill and light weightlifting). Two weeks didn’t bring about much of a change even with a fairly strict regimen; now, of course, I’m down to 184 and the change is apparent even to myself. In short: don’t lose all hope two weeks in! Keep at it and the pounds will come off. I’m not where I want to be yet (still have about 19 pounds to go) but where I am now has definitely been worth the time and effort.
Congrats on getting into such a heavy exercise program! Twenty miles a day is a LOT. Keep at it, (or a maintenance version of it). Exercise has so much benefits, even apart from weight loss. I started running six weeks ago, and while I don’t keep up my ambition of doing it four times a week, I do manage twice a week, and that is still a whole lot more then nothing.
If you don’t want to diet or keep track of calories, I recommend a great book: “Mindless eating” . It’s really good, and gives treat tips on how to diet without paying any attention to your diet.
When I started running (which I REALLY need to get back into), I actually gained about 10 pounds the first month, because of the increased muscle mass. Eventually I was able to run 5 or 6 miles a few times a week, and since I was healthy enough to be able to do that, I wasn’t even CONCERNED with weight. A few months after that I weighed myself and was 10 pounds lighter than the original weight.
So yeah, congratulations on being able to bike 20 miles a day. I’d say you’re doing pretty good, regardless of what your weight may happen to be. I wish I had the motivation to do even a THIRD of that.
You don’t lose weight by exercise, at most you’ll lose is ten pounds, five is more likely.
Even heavy areobics like you see in competitions those people are burning about 300 calories an hour. That’s nothing. 3,500 calories is a pound, and no one can see the difference between 150 and 151 pounds.
The simple fact is your abliity to NOT eat is always going to be greater than your ability to burn off weight.
I’m surprised nobody has suggested lifting weights or interval training. Studies have shown that interval training (short bursts of high intensity) are much more effective as both cardio training and at fat burning than simply plodding along at a moderate pace for a long time. Also, lifting weights increases muscle mass, and revs your metabolism.
Weight lifting should be done first, followed by cardio work. You’ll exhaust your supply of carbs by the time you get to the cardio, so your body will be forced to burn fat.
When and what are you eating before working out? A high protein snack will help - some peanut butter toast, a protein shake, etc. Timing varies, a little googling will show what’s best for your body and your goals.
I didn’t include cites because a quick google search will give you more information than I possibly could, about both topics.
I came in to say the same thing…don’t worry so much about what the scale says. You might want to take measurements of your waist, hips, biceps, thighs, neck (yes, neck - when I was working out/dieting I lost an inch off my neck in six weeks - who knew I had a fat neck?!!) Photos are a good gauge too. You are looking for weight loss in your belly or butt but you don’t always lose it there first. I would have my husband take pictures of me every couple weeks and I’d compare side by side and see I was losing around my knees or armpits or thighs…places I wasn’t thinking to look. I would find the weight slowly redistributed as time went on.
And I second the weight training - did way way more for me than cardio alone. (I recommend the FIRM tapes. I saw incredible results after just two weeks.)
I think you need to weigh yourself, and write it down. I’ve lost 20 pounds since January, and nobody’s noticed. I wouldn’t believe it myself if I didn’t have a spreadsheet with the history on it.
I also did a lot of it through biking - about 14 miles a day, which took me about an hour, during the summer.
I’m not sure what kind of bike you are riding, but 20 miles in 1:40 is only about 12 miles an hour. If you are on a road bike, yes, that is just meandering along.
I agree with everything but the peanut butter toast. Peanut butter is mostly fat (good fat, though), and toast is mostly carbs. Eggs, milk, beef jerky, and greek yogurt are all good choices.
Try measuring your waist with a measuring tape once a week and see if that shows any progress. And, good luck! I’ve lost 16 pounds so far through dietary changes and running, and I feel great.