Current Stats: 162 lbs, 5 Feet Tall, 26 yrs, F
Goal Stats: 125-130 lbs
Exercise: Average 8-10 miles/day, 4 x's weekdays, 14-18 mile ride on
Saturday mornings, cycling roughly 14 Mph
Average Day of Food (over the past week):
B: Egg McMuffin (both from McD's or made at home)
S: Walnuts or slice of Ezekial Sprouted bread w/almond butter
L: Generally eat out (working on this)-yesterday was Jason's Deli Turkey
Sandwich on WW/chips/iced tea, day before was shrimp skewers
w/veggies
S: Popcorn or piece of fruit
D: Meat, veggie, couscous or some other grain.

Spent 2 years on South Beach diet, got down to 148 (originally 192); however, at my lowest I bought a road bicycle. I loved it, but it QUICKLY became apparent that what/how I was eating on SB and intense exercising did not mix--had severe hypoglycemic episodes & developed a B12 anemia. Anywho, I started eating more liberally and weight crept back on-currently 162. I've tried to modify SB to fit me, but I can't seem to make it work with my cycling goals.

Over the past few days I've tried calorie counting (w/Calorie King) and I know I'm eating WAY more than I ever had in the past, which is making me feel slightly panicked. I've been averaging 1920 calories a day.

Can someone reassure me that this is the way to go, or at least give any advice on where to go from here?
Thanks in advance!

Would love to help, few questions.

Why so much cycling?
How long have you been eating this amount of calories?
So you do any resistance training?
How long has it been since you took a few weeks off from cycling?

Why so much cycling? It's a sport I love...and compared to most, it's not that much at all. It takes me about 30 minutes to do 8 miles.

How long have you been eating this amount of calories? Just started the 1800-1900 calories last week, before that realized I was eating about 1200.

So you do any resistance training? Nope, have been wanting to start, though.

How long has it been since you took a few weeks off from cycling? I just started the sport back up in July, with a charity ride scheduled in September.

Hey Paige! Nice to see you over here on this forum!

I think what you are trying to say is, you would like to continue to train seriously on the bike (and I gather that because you belong to the same woman's cycling forum that I do) and maintain enough calories for training, but reduce enough in the process to lose weight. Is that correct?

That's exactly it! Thank ya ma'am

Have you seen any improvement since increasing your calories? More energy?

Remember too that the more you ride, you're going to build muscle mass, so the number on the scale can be deceiving.

That's a lot of exercise :|

...not if you are specifically training for that sport.

The problem is, if you are training, you need to fuel the activity. So how do you eat enough calories to fuel, yet reduce enough to lose weight? I think that is the question Paige is trying to ask. Half the time, people training on a bike are burning 400-700 calories each ride. I recommended to Paige that she increase her calories (she was eating under 1200 cals a day) and gave her the links for the Harris Benedict and BMR equations, and to this website.

But it is a good question for people who are specifically training for events like marathons or cycling centuries. I would love to hear what the experts have to say.

^^

What is being stated (and quite well) is in short if you are going to train like an athlete you need to eat like one. That is the problem most people run into. They want to train and train and train, but they don't realize (even if trying to lose fat) that you have to eat right and enough for it.

So Leigh, can you give us advice on how to lose weight and train at the same time? How much should one's calories be reduced from maintenance?

Is it even possible to train and lose weight at the same time, in a healthy way?

I have been losing weight very slowly (about a pound every two or three weeks) and I am eating enough to fuel the cycling. But I think for someone with more weight to lose, slowwwww weight loss can be frustrating.

Would it be better to concentrate on specific event training with no weight loss, using the BMR and HB equations to get maintenance, and then add enough cals to cover the training, and then, when training steps back after the event, to concentrate on the weight loss by reducing calories?

Most important rule to remember is to take your body out of a deficit mode as quickly (and healthy) as possible. Get in, get out with the weight loss. The body doesn't like being in a deficit. If you have 3-5 pounds to lose doing it slowly isn't that big of a deal. If you are above that in loss needs though its better to just get it over with and take your body out of that negative zone as quickly as possible. The longer in a deficit the harder to lose. Which leads me to my next point...

Successful training depends largely on proper repair and recovery, meaning every nutrient counts. So is it best to keep weight loss and training separate, yes. That doesn't mean it can't be done, just saying yes it is better to train while not in a deficit.

If you are going to train for fat loss while aggressively training this can actually play to your weight loss advantage if you eat hard enough and train hard enough. You can put your self in more of a deficit safely. Lets say your daily training burns roughly 1500 calories, which is bare minimum if really training for something. Then with general activity you burn 600 calories, add on a BMR of say 1400, that is 3500 calories burned in 1 day. Now the stupid thing to do would to train like that eating under 2000 calories because you are buying a ticket to overtraining and bad repair, not so good for fat loss. If you were eating under 2000 calories that is a 45% deficit, not good.

Now if you were eating 2500 calories you could still wrangell roughly 2lbs of week in fat loss and still be somewhat safe. Better even if you took a few days a little higher and even had a re-feed day here and there. The weight would drop off super fast. The problem with most people is they try and train aggressively but never up the intake to go along with it, end up getting injured or burned out and case closed.

All that make sense?

That does make sense.
Thank you!