Your personal best way to lose some fat - anecdotes / experiences / examples of what kicked your ***

My problm is not the overeating. The problem is, I dont know when it starts if I cant track it. And I dont overeat on a regular base. But to loose weight I have to know where on my daily range I am. All I want to is to have an idea of the evening calories. Thats all.

Have you considered eating the same amount of calories but the other way around?

That way Iā€™m lead to believe your body has a better chance of burning the calories whilst awake than asleep. Having more calories in the evening really doesnā€™t make too much sense. The body will be a sleep in a few hours so the whole process of calorie burning slows down.

I found having a big cooked breakfast, normal lunch and in the evening a bowl of cereal, sometimes with hot milk, helped myself with weight loss. Sometimes I did a double workout day tooā€¦ said to myself that a reward for morning fasted workout was a big cooked breakfast when I got to work. After the evenings workout a bowl of cereal was really all I fancied. Having the morning ā€˜feastā€™ also stopped myself snacking at my desk throughout the morning.

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Yes. Thats a good advice. For me itā€™s not an option. Dinner is with family and not negotiable. Furthermore I do my endurance and weight lifting workouts in the evening before dinner. So itā€™s refueling and Dinner in one. No problem.

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Understand, I myself do feel a pressure to have the evening meal with the familyā€¦ managed my morning feasts for a few weeks along with cereal evenings, they all understood I was on a weigh loss effort, but not something I could continue in the long term without causing ā€˜evening mealā€™ issuesā€¦ I would happily eat cereal every evening, something I often did when I was single.

Sometimes I find myself having an evening meal at 8pm with the family, which I think is far too late as Iā€™m in bed by 10pm, I do try to just reduce portion size so not to cause any issues. I do manage to opt out once or twice a week after a tough workoutā€¦

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MFP also allows you to import recipes from web sites. You need to edit a little bit, but can usually get it pretty close just from the import.

Posted already in this thread

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Well, in 2015 I dropped from 76kg to 69kg in 8 weeks, by passing out after taking a piss at night and face planting into my hardwood floor, which shattered my maxillary sinus, nasal, and pterygoid plate, and knocked a few teeth. Four weeks off the bike with facial surgery, then another two months of indoor only while the bones fully healed.

Not being able to eat solid food for a month, and then soft foods only for six more weeks, tends to have a negative effect on your energy balance.

I climbed better than I ever have at 70kg, but screwed myself up by trying to maintain that weight over the summer.

Back at 76kg for the last three years.

Woah. Sounds painful enough, but what caused the faint?

Low resting HR, low BP, got out of bed too quickly at night and took a peeā€¦

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/vasovagal-syncope/expert-answers/micturition-syncope/faq-20058084

Right, Iā€™m thinking I may be onto something with regards body fat loss, although I have mixed feelings about this as a competitive cyclist.

The photo on the left is 4 days ago, the one on the right is 30 November 2018. After listening to the podcast I decided to give gym a go. Instead of the usual 10-12 hours on the bike I split it between 4.5 hrs a week at the gym and mid volume SS base. The FTP did not suffer but gains seem a bit slower than in previous years. Gains to the muscle mass on the other hand are really impressive and make me wonder - am I not overdoing it? Weird thing is Iā€™m exactly same weight on both photos, without a dexa I donā€™t know what my current bf% is but I think I could still loose a couple of kilos of fat if I cut out all sugar and alcohol (I donā€™t binge but Christmas and New Years were kind of one long cheat week). Is it normal to see such gains from the gym in only 6 weeks? Cycling is my priority, gym is more fun/vanity thing and I donā€™t want it to decrease my performance on the bike.

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Newbie gains are a beautiful thing. Enjoy it while it lasts.

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Yikes! There perils of being fit, eh? :wink: I hope it was just a one-off.

As much as possible, ensuring the floor from your bed to the bathroom is carpeted or padded also is a good strategy for avoiding injury from a potential fall.

:laughing:

What @stevemz said.
And you wont grow endless. If you just do your basic core/strength work and dont start mass buildung (typically 3-5 sets and 8-12 reps and increasing weight) you will hit a plateau. And than its up to you. Do you want to do the Schwarzenegger or the Atherton?

I did that a couple of years ago - have the scar from the stitches in my chin where I smacked it off one of the sink/ toilet/ floor.

I also still have the beard I grew when I wasnā€™t able to shave :grinning:

Vasovagal syncope is a possible risk for people who have years of endurance training behind them.

EKGs and ECOs are in order (and probably not a bad idea for those over 50 to get a yearly one, if youā€™re riding a bike and going hard now and then).

I had episodes of micturition syncope in my 20s, 30s. and 40s (four total). None since 2015, because of a pacemaker. The same year of my floor faceplant, I got hit by a car in Germany, and my heart stopped for 9 seconds in the hospital. The exact cause was unclear ā€“ my EKG and ECO were normal. But, the doctors told me ā€œin our country, you are now a transport risk, so weā€™re putting this is in.ā€ Not speaking the language, and with no chance for a second opinion without getting on a flight (the whole transport risk thing), I consented.

My US cardiologist says that he would not have put the thing in without further tests, but, once one of these puppies goes in, it doesnā€™t go out. All of my data says my heart function is normal, no arrythmias or other odd electrical activity. But, it does completely remove the possibility of another syncope after pissing, so thereā€™s that.

Anyway, cutting down portion sizes and training a bit more (if you can) tends to work.

Thatā€™s a bit reassuring. My main goal was to build some functional strength and lose some body fat. Even though I looked skinny, in November, according to a DEXA scan I was still at 18% bf, it felt like I hit this plateau where I was on a constant caloric deficit and was getting lighter but mostly due to the loss of upper body muscle mass.

My gym routine is really just core stability/body weight exercises - thatā€™s why Iā€™m a bit surprised by the gains. All I can say itā€™s a hell of a way to lose body fat, Iā€™ve yet do do a new DEXA (want to do it in March), but visually I can see Iā€™m definitely getting leaner - this is also confirmed by the skin fold measurement. The only issue with this approach is that it probably does not make me a faster cyclist, same weight just less fat and more muscle.

Dehydration was a factor in mine too. It was no way a session, but it was after a hard training day and a few beers (albeit finished 7 or more hours before the episode).

A bit off topic. :wink:

Almost similar experience here in Bamako, Mali. Gradual drop from 98 to 77 kg over 10 months in 2016. In 2017 and 2018 stable around 75 - 76 kg. No sugar, no alcohol and besides indoor and outdoor biking, 25 minutes of varied Gym every morning on the working days (Gym Direct, C8, French) for flexibility and core strength. TR since September 2017 which mainly improved fitness, getting faster on the bike and making indoor cycling challenging in stead of boring.

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Does anyone else find their hunger levels are out of control on recovery week? Its much worse than it was over the last 3 weeks

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