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@KLizotte 28679 wrote:

Just to put in a plug for Weight Watchers. I haven’t done the program myself but my sister easily lost 70 lbs on it and some of my co-workers have been very successful with the program. They focus on teaching you how to eat properly at your desired caloric intake level; meaning, that if you are eating “correctly” the lbs will drop off automatically and you will be able to maintain a healthy diet in the long term. My sister and co-workers have all said they were not hungry while losing the weight.

It sounds like you have a great attitude and the willpower to see you through this. Keep in mind that weight lifting will be adding on muscle so a better measurement of how much fat you are losing is a tape measure, not a scale. Years ago when I was working out a lot, my weight stayed exactly the same but I dropped two dress sizes because muscle had replaced fat.

I’ve heard good things about WW too; I used to have the impression of them back a long time ago that they used peer pressure and negativity to motivate. I’m not sure if that was ever true, but from what I’ve heard of them today, it seems they’ve adopted some effective, current techniques.

I’ve heard it said, “Any plan works if you stick to it”, and I believe that, providing the plan is sound. I would steer clear of any plan that 1. relies on an unbalanced diet (You can only eat onions! But you can have as many as you want!) or 2. doesn’t give you enough intake and insists you just use willpower to defeat the hunger (this NEVER works).

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@Tim Kelley 28663 wrote:

Lots of great general diet tips here, but I’m curious what your basis is for avoiding fatty proteins? It’s just a dense supply of energy, right?

My take on things is that as long as you don’t go overboard and can burn the calories then you don’t need to worry about it. It also takes longer for your body to break it down and turn it into energy. Plus, bacon it’s delicious.

Or is that all just broscience?

If you put any credit into “Volumetrics” (which I do) then dense energy supplies are exactly what you want to avoid if weight loss is the goal. Energy Density is actually one of the terms used in Volumetrics, expressed as calories/gram. Foods with a low energy density include fruits and vegetables, broth-based soups, etc. and are optimal for weight loss.

So it’s not that there is something magical about the calories in fatty proteins, it is that it is very easy to take in too many. And for most people who need to watch their weight, “going overboard” is a treacherous slope.

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Salmon (n): Someone who insists on going against the direction traffic, be it in a bike lane or in the street. This is sometimes a cyclist who thinks all bike lanes are bi-directional despite the fact that the bike lane follows the direction of motor traffic adjacent to it. A Cyclist-Salmon views all bike lanes as fully-fledged MUPs plunked down in the middle of the street. There are also runner/jogger varieties of Salmon, as it has become more common recently for runners to believe that the proper place for them is to run in the street, against the flow of traffic; this is of course a complete misconception fed by some kind of delusion because this area of the street is coincidentally the exact place where cyclists are legally supposed to ride. So strong is this delusional belief that Runner-Salmon often expect that cyclists will veer out into traffic at their own peril so that the Salmon may continue without changing course (See “Insistent Salmon“). Salmoning (n): the act of behaving as a Salmon. “I was riding down 15th street and this pack of runners were totally salmoning and I had to ride out into traffic to avoid them! Source: BikeSnobNYC

Inspired by This thread.

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@justasaintz 28542 wrote:

i think the difference being cyclists are legally allowed on roads and runners are not. if it is legal for them to run on the road, i’d be glad to accommodate them. But when they start running on the road, they are unnecessarily putting cyclists in danger for their own comfort.

Oh, that reminds me of a good addition to the Forum Dictionary.

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@4st7lbs 28633 wrote:

Wow, you have no idea how helpful that was to read. Seriously – THANK YOU!

I was very successful about 15 years ago working with a nutritionist each month doing exactly what you described. I managed to keep the weight I lost (~130lbs) off for eight years before it slowly, and then quickly, started coming back. When I reached my absolute nadir (~500lbs) I was just eating garbage and barely ambulatory. When I got the ok to start exercising after I got sick a few years ago I started out walking and then, after I lost about 20lbs, started using the elliptical and lifting weights to rebuild muscle that I had lost. Cycling was something I loved to do when I was thinner so when I found my old mountain bike when we moved I hoped on and haven’t looked back.

The problem now is that just counting calories (something I do obsessively) isn’t working and it’s obvious that there is no way for me to do this on my own. Forgive my naivete but isn’t “Eat to Live” based on a similar “change the type of food but keep the same food weight” methodology? Regardless, I really appreciate your feedback and will definitely search out “Volumetrics” and HMR.

You’re absolutely welcome. At the risk of sounding like a salesman for HMR, I cannot recommend this program highly enough. It is a shame there is not a local office, as it is one of the few diets that isn’t hyped up with marketing. I had success earlier this year dropping ~50lbs via their phone-in meetings, but I had the benefit of going through one of their in-office programs previously when I lived in Atlanta, so I already knew what the plan was about and what to expect.

When I first started HMR, I seriously thought it was a total scam. If it hadn’t been for a friend of mine from work who had also lost a bunch of weight – the progress of which I was able to witness – using that program, I probably would have never stuck with it. Every calorie you take in for the duration of the program is purchased from HMR; it seems like a scam but this is their business model and since their program works, the profit is well-deserved. I remember thinking “if this is a scam, I am happy to be a sucker” because of its effectiveness.

The key thing with HMR is to think of it as a prescription, because that is exactly what it is. Your doctor wouldn’t want you experimenting with random antibiotics while he is treating you; likewise HMR works because they accurately track every calorie you take in. And just like a doctor, if the treatment isn’t working or isn’t working effectively enough, they can alter the treatment and change the results.

One of the first things that threw me for a loop was that with HMR is that there is no limit to the amount of food you are allowed to eat as long as that food is on the plan. I couldn’t figure this out at first, but if you put it down on paper, you would have to eat an insane amount of HMR food to keep weight on…you just couldn’t do it. The moderate (2000 cal/week) of PA you do on the plan keeps the metabolism from plummeting which is essential. What you wind up with is a very boring, predictable diet, but you also never have to be hungry (in fact one of the key strategies in the program is to remember to eat to avoid hunger). The only thing you have to give up is eating for pleasure — which really sucks. But as you step onto that scale and see losses of 3, 4, 5 pounds week after week, it makes it easier to deal with the boredom.

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@jordash 28628 wrote:

I’d like to replace the curvaceous (Surly Open) handlebars I have on my bike. It’s a singlespeed, which I use to commute around the city and occasionally take for long rides. I like the upright posture but also want the ability to crank and reduce my wind resistance. I had my eye on different Soma and Nitto pursuit/bullhorn handlebars, but it’s unclear if I’ll be able to attach my brake levers.

Any recommendations?

Is that your bike in the photo? You should be able to attach those brake levers to bullhorns, but in my opinion it would be a little janky. Not only would they look odd being reversed, the cable routing would look fugly. You should be able to find some inexpensive “aero levers” (Cane Creek, for example) and they will work great and look better than traditional levers flipped around, AND you could route the cables UNDER the bar tape for a great clean look.

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@4st7lbs 28604 wrote:

Tis true, which is why I’m so frustrated.

No doubt, my goal is 100 miles a week but work (read: travel) and injuries keep getting in the way. Up until the weather got too much for me to handle I was doing 70 miles a week commuting to work. Starting next week I’m going to try and do at least 10 miles every day, should be able to make the 100 miles/week mark by the end of September barring injuries.

I modified the meal plan that I developed with the dietitian I worked with when I was over 450lbs and just reduced the total calories from 3,700 to 3,000 (which is also in line with LoseIt!). The problem is that even at 3,000 calories I’m pretty hungry throughout the day, especially if I bike to work (and have a banana once I cool down) or did a 25 mile ride the night before (with a banana and two stinger waffles consumed during my break). With weightlifting I don’t experience this as much (I have a Muscle Milk shake right after I lift) but that’s shorter periods of extreme exertion vs. the continuous medium impact of spinning with cycling.

I think one of the biggest issues right now is that unless I’m cycling or lifting out I don’t drink enough water during the day (~2.5L). When I do long rides I tend to drink 4-5L the day before and 6-7L the day of and drink 5-6L throughout the day and at the gym when I lift weight. If I can just get into a rhythm of drinking 6L each day, regardless of physical activity, I have a feeling the weight would start coming off. Still, I’m interested in an feedback or suggestions you all have.

I would reconsider before adding a whole bunch of Physical Activity (PA) to your regimen. If the plan is not working now, increased PA may send your hunger levels very high, and without a solid eating plan you may go into a total diet-freefall.

Has your dietitian given you info such as your base calories? For men it is roughly 12cal/lb-body-weight, which is 4800 for you. You could take in 4800 cal/day and do no PA at all and maintain your weight. So the trick is to trim calories off of both sides…reduce intake and increase output. Here is the catch: it is MUCH easier and much more effective to reduce intake. It is a classic mistake to think that “well, I can just work out like crazy” to increase pounds lost per week. In reality the numbers are against you.

Let’s take your 40 miles per week example…for your body weight I would take a guess that you’re burning around 4000 calories (being generous). Since a pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories that amounts to just over a single pound lost if you change nothing in your diet. Now let’s take your reduction in caloric intake…4800 being your base calories (per day), if you reduce to 3700 per day that leaves you with a weekly calorie deficit of 7700, which is over two pounds.

So, if you increase your mileage to 100 per week, that will vault your calories burned to 10,000 per week, so now instead of losing 1 pound per week through exercise, you’re losing 3. The problem is that this is a HUGE increase in caloric output…it is going to result in a significant increase in hunger. If you don’t have a plan to deal with that you will find yourself in trouble, and here’s why: as much effort as you’d be putting into that 10,000 calories of PA per week, you could quite easily ruin that work with 3-4 bad (high calorie) meals. Have a look at the nutritional info for any of the big restaurant chains, Chili’s, TGI Fridays, etc., just to get an idea. You may avoid those places but it should illustrate how high-calorie some meals can be. 3000-4000 meals are fairly common with these chains. Add in beer/wine, appetizer and dessert and I bet one could easily eat 5000 calories in one sitting.

With that kind of increased PA, in my experience, it will be very tough to make the right eating decisions, unless the plan and habits are already in place. And even then, for any kind of weight-loss plan I would still go moderate on the PA and focus on the food. I’ve heard an expression from bodybuilding “defined abs aren’t made in the gym, they’re made in the kitchen”.

If I were you, I would look for something more than just a one-time plan from a dietitian; I would look for a weekly recurring class that will help you stick to a plan and stay focused on the tools and strategies needed. It is not easy…your body wants to fight every step of the way. But with the right plan it becomes not-so-bad. Personally, I would look into a program called HMR; this is the program I used in 2004 and I lost 120lbs. I was losing 4.5lbs/week on average. I did the plan in Atlanta but there is not one local here; they do have phone-in programs however and I’ve also used one of those successfully.

P.S. re-reading your post, it may not be a good strategy to simply reduce the dietitian’s plan from 3700 to 3000 calories. If you did this by simply proportionally reducing the amount of food intake, then you’re going to be left very hungry because we tend to take in the same amount of food in weight daily, no matter the type of food (see Penn State researcher Barbara Rolls and the “Volumetrics” eating plan). If we tend to eat around 4lbs of food per day, we could eat 4lbs of fruits and veggies or 4lbs of sausage and achieve the same level of satiety. The strategy is to reduce caloric intake while maintaining the volume (or weight, technically) of food taken in.

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I definitely read it as “Hope this helps someone find their stolen bike.“

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@Certifried 28487 wrote:

I miss the peace of fishing like when I was a boy.

I miss a piece of somethin’ guv’, wink wink, nudge nudge!

(I have no idea where I’m going with this post. All I know is I’m ready for Oh-Beer-Thirty!)

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@Dirt 28440 wrote:

One ping only, Vasili.

When Cortez arrived in the new wor– OH FORGET it.

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@baiskeli 28456 wrote:

Yes, it is weird to feel “badLY”. It means you have a medical problem.

Well spank you very much, Grammy Grammarton!

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I know…I KNOW it is completely weird…

…but why do I feel badly for the bike thief?

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@Tim Kelley 28378 wrote:

If that happens there will be cupcakes.

Did you get signed up?

Email sent…for some reason I read the date as TOMORROW (Aug 16) and was going to suggest a whole bunch of us staff up the 4MR locations before heading over to Cap City.

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@PotomacCyclist 28374 wrote:

I got the reference. But I think he was still calling me out for criticizing any cyclist. The rogue cyclists in that movie do a lot of harm to other cyclists, by creating an extremely bad reputation among non-cyclists. It makes it a little too easy for bike-hating car drivers to justify aggressive actions on the roads. It also provides ammunition for opponents of bike infrastructure funding. I think it’s important for other cyclists to call out the people in that movie and make it clear that most cyclists don’t support that type of behavior. (At least I hope most don’t.)

While I understand this viewpoint, I respectfully disagree with it (and have for a long time). While I don’t think the Lucas Brunelle variety of behavior is helpful I just don’t think it is as harmful as many do. Overall I’m rather neutral; if they choose to behave as outlaws then the responsibility for it is theirs alone, and I refuse to accept the premise that I or any other law-abiding cyclist is responsible.

I’ve never believed that my right to use the road on a bike depended on the collective reputation of all cyclists everywhere. The right of motorists to use the road certainly doesn’t depend on their collective reputation (imagine if it did!). I don’t believe it provides ammo to the bike-infrastructure opponents because they will always be able to point to anecdotal evidence of abuse. That argument falls apart on the basis of logic anyway: we’re going to withhold funding for biking infrastructure because some cyclists disobey traffic laws. I believe the two are separate issues.

If we truly believe we have a right to use the road we should avoid a posture of apology and adopt one of assertiveness and confidence in our rights.

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What happens if the volunteer turnout is so high that all of the people who would normally be riding the trails are sitting trailside counting…no one?

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