[Closed] Massively calorie restrictive diets

No but gut feeling is you'll struggle. Have you considered the iDiet that was popular here a few years back? I had massive success with it, losing 3+ st in about a year. Restrictive diet obviously but not calorie restrictive, and designed with very active people in mind (allowances for extra simple carbs when exercising).

Anyone tried one whilst still riding a bike a fair bit?

If I calorie restrict whilst riding, I can only ride slowly i.e. zone 2, otherwise I get absolutely exhausted. I can't run, or do weights either, as there's just no energy to repair the muscle stress as your normal training response would be.

Almost all the literature for highly calorie restricted diets refers to sedentary people - and for the ones that discuss exercise they are talking about 20 minns of cardio in the gym. A three hour ride is outside the scope of most studies. Try it, but I would suggest you would need to take on additional carbohydrate after the first 45 mins of a ride otherwise you will be a mess within a week.

Basically, take it really easy.

Good luck to you and mrs TINAS.
I think one of those authors was on R4 yesterday espousing the benefits.

Try it, but I would suggest you would need to take on additional carbohydrate after the first 45 mins of a ride otherwise you will be a mess within a week.

Basically, take it really easy.

Yea, I'm sort of thinking rides will just be like they are normally when doing 4+ hour rides, i.e. pretty much 200-300 calories an hour of fruit and sweets, except from the start rather than getting the first 3-4 hours free like normal.

And had kept more of it off a year later

And therein lies the problem, a year is seen as long term follow up whereas it's no such thing, 5 or 10 years down the line is where you might learn something.

However it does seem that these rapid weight loss plans are good for reversing type 2 diabetes and I can see how they might work for other people in that a quick result which makes them feel better might be the encouragement to change their diet for life. And you can't get away from the fact that that is what is needed. A more gradual loss and improvement in how someone feels might not trigger that desire and willingness to make permanent changes.

As for the cycling I'd think you need to think about keep more of your riding in zone 2 and use it as a time to lose weight and build up your base rather than trying too many high intensity sessions which might be counterproductive.

Got to agree that a year seems quite short term.  I remember seeing an analyis of results from one of the weight loss tv programs in the US where the people the majority of the people who lost a lot very quickly had more that regained it a few years later.  The theory was that their body had reduced their basic metabolic rate quickly and that it took years to get back to where it was rather than months.  So once they returned to normal eating they automatically overshot.

From the second of those reports

There is absolutely no way to tell if TDR group weight is going to continue to rise at that rate or not but it's not looking good.  They just stopped measuring at that point

and with both of the reports the groups were given help to maintain healthy lifestyles and that seems to be key.  I wouldn't want to be doing it myself as not being able to keep it up and then depression from failing leading to overeating is another of the yoyo mechanisms

but, in it's favour, I have seen one person I know who I didn't see for a few years and came back amazingly trim from a weigh****chers plan where they replaced meals with various 'shakes'.   For him it worked well but again he was part of a group there was support

There are also the group of january dieters who I know who yoyo...

I have used it and reversed diabetes type two by losing around 30kgs.
Truth be told, I am on it again, as with a lot of travel etc, I have put on 10 kgs - so that is coming off, as I do not want to be a medicated diabetic again (As far as the NHS concerned I will always be a diabetic - but in remission). I am entering week 3.

I end up putting of weight, not because of a yo-yo effect but because I sit on planes/ hotel rooms etc.
I would say that you should try it in with exercise - you body will adapt. Perhaps not to hugely difficult climbs - but doing so will keep the metabolism up and stop it from thinking you are in a famine state.

It is not a healthy diet - the original designers of it ( Newcastle University) suggest and absolute maximum of 12 weeks ( I id 10 originally). I will do 6 weeks this time. The trick is then to completely adapt you lifestyle afterward - and have a diet very low in refined carbs ( I work a lot in Germany, where the diet is based on bread, potatoes, bread and a bit more bread).
Use it to take down you weight - but your OH will then need to look at going forward with a different diet to stabilise things ...
BTW, I find it quite easy and cathartic!

And therein lies the problem, a year is seen as long term follow up whereas it’s no such thing, 5 or 10 years down the line is where you might learn something.

I was never really convinced either and I did wonder that, but it seems like most kept most of the weight off. And once you've changed your habits I don;t really see why you'd be more likely to "relapse" whether that's in 3, 6, 9, 12 months or 5 years.

And probably better a number of years healthy than a number of years gradually getting healthier.

Also, seems like a lot of the results focus on all the people in the study, not just the successful ones. So it might be the case that ~40% of people starting the diet are 15kg lighter at the end of the year, which they argue is better than a much smaller number of people losing the same weight slower and the remainder failing and giving up (the control groups seem to be a net 0kg, which implies as many people lost weight as gained it!).

Months 3-6 and onward is still pretty restrictive, but with more protein and low-starch veg (basically the iDave diet).

I'm on high protein 140g and low carb also 140g per day, with a net calories of 1200 a day after bike training.   Lost 4kg since November and increased FTP by 4% last night son I'm retaining muscle/mitochondria.  I'm not "big" at just under 6ft and 76kg.

I has a similar conversation last night - part from the fact I'm going to have to re-learn appropriate carb loading before races, I'm sticking with this diet as I feel so much better.   I've learned my foods, so its an easy win.

Hill climbing and big efforts are hard because there's little or no glycogen from carbs to support the effort.

Lost 4kg since November and increased FTP by 4% last night son I’m retaining muscle/mitochondria. I’m not “big” at just under 6ft and 76kg.

Out of interest, what's your FTP?

I was playing around with the BF calipers and at 76g (I'm also 5ft11 and a bit) I'd be 6% BF if I don't lose any muscle. Hence why I reckoned it wasn't a bad target to be aiming for at that stage of "the season" (i.e. plenty of time to worry about 2 minute power before hill climb season)

I have done two of these diets.The first time I did the Newcastle diet and lost the 15kg and came off the meds as blood sugars were back to normal.

I then had two bad cycling accidents in the space of a year,put back on weight while not exercising and went straight back on the pills.This time I did the blood sugar diet,lost the weight and came off the pills again.

In both cases I kept up the cycling because you quickly go into fat burning mode and the cycling speeds up the weight loss.Six months after the second diet I have still not put on any weight,so success.

A few years ago I was eating 1500 calories and 600 calories on alternate days. I lost 3 stone but really struggled on longer rides (200km) as I bonked badly even if I ate 2000 calories the day before and whatever I wanted whilst riding.

Some reading I have done has suggested a keto diet can fuel exercise through burning fat rather than glycogen and this is something I am considering but it is a big lifestyle change.

I think you will struggle to do the riding you describe on the proposed diet but could you not just eat back some of the calories you burn?

Best of luck TINAS.

Have you checked out the Fast 800 by the ubiquitous Dr Michael Mosely? Strikes me as a better approach than shakes.

I started it, was doing well then stress and depression bit and I fell off the wagon. Plan to start again soon as we have made some big moves to simplify life which should help.

I would say that you should try it in with exercise – you body will adapt.

I think this varies by person. Our physiologies vary, obviously, we know that some people are sprinters and some endurance riders. This is determined by our muscle fibre compostion, and that in turn determines how easy it is for us to burn fat.

If you have more type II fibres (i.e. sprinter) then it is possible to train yourself to have more type I, but not the other way. In other words, a sprinter can become reasonable at endurance, but not so much the other way round.

But if you are a natural sprinter you will struggle more with the fat burning, as you are worse at it to begin with. So to answer that point - some people adapt more readily than others because they have less work to do.

Some reading I have done has suggested a keto diet can fuel exercise through burning fat rather than glycogen and this is something I am considering but it is a big lifestyle change.

This is essentially whats I've been doing.  Having some carb intake after workouts also helps develop mitochondria.  On Z2 rides at 1:50 - 3hrs I'm burning 1000 to 2000 cals and leaving at least half of those on the table.

Out of interest, what’s your FTP?

272 - bear in mind I'm not a power athlete and defer to 4-12hrs so endurance rather than power is my thing.  We're targeting 3.8w/KG by April amongst other things.

Tinas - given you are mainly aiming at the t2 diabetes I would have a discussion with your GP about it.

Seems to me the are two parts to this - the initial short term severe calorie reduction to start the process of reducing weight and then long term you need a lifestyle change to keep the weight off.

Its not the way I would approach it but its nice to see you have done your research and have selected good sources of info to follow

diet is ( yet another 😉 ) area that I will always suggest folk try to avoid the charlatens there are a lot of them out there.

Good luck!

Does anyone have a link to a diet plan? I seem to only find ones I have to pay for.

Thanks

Hmm, relevant!

Was 85kg, 5'11, 287W

Now 88kg post injury, trying 5:2 diet using 2000kC as BMR and doing 600-800kC on fast days.

Targetting 80kg and ~340W by next summer, although hope to achieve most of the weight loss now before I start training properly again.

Can sympathise with the stress/depression thing! Had a bad day tosay, crisps and wine are calling me...

Had a bad day tosay, crisps and wine are calling me…

I'd neglected to say that actually the protein based diet has accidentally kind of removed most alchohol from my diet, and also in discovering the low carb booze options discovered the high yet useless (Alcohol doesn't metabolise into useful / stored carbs) carb ones.    I pretty much drink one glass of Red on a Sunday now and thats it.

4.25 w/kg 13th.... nice!

I'm currently having a crack at a slightly different (medicalised) fad approach and am eating only within a 6(ish) hour window in the day. No breakfast, late lunch and tea fairly late at 8ish pm

I'm a T2 diabetic but even at diagnosis wasn't very "big" - nurse specialist commented on it 😃 and then said she reckoned I'd be on insulin before any of her others ( 😎 - that's good, right ?)

Anyhow, stopped eating chocs and lost about 5 kilos (seriously, that's pretty much all I did). Have kept that off but my sugars and A1c still weren't "proper normal" so started metformin and I also (just to muddy the scientific waters and worry you all/some about acidosis !) began this diet. I'm not currently commuting by bike as there's a problem with our showers, so we'll see how I tolerate 12 miles on an empty stomach and then another 6 hours before I eat. So far so good though and a few random BMs have been quite convincing

Have you checked out the Fast 800 by the ubiquitous Dr Michael Mosely? Strikes me as a better approach than shakes.

Does anyone have a link to a diet plan? I seem to only find ones I have to pay for.

Its basicly the fast 800 (its the 5:2, without the 5).

Step 1) 800 calories a day, shakes, soup and veg really. That lasts 2-3 months or untill you reach your target.

Step 2) similar to iDave. No "carbs" but things like chickpeas are allowed. The aim is to maintain the weight loss and reintroduce the calories gradually.

Step 3) back to normal but healthy eating.

Its not all shakes, there's options but mostly its shakes and soup for 2-3 months. Shakes at least take the faff out of breakfast so ive got USN meal replacement from lidl. And tins of soup are an easy lunch option. Just leaves dinner, and things like stir fry, veg curry, lentil soup etc are quite easy to make very low calorie.

I think some people do nothing but the shakes but I enjoy cooking so will focus on soups and very low calorie meals.

4.25 w/kg 13th…. nice!

Lol, that's just based on how light I think I can get, and how fast my summer riding buddy is! Don't want to spend the whole Raid Pyrenees 2021 staring at his rapidly disappearing arse on every climb...

Lost 4kg since November and increased FTP by 4%

Good job, I'd happily take that right now!

Sitting replete after an exceptionally tasty veg stir fry (won't mention the wholewheat noodles). Think I'm probably 1500kCal today and feeling pretty good on it, Wattbike said 510kCal for a fairly easy 40 minute workout but based on the average power I reckon 385kCal...

I find the 8:16 method of eating really useful in losing weight. Basically you consume all your food in an 8 hour window, then fast for the remaining 16. I dont have breakfast, so lunch is the first meal of the day. I find it really useful as you dont have much time to snack. You dont have to be crazy restrictive with what you eat, but obviously if you're looking to lose weight, sensible choices get better results. Not eating for 16 hours can seem daunting to begin with, so start with 12:12 and work it over a week or so. Once you're used to it, it's no bother whatsoever.

I think if you try and ride those distances on a Kcal intake of less than 1000 a day you will run into a wall sooner rather than later.
Unless you really ease off at pootle everywhere you risk bonking on every ride apart from your commute
I know its the dropping glycogen stores to zero to force the body to burn lard for fuel, but if you are starting depleted and attempting say , a 50 miler at a sedate 12.5mph , thats 4hrs @ ~ 300cal /hr , thats a substantial cal loss when you take into consideration there are still 20hrs of staying alive , and 12 of those being 'up and about'
My mates wife is a diabetes nurse and has seen reversals in people who follow the advice and bulk up on vegetables grown above ground, cut the crap food and simple carbs.
Good luck with it , but I would be attempting maybe 300 -400 cal a day depletion, not 2000
Disclaimer IANADietition , but my mum was.

I think if you try and ride those distances on a Kcal intake of less than 1000 a day you will run into a wall sooner rather than later.

The average person has about 60000 fat calories available.  You'd have to ride carefully and be fat adapted to tap into most of that though.

Ive always found keto brilliant for weight loss. If you like low carb / high fat foods it's easy to stick to, or I find it easy anyway.

The weight comes off quick - 2 stone in 2 months for me. I didn't calorie restrict either.

It's all about insulin really. Not eating (many) carbs means you don't stimulate insulin production nearly as much as usual. This in turn allows you to access your fat stores, hence the weight loss. Insulin is a really important hormone that does a lot more than just process glucose.

It's also proven, tens of thousands of times, to reverse T2D.

You do need a bit of patience and to stick with it before becoming fat adapted though, and the odd bonk in the adaptation period is to be expected if you push it and fully deplete. Once you're there though, endless energy, steady energy through the day, more mental clarity.... it's worth it for me.

It’s all about insulin really. Not eating (many) carbs means you don’t stimulate insulin production nearly as much as usual. This in turn allows you to access your fat stores, hence the weight loss. Insulin is a really important hormone that does a lot more than just process glucose.

True, and one of the things it does is promote muscle building in response to exercise. Which also burns energy.. and helps you recover too.

Just goes to show it's complicated and there's more than one way to lose weight.

70 miles on a Sunday, 5 miles each day commuting, 15 miles Wed, 45-65 Thurs, 20 Fri. So not masses, but still upto 150miles

Dont know about your question bit I hope your calorie counting is better than your mile counting!

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Is not up to 150miles

Indeed. IGF1 does promote growth but there are other compounds / processes that do also, like mTOR.

There's an awful lot of bodybuilders and athletes who use keto these days, this demonstrates that building and maintaining lean mass can be done in a low insulin / glucose environment.

I recommend recommend 'The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living' by Phinney and Volek for some cycling specific info.

A few years ago I did a 5-2 diet to lose a bit of weight. Didn’t go silly, on the 2 restricted days I had 35g of healthy cereal for breakfast, a salad for lunch with a little dressing, and a bowl of soup for dinner. I did the 2 days back to back, and continued my normal exercise regime throughout the week (typically 45mins of cardio or weights in the gym daily, and a 2-3 hr ride once a week). I can’t say I felt any weaker or more tired on the ‘fasting’ days. I did manage to drop 20kg in 8 months though and most importantly, keep the weight off.

There’s an awful lot of bodybuilders and athletes who use keto these days, this demonstrates that building and maintaining lean mass can be done in a low insulin / glucose environment.

I'm not a body builder but it's often said that you can't bulk up and get lean at the same time - you have to alternate building and cutting.

But it depends heavily on what you do and who you are, I think.

You do need a bit of patience and to stick with it before becoming fat adapted though, and the odd bonk in the adaptation period is to be expected if you push it and fully deplete. Once you’re there though, endless energy, steady energy through the day, more mental clarity…. it’s worth it for me.

This sounds quite attractive to me, think my diet has been getting far to carb-y recently (not to mention sugary, I blame injury induced comfort eating).

How does Keto play with normal training regimes, e.g. polarised 80/20? I can imagine the 80% Z2 is fine, but what do you do when you want to put in a hard 1hr session?

In order of 'I'm not sure I could do without' -

Pasta
Pizza
Crisps
Beer
Porridge (the convenience and fillingness really)

How do these work with Keto? Just limited doses?

Think I'll take a look at that book...

Regarding the Michael Mosely diet; my FIL was recommended to go on that for t2d and he did really well. In view of offering support we bought the recipe book and have 'Loosely' been following it ourselves the last couple of weeks. It's actually got some really good recipes.

By Loosely, we're having overnight oats for breakfast which is obviously carb heavy and we have been ending the day on 1,100 - 1,200 cals a day. It's basically just meat and above ground veg & surprisingly we haven't been hungry on this diet and lost 4kg's over the last 10 days..

It’s basically just meat and above ground veg & surprisingly we haven’t been hungry on this diet and lost 4kg’s over the last 10 days..

Quoi? 4kgs over 10 days? I thought 0.5kg/week was considered healthy?

Is there something else like lack of water retention that has helped with the 4kgs?

At 1200kCals/day I would have thought the max you could lose in 10 days (rough maths...) would be 1.5kg

It is quite a lot, quite fast. I personally suspect it's more to do with my starting point being straight after the festive period where we were drinking every day and eating cheese by the fridgeful so the 0.4kg/day is unrepresentative of "normal" on the diet. I would expect the rate of change to tail off as we go though the month, but I'm only looking to lose around 12kgs to get back to finding running easier once more.

Dont know about your question bit I hope your calorie counting is better than your mile counting!

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Is not up to 150miles

Haha, true, 150miles would be a very good week in nice weather, most weeks something get's skipped due to rain or other commitments. I don't think the Thursday ride's happened since November😂

I’m not a body builder but it’s often said that you can’t bulk up and get lean at the same time – you have to alternate building and cutting.

It does seem like a diet and nutrition has got a lot more scientific over the last 10-20 years. There's loads of stuff that's received wisdom, but doesn't survive scientific scrutiny.

Anyway, soup for lunch and dinner yesterday, shake for breakfast this morning and feeling surprisingly good. Have already promised myself a cheat meal out on Saturday night and haven't given up my morning latte (but it is semi skimmed milk and only a mug, not a pint from costa)!

My full-fat cheat days are a depressing reminder of how bad my 'normal' days were previously!

1 bowl of crisps and 1 or 2 beers IF I've been good the rest of the day... That's having assumed 750kC for dinner tonight, Mediterranean roast veg and feta stirred through cous-cous with a saffron stock. I suppose I could pick out the feta (my wife's fave) and just eat less of the rest, earn myself a whisky and/or piece of chocolate.

Will get easier once I'm allowed to start exercising in earnest again, using a BMR of 2000 with no exercise on top is pretty limiting.

After being chunky for ages and ages in 2017 I dropped my weight to 86kg (I lost 14kg in 3m 19d) and had an FTP of 312 (those legs had been used to shifting 100kgs for 10 years)

I'd been doing quite a lot of riding previously and kept it up as well as running but just downed my calories to 1500 a day (tried to stick to iDave principle and avoided bad carbs) and stuck to it best I could. Any exercise was a bonus.

Results!

- Hills that I used to struggle with just didn't exist anymore

- I ran a sub 4hr marathon

- I loved not struggling (and even leading when out on the bikes with my mates)

Now I have all the weight back and none of the power and can't run 5k at the same pace I did for 26 miles and its back into Chub club so hey ho, the cycle begins again. Good job it's a cycle forum.

- So in short yes you can,

- it's hard work

- once you achieve it you'll probably have to adapt as its not sustainable (i didn't adapt I reverted to type got very down about it stopped cycling altogether and hated myself for going back to being a lazy fatty)

Whatever you do, keep it sustainable. I'm not sure that keto/fasting/no carb/whatever are something that your average Joe can keep doing, as Tiger alludes to in his efforts.

Even a conservative estimate suggests that cycling 150 miles per week is burning 7,500 calories.

What is your estimated total calorific intake per week, pre-diet? Surely masses of scope to make some simple swaps without being reduced to a liquid diet.

Whatever you do, keep it sustainable. I’m not sure that keto/fasting/no carb/whatever are something that your average Joe can keep doing, as Tiger alludes to in his efforts.

I think it is at the "right" calorie levels.   However, your body continues to crave carbs and its the non exercise days that are tricky.   I'm sitting here right now waiting for my Chicken & Carrots to warm up and I could absolutely smash Belgian bun and some crips.

Whatever you do, keep it sustainable. I’m not sure that keto/fasting/no carb/whatever are something that your average Joe can keep doing, as Tiger alludes to in his efforts.

I see your point, but equally "sustainable" might not work either, or be worse, and it's not sustainable anyway.

In order:
1) I don't think that anyone would argue that a diet that results in noticeable weight loss is going to be easier to stick with in the short term than one that's so slow you can only really see a result that's not within the margin for error 4 weeks on. I can 'lose' 2kg in a hard ride just from water and sugar, a change to the right of the decimal point at a weekly weigh in isn't anything at all. As the research shows, if you take the starting group as a whole the faster diets work better rather than trying to extrapolate back from the very few people who succeeded in loosing weight slowly and blaming other factors for those who failed. When in reality the common factor appeared to be diet (I'm separating the meaning of the word diet to mean a short term change in what you're eating from say "nutritional" being a longer term thing) advice they were given.

2) Better to be a healthy weight for the majority of period of time than an unhealthy but slowly decreasing weight for that same period of time? If all goes to plan then 9 months as a lean mean hill climbing machine is better than 12 months of trying (both from a cycling up hills perspective, and a health perspective).

3) No one ever claimed any diet was sustainable. 1500 calories/day is no more sustainable than 800, but you have to sustain it for about twice as long ! Both rely on the subject re-adjusting to a normal diet. The advantage I can see in the fast800 method is the first 3 months is so far removed from what I would normally eat (it's a joke in our house that my GF will only eat foods that end in "and chips"*) that going backwards actually seems less likely, whereas a conventional diet swapping that to "and salad" is only a short step back to "and salad with chips"

*it's not that bad, but she wont eat rice or pulses, only certain types of pasta and is fussy about veg. But will eat roast potatoes and chips by the tray full. So weekday meal options tend to get whittled down to potato.

What is your estimated total calorific intake per week, pre-diet? Surely masses of scope to make some simple swaps without being reduced to a liquid diet.

Admittedly, a lot of crap.

Breakfast is usually pancakes (which aren't that bad, it's an egg, some water and some flour), but then get filled with fruit which is mostly sugar.

Lunch is a packed lunch, so a sandwich, yogurt, crisps, chocolate biscuit, and 3 portions of fruit to snack on.

Dinner is my biggest downfall as the OH is a fussy eater (she denies it but when it comes to picking a dinner she'll veto everything until we get to the "and chips" option mentioned above. And I CBA cooking 2 dinners (she'd be even worse if left to her own devices).

Also the house is packed with treats, and I have zero willpower! I've asked her to stop but she'll buy cash and carry quantities of penguins, rocky bars, crisps etc with the justification that "well you don't have to eat them", errrmmmm yes I do! **crumbs fly everywhere**. And she has a tendency to buy extra "treats" every time she shops (pastries, cakes, cream eggs). Left to my own devices I'd be a lot healthier!

Interesting point re: sustainable and sudden.

I used to be amazed that neither calorie control nor binging seemed to affect my weight, until I spent a solid 5 months not exercising, then it finally rose 5kg.

Almost 2 weeks in to a 5:2 plan with slightly restricted calories on the 5 days and I'm seeing negligible results, in fact since I bought some new scales I've even gone up!

Wondering if I need to go mega restricted in the short term just to get back to normal weight, then relax a bit once I'm back on bike and hopefully burning cals again.

Interesting...I've been on a 5:2 diet since before Christmas, and cut out meat during the week since the new year, rather than ramble on I'll keep it brief.

- The 5:2 is great (for me), I feel lighter and fresher etc, and I've been successfully loosing weight. However one thing to note is that its not recommended for diabetics, however research suggests it does increase your sensitivity to insulin, so I don't know how it would work for your OH.
- The fast diet is essentially 5:2, however you have 800 calories for the first 2 weeks, then carry on with the 5:2, only having 800 calories. The reason for this is in the first 2 weeks, you'll get motivated by the rapid loss, and the extra 300 calories over the 5:2 has roughly the same effects, only you won't be as hangry.
- I'm also doing a bit of 16:8...also works great and you feel great.
- Finally cutting out meat makes a huge difference to my perceived endurance, I feel much more energised on longer rides.
- No notable loss in fitness on rides, and strength seems to have gone up.

N.B. I may be wrong on some of the fast diet info, but this is how I interpret it from YouTube interviews with Dr Michael Mosley.

used to be amazed that neither calorie control nor binging seemed to affect my weight, until I spent a solid 5 months not exercising, then it finally rose 5kg.

My weight slowly crept up from about 78kg at 16 to 115kg at 32. Always going up a bit each time I had a break from regular exercise (or I'd build muscle, then get fat but maintain the same weight, then build muscle, but not loose the fat), but never dropping until I was in the high 90's. Then I hit 30 and put on about 2 stone very quickly!

Wondering if I need to go mega restricted in the short term just to get back to normal weight, then relax a bit once I’m back on bike and hopefully burning cals again.

This is part of the reason I've decided to start this week, my backs so bad I can barely hobble around the office let alone walk any distance. So 800 calorie intake might unfortunately not actually be all that big a deficit!

 I’m sitting here right now waiting for my Chicken & Carrots to warm up and I could absolutely smash Belgian bun and some crips.

Well you may be losing weight but it sounds like you've still got the same issue that led you to wanting to lose weight.:-)

I could sit in front of those and have no desire to eat them, I'm not sure how exactly I changed my mindset towards food but change it I did and given that it was some 35 years ago I'd say that it's probably permanent. The way I look at something now is well I could eat that if I want to it's just I don't right now. I'm not a vegetarian just someone who hasn't eaten any meat or fish for well over 3 decades. I'm not a vegan but goes weeks at a time without eating anything that's come from animals. If I want a steak today I'll have one, it's highly unlikely but you never know.

Food is not a religion, dieting is not a religion, you are not going to hell if you eat something. Once you have that mentality the devil has a much harder time tempting you.

Having demolished most of the Xmas chocolate/cookies I really didn't want by around 3rd Jan (because some days I cannot stop satisfying my carb cravings if there are "sweets" in the cupboards), combined with exercising less over the previous ~14 days, my general trend weight loss from 24th Oct went a bit backwards. ~83.6Kg down to ~79.1, then rose to ~79.7Kg.

I started the Zwift "TT Tune-Up" on 6th Jan, a lot of ~60min z2 power stuff which I've found quite boring, so I've thrown in the odd bit of extra riding like Zwift TTs, event rides etc. Endulged in the odd 200g bag of chocolate raisins roughlt every other day (one of my main reasons for weight gain over past almost 2.5 years, along with cold x buns and peanut butter & jam sandwiches), but I'm down to ~78.2Kg.

I suspect the ~1.5Kg loss since 3rd is some carbs restraint, but mainly a ramp up in cycling (919 TSS on turbo, plus cyle commuting and delivery 3 days last week, plus a couple of ~40min gentle hilly rides this week while on annual leave).

My worry is that no matter how hard I was training, my weight wasn't going down! So I can't rely on cycling for weight loss.

Having said that, I think I was over-doing the recovery shakes which was short circuiting any weight loss after high intensity stuff, and I was probably over-estimating calorie burn on longer cycles (pretty sure I was using 50% of whatever Strava said) and probably also ignoring calories during rides e.g. soreen, energy bars, coffee, cakes etc.

GCN did a useful, lighthearted video on it

I'm still on a lot of painkillers due to back surgery, wonder what effect they might be having.

80kg seems a long way off!

This one's a bit drier but I just picked up some useful tips

But you are aiming to do a hell of alot of miles on a lettuce leaf and a slice of cucumber.
Throw all the rubbish in the direction of a foodbank
Plan meals properly, on advance, fish, chicken, pork plus veg, no pudding ot maybe a satsuma
Bin off the crisps at lunch add a boiled egg, 8 cherry tomatoes, maybe a small bit of beetroot
Then do a ride over lunchtime and have no lunch, just a few oatcakes

I am at my winter weight of 78kg now, usually drop to 75 or 74 by September, 5ft 11 and light build. I cut right down on carbs after lunch, beer is my weakness

Breakfast is usually pancakes (which aren’t that bad, it’s an egg, some water and some flour)

Almost pure white flower, which is packed with high GI carbs. They are very bad. But delicious. But bad.

Well you may be losing weight but it sounds like you’ve still got the same issue that led you to wanting to lose weight.:-)

Only because I was hungry.  There's kitchen drawer full of shite and a cupboard full of booze which I haven't touched for months and wouldn't.

Cut out the pancakes at breakfast and 90% of the crisps and chocolate biscuits. Just have 3 eggs for breakfast (scrambled, boiled or poached). Stop weighing yourself. In 2-3 months you'll be able to see the difference.

Oven chips with every evening meal probably isn't the worst thing in the world as long as there's some lean protein and veg on the plate too. But cupboards full of sugary snacks will always be your undoing. Just stop buying them. They are literally killing you.

If you plan proper meals and get it all in one shop, that'll also cut out the 'top-up' shops where the extra cakey crap is sneaking in.

Keto isn't entirely all or nothing but it's close.

Ketosis is essentially the physiological state of ketone production, ketones agre then used for energy instead of glycogen. This only happens in low glucose environments so if you eat say 30g of carbs/sugars your body stops ketone production and you are 'kicked out' of ketosis.

If you've been keto for a while this doesn't matter that much (every now and then...) as you have increased metabolic flexibility and are more effectively dual fuelled. In the early weeks though, it's to be avoided as it sets you back from becoming adapted.

In terms of 80/20, the 20 is hard to start with. I find I lack that top end sprint performance. This comes back over time however, 2 months onwards, until you're back to equivalent or better. The 80 is great though, even fasted you can just keep going.

The biggest thing for most people is relearning about nutrition, especially fats and the whole 'healthy carbs' thing.

Dr Gary Fetke / Dr Tim Noakes on YouTube are a great place to start, as is 'The big fat surprise' by Nina Tiecholz.

So OP, how will your OH respond when she realises these meal replacement ideas don't include chips?

Looking at your earlier post it seems to me sugar is your problem (and OH). Not carbs or fat.

N.B. I may be wrong on some of the fast diet info, but this is how I interpret it from YouTube interviews with Dr Michael Mosley.

Speaking of Doc Mosley, I posted links to his site on another thread (Slimming World recipes) with particular reference to diabetes.

https://thebloodsugardiet.com
https://thefast800.com

In terms of 80/20, the 20 is hard to start with. I find I lack that top end sprint performance. This comes back over time however, 2 months onwards, until you’re back to equivalent or better. The 80 is great though, even fasted you can just keep going.

This is what I found.  Even though I "rode" the last Gorrick instead of racing it I wasn't able to inject any oomph into anything.   I've then slightly undercooked my recent FTP test because I was holding back on numbers I didn't believe I could maintain, but likely could have for longer than I thought.

So OP, how will your OH respond when she realises these meal replacement ideas don’t include chips?

Thankfully this is her idea. Like most men I'd be posting this from beyond the grave if I'd had the balls to suggest their OH went on a diet 🤣

I'll weigh myself tomorrow morning and get the BF calipers out to take some measurements and keep this thread updated.

91.2 kg and 23.2kg BF, so +3kg of fat over December.

Things can only get better

3) No one ever claimed any diet was sustainable.

I wouldn't ever entertain the idea of going on a diet, so I'd agree. A lifestyle change is what I mean by sustainable.

Lots of folk on this thread who seem to think they know what they're talking about eat a load of shite.

Yay... well after 3 weeks of 5:2ish calorie restriction I've finally seen some results, 1kg less on the new digital scales, although unfortunately they seem to read 2kg MORE than my old scales, so on paper anyway I'm only half way back to my starting point LOL.

Not taking it too seriously, still not really able to exercise like I used to so using a BMR of 2000kCal for a 5'11" 89kg office worker is probably still generous.

Also taking advice of GCN above I'm adding 20% to the 'label' calories of food, especially relevant as I'm not finding the calorie restriction too difficult so far, so could probably afford to restrict more!

Depressing side note: my phone is still trying to auto-correct 'calories' to 'Calobra'. Was obviously spending more time planning routes on Mallorca last year than worrying about weight loss...

Started Keto at 14st8lbs on Monday with a 36 hour water fast. 14st dead this morning so 8lbs off.

Of course, that's just the weight of the glycogen I've burned through - so I haven't lost any *actual* weight. But still - dropping that much in such a short time means I already look amazing in the mirror 😉

I'm finding that as this is my second time around for keto (did it last year and dropped loads, before rebounding like a ****t when canning it - because 15 hour stressful days at the office don't go hand in hand with the willpower to not throw crap down your neck) - that it's *much* easier. I've very little noticeable "keto flu" (which was hard first time around). Presumably because I've retained the cellular adaptations made when you switch from burning sugars to burning fats.

Going to do a long zone 2 (ish - I won't actually measure it) ride on Sunday - 7 or 8 hours of canal towpath and gentle spinning up hills - without any food in me at all. It was a pleasure last year to know that low-intensity exercise was being purely fuelled by your love handles. If I can knock off, say, 3500 calories then that's a pound lost.

Obviously, I'll come home, eat a sensible sized keto meal. Bit of protein, try to get most of my fats from vegetable sources (avocado-o-matic but olives and some nuts too) and shedloads of above-ground veg of different colours. (There's nothing I don't like).

This time round I'm going to double down on the OH when she cooks to ensure she's measuring what she's cooking before sticking it in the pan. She won't let me cook (which, frankly, is great because it's her hobby and she's good at it) but being a butchers daughter her idea of portion control is cooking for 12. We eat good food, just wayyyyy too much of it.

If I bring my little nazi out then I'll whip her into line soon enough 🙂

Two and a half stone loss is my target. Will put me at, say, 12st6lbs at 6'2". My family can call me belson boy all they like. The fat f*cks can f*ck off 😉

If I bring my little nazi out

TMI.....

My family can call me belson boy all they like

Think this is part of the problem- chubbiness has become normalised. I'm 5'8", when STW Chub club first started in 2017 I was 85kg and dropped down to 70kg. At 70kg I still had a bit of fat round the waist but lots of people were asking me if I was ok and "you look ill". Some colleagues even wondered if I had cancer*!

In typical fashion I've crept back up (*Mrs FB being diagnosed with cancer mid 2017 was the first wobble to knock me off course) so I started Chub club this year at 86kg.

Totally this:

chubbiness has become normalised

Holidays in europe, you come back to the UK and you're like "WTF, you're all soooo ugly".

What we're used to seeing isn't good. 70% of us overweight. It's not how humans should be.

chevychase

Totally this:
chubbiness has become normalised
Holidays in europe,

Shouldn't you have said European Vacation instead?

😀

Weigh day tomorrow, I'm hopeful as I'm a notch down on my belt already! But did have 2 large Cornish pasties that the OH brought back from Cornwall for a couple of dinners, a couple of slices of toast with the soup one night, a slice of cake, some mince pies, some marshmallows, and 2 penguins!

Sounds bad, but when you consider that's spread over 7 days and everything else has either been soup, shake or veg it's pretty good going. And the best bit is I've not actually craved any of that, they're just things I've eaten when they've been offered.

Actually bad stuff; zero exercise because of my back.

@thisisnotaspoon. Not trying to be de-motivational or mean or anything - but don't kid yourself that it's not bad because it's "spread over 7 days".

Counting "some" mince pies as one thing, that's still eight things, with cornish pasties being two of your evening meals.

Kind of means that *every day* you're eating junk of some sort rather than saving them for a couple-of-times-a-week treats.

🙁

It's hard when you live in an obeseogenic environment. Everywhere you go things you shouldn't eat (at least often) literally surround you. And willpower doesn't work all-day - it works for a short time. We counter that in our shopping - willpower in the supermarket means that we never, ever, have any "bad" in the house. No biscuits, no sugar, (at the moment on keto, no milk even!)

It means that when I look in the fridge for something to snack on then pretty much all that's there is vegetables.

Yes. I've been known to eat raw cabbage.

No expertise in this - I've always relied on exercise before breakfast if getting tubby, ie the old style cyclist's "diet".

Good luck.

I'm going for the 'ride tons' option this time which for me is a target of 40hrs per month, whilst trying to follow iDiet which by default means calorie and carb restriction.

I'm on 29 hours so far in Jan. I'm feeling tired, but I can still ride at low intensity - I just back off when my legs start to ache. I haven't got a power meter any more but I think I'm on a mix of z2 and z3.

I'm away from home this week but last week I lost about 0.6kg.

btw , if you re-name Mince Pies as 'Fat Bombs' they suddenly become less appealing.
Nice of your OH to bring you back 2 x cornish nasties as well, i think she isnt helping much, or doesnt understand what a diet is

I’m with Chevy a bit.  You didn’t crave them because you had them, that’s a pretty calorie dense set of poor options right there.

I say that while tucking into a pot of cheese and chive cottage cheese and a whole meal bagel after a 2h z2 And in my way to a 1000 cal deficit today.  Yum.

‘Fat Bombs’ .............. cornish nasties

Wheres that killfile when you need it!!!!!

Yes. I’ve been known to eat raw cabbage.

You mean coleslaw? Today's menu has been imaginative. Toast and jam for breakfast then went out for a long walk and didn't eat until tea time. Fancied a fry up, so had one. Sausage, egg, mushrooms, beans, fried bread and some more bread to mop up. Lashings of tea. Then for supper, blue cheese, red wine. Now I'm scoffing salted peanuts. Not every day has to be perfect!

It’s hard when you live in an obeseogenic environment. Everywhere you go things you shouldn’t eat (at least often) literally surround you.

Agreed. I retired last year and once away from the Greggs, Co-op and pub over the road from work I lost weight without trying (and I wasn't trying).

Yeah, coleslaw (though I wouldn't eat that on it's own out of the fridge - in my mind it's an accompaniment to other food). But I'll cram a whole cabbage down over the course of a day for some reason.

I'd snack on carrots but too much sugar for ultra low carb keto 😉

89.7kg, kilo and a half down, not bad for a week when my only exercise has been about 6 hours of gardening and tree planting.

89.1, not as good as last week, but then i did have fish and chips on Thursday. Also got back into riding so possibly Ive retained some more water.

Found that although I felt fine on the bike, I completely lacked energy afterwards, so Ive added a few calories back in. Morning coffee is now back to a latte (so 150 or so), lunch is doubled to soup before riding and a shake afterwards, and ive doubled up the protein in the shake with more whey (so theyve gone up 50 calories, and an extra one is 250). Ive also stopped counting the calories in veg, so dinner is usually a propper plate full of non-starchy veg.

Average daily calorie intake is therefore about 1100-1200, and ive done 4 rides this week averageing about 700 calories each. Hopefully that should start to take effect next week.

Down to 22.1kg of bodyfat though, so thats progress.

The nobeer plan lost me 25kgs, and is entirely sustainable, forevermore, Been over 2 years now.

No.

Beer.

Lots of running, hill walking, cycling, dumbbells and eating good fresh food, 3l of water a day minimum.

3l of water- that seems quite a lot, especially if you’re having plenty of fresh fruit and veg.