Introduction

So you decided to improve your power-to-weight ratio... In others words you are a fat slob who wants to loose weight. Congratulations! This is the first step in the right direction.

So how to do it ? Well let me tell you a story first...

This is a picture of myself in 2000...

 

29 years old, 110-115 kilos (242 - 253 lbs.) the only sport I did was about 2 to 3 times a week in the gym on the exercise bike and/or swimming in the pool. I would not say I was grossly overweight but I was 20-25 kilos over my should-be weight.

Here I am in 2001... Smoking cigars as well (sort of a trademark at any social events...)

 

 

 

In March 2002 I started cycling again and probably rode about 2500-3500 kilometers that year. I have no real statistics on that. However without much dieting effort I went down to under 100 kilos (220 lbs.).

In 2003 I went to Canada... and I looked like this...

 I was cycling about 8000 kilometers in 2003... and I planned a big cycling year in the US in 2004. There were going to be a lot of climbs and hills in there, mashing the pedals in North Carolina (Blue Ridge Mountains) and in Georgia (up Brasstown Bald).

I was hovering around 95 kilos and figured that with 179 cm (okay 178.5 cm) and 95 kilos... there was a problem. My power-to-weight ratio was off by a margin and I would have difficulties climbing the stairways to cycling heaven and rather suffering up the purgatory paths to short-breath damnation and fiery-lactic-acid stingers of leg-muscle cramps.

So I went online and did a research on Calories vs. Diet vs. Weight vs. Cycling etc...

Calories and Fat

Calories are the "fuel" of the body. They are used in your cells to produce energy. Especially the muscle cells are important for this argument. Any time you flex your muscles calories are burned in the muscle cells.

Your body (or mine as well) does not store any useable calories. Calories are actually just a measure of energy. Nutrition (the stuff we all eat) can be broken into 3 categories: Fat, Carbohydrates and Protein. 1 gram of Fat contains 9 calories, 1 gram of protein contains 4 calories and the same goes for 1 gram of carbohydrates. And by the way... 1 Calorie from fat = 1 Calorie from protein = 1 Calorie from carbohydrates.

Another thing we have to keep in mind is that the body cannot store carbs or protein so the body metabolizes them into fat and stores them in fat cells. These are the delightful cells that show up on your belly, sides or ass (and kept me from getting laid more times than none :-) as well as slowing me down while climbing a hill on my bike).

The final item in this equation is the relationship between body fat and calories. If you take 1 kg of body fat you need to burn about 8000 calories (1 lbs is about 3500 calories).

If you keep these things in mind the next paragraph is going to be easy.

BMR and equations

In order to calculate the needs of your body during a day you need to know your age, height and weight. There are a lot of means to do this but the best is the BMR  (Basal Metabolic Rate). The BMR tells you how much calories you need in a 24-hour period if you're doing NOTHING at all (e.g. sitting on the couch watching Seinfeld or Simpsons reruns all day long).

The formulas can be found here (empirical) and here (metric). So let's say you calculate that you need 1800 calories/day to live (e.g. BMR). Now if you want to loose weight you need to eat less than that. If you want to gain weight, eat more...

So let the calculations begin...

During the day you eat...

100g of Cereal w 2% Milk - 300 calories

2 apples                               - 100 calories

2 cup2 of coffee w Sugar     - 50 calories

1 McDonalds BigMac         - 560 calories

1 Medium Fries                   - 380 calories

1 Medium CocaCola          - 210 calories

1 Snickers bar                     - 270 calories

1 Ham sandwich w/ Mayo - 300 calories

1 Bowl of vegetable soup - 150 calories

2 liters of water                   - 0    calories 

TOTAL                                   2330 calories

So basically during this day you gain 530 calories.

However... NOW you get on a bike for 50 minutes and spend a whopping 550 calories... And lookee here you get down to roughly 0 calories gained for the day.

But HOLD ON you will say... How to loose weight ?

See the next chapter...

Looooooooooooser !!!!

"I want to loose 10 kilos in 10 weeks !"

If this is your goal then I will give you a basic formula on how to do it... 10 kilos are 10 x 8000 = 80,000 calories to loose. So basically the "calories in" vs "calories out" arithmetic needs to come out to -80,000 calories over the next 70 days.

Well just divide the number of calories by the number of days and you will find roughly a daily deficit goal of 1140 calories. 

So every day you need to eat 1140 caloies less than you spend. On days where you do not do sports you can only eat roughly 600 calories given the BMR of 1800 (as calculated above). So 1 Big Mac and you're done... well almost. You should look for food that has less calories per gram.... Here's a list of favorite foods to fill me up without breaking the calorie bank:

  • Rice-cakes (about 30 calories per cake)
  • Carrots
  • Selery sticks
  • any green salads (lettuce etc...)
  • Cucumbers
  • Tomatoes

Basically if you eat a lot of veggies (without dressing or with some light dressing) you spend a lot of calories even digesting this food. So actually they are a pretty perfect food to fill up your stomach with.

Oftentimes I also got a pot of salsa and use the rice-cakes to dip or I eat a bunch of popcorn (with a hot-air popcorn maker so no butter or oil) to fill the stomach.

Look for calorie information on the web (there are plenty) and on most foods I buy they have the calorie values on there as well. The thing to watch out for is that these values are oftentimes per 100g but a serving may be 130g or more... Just need to calculate a lot in your head.

If I had to eat 600 calories a day here's what I would aim for...

Some lean chicken or turkey breast (about 100 calories for 100g) and some low calorie cheese. Make sandwiches out of these using rice cakes, put on some spices and a big salad with a little oil and lots of lemon juice and salt.

Popcorn and carrots in large quantities... A 100-150 calorie "treat" at the end of the day would be something to aim for to round up the 600 calories.

More often than not I would eat more than 600 calories, keep track of how much... and then ride the excess off on the bike. During a cycling day (Saturdays, Sundays, vacation day, Holiday) and a 4-5 hour cycling trip it's not uncommon to reach 3500 calories spend. Add those to the roughly 2000 my body spends (based on the BMR) and subtract the calories I want to loose, I will end up with nearly 4000 calories that I can eat. Of course if you're riding for that long you will need to eat too... No biggie though as all kinds of sweets and powerbars are readily available at gas stations and I usually fuel up before a ride (I will add a cycling/training section later).

So there you have it... I lost 19 kilos between November of 2003 and April of 2004. I was hovering around 75 kilos between April and August 2004 when I set off to ride in the US.... and let me tell you it was worth it.

 

 

Happy Dieting!

 

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