Every book I've ever read about weight loss say's between 250 - 500 Calories per day will equate to a 1/2 - 1# weekly loss. I've read anything over 2# weekly is cutting into muscle, rather then just fat. Personally, I've been training for 20 months. When I started I decieded I wouldn't "diet" for it seemed as though everytime I would start new athletic endevours and diet, I ended up injured. While I still have an extra 15# of fat to lose, I have lost about 12-15 pounds over the past 20 months which I believe equates to more fat with a little gain in muscle.

I figure if it took 8 years to put on the wieght it's not coming off overnight. Patience is a virtue.

Figure out how many calories you should have a day if you were the right weight for your height, and were not doing triathlete workouts. Eat that (balanced between fat, protein and carbs). Create your deficit (which casues fat loss) by doing your triathlete workouts. You may have to be in Zones 1 and 2, or you will probably bonk. You can pick a few days a week where you will have more calories/carbs and train harder. This will also train your body to use your fat stores during exercise, which should be helpful in later training/racing. If you cut way back on your calories, your body will adjust to that lower level, and then you are kind of screwed. I lost 65lbs this way last year. It is not fast, but it is healthy and you won't yo-yo.

Ditto what TGL said. Determine what your caloric needs are for your day, including training. Cut no more than 500 calories from that and that is what you should eat to safely lose weight. Here is a formula for determing you daily caloric needs:

66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs.) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

This gives your your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
Now that you know your BMR, multiply your BMR by your activity multiplier from below:

Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job

I have done this since Feruary of 2003 and have lost 72 lbs so far at a pace of about 1 lbs per week.

HTH

Vince

So when i have my BMR and multiply by the activity level, does this give me my daily caloric intake? If so, i don't think i could eat that much in one day.

1 pound of fat is roughly speaking 3000 calories. To lose 15 pounds in 3 weeks by diet alone you would have to eat 45,000 less calories than normal...considering that 3 normal weeks is 42000 calories on a 2000/day that ain't gunna happen. You could lose several pounds in water and risk dehydration (as little as 1% loss can cause significant performance drops) and not get anywhere also. I dropped 35lb in 6-8 months by running, biking, and eating slightly less than I used to. It came off quickly to start, as I dropped from 175 to 160 reasonably fast (2 months). As far as an actual diet, if you are excersizing a lot you can't afford to actually diet. Eat reasonably and the weight will come off.

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Weight is a BIG thing with bike racers, some good sites I've found: For BMI calculators and stuff, carmicheals site. trainright.com (?) To keep track of calories and diet. fitday.com for good weght loss and diet tips, find a body building forum for some good info. THose final 5lbs are hard to lose........I'm 6'3" and 170 a few more and I'm happy.... Keith

Yeah, I was kinda stunned myself. Consider this: I am 6'2" and 228 lbs at the moment and started at 300lbs. I was like: "I can lose weight and eat 3500 cal per day???? no way! The other side of the equation is you have to do is track every single thing you eat. I think you will be surprised with what your actual total for a day will end up being. To track caloric intake I use www.fitday.com it is a very nice site and has a very inclusive database of foods and their nutritional makeup, but more importantly it has the ability to add custom foods and is FREE.

The big variable is the activity multiplier. Estimating my activity level is tricky, because my job is very sedentary in nature (software developer) but I do workout 6 days a week for a total of about 12 hours I use the 1.55 (moderately active) multiplier.

Vince

Well I will give you some tips:

1- Eat a good breakfast, incluid fruit if you want, with Korn Flakes. Don't eat stuff like eggs & bacon or anything with butter. Korn flakes is the world champion breakfast.. :P

2- Don't starve after a exercise! By example, when you come home from a swim in the pool in the morning, you should have eaten before that and then you eat again. A nice cheese&ham sandwich with a glass of milk (or a milkshake). NEVER EAT CANDYS OR CAKES. If you bike at lunch time, as soon as you arrive home you should lunch first and then take a bath. If you run late in the afternoon, same stuff, dinner first then bath

3- Try not to eat nothing after you dinner till you go to bed. All you may eat is a piece of fruit or a glass of milk. I like carrots so if I'm hungry I'll eat one or two before bed.

4- Non-fat milk, fish instead of meat, ham instead of bacon, tomato sauce instead of ketchup, try not to go often to restaurants and if you do go often ask for fresh fish, rice instead of french fries,..

5- When you eat, try to do it slowly. If you eat fast probably you will eat much much more (trust me on this)

6- Try to have at least 4 meals and make breakfast and lunch the 2 "big ones". Dinner can be more soft such as a soap and 3 different fruits

7- There are some "drugs" (all legal) you can take to help you in this cruzade. L-Carnitine and Ripped Fuel can be great helpers.

When I'm on vacations I usually gain some pounds but with this basic rules I lose that extra pounds in just a few weeks time.

Good luck! :)

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I missed the earlier thread you referenced, so I can't comment on what was in that topic.

It’s important to do just one thing at a time. You have to separate out what you want. You say “lose weight”. I think you really mean lose fat. I mean I could go in and cut out your liver, which would probably get a few pounds off of you, but you wouldn’t be better off. You can also lose water and you can also lose muscle.

First determine how much fat you have, because that’s what you want to lose. You can get body calipers for maybe $40. Anything below about 12% is pretty damn lean. 7% is about all you can go. It’s also unlikely that you will be able to hold single digit body fat for very long without drugs. So if you are already there, then you will have to look somewhere else for weight (reducing muscle or getting lighter equipment).

Then you need to figure out how much you are eating in a day. So use a food log. After a couple of weeks you will see about how many calories a day you need. Assuming that you are not gaining weight this calorie amount is what your body is used to. Then slowly start to reduce calories. You can reduce calories by burning more or eating less. You really shouldn’t do both at the same time. Try to average 500-700 calories a day deficit. Also remember you can only do one thing at a time, so if you are losing fat, then lose fat. Be prepared to lose some fitness because hard LT workouts and calorie restriction are not super compatible.

The above assumes that you are not already at10% body fat (very lean). If you are trying to go down in the single digits (cutting), like athletes preparing for the Tour right now, with the expatiation of gaining it back, then it’s a totally different process. Just remember, do one thing at a time and separate out what you want. Also be prepared to lose in other areas like top end speed to get what you want.