Bicycling - Ride your way lean

It doesn't make sense, we know; it's like, who came up with the concept of a 'fun run'? Well, get excited – because Selene Yeager of Bicycling has figured out how to have fun and lose weight, simply by using your bike as a weight-loss tool. Follow her advice and gear up for your healthy change, by preparing your mind and chosing your unique training plan to suit your own weight-loss goal. There's one for whatever degree of weight loss suits you – so follow the guidelines, and get going! And when, weeks from now, you realise you're stronger, fitter and leaner than you've ever been – and most importantly, happier – give yourself a high-five. Because you'll deserve it.…

FACT: ACCORDING TO the US Surgeon General, the average American adult gains 0.5 to 1.5 kilograms a year – and in South Africa, we're no better. Think about that for a second. That means if you weighed 68 kilos after matric, you’ ll weigh anywhere from 77 to 95 by your 20th reunion, and even more 10 or 20 years later. But it happens so slowly (really, 75 grams a month – how would you notice?) that you feel like you wake up one morning suddenly reaching for anything with an elastic waistband, because you have nothing left that fits. That was how Phyllis Ingram, 63, felt. She’d spent her adult life raising a family and tending to the needs of others. She’d always been active, riding horses and pursuing…

UNDERSTANDING HOW ENERGY IS USED WHEN cycling will help you increase your fat-burning ability, and achieve a leaner physique and improved performance. That doesn’t mean spending all your rides in the mythical ‘fat-burning zone’; you need to mix it up with high-intensity intervals, and aim to use as much energy as possible while extracting the benefits. Power And Energy Relations Thanks to power-meter technology, energy expenditure can be measured more accurately these days. One joule of energy equals one watt; if you’re riding at 250 watts, you need to deliver 250 joules of energy per second to the pedals. But for every joule you deliver to the bike, you’ve ‘lost’ another three joules metabolising fuels and producing heat. Therefore, at 250 watts, you are actually expending about 1 000…

TECHNICALLY, YOU DON’T need a plan to ride your way lean – you can just saddle up, and ride lots. So long as you’re practising smart eating habits as well, the kilos will probably come off. But I can almost guarantee you that they won’t come off quite as quickly as they will when you add a little structure. A well-crafted plan ensures that you put in quality – not just quantity – time on your bike: maximising short days, intelligently extending endurance rides, and leaving ample room for rest and recovery. It will make sure you get fit, not fatigued, and that kilos melt off at a steady, sustainable pace rather than all at once as you rocket out of the gate, only to creep on again when you…

What it is The technical term for riding on empty is ‘fasted training’, or IMTG (short for Intra-Muscular TriGlycerides) – basically, eating minimal to no carbohydrates before (preferably, eight hours before) a ride. How it works During exercise, your body uses two kinds of stored energy: fastburning glycogen, derived from carbs; and fat, which is a longer-lasting fuel source. As you get fitter, your body transports oxygen to working muscles better, making it more efficient. This causes it to get more of its fuel from fat at the same pace. The benefits Proponents of fasted training claim that forcing the body to burn fat in the absence of carbs makes it use energy more efficiently over time, which helps glycogen stores go further when your tank is full. They also…

LET’S FACE IT, getting off the sofa and onto your bike will help you peel off the kilos. But when we pile them on, it’s generally not just lack of exercise that’s to blame. It’s also how much – and how much of what – we eat that does us in. Little wonder. Not only do we live in a culture that’s rife with kilojoule pollution; but also, most of us are woefully in the dark when it comes to understanding exactly what we need to eat. According to a recent survey by the International Food Information Council Foundation, more than three-quarters of us still don’t know good fats from bad fats; only 15% of us know about how many kilojoules we should eat every day; and despite the constant…