Wednesday 3 August 2011

Something is wrong!

After several long rides of 100km+ and burning 4000 calories or more, I was expecting to be able to say that my weight had fallen by quite a bit.

It hasn't!

So, what is going on? I know that my muscle mass will have increased and that muscle is heavier than fat as it is more dense but I don't think this will account for the slight increase. If you are exercising for more than 90 minutes then you have to start to take on carbs in the form of sugar but even when I take this into account I should easily be in a negative calorific differential situation, by several thousand calories.

On a ride, I have a pocket full of jelly babies, fox's glacier mints, raisins, cereal bars and the odd gel pack. If you add the calories up, its about 400 calories and it is very high in carbs whilst keeping the fat content low.

I do know that on the following rest day, I am hungry and I eat more than normal, probably 2500 calories compared to my normal 2000. I do this to restore the glycogen stores in my muscles.

So, I just don't know what is going on, and would welcome your comments! I'm going to calorie track my intake for the next few days to see if it will shed any light into the situation.

2 comments:

  1. Hi Phil, Same with me. I run 21 mile cross-country; I cycle some southern hills [Not Yorkshire unfortunately]. My weight creeps up, despite watching intake. Every 1lb up, is another effort up those hills, especially when running. I have this lovely wife - she says its increasing muscle, and I am sticking with that so far. After a long run recently, I weighed myself: same as pre-run. Where did all that calorie loss go? I don't run primarily for weight loss anyway, just as well. All the best, from Yorkshireman trapped down South.

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  2. Have you tried tracking every calorie for a few days? Use something like www.sparkpeople.com. Its a pain at first but when you do it will become obvious. Your metabolic rate will be higher after physical activity but I find that I then get very hungry and when I have monitored my intake, I easily consume more calories in the few days after the activity than I have burnt doing the activity.
    We are machines, if we burn more than we use, we lose weight. There is some fat to muscle conversion but after a few similar activities (as long as you dont have too long a gap between them), then this wont be significant.
    Your comment re. pre-race and after-race weight is surprising, on a 10k run, I dont normally carry liquids or any nutrition. I can usually reduce my weight be a couple of pounds which is mainly because I am dehydrated.
    My answer, at the moment anyway, is to cut out a lot of the carbs during a ride. Im back at work next week and I find it a lot easier to stay in control, so we will see what effect it has.

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