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Comment by PaulDavisThe1st

3 years ago

Riding a bicycle? It's roughly 5x more efficient than running or walking. If you want to lose weight from cycling, you're going to have ride significantly further than 50 miles a day.

16 comments

PaulDavisThe1st

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gameswithgo  3 years ago

Paul, if I am doing 50 miles at 300 watts that isn’t any different than running for two hours. You can set whatever level of intensity you want for the duration. 50 miles a day all out will wear out even olympic athletes. Source: I work with olympic athletes and time trial champions

  • PaulDavisThe1st  3 years ago

    Sure, 50 miles a day @ 300W is not much different than running for 2 hours at a sub-7min/mile pace.

    But most people cycling 50 miles are not generating 300W continuously, and most people running for 2 hours are not doing a sub-7min pace for the duration.

    ps. I have run for 2 hours at a sub-7 min pace, and cycled 50 miles at about 280W.

taeric  3 years ago

I successfully lost weight at only twenty miles a day. Now... For a time, that also included Queen Anne Hill, in Seattle. So a decent amount of climbing. Still, I could lose weight easily while biking.

  • QuercusMax  3 years ago

    I lost weight on 15-20 miles per day as well.

    Also have lost a bunch of weight (or at least replaced fat with muscle) from just doing 10-15 minutes of PT exercises (strength training, stretching, and yoga) plus walking an extra mile or two per day.

throwaway09223  3 years ago

I ride 20-25 miles a day on a stationary bike, at about 20-25mph steady rate. It burns a bit over 1000 calories during the hour. It's more than enough to make a significant change, especially when paired with a half hour of weights.

joeld42  3 years ago

Depends. I can do 15 miles at a leisurely pace on a social ride and not burn very many calories. I can do those same 15 miles at a fast pace and burn 2-3x as many calories. And then you can throw in some hills too.

I lost 80 pounds over the last couple years with riding average of 12 miles a day.

bluecalm  3 years ago

Are you sure about those numbers? Running is about 1kcal/km/kg of body weight. For cycling to be 5x as efficient you would only need 14kcal/km for 70kg man. I don't think it's realistic. The numbers I've seen are closer to 25kcal/km.

nightski  3 years ago

It has very little to do with distance. I lose weight much faster with hiit than riding long distance.

  • PaulDavisThe1st  3 years ago

    "much faster" is ambiguous here. Ride 150 miles a day every day for a week, don't over-eat, and you will lose much more weight than you ever could from HIIT. On the other hand, that's a lot of hours, and HIIT will easily win in terms of weight-loss per unit time.