Losing weight by cycling is easy, you just need to enjoy riding a bike and understand that a balanced diet makes a difference during the process.
To shed some pounds and cut a few inches, you must be determined and have some time available in your week.
Envision being able to engage in a sport that, apart from providing infinite health advantages, such as stress and anxiety level decrease, also ensures healthy and enjoyable weight loss. Sounds amazing, doesn’t it? Look how cycling can contribute to this task!
Does cycling help you lose weight?
Yes. Cycling requires a lot of movement and energy from our entire body, which is why the calorie expenditure tends to be higher. On average, 700 calories are burned for every hour you spend cycling, depending on your exercise pace, of course.
This doesn’t mean you need to push your physical limits to lose a lot of weight, okay?! After all, overdoing it can end up harming your weight loss goals.
The explanation is quite simple: when you overdo physical effort, your body ends up becoming stressed and inflamed and, as a form of prevention, it accumulates fat in the abdominal region to alleviate the effects of extreme fatigue.
Therefore, the keyword for bike training should be: balance, and the sport should be used not only to regulate intensity, but also nutrition and rest time.
So, you must be wondering: how can I lose weight by cycling ? Keep reading below and find out!
How to lose weight by cycling?
To bike to lose weight, you must begin with the fundamentals: eat well, drink lots of water and get a good night’s sleep, because you must recover from physical and mental exertions in order to remain healthy and active.
Once you have this initial combo, it’s time to think about other details that make a difference, such as your training routine.
Remember that consistency and persistence are the best friends of anyone who does any physical exercise with the aim of losing weight or creating lean mass for body definition.
That said, check out 14 practical tips to help you lose weight using your bike with ease, fun and quality. Enjoy your reading!
14 tips for those who want to lose weight by cycling
Stay focused, control the intensity of the exercise and remember: training your upper limbs improves your physical fitness, resulting in pedaling with more strength, speed and less fatigue.
Furthermore, the number of benefits of cycling is enormous, resulting not only in healthy weight loss, but also in a better quality of life.
To achieve the desired results, just follow the recommendations we have listed for you.
1. Start slowly
Don’t overdo it right from the start, because your body, in addition to not being prepared, will work in a way that is opposite to what you want, storing fat and energy for proper functioning.
If you are not used to doing physical activities, start cycling twice a week on smooth roads with little traffic and for a maximum of 30 minutes a day. Gradually increase the distance and time.
2. Gain stamina
To gain endurance , you need to increase the number of times you exercise per week, not just the intensity.
Gradually increase the distance, intensity, difficulty and time, respecting your limits.
3. Increase the route
Increase the distance slowly and remember that the longer the distance and the shorter the time spent completing it, the greater the amount of calories burned.
4. Create achievable goals
If you are not used to riding a bike , do not start by creating practically impossible goals, such as cycling for long kilometers right from the start and without practice, since, in addition to being difficult for a beginner, these challenges can make the process very discouraging.
5. Bet on recovery
Recovery enables your body to get the desired outcome without interfering with your health. So sleep for at least 8 hours at night and steer clear of screens and loud music at least two hours prior to sleeping to enhance the quality of your sleep.
6. Have a routine
Create a routine to ensure the quality of your exercises, establish a time and even the number of times you will practice the sport. If necessary, organize a training schedule, specifying which days will be more intense and which will be more relaxed.
7. Control the intensity
To lose weight, the exercise needs to be intense, that is, cycling as a form of leisure may help you burn a few calories, but it won’t make a big difference on the scale.
To really lose weight, you need to step up your activity, set a time limit for cycling, increase your speed and control your pace. The faster you cycle, the more calories you can burn.
8. Train your upper limbs
Interspersing weight training with cycling is a good tip for improving endurance, physical condition and, of course, achieving the desired goal in less time.
By training your upper limbs in weight training, you will start to feel less pain in your lower back and arms while cycling, which can increase your time on the bike and, consequently, lose more weight.
9. Take care of the amount of lean body mass
It should be noted that weight loss is not always linked to fat loss. Most cyclists lose more lean mass than fat when they begin searching for diets and rapid weight loss, and this ultimately damages the athlete’s performance, leaving them slower and weaker.
10. Don’t skip meals before cycling
There are those who prefer to train on an empty stomach, but it should be noted that such training brings some complications like dizziness, fainting and nausea to the athletes if they get accustomed to it.
Alternately, performing physical training on a full stomach is not also beneficial, therefore it is necessary to have proper rest time between meals and exercise.
11. Take care of your diet
Taking care of your diet doesn’t mean going on an invasive diet, okay? To be able to ride a bike and stay healthy, you need to eat foods rich in proteins , vitamins, minerals and carbohydrates, keeping your body active, healthy and with plenty of energy to burn calories.
12. Avoid sugar and heavy foods
Are you going to ride a bike? Don’t eat sweets or heavy or processed foods before the activity, as this can hinder your development and even cause discomfort during training. Give preference to fruits, cereals and specific shakes for pre-workout.
13. Drink water
Hydration is as essential as a healthy diet, since proper water intake ensures that nutrients are more easily delivered to the body during exercise. Furthermore, the fluid aids in maintaining body temperature and in keeping joints lubricated.
14. Enjoy the ride
Cycling can be synonymous with fun, covering long distances, cycling touring to see new places and make friends. You will even forget that you are doing physical activity with the aim of losing weight.
Cycling can help you improve your physical, mental and emotional health, so enjoy every second on two wheels. Happy cycling!
