Need a proper plan to reduce weight also increase my Road Cycling performance

Here’s how. If you follow it,
Here’s how. If you follow it, it will be a complete and proper plan to reduce excess weight, bring you down to the right BMI and also raise your pace.

Because of your weight of 242lbs (109kg) I recommend biking rather than running…So let’s focus on the bike.

Side note: Go to your doctor and tell him you ‘had’ some chest pains recently that happened when you were not doing anything strenuous, he will send you for a “stress test” and if necessary an echocardiogram. Either way you will find out whether you’re healthy enough for the training plan, as well as finding out both your 1. Resting heart rate, and: 2. your 90 to 100% BPM range. You will also find out if you have any blood pressure issues at elevated heart rate levels, and if yes, you will also then know at what point you should back-off when training. Armed with that information you can now get a heart rate monitor to keep tabs on your ticker.

First thing to note is that you need to be committed and ready to change your lifestyle. Basically, you need to do whatever it takes. Right? This means changing your sleep patterns, eating differently and training conscientiously. All this must be done with unwavering commitment. You need to live the plan for 5 months – I do it from May to September. You will learn to go to bed at 9:30pm and wake up at 5:00am.

5:00am – wake up and have a pint glass full of water. I personally prefer Robinsons or Sunquick or any similar juice/syrup dilute. You could add a pinch or two of sea-salt (NOT table salt) to bring up your electrolytes, especially if you have consumed any alcohol the day before. Try and stay off the grog.

5:20am – Breakfast. Eat 2 or 4 biscuits of ‘Shredded Wheat’ in 200ml of unsweetened ‘Soya Milk’. You can add fruit if you like. Don’t drink normal milk at all.

5:40am – On your bike. Take a bidon of water. You want to ride only about 10 miles (16km) and take the first 3km easy until you begin to warm up. Once you feel you’ve warmed up sufficiently you begin to push hard for 2 to 3 minutes or for as long as it’s comfortable. Then back off to about 50 percent (like you’re jogging). Think, walk =25%, jog =50%, stride =75% and sprint =100%.

Relax and catch your breath at 50% for 3 minutes. When recovered enough, start striding (75%) for as long as you can. Keep an eye on your heart rate. I have a fairly low resting heart rate for my age, which is 51(bpm), and my heart rate climbs to between 155 and 165 while I’m striding and I keep it there for up to around 20 minutes before backing off. For you it will be different and you may have to back off earlier – back off to 50% and recover. Then keep repeating the process…all the way home.

When I get home – after a bit of stretching and some hydration – I have a shower and have a small glass of warm (high protein) unsweetened ‘Soya milk’ and a sandwich before leaving to work at 7:30am.

11:30am – Lunch. I usually have Pizza and a large green salad with boiled egg in it for lunch.

5:20pm – Back home. I usually grab a Snickers Bar at the station and have it on the way home. When I get home I have a spoonful of virgin coconut oil, which helps burn fat as well as increasing energy expenditure – but this is a personal choice – it’s a helpful little trick I learned from the Samoan rugby sevens squad.

6:00pm – On your bike. Once again try and do the same as the morning. 20 miles a day is not too much, but if you feel it’s too much to push in intervals, then you can take it a little easy. Try and pace yourself at about 60% of max for your entire ride. Don’t overdo, you are not trying to compete in a grand tour, just lose weight and increase your pace.

As you lose weight your pace, endurance and climbing ability will increase. This is a given, so don’t worry about breaking records right now.

7:00pm – Home. You should be back in an hour.

8:00pm – Dinner. Here you want to forget about low-carb bollocks and make sure you consume 10g of carbs per 10kg of bodyweight (if you want to be a healthy cyclist). I’m 82kg and 6ft tall, and consume around 80g of pasta, rice or potatoes as staple, with grilled chicken breasts, grilled fish, chicken curry, chilli con carne with lean mince and lots of kidney (red) beans, etc. You can also remove the lean mince and eat soya meat if you prefer. Look up some healthy pasta/rice recipes you like. Refrain yourself from fatty pork, sausages and all that’s processed. Always add a salad.

After dinner have a bit of chocolate and coffee…it will help your muscles recover while you sleep.

9:30pm – Bedtime.

Now, before anybody starts picking holes in this plan let me tell you that this is what works for me. I have tried to explain my plan without using technical scientific jargon like “reduce long-string saturated fats” because most people don’t know or care about what those are in the first place. If you feel you have a better plan, please share it. Thanks.

Also, check out brianmac.co.uk and topendsports.com for a wealth of information you can use to become fitter and faster.

I wish you success and hope you pull it off.

Best diet is to cut out all
Best diet is to cut out all the cr@p, which means refined carbs (including alcohol) and hidden (processed) fat.

Do that. Ride your bike. And the weight will drop off. Then you can start to think in more detail about recovery food etc.

At 5′ 7″ and > 200lbs initial weight loss should be easy. Analyse what you did wrong to get to that weight in the first place.

I was in a similar situation
I was in a similar situation to the OP (5’7″ and 229lbs) until June this year, when I realised I had to do something to shift the weight ahead of RideLondon.

By the day of RideLondon, I’d dropped 31lbs and managed to complete the ride without any issues, which I was pretty bloody happy with.

Along the way, I realised for me that the key to weight loss is mainly diet. I love cooking and I treated myself to nice meals, but the portions were too large and the balance of carbs vs fat vs protein was all wrong.

I chose to sign up to a meal delivery service and having researched a few, I chose JanePlan, which when I signed up had just been given a glowing review in a comparison test run by The Good Housekeeping Institute, so I couldn’t go wrong! A four week program delivered breakfast, lunch, an afternoon snack and dinner. On top of that, I bought skimmed milk and 0% yoghurt, plus fresh fruit and veg, totalling an additional £15 or so a week.

I ate smaller portions of meat and carbs, but hugely increased the amount of fresh veg and fruit. I was eating around 1400-1600 calories a day and it really worked for me. I also cut back on the alcohol.

As for the performance side of things, I joined my local club and went on club runs, where they both helped me get used to the miles but also pushed and encouraged me to go faster and further in my riding. They also taught me how to ride in a group and how to draught!

Of course, this is just my experience, but it certainly worked for me!

Have a read of Gary Taubes
Have a read of Gary Taubes book, “why we get fat and what to do about it?” It was a real eye opener to me. There is also an Emglish doctor called Briffa who has written a couple of books on the subject. Check out his website. Do your research then make your own mind up.

In general train like
In general train like f**k.

Guys that train a lot (12, 14 hours a week, even more) are almost always skinny bastards. There’s a reason for that.

One specific thing you could do is to cycle first thing in the morning for an hour and a half or so. Have nothing more than a cup of tea. You will be eating into fat stores that way. Boxers do this as they approach a competition to keep their weight in check (although they run mostly and not cycle – same principle though).

Take an energy bar with you in case you get the hunger knock.

Have a light breakfast when you return (cereal or tea and toast).

Give up beer.
And Wine.
Give up beer.

And Wine.

No matter how far you go back
No matter how far you go back in human history, you run up against the simple fact that people will eat whatever is available to them at that time and location and they are likely to eat whatever is most abundant and easy to access – healthy or not – like McDonalds today. It’s a stupid and fundamentally flawed idea to look at any set of our ancestors living in any specific time and place and decide what they ate is the best or natural human diet – unless you’re trying to sell diet books to dumb-arses of course. In that case it’s a great strategy because people are fundamentally stupid and more importantly, eager to hear good things about their bad habits – particularly the consumption of animal proteins.

The ONLY way to accurately decide what is human food is to look at our physiology and study how our bodies react to different foods. Period. And the science is pretty damn conclusive on this: a plant-based diet is our natural diet. It’s the only diet that can reverse heart disease and diabetes.

Just one example for anybody who is interested:
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/plant-based-atkins-diet/