Bicycle: lose weight and reach your ideal weight by pedaling. The bicycle boom, which arrived suddenly also thanks to the post-Covid 19 bike bonus, has meant that more and more people have become passionate about cycling.
It is an easy tool to have, especially if you don’t have great technical demands, and which allows for a good cardio workout. But let’s see together all the benefits of cycling training, the advantages of losing weight by pedaling and, above all, the mistakes to avoid.
The benefits of cycling
The general rule for losing weight is that you need to reach your calorie deficit. It goes without saying that, regardless of the type of workout chosen, you need to adopt a healthy and correct diet. If you can turn to a nutritionist, all the better, but if you can’t for now, try taking the test to find out what and how much to eat.
Eat correctly to train better but, above all, to live better!
Having said this, let’s get to the meat of the matter: why choose the bicycle to lose weight? Bike training has many benefits, here are the main ones:
- It’s a great cardiovascular workout
- It allows you to burn many calories: from 300 to 600 kcal/h when pedaling at a medium pace and 500-600 kcal/h at a faster pace (about 20 km/h)
- It gives a strong sense of freedom and relaxes the mind
- It’s a perfect exercise against cellulite
- It doesn’t just tone your legs and buttocks, but your entire body. It is a complete workout, which involves abdominals, lower back and arms
- Cycling is good for the heart, because it helps it pump blood better, pushing it to the farthest parts, and makes the walls of the arteries more elastic.
- Improves the immune system which is strengthened
“The bicycle has a soul. If you manage to love her, she will give you emotions that you will never forget.”
Lose weight by cycling
Riding a bike is an excellent workout for losing weight, as well as giving a great sense of freedom and bringing many benefits to the body. The important thing is to respect some simple but fundamental rules. Let’s see the main ones
Choose the bicycle
Just as it is essential for those who run to choose a good pair of shoes, for those who decide to train on a bike it is essential to choose a suitable one. Especially if you don’t use it occasionally but decide to cover a few kilometers every day, the bicycle must be suitable for your height, length of legs and arms, gender and age.
Before purchasing, it is best to evaluate the frequency of your workouts. If the goal is to train once or twice a week, a model that is not too high-performance is enough. If, however, you plan to cover many kilometres, perhaps in a single outing, then it is better to focus on a touring or racing bicycle in order to ensure a good aerodynamic position.
At what pace should you cycle to regain your ideal weight?
Caught up in the enthusiasm of new beginnings, we often get too involved and end up hitting the ground running. The ideal is, instead, to start at a gentle pace and become familiar with the saddle. Even the exit time must be gradual: if you have never trained on a bicycle, don’t set off wanting to do the Giro d’Italia! At the beginning 20 minutes are enough, to be increased by 10 each time, until you reach 1 hour and a half. Don’t be alarmed if, after the first few rides, your legs, bum or private parts feel sore at the end of the ride: these discomforts are also part of the normal training phase.
HIIT training to lose weight on a bicycle
I want to talk to you about a training protocol that many cyclists also adopt, especially in November when, once the racing season is over, they risk gaining weight. To reach your ideal weight while cycling you must adopt an intermittent workout called 40/20. That is, you have to pedal for 40 seconds at high intensity (not at maximum: the one you would use to run to catch a bus at the stop) followed by 20 seconds of recovery, continuing to pedal, catching your breath.
Repeat this alternation 10 times, for a total time of about 10 minutes. If you go to work by bicycle (more and more Italians have chosen to go to work by bicycle), you already do it without even realizing it. Try to think about it… You set off and stop at the traffic lights, push and push, then slow down in traffic… A perfect HIIT, high intensity interval cycle exercise.
Your metabolism will jump for joy and will remain active even after training. With cycling training you consume a mixture of fats and sugars. Always pedaling at maximum speed only consumes sugars. Alternation allows you to achieve greater balance.
Do I have to cycle on an empty stomach to lose weight?
The age-old question of training on an empty stomach or after breakfast continues and has not yet found any consensus.
A first theory has it that, to lose weight, you should cycle at least twenty minutes before having breakfast. According to a study in the Journal of Applied Physiology, our body burns more fat when we are hungry than when we are full. There are many professional cyclists who are convinced of the veracity of this theory and choose not to sit at the table without first letting their legs go for at least 20 minutes.
However, there are those who think that it is important to have breakfast first and then do a good workout. Training with little glycogen in the blood, therefore on an empty stomach, stimulates the burning of fats. However, it is true that, to be clear and reactive and therefore to train better and safely, it is better to have had breakfast.
In fact, the brain lives only on sugar: if it no longer has any, it can feel dizzy. In the case of fasting training, breakfast should be eaten within the first 30 minutes after the end of training to recover glycogen and continue to consume fat. Remembering to always include, whether you go out on an empty stomach or not, a portion of protein.
How many calories do you burn by cycling?
The calories burned are influenced by many variables but, in broad terms, we can give some examples to be more aware:
- A woman weighing around 80 kg consumes more or less 330 calories every hour while pedaling calmly.
If you pedaled at Medium Intensity you would consume around 650. - A woman weighing 58 kg is able to burn approximately 230 calories per hour by pedaling slowly.
With an Medium Effort the calories burned become 470. - A woman weighing approximately 90kg consumes 372 calories per hour while pedaling relaxed.
Pedaling with more energy burns around 740.
Considering the metabolism of each individual person, we can hypothesize how long it will take them to lose weight with the help of pedaling. Here are some examples:
- Pedaling for about 5 km every day with your bicycle allows you to burn 1400 calories per week: with just a few kilometers every day you can lose as much weight as going to the gym for three and a half hours!
- Using the bicycle every day for about 10 km (pedaling at medium speed takes about half an hour) allows you to burn 2800 calories per week: the equivalent of about 7 hours in the gym!
- By cycling every day for about 15 km, you burn 4205 calories per week.
I personally love cycling and it has been a sport that has given me a lot. I was able to start practicing it even when I was a few kilos too many and I couldn’t run.
But regardless of weight loss or fitness, cycling is a passion that captures the heart. The sense of freedom, of challenging oneself, of discovering one’s limits is priceless and, believe me, it is worth much more than any number on the scale.
