One, try pre-breakfast riding. When you get up in the morning,
you're in a fasted state, having probably not eaten for eight hours or
more. Going for an early morning ride pre-breakfast will encourage your body to
burn fats, particularly if you have a double espresso. This is a method that
Team Sky Riders have used in the past. The ride doesn't need to be long or intense.
Thirty minutes to an hour is steady riding,
so this is ideal if you commute to work. However, the important thing with this
strategy is that you follow the ride with a good, healthy breakfast,
oatmeal of similar. Never skip breakfast totally. Two, save energy bars and gels
for racing and use natural products for training. Energy bars and gels are very
dense in calories. This is how they should be, able to deliver very quick energy to
your body when you most need it.
However, in general, it's unlikely that you'll be using as many calories per hour
in training as you would do in a race. So, why not try making yourself some natural
products for training? Homemade flapjacks, or mini jam, or honey sandwiches will not
only provide you with enough energy, but they also taste great as well.
Three, use electrolyte drinks instead of energy drinks. Energy drinks provide just
that, energy. They're designed to give you carbohydrates with a high glycemic index,
which means that they get into your muscles very quickly, plus electrolytes to
replace the salt that you lose through sweat.
If you're trying to lose weight, it's a good idea to replace your energy drink
with an electrolyte drink, which is all the electrolytes you need but none of the
calories. This is particularly relevant if you're not riding for more than two hours
at a time.
Four, make a plan and stick to it. It's much easier to stick to something if it's
planned in advance, and that applies to your training and your diet. Try to plan
at least one week in advance, because remember, five one-hour rides a week make
you fitter and leaner than one five-hour ride at the weekend.
When making a plan, it's important that it's achievable. Setting your sights too
high will inevitably mean that you falter and then get fed up. In general,
plans should progress gradually. Either increase in the duration you ride
at a certain intensity or the intensity at a certain duration.
Five, cut sugar from tea and coffee. When Bradley Wiggins lost a lot of weight in
2009 proceeding to finish fourth at the Tour de France, one of the things he
changed was to cut sugar from his tea and coffee.
It makes sense. If you have four cups of coffee or tea a day, that's 60 calories
that you could be saving. Now, over the course of a year, that's an amazing 22,000
calories, equivalent to nine days of food for the average amount.
Six, remove high calorie drinks from your diet. It's easy to forget about drinks
when we think about diet, but certain drinks contain calories equivalent to an
entire meal. For example, a Starbucks venti White Chocolate Mocha contains an
incredible 580 calories, equivalent to two McDonald's cheeseburgers.
We've already recommended taking sugar out of you tea and coffee,
but it's also worth bearing in mind that milk and flavorings will normally contain
a lot of calories, too. Unfortunately, the same applies to alcoholic drinks.
Alcohol is secondary to fat in caloric density with seven calories per gram,
so try to reduce your intake of alcohol or opt for lower calorie drinks,
such as Wiggo's favorite, vodka tonic.
Seven, eat whilst riding to prevent a post-ride binge.
We've told you how to reduce your calories when training. Now,
we're going to tell you how to get enough.
If you've never blown up on a ride, then you're not a proper cyclist.
It's happened to us all, running out of glycogen, and feeling weak,
dizzy, and like you could eat an entire warehouse of chocolate. The problem,
apart from feeling so terrible, is that we often overeat when we get
home, or to the cafe, because it takes too long for our brain to catch up with what's
being ingested. To avoid this, make sure you eat and drink enough on your training
rides to prevent a huge post-ride binge.
Eight, increase the distance of your commute to work. Whilst having a routine
can often be a good thing, sometimes it means that you don't progress.
If you commute to work, why not try doing a longer route, either going in or on your
way home once or twice a week? The extra kilometers might well reignite your weight
loss, helping you achieve your goals.
Nine, don't drop your calorie intake excessively. It's very easy,
especially on January 1st, to try and cut everything bad from your diet in the
attempt to be perfect athlete. However, we know that's not going to last very long,
and if you deprive yourself with every little treat, it's not going to be very
long before you crack completely. Whenever you start a diet, the reduction in calorie
intake should be small, so they can keep to it and still lose weight.
Ten, reduce calories later in the evening. The alternative to pre-breakfast riding is
to stack your calories at the start of the day. It's a technique that many pro-riders
put to good effect. The theory is fairly simple. Eat as much as you want for
breakfast, but that's going to be your biggest meal of the day. Then eat a good,
healthy lunch with less calories than your breakfast, and then a smaller dinner in
the evening. Studies have been carried out to show the effectiveness of this
strategy, which is based on the fact that you're more likely to burn off the
calories that you consume at breakfast than those you consume in the evening
which often sit in your stomach. If you adhere to even some of these principles,
you'd be well on your way to losing weight.
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Now what are we going to do? So, now we are ready to make the two knots,
so, starting at one end of the inner tube, just put a simple knot in it.