best way to lose belly fat?

The answer is doping beaks.

 

I think you need a hug NeuroBeaker

 

Really, are you the same guy who said "...I'm likely to be able to keep up, I'm a trained scientist in a biological discipline so give me both barrels."?

As a scientist, you would find it fun to work out the problem for yourself if you already have a scientific background in biology... or were you just kidding around?

So anyway, is it the journey or the destination? Do you enjoy the drive or is it just a matter of getting to point B?

 

Sorry about the slight detour Daniel, but from what I know of your physique, I don't think you need to lose any more weight (fat) and I see you're already been doing excellent workouts.

At any rate, for those who may still be curious, the concept of energy and weight control for bike racing is actually pretty simple. Your body burns sugar first (if you are eating it at the time), then glycogen (which is converted to sugar), then fat and then finally protein (starvation). To lose the most fat, stop eating excess sugar at least the day before training, go to bed early and then before you eat again do aerobic training in the morning when your sugar level is already low.

FORCE YOUR BODY TO SWITCH TO FAT-BURN METABOLISM
What you want to do is make sure your sugar/glycogen levels are low and are quickly drained when you start your aerobic workout. You then sustain the workout way beyond your glycogen stores. Your body will then switch metabolism to break down fats. Keep exercising aerobically while this is happening and your body will burn off fat. How fast you burn fat depends on your inherent metabolic rate as well as how much glycogen you stored and how fit you are. You will feel a slight "dead zone" when you switch from burning glycogen to burning fat. That is a good indication of when fat-burning starts in your body.

I think the reason why many weight reduction diets fail is because they either don't get the body into fat-metabolism or don't involve sufficient aerobic exercise while your body is in fat-burn mode. Cycling is very methodical and highly efficient at burning energy so it makes it easy to see what you are doing.

If your exercise machine also records calories burned you can tell how much fat you burned by timing your workout from the point where you feel your body shifts metabolism to burn fat. For me, it takes about 20 minutes to switch over. Since we are not professional athletes with coaches and dietitians for support, it takes a lot of time to trim off unwanted fat so think in terms of many weeks or months, not days... or else we risk injury and discouragement.

As for bike racing, racers can feed at most points during a race so why carry fat and lots of glycogen??? Conceptually, you only need a bit of glycogen in your system to smooth out the delivery of energy. You essentially want to feed in small amounts all the time. Your food would be all carbohydrates of various kinds which burn at different rates. This prevents a surprise bonk where you run out of all carbohydrate energy at the same time.

You will notice professional racers stop feeding and drinking when they near the finish and jettison all their water and uneaten food, bulky clothing...etc. The concept of racing is to only take in fuel before you need it and to carry the least amount of fuel/stuff during the race. Of course, non-professionals often can't afford the same luxuries as the pros but the idea is the same.

Bike racers also have interesting race-prep technique involving diets but that's not necessary to discuss because those concepts do not relate to normal everyday needs.

RETAINING A BIT OF FAT IS USEFUL
As for fat, sometimes you need to use a bit of it. I also used to Nordic ski race (cross-country skiing) for my university and the distances can get very long and the temperatures very low. It's also much harder to feed when both arms are working with every forward propulsion you give your body. There are feeding zones but usually only 2-3 even in long races. You need to have a bit of fat in case you miscalculate or else you can bonk out, become delirious and suffer hypothermia.

Even on the bike, you can need to stay warm sometimes so a bit of fat helps if you get in trouble. So don't go too crazy getting lean. BTW, the single sentence above in bold is what I referred to in my earlier post. It's 2 sentences if you count the preceding one as well.

 

Neuroscience PhD.

In this analogy, driving sucks. Always teleport or take the swiftest form of transit.

Scientists don't smugly tease each other with cute little questions in seminars. It's:

1. I read about this.
2. I did this experiment.
3. These were the results.
4. This is what I think it means.
5. This is what I might do next.
6. Any questions?

In fact, PhD students and postdocs tend to make fun of the pretentious and condescending presenters that like to lecture the room with a leading questions style like we're children at school. Something to bear in mind.

Having asked for the explanation now more than once, it was infuriating to get more teasing and questions instead of just this insinuated simple answer.

Helpful... eventually. Thank you.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

Doesn't excuse your behaviour or response . Your a moderator?

 

I tried tactful, then direct, then exasperated, and then finally let him know he was on a condescending ego trip. I'm fine with that in this instance.

I have reported myself to the moderators of this section. I will abide by whatever judgement they make.

All the best,
Andrew.

 

Compare cycling to rowing for fat burning...

 

I'm sorry but my post graduate experiences differ. We were encouraged and sometimes forced to think for ourselves as well as question what we were lectured. Nothing was taken for granted. What you and your mates assumed to be condescending attitude may simply have been your lecturers' attempts to inject some fun and 2-way interaction between them and the classes. I personally prefer some back-and-forth between students and the lecturer, instead of just being "lectured".

Perhaps your program was geared mainly to the clinical side which is definitely different and mostly instructional. On the research side, while we were informed of the latest discoveries, we were encouraged to question, to go beyond or to do something different from the status quo.

What you describe is also more along the lines of a dissertation on someone's research paper or recent experiments, and not a lecture or discussion. Dissertations are more formal and you needed to get to the point and get it done. There was often some other post grad waiting in line to present the next paper or research. Lectures and discussions were different and invited discourse, as well as interruptions depending on the venue.

You come across somewhat stressed. You may want to step back, take a deep breath and consider how you would feel if you were in the other person's position.

Please be mindful that I am not beholden to you. I'm not in your employ and I'm not obliged to share information or advice. This forum is simply supposed to be a FRIENDLY forum for discourse on topics of common interest. We should treat each with equal consideration.

 

My PhD was entirely research, no classes and it was a highly individual effort.

Seminars and conferences are about communicating information quickly and efficiently, which precludes a back and forth - you'd run out of time. Lay out the information, assume people are keeping up, and then take a few Q&A at the end.

In your position, I would have directly answered the question upon request rather than tease it out while insinuating it was oh so basic and simple.

Regards,
Andrew.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

+1. I should have saved you the aggravation and posted last night, sorry... What 4th-gear described is well-known among most amateur cyclists who is somewhat scientifically oriented and interested in performance, but I generally avoid his lengthy discussions and didn't bother to get involved in the "games".

 

I knew some very good cyclists who were also very good rowers so certain cycling physiques also work well with rowing.

While rowing events are much shorter in duration it doesn't mean you couldn't row as long as you can if you are just training but serious cyclists often go out for 3,4,...6 hours a training ride. All the same, rowing most likely burns calories more quickly than cycling as you must use both arms and legs. In the end, I think which of the two exercises burns more fat for you boils down to figuring out how long you can row vs how long you can ride, on a regular basis.

Personally-speaking, I think cycling is intrinsically more of an endurance sport. Running and race-walking are also extreme in endurance demands but they do require your body to bear much more weight and are much harder on your joints so they are more difficult for you to go hard enough, long enough so to be as efficient in fat-burning as cycling. For instance, you can go really hard on skis and stay aerobic and burn more fat over the same period of time that you dare to run fast with. Skiing is much easier on your joints provided you never crash heavily. Freezing temperatures also make you burn much more energy. IMO, the closest other sport to cycling for endurance is Nordic skiing.

 

Well, that's a shame. You should have posted. I was hoping someone else would because as I said before, it is indeed a well-known basic bike training technique.

Like you, there are a good number of other experienced cyclists on the Health & Fitness forum who would know as much or more than I on the topic. I was very surprised no one had said anything about it until I tried to prod people to look at fat-burning from a low level metabolic perspective and comment on how cyclists have been successfully doing that for ages.

 

Why couldn't you have just said it in the first place?

 

That's like my asking you why you chose to post...

The answer is... it's how you like to express yourself and part of the discourse. You wanted to be light-hearted and funny. I understood and I politely reciprocated.

OTOH, I also just wanted to help people out in my own way and if they appreciate free help I would also expect them to politely reciprocate. This is just normal civil behaviour.

My own way meant starting with a fairly long post to say I understood what people have been suggesting but that I felt it would be more useful to put all the suggestions into a single context as to at what level of a weight problem each of the earlier suggestions would address. I also suggested looking at the lowest most basic level of biological function, something that professional cyclists have already been successfully doing for a long time.

I was putting into context what I might have to say next. I wanted people to consider a different, very basic and more direct perspective. IMO, most people, unless they have a medical issue, do not need fancy difficult-to-fathom weight loss methods that would have them tied into someone's product. You don't need specific products in order to lose excess fat.

...and I did post this and then a couple of cyclists chimed in.

Daniel is new to the sport but an amazing athlete. OTOH there's also ar4Me, he's been around with the cycling scene but he didn't say anything until I posted several times and explained everything to Daniel.

Go figure.

 

This?

Burning Fat Vs. Glycogen | LIVESTRONG.COM

 

It's "you're"

 

Thanks for the link Mike!

I also found this:

Eleven myths and facts about how the body burns fat

Which then motivated me to find this link which seems a nice overview with lots of details.

SSE #59: Fat Metabolism During Exercise: New Concepts

I find links to good sources so efficient for communicating established knowledge, while leaving Q&A and discussion for amplification, clarification, and corner cases. Why spend time rewriting basic explanations that are probably going to be incomplete, redundant and idiosyncratic anyway?

 

There's no need to be priggish. We all make minor grammatical errors, especially where automatic cell phone spelling correctors are involved.

 

I'll take priggish over pedantic.

D

 

I guess it was a very important part of the message

I'm not surprised you responded.

This spell check?

or a behavioral check?

 

I learned a new word. Thanks!

 

I agree full articles from experts provide more information, in support of whatever their authors' wanted to say, i.e. the purposes of the articles. However, this also means you have to check to see if the purposes of the articles are fully legitimate and are directly relevant to the discussion in the forum thread. If the article is a scientific paper, you have to wade through a lot of heavy reading. Should the article be written with purpose(s) that differ from what is being discussed then applying the information and conclusion(s) often require putting the information into appropriate context. This is where one of us writing a direct response to a forum question may do a better job.

I appreciate your looking up these articles. I'll have a look and see if they offer new insights to my understanding of the subject. Thanks!

 

How unfortunate for you then.

 

So you see, you can learn something from serious discourse. It's not all a joke.