Is Dad Bod slowing you down?

Tired of working harder than your cycling mates? After overspending on a new bike, weight loss is often the male cyclists' go-to method for saving energy and reducing effort. This video explores how weight alone may not be the key anthropometric variable for mens' performance on ultra distance events.
Primary Sources (not an exhaustive list this time):
Knechtle, B., Wirth, A., Knechtle, P., Rüst, C. A., Rosemann, T., & Lepers, R. (2012). No improvement in race performance by naps in male ultra-endurance cyclists in a 600-km ultra-cycling race. The Chinese journal of physiology, 55(2), 125-133. doi.org/10.4077/CJP.2012.BAA022
Leibel, R. L., Rosenbaum, M., & Hirsch, J. (1995). Changes in energy expenditure resulting from altered body weight. The New England journal of medicine, 332(10), 621-628. doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199503093...
This study informed the risk of losing muscle mass during weight loss, but was not directly cited in the video. Eat your protein!:
McCarthy, D., & Berg, A. (2021). Weight Loss Strategies and the Risk of Skeletal Muscle Mass Loss. Nutrients, 13(7), 2473. doi.org/10.3390/nu13072473

[@ronskayakingandfishing414]

The year I hit 60 (2019) I was 233 pounds. It hit me that I was finally in the decade of retirement, but really out of shape. I started riding again, and also intermittent fasting. I eat only breakfast and lunch, and ride 4 times a week. I got down to 185 in less than a year. I did go back up into the low 190s but have not gone over 200 again since. I was down to 180 just before this past Thanksgiving, but between he holidays and getting sick twice I'm back up to 190 but serious about exercise and dieting again. My goal is to hit 170 and maintain that. It's not easy, but.... if you stick to it, it's doable.

[@overbikedrandonneuring]

Great work! I've heard adulthood is just gaining and losing the same 15 pounds over and over again, but it looks like you've overcome that barrier. My goal is from 207 to 185 by mid August, and hopefully avoid yo-yoing back and forth.

[@1carusjohn32]

It is surprising how 'thin' and healthy you can still look whilst being on the wrong side of the BMI scale. At 5'9" I looked fine even with about 20lbs of extra baggage. Eating less processed foods is a big thing as you can better control what is going inside of you. Carbs/sugars are not your enemy here, but certainly cut them back on no/low exercise days, eat protein and veg/fruit instead. Portion size as you mention is also a big problem. If I put food on my plate I will still eat it, so best to stay conscious of this. Be wary of losing muscle mass that does not impact your bmi, and unless you are looking at hill climbing type events, will have very little impact on audax type activities. Being somewhat older, I know how hard it is to keep and gain muscle, this is very important as we get older. I am a lot thinner now but have more lean muscle mass. Also consider that these audax type events require a different type of fitness, you are not blowing hard for 200kms. At the start of these things 200w feels stupidly easy, after 4 hrs of pushing 200w it feels a real effort. The fitness is really about being really efficient in that zone 2 area, your all day pace, and it is a pace way lower than you would ride for say an hour. This would mainly depend on how much time you have spent training Z2, and your fueling on these long efforts. ( Best solo effort 180 miles 12hrs elapsed 10hr15min ride time... not once did I get close to feeling tired or struggling with it---- 7500ft elevation) Eat sensibly, ride your bike and spend half your training riding time in Z2 to get your body to improve the way it metabolises fats, so that your body burns more fats at all exercise levels. Losing the the extra baggage will reduce your watts over the course for the reasons you mention, but I would stay clear of restricting protein intake and looking at reducing muscle mass purely from a health perspective. The effort we ride it is actually embarrassingly low compared with max effort, and the elite guys can weigh low 60kgs and hold nearly 400w for an hour --- it has nothing to do with the size of their muscles but all to do with their heart an lungs that they are blessed with.

[@531c]

My bodyscan put me at 25% fat. I was horrified. Im 63 and its getting more challenging to stay fit for both running and cycling. Still, i take comfort in that i can cover 200km bike ride in 9 hours over rolling uk countryside and can just manage a 24 minute 5km parkrun. Never going to set the world on fire but still mixing it with younger folks

[@overbikedrandonneuring]

Right on! Keep up the good work. Fitness things feel a bit more challenging than 10 years ago for sure, but it also seems like better skills and mental preparedness have made up for less raw strength.

[@rickheasman8547]

I'm 186cm and 99kg , I've dropped 4kg down from 103kg by sticking to lower calorie density foods . Getting from 103kg to a healthy weight means loosing the weigth of a road blke in body fat . I've never really been into weight lifting but decided due to age ( 62 years ) and dieting it would be wise to start . Working on deadlifts and squats combined with eating 1.3g of protein per kg of lean body mass is getting good results , I definitely feel stronger on the bike . Like you I know it's going to take months of self discipline to achieve the goal but if it improves the enjoyment of cycling it's worth it .

[@overbikedrandonneuring]

Great advice. I had a good gym routine over winter before it got derailed by surgery. Definitely time to get back in there.

[@ellerybice3787]

If you dare to Stand naked in front of a full length mirror, with your eyes open. Observe your thin reflection, are you happy with it or not. Thin down? Or is bulking up with more muscles is needed? No weight scale needed.

[@br5380]

I’m a couple of cm taller than you, 18kg lighter and probably a decade older, but I can imagine the extra power/calories needed as when I’m bike packing I carry about 10kg. I can definitely feel the extra effort needed for this. Wish you luck.

[@Traccionhumana]

tenemos algunas semejanzas 39 años 92 kilos 187 cm 600k in 33 34 hour (no draft) polygon

[@mikemelbrooks]

I just stumbled across your channel, i completed the Chase the Sun ride, a 205 mile one day ride across the uk. As i ligned up at the start i was surprised at the number of dad bods. Also i think weight has very little effect on speed on the flat.

[@overbikedrandonneuring]

Cheers Mike, thanks for watching. The Chase the Sun ride looks like a lot of fun. The UK has a robust audax scene, so you can find plenty of similar length rides as Chase the Sun, albeit with less fanfare. The ultra distance community has a nice mix of casual enjoyers sporting dad bods and amazing super-athletes. I hope my channel here can help everyone enjoy and succeed at long events.

[@matthewnormand2041]

I'm interested in what you find out. In 2020, by riding more (more time and quieter roads thanks to COVID!) and trying to maintain a -250 calorie/day deficit, I went from 200 to 175 pounds. I hadn't weighed that little since high school. Looking at my Strava data, I noticed I was getting up hills quicker and with less power. However, I eventually noticed my power and endurance started to be negatively affected. I stopped actively tried to lose weight and let my body weight drift up. I'm currently in the 185-190 pound range and that's where my body seems happiest. I'd trade some climbing ability for endurance and durability. Also, concentrating on being aero and efficient has helped compensate for the little extra weight. FYI, I'm about 5'9" (174cm).

[@overbikedrandonneuring]

Thanks for sharing your experience, Matthew. The third article cited in the video description is a review that found typical weight loss includes some portion lost from muscle mass. That might explain your loss in raw power after dropping some pounds. Hopefully with some gym work and decent protein intake, I can drop fat and maintain or build muscle mass. My goal weight is technically 185lbs, but I'm more focused on reaching 15% body fat, or perhaps a bit less.

[@stuartroberts6272]

I did something similar in 2019-20. Losing 30 pounds made a huge difference. Smaller issue but don't forget aero effects or equipment -- there might be 5 - 10 ish watts. Don't get me wrong ideal weight to fine tune the engine is the biggest factor

[@overbikedrandonneuring]

Right on! I am actually pretty content with the efficiency of my setup and engine, but the load it has to push around is an undue burden.

[@stuartroberts6272]

@@overbikedrandonneuring I only misplaced a few of those pounds and MAN has it killed performance, especially climbing. I'll lose'm again. Signed An Old Guy Who Gets Fat in the Winter

[@xuchenglin6256]

You made the same mistake that all of us made: largely overestimate your "muscle" and hugely underestimate the standard of "how lean" is NORMAL in terms of health and physiology. In athletic realm, the 20% is bare minimum, this is when you have a little fatty belly but you can see the contour of your ribs; 15% is not bad, that's when you have that 6-pack barely exposed and everyone thinks you are working out; 10% is good, that's when you have that 6-pack clearly exposed and everyone thinks you are a body builder; 5% is great, that's what the pros looks like on the Olympics. We might think everything below 20% as "thin" or "too thin" from our everyday experience -- just look around. But WHO doesn't think so. They lean towards the athletic views very much and think 15% is about normal and 20%+ is "overweight" -- which is true if you look around at the physical labour jobs especially in developing countries -- they are not under-fed, they are not starving, they are just normal. That's what evolution has built us into. That's our natural state. Time to recalibrate your standard. When you lose weight, you won't lose muscle. That's another falseful thing the pro realm leaves for general population. When you are already at 10%, and you want to get to competition weight, you should be very careful and lose muscle is a real thing and could compromise the performance. However for us 20%-er, it's not something that we should worry about. We don't even have much muscle so basically from our body's perspective we have nothing to lose. Just go ahead and you'll be more than fine. I learnt form my own experience, I'm 176cm and for a very long time my weight hovered at around 90kg -- I thought I was just normal and fit, as in terms of "looking strong". Just look around, this is "normal". There's little ill effect except when going upstairs or big hill hiking you go out-of-breath easily. But everyone else goes out-of-breath too, you feel normal. However after a period of stressful (and also joyful in terms of eating) time, my weight approached 100kg and I stopped weighing myself... Then comes the symptoms of metabolic syndrome and pre type-II diabetes... It's time to lose weight! At first I have the same concern that will I lose my muscle and strength? Hell no. Not at all! Back then I have that huge "quads" like a track cyclist that I kind of proud of, and I'm very upset about it getting smaller... However in the end (lowest at 75kg), I realized that most of that circumference is just fat... Remember the last time you had a steak? You'll see there's huge amount of fat actually lives in that muscle. You feel you are losing muscle because your muscle is shrinking, but no, it's all fat. Performance never be better and you really start of "feel like a pro" instead of "I'm just recreational". Interestingly with shrinked size, you become more aero, on the flat with same power you become faster too, and this is not marginal even. So basically nothing bad all good. Just stay calm and rest assured! Cycling or running is unfortunately an aerobic activity. There's no big difference in our heart and lung across different sizes. So your bigger frame doesn't translate into any advantage sadly (you might try swimming, or triathlon maybe? where the wingspan equals speed, you'll do very very good and easily smash other people). This shows well at the Pro Tours that those bigger riders are hardly a GC contender, even if you are as powerful as Van Art or MVDP - who are as tall as you, as strong as a national champion, the bigger frame still drags them down. And we see smaller framed riders performed just as well in the TTs, like Pogacha who is just my height but can still put enormous power. Statistically you don't even see a trend that bigger guy performed better or worse in TT. So bigger frame won't make you faster on flat, but will slow you down on every climb and every stop-and-go. You just have to accept this fact. And really try to get that weight down if you are serious about the performance. Even if that means you have to go that extra 5% than your smaller framed buddy, even if you are not a pro, in the name of the pursuit of speed!

[@overbikedrandonneuring]

The proper physical exam was a real eye opener. Visual cues are not adequate for sure. However, by the nature of weight loss requiring caloric deficit, muscle mass loss is a risk and usually does go together with fat loss. Cava (2017) "Preserving Healthy Muscle during Weight Loss" is a good review on the topic. Gym work best preserves muscle strength during weight loss, although cycling will help some too. Also, there is a relationship between body weight and work output/oxygen use potential in absolute terms. It has been extensively studied that larger bodies can produce more work and use more oxygen. It is generally agreed that muscle mass, rather than body weight, is responsible and should be the metric for relative measurements though. Larger people just tend to have more muscle mass. For a long time, it was larger riders dominating TTs. Cancellara, Tony Martin, Indurain, David Millar, Filippo Ganna to name a few. Of course they don't often perform well in GC when the road turns uphill, but that's the difference between watts/kg and watts/cda. Only recently have the little riders like Remco and Pog been able to really optimize their positions to match the watts/cda of larger riders in TTs. More uphill finishes on TTs have helped their success too. Different body types will always have certain advantages and drawbacks, but practically speaking the fat that is the problem. Too much does nothing to help and does plenty to get in the way.