Cycling and weight loss — Top tips for pedalling away the pounds the healthy and sustainable way

Well knock me sideways. Still it's nice that they've gone to check.

I assume that this will now be "encouraged and supported" by the government and relevant authorities in the regular fashion eg. with warm words (hot air), with paint and signs and mostly by spending more money facilitating driving.

Hardly surprising, but it's always nice to have some properly conducted, peer reviewed research by a recognised and highly credible source which is large enough in scope to account for confounding factors and come out with very clear, quantifiable results.

If anyone wants to pitch a contrary opinion based on their own personal anecdata then they sure have a high bar to claim equal credibility.

As we know though carefully gathered data and thoughtful analysis have low currency in public discourse. They have about zero below the line. And if you're just here for a knockabout or getting attention by saying a naughty thing none of that matters anyway!

EDIT apologies, you already said the latter - "worth a read by *anyone actually interested in having an informed opinion on the subject*."

IanMSpencer wrote:

Like The Great Helmet debate, I'm not sure obsessing over the right sort of bike exercise does anyone any good. The fact is that hopping on a bike and pedaling is a good thing, whether it's an e-bike, MTB or whatever. Ride safely and ride as far and as hard as you enjoy and without especially trying you will naturally get stronger, fitter, and slimmer. The added advantage is that pedalling is quite gentle on the joints, so as long as you keep yourself safe, there tend to be few side effects from pedalling away.

I agree with all that, but as JustTryingToGet said, there is still a big benefit to mixing things up a bit and not just relying on your cycling.  Over the last few weeks, I've just taken to doing the odd plank plus reps with 2kg dumbbells and I'm really feeling the benefit.

The Accountant wrote:

This really is a simple formula:

• If you consume more calories than you expend, you gain weight.
• If you expend more calories than you consume, you lose weight.

Even though this is true in a sense, it's also worse than useless because it parades around as profound, discussion-ending insight while completely ignoring the mechanisms that control the amount of calories consumed and expended, which is what we really need to understand if we want to figure out how to design interventions that will successfully get us closer to our desired outcomes. To look at it from another angle: the calories in/calories out mantra utterly fails to suggest a route to an actionable plan that can be reliably and successfully implemented.

The Accountant wrote:

...all you need is a modicum of self-control...

...an excuse pedalled by the weak-willed, hard-of-thought, and helplessly gluttonous...

This is precisely the problem with calories in/calories out thinking. It too often leads to the reductive belief/claim that healthy weight maintenace is a simple moral matter (It's all so easy--just don't be a fucking slob!) when in reality it's an incredibly complex biological matter that's made all the more intractable by the historically anomolous amount of cheap and easily available calories in our modern environment.

So yes, of course, if calories in/calories out thinking works for you, great, keep up the good work. But it clearly doesn't work for a huge number of people. Call them weak, undiscipled slobs if you like, but repeating your mantra isn't going to change that. People are what they are, and if we genuinely want better outcomes for society (as opposed to simply signaling our own superior character), we can't just point the finger of blame at people and call them nasty names; we have to examine the functional mechanisms responsible for their undesirable behavior (hint: being "weak-willed, hard-of-thought, and helplessly gluttonous" isn't a functional mechanism) and figure out how to tweak those mechanisms and their inputs in order to more reliably yield the desired outcomes.

Before the world became helplessly woke, you'll have noticed (if you weren't around watch some old TV) that the population at large was much fitter and of a healthy constitution and weight than today.

Then, when people started treating excess weight as some kind of disease, rather than what it is - for the most-part a complete and utter lack of self-discipline and control - people felt entitled to pile on the pounds without the worry of being treated with a justifiable contempt.

To bring back normality, we need to go back to basics and recognise obesity for what it is. Once this happens, society will be healthier and happier.

It's all very well throwing an arm round people and telling them everything is OK and someone else's fault, but in the long run honesty is the best policy. If you're fat the chances are you're the person to blame, recognise it and do something about it - that will gain my respect.

The Accountant wrote:

Before the world became helplessly woke, you'll have noticed (if you weren't around watch some old TV) that the population at large was much fitter and of a healthy constitution and weight than today.

Then, when people started treating excess weight as some kind of disease, rather than what it is - for the most-part a complete and utter lack of self-discipline and control - people felt entitled to pile on the pounds without the worry of being treated with a justifiable contempt.

To bring back normality, we need to go back to basics and recognise obesity for what it is. Once this happens, society will be healthier and happier.

It's all very well throwing an arm round people and telling them everything is OK and someone else's fault, but in the long run honesty is the best policy. If you're fat the chances are you're the person to blame, recognise it and do something about it - that will gain my respect.

People may have been thinner but it would be a mistake to think they were necessarily healthier, malnutrition being a serious issue. The biggest improvement to UK health was rationing, which reduced certain food groups and importantly, increased certain food groups for a significant part of the population.

Fuck all to do with being "woke" and the very opposite of self control.

What was your previous user name?

Yup - walks like a duck and quacks.  Several of the previous bees present and correct in bonnet.

Of course that doesn't necessarily distinguish that specific PBU from any number of mundane "edgelords" everywhere.  Given that the last one just wouldn't flush though that's the most parsimonious explanation until further data are in (hopefully they won't be around for that long).

The Accountant wrote:

Before the world became helplessly woke, you'll have noticed (if you weren't around watch some old TV) that the population at large was much fitter and of a healthy constitution and weight than today.

Lol. You'll hardly find a more staunch critic of wokeness than me, but reductively attributing the obesity epidemic and general health degradation to wokeness is one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. Sorry, I much prefer to engage in reasoned discourse than to sling insults, but this is too much for me.

The Accountant wrote:

a complete and utter lack of self-discipline and control

Ok, but what *is* self-discipline and control? It's not just some moral attribute that you will yourself to have irrespective of the biological conditions within your body and the environmental conditions outside it. Rather, it's precisely the result of a complex interaction between your biology and your environment.

You yourself seem to recognize that to some extent, as you believe that woke culture (i.e., the environment) has caused people to gain weight. But then you leave out all the other stuff that constitutes the environment--cheap and easily available calories, city design that discourages self-locomotion, classroom and office environments that demand we remain sedentary throughout most of the day, etc.--and you completely discount biology, instead chalking up the whole thing on that end to the moral self.

That's just not how it works. Our evolutionary history has shaped our biology to be fit in a particular environment, and we're now experiencing the devastating reality that our modern environment is in many ways extremely unkind to that biology. If we want to improve things, we need to better understand that relationship and figure out how to effectively intervene in it.

"You'll hardly find a more staunch critic of wokeness than me"

That's a shame as being woke means being aware of systemic biases and discriminations, like racism, sexism, ableism and such like, which could even include the discrimination of some people for their choice of transport

I'd argue that wokeness is about grievance-mongering, virtue signaling, and a sanctimonious insistence on linguistic purity and toeing the party line over finding genuine solutions to help the people wokesters claim to care about.

Case in point: I was in the middle of making a sustained, substantive, rational critique of a viewpoint that is harmful to many poor and otherwise disadvantaged persons, and instead of acknowledging or engaging with the substance of my critique you derailed the conversation and attempted to undermine my credibility by criticizing my naughty language choice regarding a tangential point and the naughty team you therefore associate me with. And I'm on (what I presume to be) your side!

Rather than policing people's failure to recite your shibboleths, I recommend focusing on what really matters.

ejocs wrote:

I'd argue that wokeness is about grievance-mongering, virtue signaling, and a sanctimonious insistence on linguistic purity and toeing the party line over finding genuine solutions to help the people wokesters claim to care about

Woke does not mean what you think it does.

e.g. Cambridge English Dictionary definition https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/woke "aware, especially of social problems such as racism or equality"

and Collins https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/woke "Someone who is woke is very aware of social and political unfairness"

I think it's been re-invented! Totally agree - I understand this was the original sense (apparently mid-early last century coinage).
However a new coinage has arisen - probably coined by those who were against the idea of racial / social equality (I think as a label for the US left by the other side. Sense 2 would be a negative label: "being concerned on behalf of a group you don't belong to; insincere 'performative activism' ".

It's exactly this sense ("wokesters") that was used.

I agree with you in that people using that label are often begging the question themselves: eg. "so do just you oppose *anyone not directly affected* noticing the inequality and saying something about it, are you opposed to *everyone* complaining about this discrimination or do you not believe this is discrimination at all?"

ejocs has explained themselves a bit anyway. I suspect just leaving it as a lexical disagreement for now would leave more energy for addressing the actual problem under discussion.

I'm sure the revenants here (plural now it seems) are just lapping up the hate either way.

chrisonatrike wrote:

I think it's been re-invented! Totally agree - I understand this was the original sense (apparently mid-early last century coinage). However a new coinage has arisen - probably coined by those who were against the idea of racial / social equality (I think as a label for the US left by the other side. Sense 2 would be a negative label: "being concerned on behalf of a group you don't belong to; insincere 'performative activism' ".

I'm an American who holds a number of substantively left political views and who abhors the politics of the US right.

My criticism of the wokelords stems precisely from frustration that they are doing much harm to, and little good for, the left projects that I care about. See, for example, my illustration above of the totally unhelpful role marmotte27 played in the current discussion--they completely ignored the substance of what I was saying and instead chose to nitpick and scold over a over a minor linguistic point, thereby totally shifting the focus of the entire discussion away from my substantive defense of disadvantaged persons and onto this unhelpful bickering over what words mean.

Yes, I suppose in some sense I started it by making a woke-critical comment in the first place, but I made it advisedly, in an attempt to try to establish a point of common concern with a debate partner with whom I share no other commonalities--not to mention that I then immediately went on to harshly criticize his criticism of wokeism. But the wokesters' heads are so far up their own sanctimonious asses that none of that matters--I failed the purity test, so that's what we should focus on.

I'd be with you in your criticism of the original poster, but a point of order:

ejocs wrote:

... Yes, I suppose in some sense I started it by making a woke-critical comment in the first place, but I made it advisedly, in an attempt to try to establish a point of common concern with a debate partner with whom I share no other commonalities ...

I doubt you'll establish points of commonality with that poster.  Or rather - I hope not.  It would appear to be yet another return of a serially banned poster.  One also prone to renaming and possibly deleting / recreating their account and occasionally pretending to be "some foreign johnny".

If so "debate partner" is an illusion - that's not what they're here for!  Or to put it another way perhaps, what they might describe as "debate" is as far from most people's understanding of that concept as your usage of "woke" (meaning 2 - a critical / mocking term for "bloody liberals / sanctimonious types / the politically correct") is from the original one ("aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)")!

You're right, of course, although I will note: 1) this thread started some days ago, right when that poster first popped up (in current guise, anyway) and before it was clear who/what he really was (yes, there were already some telltale signs, but then on to the next point) and 2) in any event I wanted to counter his points substantively (engaging with such posters is fraught, but it's also not great to just let their idiotic statements stand uncontested) without the thread turning into a shit show, and I succeeded--well, with regard to him anyway.😉

stomec wrote:

ejocs wrote:

I'd argue that wokeness is about grievance-mongering, virtue signaling, and a sanctimonious insistence on linguistic purity and toeing the party line over finding genuine solutions to help the people wokesters claim to care about

Woke does not mean what you think it does.

e.g. Cambridge English Dictionary definition https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/woke "aware, especially of social problems such as racism or equality"

and Collins https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/woke "Someone who is woke is very aware of social and political unfairness"

Lol, of course they would define it as that. If you worked with any publishers you'd know they are riddled with wokists.

They hardly going to define themselves as something negative are they, like the proper definition of "1) A fake state of social concern, used as a prop by useless white middle class individuals to get ahead in their careers. Especially used by people who put their "preferred pronouns" at the end of their emails. 2) angry left wing middle class people, so furious at poorer white people voting (in the UK) for Brexit or (in the US) for Trump, that they'd like to impose a system of racial discrimination against them as punishment."

I could reel off a couple of alternative definitions, none of them complimentary, but I can't be bothered.

The Accountant wrote:

I could reel off a couple of alternative definitions, none of them complementary, but I can't be bothered.

*Complimentary. That's what happens when you won't buy a dictionary because you think they're published by "wokists".

Er no, that's what happens when you're writing on a mobile phone and the "autocorrect" function helpfully inserts the wrong word. Thanks for pointing out the error though, if you write to OUP or someone they might have a career going as junior editor assistant - seems like you're short of things to do.

I'm going with ejocs version - "wokesters" - "wokists" sounds like a Ken Hom cult.

The Accountant wrote:

stomec wrote:

ejocs wrote:

I'd argue that wokeness is about grievance-mongering, virtue signaling, and a sanctimonious insistence on linguistic purity and toeing the party line over finding genuine solutions to help the people wokesters claim to care about

Woke does not mean what you think it does.

e.g. Cambridge English Dictionary definition https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/woke "aware, especially of social problems such as racism or equality"

and Collins https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/woke "Someone who is woke is very aware of social and political unfairness"

Lol, of course they would define it as that. If you worked with any publishers you'd know they are riddled with wokists.

They hardly going to define themselves as something negative are they, like the proper definition of "1) A fake state of social concern, used as a prop by useless white middle class individuals to get ahead in their careers. Especially used by people who put their "preferred pronouns" at the end of their emails. 2) angry left wing middle class people, so furious at poorer white people voting (in the UK) for Brexit or (in the US) for Trump, that they'd like to impose a system of racial discrimination against them as punishment."

I could reel off a couple of alternative definitions, none of them complimentary, but I can't be bothered.

Were you this unhinged under your previous user name? Fucking mental.

Gosh these middle class lefties eh? Bloody hell. Can't we introduce death camps or something? We could put fat people in there as well - anyone with a BMI over 28 perhaps. And people with monobrows. And that bloke round the corner from me, he looks a bit shifty, shove him in there as well. Seriously, are you going to be on here long? I've got some cobwebs to count in my shed, I might as well do it now.

Although I'm guessing, I'm willing to bet that if you took a cross section of 'woke' media commentators/journalists and a cross section of, shall I say, more 'gammony' ones, then it would be the latter who were significantly more overweight.

Of course this is all true, but really the odds are stacked against you - depending on your physiology. 

The same physiology that makes you a great endurance athlete - the ability to absorb, process and allocate energy - also has the potential to make you gain weight. I say this, as if you are not predispositioned to absorb, process and allocate energy, I get why you might struggle to understand why others can't manage their weight. 

Also, the in and out formula is all well and good, but completely glosses over the idea that what you eat can have a massive influence on how easy it is to maintain the calorific deficit. 

It also ignores the reality that any significant calorie deficit is going to generate a physiological self preservation response. Your body will do exactly what you would do if your spending outpaces your income... you either find additional revenue streams, or rein your spending in. The body will tell you that its hungry, and if you don't find it more food, it'll assume you are in a famine and start breaking down muscle to reduce your basic metabolic rate. 

Brilliantly clever, but a pain the backend for those looking to lean up. 

The Accountant wrote:

This really is a simple formula:

• If you consume more calories than you expend, you gain weight.
• If you expend more calories than you consume, you lose weight.

Even if this were true (it's not) how much are you obsessing over counting Calories that this is working for you? If the balance were off by ten Calories per day (250 steps or 0.2 miles of cycling short, or biting just the head off a single jelly baby too many) you'd gain a pound per year, ten per decade.

• Not everyone extracts the same amount of energy from a given food
• A single person doesn't extract the same energy from a given food eaten at different times
• Energy gets cycled within the body as it's converted back and forth between glucose, glycogen, fat stores, ketones, etc. None of the conversions are 100% efficient.