I got a stationary bike at the beginning of the year, I ride it for 40 minutes 4-5 days a week. I work up a pretty good sweat doing it but since I started on January 4, I have not lose one pound. I went from not doing anything exercise wise to riding 4-5 times a week, shouldn't I have lost something by now? Am I riding long enough, or should I be doing something else with the bike? I am female, 185 pounds, 5'8" and 36 years old, what more should I do?
How are your clothes fitting? I would imagine that you would have built up your legs a bit by now but it doesn't do much for toning your upper body. You may want to get some hand weights and add in some arm/shoulder strength training and be sure you are really engaging your core when you are sitting on the bike. A lot of people sit on the seat like sack of potatoes and pedal away thereby losing out on an opportunity to work their core in a natural way. As far as what else you can do, what does your diet consist of?
clothes are fitting the same, I only took my measurements last weekend so I will hopefully start seeing some progress there. Before I started riding the bike I was in a 'I don't care" stage, and I have tried to improve that. I have been eating smartones, lean cuisines and healthy choices for lunch for a long time, not everyday, but mostly during the work week. Breakfast is usually oatmeal or yogurt and fruit. For supper, I eat what I make for the family, I try to do portion control but that doesn't always work. On weekends, I'm not as strict. I don't know what my problem is, about 3 years ago I lost 20 pounds like nothing, I was more strict with myself, I was calorie counting and dropping 1-2 pounds a week. But once I hit 164 it stopped. I just can't seem to get into it now. I've started and stopped and started again for the last 2 1/2 years. For whatever reason I just cannot get my mind fully wrapped around this. I am sick of being winded, sick of not looking good in clothes, sick of the double chin, fat stomach, jiggly thighs. I'm sick of making mini goals that I never meet. I want to do this all on my own, no crazy diet like low carbs, just portion control and exercise. I am thinking about mixing it up a bit, and either riding bike for less and adding something else or riding bike a couple times a week and doing something else the other two or three nights. Thanks for the input.
Smoochie, I think you're answering your own question... You're just not eating properly. 80% of weightloss is nutrition, if you're not eating properly you're not going to see the results no matter how much you exercise. Try eating more whole foods, the lean cuisines you're eating are ok, just ok, in a pinch , they are very high in sodium and will make you retain water. Eating real food is better, a nice large salad is easy to make specially these days when everything is already pre cut for you. Along with a lean protein, chicken, lean beef or an egg. Then an unprocessed carb like whole wheat pasta, bread, brown rice, sweet potatoe, half a cup of one of those is great... Portion control is everything too...
Try that for a while and see if you get more results in your weight loss....
Also try to add more intensity to your bike rides... peddle really hard for a minute, the recouperate for a minute, x 10 and see how that goes...
Good luck keep us posted on your progress
Last edited by 3fcuser1058250; 02-18-2010 at 10:58 PM.
I used a stationary from about two weeks before Christmas to about mid January. I saw maybe like one pound out of all that be gone. I was so upset. I made a similar post on over a month ago. My eating was cancelling everything out. I was making a slight effort but not enough to lose anything. I do have problems with eating, big problems, so it was (and still is, and probably will be) pretty hard for me to control it, but once I started limiting the calories I ate then I started losing. Eating, I guess, is the big factor in weight loss.
Also I started using exercise dvds which seem to work out a lot more of the body than just the bike and I don't have to go anywhere and, for the time being, have anything like weights or things like that.
Last edited by bunnythesAINT; 02-19-2010 at 03:29 PM.
If you want to use the stationary bike as your means of excersize...you definately want to make it count. I just started a spinning class and it is not easy at all. I sweat and pant and can barely move after class. We do alot of standing up and sitting down, push ups on the handle bars while peddling, less resistance and peddeling as fast and hard as you can for 30-45 seconds, then slow it down, then do it again. We're up for 4 counts, down for 4 counts, up for 4 counts, then down for 4 counts, the 2 counts up and down. We do that to the length of a whole song. We stand up, we lean down, we lean down with our butts hanging over the back of the seats. You just need to change up the resistance on the bike and change up your pace. 40 minutes is a good amount of time. That's about how long we do it for.
I'll let you know in a couple weeks how many inches i've lost from doing this. But i know you can do it. Just gotta up your intensity. Don't give up on yourself.
@honeyb, I didn't mean anything by that "crazy" comment. I have seen my mom on every diet imaginable and while it takes the weight off fast she never kept it off. I need to re train myself to eat less, exercise more.
@lumifan, I don't have a spin bike, it's just a upright bike. I usually do 40 minutes at level one at 15mph, lastnight I upped it to level 2 but only did 30 minutes.
@everybody, thanks for the input. I am really trying this week, so far so good! I have come to the conclusion that I need to start being more aware of what I am eating. try to keep my calories at 1200 for a while to see if that gets me any where. thanks for the support!
Smoochie...i don't think there is a big difference in a spin bike and a stationary bike really...but that is awesome that you upped it to level two!!! That's great!! And weightloss is typically 80% diet and 20% excersize. So, you definately want to try to eat clean. I buy boneless, skinnless chicken breast in bulk when it is on sale and eat lots and lots of chicken. You can make a big batch on sunday and have it for lunch/dinner all week. I also make my breakfast on sundays for the week. I use eggbeaters and ff cheese and a couple peices of turkey bacon and a cup of frozen spinach or broccoli and bake it all up in the oven and cut it into slices. Every morning i have one or two slices (depending on how hungry i am). One slice is only like 70 calories and full of protein. I also get a serving of veggies in.
Anyways...good luck and congrats on upping your level.
Riding a stationary bike
