Weight loss may or may not be your personal inspiration for getting on the bike, but plenty of women appreciate the ease of putting a little exercise into each day with bike commuting. Others gut it out on the trainer to attain personal goals in racing. Still others approach it as a chore because they want to lose weight specifically. Any way you slice it, biking burns more calories than sitting on the sofa with a bag o’ chips.
I’m not talking about trying for an unrealistic uber-skinny body, mind you. I’ve already blogged about the notion that a healthy body image isn’t tied to fitting into a specific dress size.
I’m talking about the basic level of activity that’s recommended by the American Heart Association for good health. They specifically mention dividing your moving-around efforts into two or three chunks of 10-15 minutes each, which is almost precisely how my typical bike commuting takes place.
This blogspedition rounds up a few posts and blogs that feature this topic:
- Cycling for Optimal Weight, on Loving the Bike
- Fat Broad on a Bike–Don’t Hide, Ride! on Women’s Cycling Canada
- Weight Loss for Spring Cycling, on Women’s Cycling Canada. My favorite tip: “Eat like your granny did.”
- Bike Riding to Lose Weight Fast, on Women’s Health. My favorite quote: “… lugging a 25-pound kid in a bike trailer was tougher than any machine at the gym.”
- Resolutions in Reverse: 23 Pounds and Counting, on Grit and Glimmer by racer Heidi Swift. My favorite quote: “Dresses may cut a flattering figure but I’ll tell you one thing for sure–the bike never lies.”
For a weight-loss bonus, give blood. Some of you may remember the saying, “A pint’s a pound the world around” as a way of remembering measurements in the kitchen. Turns out it’s true at the blood bank too! Give a pint of blood and lose a pound, then burn some more calories as your body kicks up its production of replacement blood cells–all while you help save a life. What could be healthier than that?
Related Reading
Your Turn
- Is riding a bike part of a weight-control or weight-loss effort for you?
- How’s it going?
- Or does a post on weight loss piss you off because it seems to buy into unrealistic body-image issues for women?
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Personal Advantages and Bicycling: How I Really Started Riding
I Am Woman. I Bike. I Am Strong.
A Page out of the History Books: Benefits of Biking for Spinsters
Gamification Keeps Me Going (aka I’m the Self-Tracking Type): An Andrea Post
On a Roll with Angela Brown
Sisterhood Rocks!
Bike Books I Recommend: Women on Wheels
Thanks for including our article on Cycling for Optimal Weight. I hope you guys are able to get a lot of people on track by promoting your article to them. Nice work.
Darryl
I absolutely needed to get back on a bike to feel better and lose weight, and bought a decent bike in early January (and joined Weight Watchers, but have already canceled again). I have dropped 14 pounds so far and am riding about 10 miles 2-3 times a week, working on getting to 60 miles/week. Cycling simply makes me feel so much better and happier. Plus it helps me to really get to know Berlin again.
I started biking for weight loss and dropped three pounds in a month thanks to the exercise. During the next six months, I put on ten pounds but my clothing size didn’t change. When I mentioned this to my doctor, she said that I must have put on muscle. The mild winter means that I’ve continued commuting and taking long rides on the weekends and over the past month I’ve dropped a few pounds. I’m still a hefty woman and have a lot more to lose, but I’m definitely firming up and looking more trim thanks to the regular cycling.