15 MISTAKES
Mountain Bikers Make When
Trying To LOSE WEIGHT
Intro
Hello! Thanks so much for downloading this free guide. I can’t wait to share with you
these 15 mistakes mountain bikers make when trying to lose weight. Before we get
stuck in though, let me tell you a little bit about myself.
My name’s Matt Mooney and I run a business called MTB Fitness full time. I’ve been a
personal trainer since 2011 and I’m an obsessed mountain biker, just like you. In 2016
I set up MTB Fitness. Since then it’s grown to over 700,000+ followers on social media
and 20,000+ customers all over the world and growing by the hour. I’ve partnered with
various race organisers and charities over the years and even have a guide (my over
50’s guide) endorsed by the mountain bike legend that is Steve Peat.
I’m super passionate about helping your every-day mountain biker improve their
fitness and strength on the bike so they can enjoy our brilliant sport to the max. I do
that predominantly through my training programmes, delivered through the MTB Fit
app (you can get a free 7 day trial at www.mtb.fitness)
We have the best sport in the world, but it’s a sport that relies on fitness. The fitter you
are and the stronger you are, the more you can enjoy it. It’s my mission to help you do
just that.
So, enough about me…now to you!
You are reading this guide because you want to lose weight. But, why should you
bother? Well, if you have weight to lose it’s hugely beneficial to your riding to lose it.
You don’t need to be ‘Tour De France’ rider skinny, but if you are carrying extra
baggage it’s going to slow you down and have you put unnecessary effort in.
When you lose weight you can climb more easily as you carry less weight up the hill.
You put less pressure on your joints reducing joint ache and risk of future arthritis (or
current). You become more nimble and can change direction or flick around on the
bike much more easily - consider how a Ferrari can change direction compared to a
bus. You also have the obvious HUGE health benefits of losing weight. Going from
overweight to a healthy weight reduces your risk of almost every illness, disease or
cancer. Getting to a healthy, happy weight also drastically improves your quality of life.
Let’s be honest, you feel crappy when you are overweight.
Over the years I’ve helped several hundred 1-1 ‘in person’ clients lose weight, I’ve
helped tens of thousands online through MTB Fitness and I’ve also had times where
I’ve gained and then had to lose weight myself. Most recently I gained 12kg (circa 26
pounds) after some Covid-caused health issues stopped me training for several
months. Having to lose the weight myself helped have personal experience of losing
weight…and also showed me just how crap it feels to have love handles piling over
your jeans and referring to your tness as ‘I remember when…’
I sincerely hope this free guide helps you out. If you get value from it, I’d love for you
to get stuck into my paid Programmes and Guides which you can learn about on the
website. Be sure to follow me on social media too for free daily content!
Cheers,
Matt
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Website : http://mtb. tness
Instagram : instagram.com/mtb. tness
Facebook : facebook.com/mtb tnessuk
SIGN UP FOR A 7 DAY FREE TRIAL OF THE
MTB FIT APP NOW
MINDSET MISTAKES
1 - Not Starting!
The rst and most common mistake I see riders make when trying to lose weight is
getting so obsessed with planning, with researching, with waiting for the ‘perfect
time’, with discussing, writing things down and setting dates to begin…that they never
actually start!
It’s always ‘next week’, ‘after this holiday’, ’after this work project is complete’ or ‘after
this renovation’. The truth is, this is procrastination and inaction disguised as action.
See - if you said the truth of the matter to yourself ‘I can’t be bothered trying to lose
weight right now because it’s hard work and I’m scared I will fail’ then it’s SCARY. It’s
upsetting. It makes you feel rubbish. The truth is too painful, so we hide from it.
Instead, we come up with a random time in future, anytime, as long as IT IS NOT
NOW (!!!), that we will start to lose weight. We imagine our future selves as more
motivated, more disciplined and with better life factors to allow us to lose weight. Of
course…our future self is 99.9% the same as our current self. We won’t be more
motivated. We won’t be more disciplined. That commitment you have right now will
only change to something else as soon as it’s done.
Procrastinating makes you feel better and that’s why we do it. Saying “My mental and
physical health & tness isn’t important to me right now” feels terrible. Saying “I’ll start
next week” feels good, but how often do we actually start next week?
You must start now. You must just start.
You don’t have to plan the most perfect diet.
You don’t need to able to follow a training plan with 100% consistency.
You don’t need to have ZERO other commitments in your life.
You just need to start. Start by eating a better breakfast. Or through halving your
weekly alcohol intake. Or through going for a walk in a morning. Or through riding one
extra time a week. Or through joining the gym. Or swapping the sandwich and cake at
lunch for a salad. Or signing up for Hello Fresh for your evening meals instead of pizza
or ready meals. Whatever your step is you must TAKE IT. Learning and reading about
how to lose weight with guides like this is fantastic but…and whisper it…reading this guide
won’t actually help you lose weight if you don’t do anything with the information!
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You must start. You must. It’s a common misconception that in order to do something
you have to feel motivated. People get that backwards. Instead, in order to feel
motivated, you have to start. Action helps you feel motivated. Consider a time when
you did NOT want to ride, but you headed out for a ride anyway. After you’ve gotten
rid of the cobwebs you start to get into it, you start to feel motivated to ride because
you have started riding. Action helps you ‘feel like it’. Start and then you will feel
motivated.
Decide right now on one step you will take to begin losing weight…and then do it.
Today.
2 - Letting It Take Over Life
The next big mistake I see people making when it comes to losing weight is either
letting it take over their life…or believing it has to. People build up losing weight into
much more of a deal than it actually is.
Here’s what you need to do to lose weight :
-
Eat healthily and eat slightly less calories than you burn each day
Train or ride several days a week
Sleep 7-8 hours a night
Drink 2+ litres of water per day
Here’s what you need do to live a healthy, productive & happy life :
-
Eat healthily and around same number of calories as you burn each day
Train or ride several days a week
Sleep 7-8 hours a night
Drink 2+ litres of water per day
Strikingly similar right? Weight-loss is not about dieting. It’s not a short term thing. It’s
actually a lifestyle. It’s a healthy way of life, a selection of decisions you make through
the day that slot into your life and enhance your life. It’s not doing some stupid juice
diet, going incredibly low calorie or cutting out entire macronutrients like carbs or fat.
It’s about living a healthy lifestyle where you train and ride regularly, where you sleep
well and you eat a healthy diet the majority of the time. In fact, the only real di erence
between losing weight…and then maintaining that weight-loss afterwards is you will
eat a few hundred more calories each day after you have lost the weight. That’s it.
Living this way enhances and improves your life. It doesn’t take away from it. People
see losing weight as a chore. As something they ‘have’ to do. Instead, when you start
to see the bene ts of living life like a healthy weight person you start to realise that
actually life is more fun when you eat well, train/ride well and sleep well.
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Losing weight is not a chore. It’s something to enjoy. It should take minimal e ort and
thought. You make good choices with your food. You train or ride almost daily. And
you sleep well. Apart from that, live your life as normal! Well, I say as normal. You will
actually probably live your life better because you will have more constant energy
levels, more motivation for life because you feel better and you’ll nd your mood stays
more consistently good.
Getting to and staying at a healthy weight is a lifestyle choice. It enhances your life, it
doesn’t take away from it. People have weight-loss wrong in their heads. If you told
me I had to eat 1000 calories a day…or not eat for 8 hours a day…or ban carbs…or
never have a meal out again…or have 2 shakes a day instead of food…or take some
dodgy tablets that make you poo several times a day then I would see it as a massive
chore too. It really doesn’t have to be that way though. At the writing of this guide I’ve
lost circa 26 pounds. I feel miles better and I’ve not done anything ridiculous. I’ve just
made good choices. Just like I help my customers do.
3 - Not Setting Goals
Alright. Next mistake many riders make is…not setting a clear goal to aim for.
You’ve probably heard of a SMART goal before. It’s basically a realistic goal, with a
date on it and an objective measure to know you get there.
For example - Get from 95kg to 85kg by 14th August when I go on a riding holiday to
Whistler.
Compare that to “I want to lose some weight”
See, when you decide how much weight you want to lose and for when, you have
something to visualise. Start with the when and the why. Perhaps a riding holiday, or a
wedding, or a race, or a big birthday is the when. It must be something important to
you. Many ‘civvies’ (non riders!) have goals to lose weight for a non-riding holiday to
look good by the pool. That’s brilliant if it motivates them…but for me personally I
don’t really care how I look sat by the pool. I do care however how I look, feel and
perform at a mountain bike race…or how I look standing at the end of the aisle for my
wedding. Those two things motivate me like mad. But they may not matter to you. You
need to gure out your when and it needs to motivate you. Don’t pick something
generic because that’s what others choose.
It’s the same for understanding ‘why’ you want to lose weight. Is it to feel better in
your clothes? To live longer? To not get exhausted on climbs on your bike? To feel
good naked in front of your other half? Whatever your why, really sit and ponder it.
Why is it so important to you to lose weight? You need to understand this if you want
to feel motivated to do it.
As soon as you have the when and you have the why, you just need to decide how
much weight you want to lose. Some people struggle with this. Aim to lose 0.5kg
(around 1lb) per week. This is a safe amount where you can eat in a slight calorie
de cit, meaning you keep your energy levels up allowing you to ride and train hard
still. As for the target weight, don’t get too obsessed with this. Pick a number, perhaps
a weight you used to be and felt good at and then aim for that. You can tweak it when
you get there. You may achieve it and want to lose more…or you may get near it and
realise you don’t want to lose anymore. Don’t stress too much. Just have a number to
aim towards.
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When you have a goal to aim towards you can plot your progress towards it. This
does 2 things - it keeps you motivated when you see your progress and it also allows
you to have an objective measure as to whether what you are doing is working or not.
If you know you want to lose 0.5kg (1lb) per week, then you can weigh yourself
weekly. If you lose more and your energy levels are really low, you can increase your
calorie intake (more on this later). If you put on weight, then you know you need to
decrease your calories. It’s good to have numbers to work towards.
Whatever you do, have a real aim to work towards that has a date on it. It does
wonders for your motivation!
This leads me onto my next mistake I see. Failing to track progress (or especially a
lack of progress when things are going wrong!). To know you are going the correct
direction and doing the right things you need to have a measure.
Let’s say you are saving up £20,000 for a house deposit. You don’t never open your
bank account and hope by the end of the month you have saved money. You move a
certain amount, £500 for argument sake, into a separate pot as soon as you get paid.
Then, every month you see the money growing. At any one time you know how much
you have saved and when you will hit your goal if you keep doing what you are doing.
Weight-loss is the same. Don’t go o how you look in the mirror and how you feel.
Those things are important. But you can’t choose how many calories to eat or how
much exercise to do based o subjective feelings. You need objective measures to
see if what you are doing is working.
At a minimum I recommend weighing yourself weekly on the same day, at the same
time, whilst naked. Say, when you wake up on a Sunday morning. You should also
take a couple of measurements - belly button/waist and arms for men at a minimum
and belly button, thighs and hips for women at a minimum. You can do more
measurement sites, but do these as a minimum.
When you increase the amount of training/riding you are doing and focus on eating
more you often build muscle too. That means you can gain a few pounds of muscle
and lose a few pounds of fat and the scales can look identical. The di erence is you
have lost fat which looks wobbly…and built muscle which looks toned. That’s why it’s
important to measure as well as weigh yourself. Particularly if starting a more intense
training regime at the same time.
If you like, you can also take progress photos. It’s personal choice, but it can be good
to have photos to look back at. Take a front, side and back photo (have someone else
take it for the best results) and know that although you really may NOT want to take a
photo right now…in a few months time you may wish you had. You can always delete
the photo in future…but you can’t go back and take another.
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You’ll notice I suggested to weigh yourself weekly. It’s ne to weigh yourself more
frequently if you like. I weigh myself daily when I’m at home. There’s one caveat
though - if you weigh yourself daily you MUST understand that your weight will
uctuate, sometimes totally randomly. Your weight probably won’t go down everyday,
but the average over a period of 7 days should. A further caveat - time of the month
for ladies causes weight retention (not that I need to tell you that ladies!) so the scale
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4 - Not Tracking Progress (or a lack of it…)
can be higher without indicating that the plan isn’t working. As long as you
understand the scale will likely go up and down, with an overall trend of down. This
means you avoid knee jerk reactions of starving yourself for a day because you gained
a pound…then eating loads of junk the next day because you are starving!
Finally, tracking your weight actually helps hold you accountable even when you aren’t
actively trying to lose weight. Simply weighing yourself daily even if you aren’t eating
or training perfectly holds you accountable and acts as an early warning signal that
things are going in the wrong direction. It’s a good habit to get and stay in, without
getting obsessed and tying your self worth up in the scales.
5 - Motivation vs Discipline
Alright - I could go on and on and on with mindset mistakes people make around
losing weight but this one is the last in this mini-guide. Everything starts in the mind.
Our bodies re ect what’s going on in our heads. I actually wrote a whole guide on
mindset called ‘MTB Mindset’ so feel free to check that out.
This mistake is a biggy. Many people rely far too much on motivation…and play down
the importance of discipline.
Allow me to let you into a secret…most successful people in any area in life rely much
more on discipline rather than motivation. They understand that there are LOTS of
times when you don’t want to do something. Times when you don’t want to train. Or
don’t want to eat well. Or don’t want to ride. When they feel like that…they go do it
anyway!
Our ancestral brains are wired to keep us safe and to conserve calorie burn. If we are
sat at home watching TV…we are safe from predators and we aren’t burning too
many calories so are less likely to starve to death. Training, riding and eating healthily
takes e ort. We can’t always be bothered putting e ort in and de nitely don’t always
feel motivated.
Instead, rely on discipline. If you say you will have the healthy meal at the restaurant,
have it. If you say you will ride, do it. If you say you will go to the gym before work, get
up and go. Ignore your feelings. When you aren’t feeling it…go do it anyway.
Now of course, there are times when you are ill and/or rundown when you do need to
rest. But let’s be honest, of the times we can’t be bothered doing something, how
many of those times are when we legitimately need rest and how many are when we
are simply being lazy? You don’t always feel like going to work in the morning, but you
go anyway. That’s motivation vs discipline.
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As you lose weight there will be many times you lack motivation. Do the work anyway.
It’s not supposed to be easy…but I promise you it will be worth the e ort.
NUTRITION MISTAKES
6 - You Can’t Out-Ride A Bad Diet
Alright. By far this is the biggest mistake I see riders make when it comes to losing
weight, so lean in close. It’s the belief that you can out-ride a bad diet.
Riders will often think that because they have gone for a ride, they can eat and drink
what they want that night because they have ‘earned’ it. They aren’t fully wrong.
Riding burns calories, therefore you absolutely can eat & drink more calories that day
without putting on weight.
The mistake people make though is vastly over-estimating the calorie burn from a
ride. This isn’t necessarily even a conscious thought, but more subconscious. You
burn around 500 calories per hour of riding (this varies massively depending on the
e ort put in) so a typical 2 hour ride burns roughly 1000 calories. Not a small amount.
But if you hit the pub and have 2 beers and a burger with chips you’ll comfortably
consume 2,000 calories in one sitting…and probably have room for more a couple of
hours later.
You then feel you can eat what you want at home that evening because you’ve had a
ride…so you’ll raid the fridge and enjoy 1/2 a family bar of chocolate with TV that
evening.
If you want to lose weight, it’s imperative to understand that you can’t out-ride a bad
diet. In other words, don’t get your diet under control and you WILL NOT lose weight,
even if you ride daily. Instead, you need to work on both improving your diet and
increasing exercise/riding. This gets you into a calorie de cit (more on this later) which
causes you to burn fat and lose weight.
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Riding often unfortunately doesn’t mean you can eat what you want. You need to eat
well and ride often. What you eat still matters.
So you know you can’t out-ride a bad diet. What you eat is super important. The next
mistake many riders make when trying to lose weight is not tracking their calorie
intake.
See - when it comes to losing weight for us mountain bikers you need to strike a ne
balance between eating few enough calories that you lose weight…but not so few
that you end up with no energy and are unable to fully recover between rides. It’s a
ne line and one that can be really tough to get right when you just go ‘by feel’.
Instead of just winging it and relying on hunger or how much you think you should eat,
it pays to track how much you eat each day. That way you have actionable data to
work o . While technically all calories are equal (a calorie is just a measure of energy),
all calories don’t have the same e ect on our hunger levels. Eat 200 calories from a
chocolate bar and you’ll feel full for 20 minutes. Eat 200 calories of chicken though,
for example, and you will feel full for much longer. That’s one of the reasons that
simply relying on your hunger to de ne when you eat is really tricky. The foods we eat
have a huge variance in calories and how full we feel for those calories.
Using an app to track your calorie intake each day is a great idea (MyFitnessPal is a
good one). Record everything you eat and drink each day and you’ll get a much
greater idea of how many calories are in the food you eat and also how satiating they
are. When you weigh yourself each week you can then adjust your calories. Losing
0.5-2lbs a week and you are on track. Losing less than that and you can decrease
your calorie intake. Losing more than that and you can increase your calories. This
helps you walk that line between eating too much and too little.
The aim is to lose weight gradually. There’s no rush. Often people try to lose it far too
fast and eat far too few calories. They maintain it for a week or two…but then
discipline fails and they fall o the wagon. Losing the weight more gradually means
you can eat more calories and therefore have higher energy levels. This makes the
whole process much easier as you aren’t starving all the time and don’t have to
endure really low energy levels.
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It’s important to understand though that losing weight, by de nition, means you have
to eat less calories than you burn. That means that your energy levels won’t be
optimum. You will have to push through some hunger and you won’t perform at your
max. It’s short term though. Put up with it short term and the bene ts of the weightloss will be well worth it long term!
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7 - Not Tracking Calories
So - track your calories. Record everything you eat and drink so you know how many
calories you eat each day. It takes a little discipline to consistently do it but it’s well
worth doing.
8 - Not Eating Enough Protein
When it comes to eating for weight-loss, protein is your best friend. Protein is really
important for us mountain bikers.
When we ride or train, we break down our muscles creating 'microtears'. To rebuild
them back stronger, we need protein. Don't eat enough protein and you won't recover
as well as you can between rides and workouts and therefore won't progress as well
as you could. You'll also nd you are sluggish and weak for much longer after a ride or
workout.
Unless you are making a real conscious e ort, chances are you aren't eating as much
protein as would be bene cial.
It's the general consensus that active people, like us riders, want to aim to eat 1.5g-2g
of protein per KG of bodyweight.
So, if you weigh 95kg, you would aim for 142.5g-190g protein per day.
You generally work your protein goal based on 'lean mass' but that can be tricky to
work out. A simple way to think of it is if you are really lean, aim for 2x bodyweight. If
you are overweight, sway towards 1.5g per kg. Generally that means having a meal 3x
a day that has a good protein source (a full chicken breast, a steak, a big salmon llet,
or vegetarian sources like lentils for example) and then a protein snack such as a
protein shake.
The simplest way to know if you are hitting your protein goal is simply to track your
food (in an app like MyFitnessPal as mentioned)
There are other bene ts to eating plenty of protein too :
-Protein is more satiating than carbs and fat calorie for calorie. It keeps you feeling
fuller for longer, which means through the day you eat less calories over all
-It takes a lot of energy for your body to breakdown protein. 20-30% of the calories
you eat from protein are actually used to digest protein, whereas breaking down carbs
uses 5-10% of the calories and fat only 1-3%. That means you can eat more calories
from protein, keeping you feeling fuller for longer, with the net calorie e ect being
lower.
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-You can eat a large amount of food for a small amount of calories. A large, skinless
chicken breast contains roughly the same amount of calories as a Mars bar (give or
take). You will eat the Mars bar in 20 seconds at and will digest it rapidly meaning
you'll be hungry again 20 minutes later. In comparison, add some veg to the chicken
breast and you have a meal that will keep you full for 3-5 hours.
-When dieting, eating plenty of protein helps lower the amount of muscle you lose.
This helps you keep your muscle mass, while losing fat.
So, protein is the bomb. Eat more of it and you'll likely recover better and get/stay
leaner!
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(Note - fats and carbs are still important, but most people reading this eat too many
carbs/fat and not enough protein).
9 - Not Eating While Riding
When I speak to mountain bikers who have a goal of losing weight, they will very often
talk about how they don't eat while they ride to burn more fat and lose more weight.
The logic appears to make sense. "I need energy while I ride, if I don't eat while I ride,
I'll use body fat as energy and lose more weight. Job's a good'un".
Unfortunately, weight-loss doesn't work like that.
First of all, mountain biking predominantly uses carbs (glycogen) as fuel, unless we
ride at a very low intensity. When we starve ourselves while we ride, all we are doing is
severely hampering our energy levels and ensuring we have to cut our ride short, or
ride much slower than we could. When you hit 90+ minutes of a ride and aren't eating,
you will hit a serious wall. If you want to ride for any length of time longer than 90
minutes, with good energy levels, you are going to SERIOUSLY struggle.
Weight-loss is all about being in a calorie de cit. Eat less than you burn and you will
lose weight. It doesn't matter how many calories you eat speci cally while you ride,
it's about how many calories you eat in total in a day (and over the week).
Many people who don't eat while they ride will get home STARVING and then eat far
more calories than they burnt on the ride while raiding the cupboards over the next
few hours.
You don't lose weight speci cally while you exercise. You lose weight over days and
weeks of being in a calorie de cit. That's REALLY important to understand. Mountain
biking is one great way of adding to that calorie de cit.
Instead - riders who want to lose weight should eat every 35-45 minutes while they
ride. This will keep energy levels high and allow you to rider harder and for longer,
therefore burning more calories. When you get home, you won't be as starving and
therefore won't over-eat as many calories. You will also have more energy the next day
to ride and train (rather than being oored from not eating)
Over time this will mean you lose more weight.
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So to summarise, should you ride fasted in order to lose more weight? For the vast
majority of people reading this - no. It over complicates things and makes you more
likely to fail. Simple wins 99% of the time.
I think this is one of the main reasons people put o starting their weight-loss e orts.
They think that in order to lose weight, they need to wait until a time when they can be
100% disciplined and eat perfectly. As we have spoken about before though, this time
rarely comes. You will always have social commitments, work deadlines and things in
life that ‘get in the way’. The thing is, you don’t need to see these other commitments
as ‘getting in the way’. Eating well should bene t your life, not take away from it. That
means with a good routine you can enjoy those social events and still get results. Life
is for living, not hiding away at home only eating raw carrots and unseasoned chicken
breasts.
To lose weight, you do not have to be perfect all of the time. Especially as you start to
lose weight. It’s absolutely ne to have the odd meal out on a weekend and the odd
beer. You do not have to be a saint. You’ll nd through tracking your calories that you
can actually eat a lot of the foods you want to eat and factor them into your daily
calorie intake. For example you can have a cake through the day or a chocolate bar…
as long as you record it and let it slot into your daily calorie target.
Now, as you lose more and more weight it becomes harder to lose weight. When you
rst start, you actually don’t need to be as strict as when you are trying to lose those
last few pounds/KGs. Your body doesn’t actually want you to be really lean. In
caveman times when we had to hunt for food, not having fat reserves could mean you
starve to death if you struggle to nd food. That means your body does it’s best to
hold onto it’s fat stores as you get leaner and leaner. This means that the closer you
get to your goal, the harder you have to work. I think that’s good though. It’s easier to
lose at the beginning when you really need to get the momentum going…then harder
when you are in a good routine and have much more discipline/motivation because
you have been in a good routine for weeks or months.
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Again, this comes back to tracking your calories. You may nd that if you have one
day a week where you overeat 500-1000 calories you can still lose weight. Or you
might nd this stops your weight-loss dead. Either way, use the data. If you know that
going over your calorie goal halts or reverses your weight-loss then the day before a
meal out with friends you could eat less calories. Or you could have a smaller lunch to
compensate for a bigger dinner. Or you could go for a big ride to burn more calories,
allowing you to eat more. It’s all about getting into your groove. The longer you stick to
a good diet and track your calorie intake, the more you will understand your body and
how foods a ect it. It’s a learning process. Don’t stress about getting it perfect from
the beginning.
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10 - Thinking You Have To Be 100% All The Time
I could go on and on and on about nutrition (I do in my guide Stupidly Simple Nutrition
For Mountain Bikers - I highly recommend you read it) but I want to nish this section
with one thing :
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When you fall o the wagon, don’t stress, just get back on it. It was my 30th Birthday
in November 2022. Sophie, my other half, surprised me with 10 days of adventures
and meals out. It was right in the middle of me losing weight…and it was fantastic fun.
I stopped tracking calories for the 10 days. I put on 2kg. And you know what? I didn’t
care one bit. Life is for living. I put on 2kg and had 10 days I’ll remember when I’m 80.
It only takes a couple of weeks to get it o again. As soon as life went back to normal,
I continued. You need to do the same. Whether it’s illness, a holiday or just life in
general…when you fall o the wagon, get back on it. Don’t let it derail you for months.
TRAINING MISTAKES
Consciously training is really important. Whether it’s riding, running, climbing, hitting
the gym or any other period of time where you consciously push yourself and ‘train’.
Training and riding is imperative not only for your weight-loss…but for improving your
tness both on and o the bike too. But I don’t need to tell you that.
While your active time training is super important, it only accounts for 1-4 hours a day.
The other 11-15 hours a day where you aren’t sleeping account for the vast majority of
the rest of your waking hours. You can make a real dent in your calorie burn in these
hours.
It’s repeated so often that we see it as a cliche, but moving more and making active
choices through the day really does matter. Taking the stairs instead of the escalator.
Parking 5 minutes extra walk from the supermarket entrance (my fellow petrolheads
probably do this anyway haha). Standing up to talk on the phone instead of sitting.
Going for a walk in your lunch break. Anything that makes you a little more active will
help you move the needle and help you increase your calorie burn.
The more you move, the more calories you burn. I used to be a full time personal
trainer working 6 days a week. Most of those days I was in the gym, on my feet for
12-14 hours. For 90% of those hours I was training clients, running classes, training
myself or walking around the gym chatting to people. It meant I could comfortably eat
4,000 calories a day…and stay super lean. Now I spend most of my days on my
laptop I have to be much more conscious of the food I eat and the amount I eat. I
simply don’t burn as many calories as I used to. Bare in mind the job you do - a
builder will burn far more calories each day than an o ce worker. Someone stacking
shelves in a Supermarket will burn more calories than the person doing the accounts
in the back o ce.
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You don’t control how active you are with your job (so adjust your calories accordingly
for this) but you do control how much you move and get active through the day.
Taking the steps I’ve mentioned really helps increase your calorie burn and therefore
increase your weight-loss.
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11 - Writing O The ‘Little Things’
12 - ‘Only’ Riding
Many people believe cardio is for burning fat and lifting weights is for building muscle.
It’s not the case. As we have already discussed - exercise in general increases calorie
burn. Eat in a calorie de cit and you could get to your target weight only doing
cardio…or only doing weights. The important thing is, you guessed it, calorie de cit.
In fact, combining both riding and resistance training is a fantastic way to not only
lose more weight, but to improve your performance on the bike, increase the number
of calories you can eat, the amount of carbs you can store in your body and to look
better in the mirror.
See, when you resistance train either in the gym or at home doing bodyweight
exercises you will build muscle. Only small amounts, especially when in a calorie
de cit, but this has big bene ts :
- Lifting weights makes it less likely you will burn muscle rather than fat while in a
calorie de cit as it sends a clear signal to your body that you need that extra
muscle.
- We store glycogen (broken down carbohydrate) in our liver and our muscles. The
more muscle we have, the more carbs we can store. This means you can eat more
carbs without gaining fat.
- Muscle is ‘metabolically active’. This means it burns energy. The more muscle you
have, the more calories you burn each day without doing anything. Estimates range
from 7 calories per day to 50 calories per day per pound of muscle (most studies
show it’s likely closer to 7).
- Resistance training will bene t your riding. You can move better and more
powerfully when you are stronger. You are less likely to injure yourself. You can
climb more easily. That means as you are losing weight…you can also be training to
get stronger meaning you will have a double bene t of weight-loss and greater
performance through all your e orts.
- Muscle helps you look more toned and in better shape. I imagine that none of us
reading this want to look like a body-builder. But we probably do want to look ‘in
shape’. You achieve this look through building muscle.
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I would HIGHLY recommend training o the bike. It gives so many bene ts and it
takes a lot less time than a ride so it can slot into your life much more easily.
13 - Get Them zzzzzz’s
Sleep is not the rst thing you think of when it comes to weight-loss, but it's crucial.
Sleep deprivation, simply not sleeping as much as we need, increases cortisol levels.
This is a stress hormone that increases fat storage. As well as this, the more tired we
get the more we crave unhealthy food and the harder it is to be disciplined. Getting
good sleep makes training and sticking to a good diet much easier.
Not only this, but if you aren't getting a quality 6-8 hours sleep per night then you
aren't recovering as well as you could be between rides and workouts.
You won't be as sharp and focused as you could be and your energy levels and
motivation won't be at their peak.
With all that in mind, here’s some quick re tips to sleep better 1. Turn o all technology 1 hour before bed
2. Take a bath or warm shower straight before bed
3. Read for 30 minutes before bed
4. Stop drinking ca eine at 2pm
5. Have a warm drink (non ca eine) before bed
6. Have a pitch black room
7. Have comfy, high quality sheets
8. Buy a good quality mattress
9. Use a sleep tracker app to assess and track sleep quality
10. Meditate before bed
11. If you mind works overtime then write down all your to-do's in bed so
you can stop thinking about them
12. Play calming music in/before bed
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13. Use lavender sprays on your pillow
14. Taper your water so you drink more in the morning and less at night so you don't
have to wake for the toilet
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One of the biggest changes that has recently improved my sleep quality and length
was going from two co ees per day to one. Lowering ca eine intake has a real
positive impact on sleep. Whichever of the tips above you implement though, sleeping
well is real important for losing weight.
This rings true in the nutrition section and it rings true here. Losing weight and getting
t is much more about showing up consistently than it is about being perfect. You
don’t have to train perfectly every workout. You don’t have to hit PR after PR on every
ride. You don’t need to feel like riding or training every time. You just need to show up
and do it.
Being consistently good with your riding and training absolutely wipes the oor with
having the odd perfect ride or workout. We aren’t athletes. We can’t train, recover and
eat right full time. That means we will not be perfect all the time. Accepting that not
every workout will be your best…and you won’t feel at your peak on every ride is
actually quite freeing. It’s much more important to show up than to demand perfection
from yourself…then beat yourself up when 9 times out of 10 you don’t achieve it.
When it comes to training, focus on being good. A great example - of the 1,000+
people on the MTB Fit app, none of them are perfect. They have a good week. They
have a great week. They have a terrible week. But you know what those who continue
to see results don’t do? They don’t quit!
The vast majority get ill for a few days. Or go on holiday. Or have a work commitment
pop up that means they can’t stick to it 100%. That’s all good! They may continue
after a week o . Whatever they do though they don’t get obsessed with being
‘perfect’. They work on being good.
Consistently good will beat sporadically perfect every day of the week. Of course - if
you can be consistently perfect then winner winner. Most of us have more
commitments though and that simply isn’t realistic.
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Just start. Just do. Just show up.
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14 - Consistently Good Beats Sporadically Perfect
I absolutely bloody hate starting training and riding again after a couple of weeks o .
The worst is always after the summer. Me and Sophie generally have 2-3 weeks o
together in August, usually in Orlando (we are big Disney fans). That means not going
to the gym and eating far from optimally. That rst week of training when I get back is
always awful. You feel un t, sick, dizzy, weak and then you get SO SORE for a few
days after every ride or workout.
The thing is this is just the start. Training and riding regularly feels much worse for the
rst week or two than after that. After that, your body gets used to it. You don’t feel
sick all the way through a workout. Your muscles don’t hurt for a week. You don’t have
to drag yourself through it.
A mistake many make (you see this a lot in January) is people don’t push through that
initial hard phase to get through to the other side. They make the mistake in thinking
that every week is like that rst week of training and riding more. It isn’t. The rst week
sucks. It’s unpleasant. After that it gets much much easier.
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Hopefully, now you are at the end this guide you are feeling red up and motivated to
lose weight. When you start training and riding harder, understand it will get harder
before it gets easier. It will be a huge shock to your system to begin with…and that’s
ok! Just stay disciplined and keep going for a couple of weeks. Force yourself if you
have to, but get to the other side. When you get through that initial slog it becomes
much easier. Just imagine a rocket ship battling it’s way through the atmosphere, re
everywhere, jets on full boost before it breaks through and then…calm. Go through
the tough bit and it will get easier.
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15 - Giving Up Before You Get Through The Hard Bit
Now what?
Thankyou so much for reading this mini-guide. I really hope it’s brought you some
value. You may be wondering where next? What now? I highly recommend signing up
for a 7 day free trial of the MTB Fit app. It’s the perfect next step.
You can do that by pressing the button below or going to www.mtb. tness
Thanks so much for reading and see you on the trails,
Matt
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