im adding cycling every morning, do i need more caslories to lose weight ...

[krazy_a_27]

i wanna lose weight but keep muscle

im eating around 1800- 2000 calories a day and now wanna add cycling every morning, should i up my calories?

[MrRR]

Putting on my wizards hat, I'll get back to you when I find the answer.

[Ed-B]

i wanna lose weight but keep muscle

im eating around 1800- 2000 calories a day and now wanna add cycling every morning, should i up my calories?

I'm a cyclist. I'd say that it depends on the intensity and duration of the ride. If you're just out for a little spin and don't push it, you might be okay at your present intake. But if you go hard, ride hills, sprint for the traffic lights, etc, then you'll need to eat for it. It's essentially the difference between LISS cardio and extended HIIT cardio.

I treat my bicycling like a leg workout combined with cardio. I use carb cycling as a dietary method, and a bike ride is typically a high carb day for me. For example, at my stats, Fitday figures an expenditure of about 900 calories for a two hour ride at a moderate pace. So if I ride in the morning I eat a good breakfast, I have some BCAAs and a little protein just before I go out, and I bring a banana and half a sandwich along with some Gatorade on the bike. I don't always eat it all - I eat what I think I need on the ride so as not to overfeed and blow the daily deficit for my cut. But if I want to go long I have the fuel to keep going. I can do this and still lose weight.

In the past I discovered that you can go catabolic riding depleted on a ketogenic diet, feeling wasted mid-ride, and ultimately I lost muscle mass doing this. Even my legs got smaller, which was surprising given that they were doing most all of the work. So now I make sure to get the fuel I need to enjoy the sport and still progress on my "bodybuilding" goals.

[jay24k]

How much are you losing per week? My opinion is if less then 2, I'd not adjust calories. If 2 or more, eat some more.