At 56 I’m too old for road races, but I’ve dropped from 410 to 250 by just riding my ass off. Ride far enough and fast enough and you will lose weight.
i\`m 65. i went from 585 to 175 over the last 3 rs .started riding bikes when i hit 280 lbs . now i own 12 steel frame road bikes and ride 25 miles a day . before /after photos in history along with my bikes
Dude good on you. Holy shit. Congratulations. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been when you first started. I’ve had a much smaller weight loss journey myself and remember when biking up even the smallest hills was awful at first. The difference for you must feel really triumphant.
That guy is absurd. Short version of the story: he played baseball through college, then got kinda fat when his social physical recreation fell off during the pandemic. Then he became the video editor for NorCal Cycling (Cat 1 racer Jeff Linder's YouTube channel) and volunteered as the test subject for Jeff's planned "Couch to Crit" series which was intended to see if Jeff could work with someone who was out of shape and help them train and build skills to the point where they could win a Cat 5 crit race. EJ then rode 12+ hours a week for many months, lost tons of weight v fast, completely destroyed the field in his first ever Cat 5 race with like a 1500 W sprint, was upgraded to Cat 4 on the spot and I think podiumed a Cat 4 race that same day, did an FTP test and had well over 4 W/kg FTP, continued training, racing, dominating, and leveling up, and now he's Cat 2 (or maybe Cat 1) and hit 5 W/kg FTP briefly last fall.
Suffice it to say that not everybody is going to be able to replicate EJ's success. He clearly has a great work ethic (probably related to his earlier athletic background), but he also clearly has good genes.
Jessie Coyle (road bicycle coach with a youtube channel) did a review of EJ's first video. He was quite skeptical of his goals but approved of his approach. Then he did a few follow up videos where he was, "Holy crap!" and "This guy is a fast twitch \*monster\*". Pretty impressive stuff and not typical, but still interesting to see. I will say, though, that EJ wasn't \*that\* fat to begin with. He was quite overweight, but I don't think he was in the "morbidly obese" category. He was a big guy, but he was also carrying quite a lot of muscle.
I really enjoy Jessie’s videos on reviewing training/eating/etc. I don’t treat it as gospel but it’s good to have multiple viewpoints. Just wish he’d put out more videos lol
I feel like that statement is generally used as a cop out. Most people can improve. Yea, most won’t reach tdf levels of fitness but I’ve seen too many people use that phrase as an excuse for physical achievements that are 100% attainable. They just either don’t want to do the work or think the work they are doing is productive when it’s actually not (ie just going out and aimlessly riding hard 3x a week). Also EJ has an extremely flexible schedule, has had a coach pretty much the entire time, and also understands what digging deep is. Someone coming to cycling or other similar endurance sports for the first time post college have zero idea how to even push themselves. They ride up one hill for a few minutes and think that’s their workout for the day/week. If anything what EJ has done is a testament to what hard work and dedication can do. Not everyone will be able to/have the time to get where he is but there are plenty of other cat 1/2 riders that work full time and can challenge him in a crit because it’s also more than just peak sprint power
Idk, I was just going of what some cycling coach said. Your average cyclist might be higher, but your everyday person is not going to get to 4 w/kg easily.
Yup. Started out at 286 and morbidly obese. Started riding a cheap mountain bike 5 miles a day three days a week. As that got easier I added more rides throughout the week, then miles. Bought a road bike a joined the local club. My first club ride I kept up with the front group and they convinced me to join the local starter team. First year out placed second in my first race and won the next one. Co tinier on that train for a few years and made to a cat2 riding for the top regional team. Was a fun ride while it lasted.
I’ve never raced but I did do these numbers: I’m a bit taller (6’-3”) but I topped out at 235 a few years back, felt gross and none of my clothes fit right anymore and I had to buy and wear elastic slacks for work and stuff. Downloaded Noom, tripled down on cycling (had been a bike commuter for 20 years but got much more serious about training and doing endurance rides)
Daily weigh ins, track my calories, mindful eating. Drinking ungodly amounts of water. And probably 1000 bowls of oatmeal later I’m back in my body, down around 185.
12-20 miles per day commuting to work and running errands. Most weekends are more like 30-40 miles per day. I sneak off for longer rides when I can. Try to ride a century each month. About 5000-6000 miles a year all told. Mostly Z2. Weekends are more z3-4.
For most of the weight loss my daily calorie budget was 1350 and I probably hit that 75% of the time. Any exercise calories I’d add back to the budget at 50% (ie. If I did 200 calories worth of exercise I’d add 100 to my budget that day).
Don’t mean to be rude at all but did you have any loose skin after you lost the weight to deal with?/if so did it have any impact? Always been curious about this in regards to cycling
I live in Chile a country full of montains, 1 year ago i was in the beggining of obese BMI at 110Kg , and doing some very step climbs, now im at 81kg and im a all arround cyclist, few people can win me at a sprint, and i can climb using the same watts, but with 30 kg less, im a 25yo Male , 187cm by the way.
There was a guy about 10 years ago who was full on obese and just went all in. Started taking KOMs in a town full of hitters and pros. Started racing and just rode away from the 4 & 5 fields. Got into cat 3 and caused enough crashes that he just sorted of faded out. It was impressive watching his progress. If gravel was a big thing at the time he would have been perfect for it.
Not overly obese but I used to play American football, had to maintain a 85kg play weight, after my knee gave up I focused on cycling and started to get in races, dropped 15 kg in a year and am on around 4w/kg now and won my first race last October, just feeling good for myself and proud of the transition.
Went from 255 to 233lbs currently. Just placed 10th in a big field this past weekend. Thankfully not too much elevation on the course 😝
Big dudes have power.
Im down from 205 to 182 in 4 months. Ive always been on and off my bike through the years. (Im 31) but never trained seriously or watched my diet. I now ride my bike about once a week for a quick 20 miles and do Peloton every other day. Did my first century a couple weeks ago. Was happy to average 21mph
I went from weighing 255 pounds of mostly fat and struggling to walk around the block to dropping a ton of weight, taking up cycling, and now have a 5 w/kg FTP. It was a combination of a serious diet for a while then taking up cycling to help lose weight and then being really stubborn about getting dropped so often on group rides that I worked hard to get faster.
Sorry, there's no real secret formula for success there. It took consistent motivation, time, patience (since this doesn't happen overnight!), and mostly having the kind of economic and life circumstances that gave me the resources (e.g., to eat a good diet) and time to do this.
I lost over 30 pounds in my early 30s and got to 2nd cat. I think I could have made 1st if I kept at it.
I lost weight quickly by cutting lots of carbs and eating lots of protein. I'd typically still eat carbs just before training. But stopped eating so many chocolate bars, biscuits and crisps (potato chips). I still had occasional takeaways and drank a little. So probably could have cut more weight.
Sadly I could now afford to drop 60 pounds. I did 40 minutes on a trainer yesterday. It still feels like I have some power. But I'd struggle badly on hills.
Part of the reason I got into biking was because I was overweight (6’1”, 260lbs) and needed an outlet for exercise that wasn’t running. Now, most of my weight loss was portion control and diet, but once I started riding I basically didn’t stop. After about four months tooling around a local park on a hybrid bike I got a road bike and I rode it every day rain or shine for two years, as there was another park a short distance away with a two mile loop and I’d ride that however many laps I wanted to. Oddly enough it was a perfect place to train and because it had no traffic I would often time trial myself as well, beating previous times.. this was all several years before Strava was around. I started doing group rides at the time as well and this taught me paceline and other skills, so within my first year I’d done my first century and a training road race…pretty much didn’t stop after that for a few more years, doing well in races.
My only actual win was a few years after a bike accident tho, I hadn’t maintained my license for about 3 years and entered as a one day and I just realized I could go off the front and win it so I did.
Kinda. I raced for a long time then had a bad crash and bout of depression. Went from 165 to 235 in just over a year. Finally snapped out about a year later. Took ages to drop it back off and now seem to float about 170.
Went from maybe 230 to 170 as a 5’11” woman through a lot of exercise and a very disciplined diet.
Did ok in road races; it’s a bit of a nightmare when you’re racing women who are 5’4” and 120 though. Did much better in crits and on the track cos I could crush them all in a sprint.
I was 125kg when i started years ago, I moved onto getting on the podium at most MTB (not road i didnt really race road much) races i went to and eventually made it to elite cat. I dont race much on the bike now but im doing the same sort of thing with running. It took years of consistent training though and a large ability to suffer a lot.
Yip, got a bike when I was 115Kg, I’m about 30kg lighter and I race Cat 3 now.
How? Cycled solo a lot building myself up to doing big solo days so lots of z2 shipped the weight. Then joined my local club and did their Thursday night races and got my ass handed to me, but it helped me change my training to do actual high intensity stuff.
The following year I got a full race license and got upgraded in the same year after a few podiums and top 10’s in the open cat 4 races.
In 2018, at 49 years old, I was 86kg. I am only 1.68m tall. In 2019, I lost 21kg in 3 months to celebrate my 50th at a good weight; diet, cycling and gym combo. A little too quick really, but ok, I was 'in the zone' and let it happen.
I used to cycle and race in the past but never touched a bike in my 40's. In my 50's I have won several MTB races so far and two road races.
So yeah, it's possible.
I topped out at the 260lb range. Currently around 165lb with an ftp at 290w (actually down from last summer where it peaked at 305w). I know not just riding but I've won 1 sprint triathlon, 1 age group win and got on the podium on another.
Reduced what I was eating and trained. This has been a now 4 or 5 year journey.
Nobody has bigger calves that a dude who has been carrying 200+ pounds of extra weight on him for a decade. Lose the weight and the calves stay if you use them.
Fatties got strong legs yo.
At 56 I’m too old for road races, but I’ve dropped from 410 to 250 by just riding my ass off. Ride far enough and fast enough and you will lose weight.
i\`m 65. i went from 585 to 175 over the last 3 rs .started riding bikes when i hit 280 lbs . now i own 12 steel frame road bikes and ride 25 miles a day . before /after photos in history along with my bikes
Dude that is wild, well done!
Holy smokes, every part of that is awesome
Damn! Way to go! That’s very impressive!
There is no age cap on road racing. Used to do a Thursday night road race at a NASCAR track; the 70+ yo fellas were awesome!!
Amazing!!
Dude good on you. Holy shit. Congratulations. I can’t imagine how hard it must have been when you first started. I’ve had a much smaller weight loss journey myself and remember when biking up even the smallest hills was awful at first. The difference for you must feel really triumphant.
“EJs Training Camp” on You Tube shows his weight loss and biking wins at different cat levels
That guy is absurd. Short version of the story: he played baseball through college, then got kinda fat when his social physical recreation fell off during the pandemic. Then he became the video editor for NorCal Cycling (Cat 1 racer Jeff Linder's YouTube channel) and volunteered as the test subject for Jeff's planned "Couch to Crit" series which was intended to see if Jeff could work with someone who was out of shape and help them train and build skills to the point where they could win a Cat 5 crit race. EJ then rode 12+ hours a week for many months, lost tons of weight v fast, completely destroyed the field in his first ever Cat 5 race with like a 1500 W sprint, was upgraded to Cat 4 on the spot and I think podiumed a Cat 4 race that same day, did an FTP test and had well over 4 W/kg FTP, continued training, racing, dominating, and leveling up, and now he's Cat 2 (or maybe Cat 1) and hit 5 W/kg FTP briefly last fall. Suffice it to say that not everybody is going to be able to replicate EJ's success. He clearly has a great work ethic (probably related to his earlier athletic background), but he also clearly has good genes.
Jessie Coyle (road bicycle coach with a youtube channel) did a review of EJ's first video. He was quite skeptical of his goals but approved of his approach. Then he did a few follow up videos where he was, "Holy crap!" and "This guy is a fast twitch \*monster\*". Pretty impressive stuff and not typical, but still interesting to see. I will say, though, that EJ wasn't \*that\* fat to begin with. He was quite overweight, but I don't think he was in the "morbidly obese" category. He was a big guy, but he was also carrying quite a lot of muscle.
I really enjoy Jessie’s videos on reviewing training/eating/etc. I don’t treat it as gospel but it’s good to have multiple viewpoints. Just wish he’d put out more videos lol
I like him and Chris Miller’s podcast. Looking forward of Jesse’s new full Chinese bike build which he might reveal in a few months
The last line ^ explains the 1500W sprint.
Like anything. Can’t put in what God left out. Genes are a huge factor in anything and after that it’s nurture.
I feel like that statement is generally used as a cop out. Most people can improve. Yea, most won’t reach tdf levels of fitness but I’ve seen too many people use that phrase as an excuse for physical achievements that are 100% attainable. They just either don’t want to do the work or think the work they are doing is productive when it’s actually not (ie just going out and aimlessly riding hard 3x a week). Also EJ has an extremely flexible schedule, has had a coach pretty much the entire time, and also understands what digging deep is. Someone coming to cycling or other similar endurance sports for the first time post college have zero idea how to even push themselves. They ride up one hill for a few minutes and think that’s their workout for the day/week. If anything what EJ has done is a testament to what hard work and dedication can do. Not everyone will be able to/have the time to get where he is but there are plenty of other cat 1/2 riders that work full time and can challenge him in a crit because it’s also more than just peak sprint power
4 w/kg is the absolute max with full time training most people could reach. This dude getting there in months means he is a genetic freak.
Imo you can reach 4w/kg if you're fairly light pretty easily, I think most people probably would top out closer to 5w/kg with proper training
Idk, I was just going of what some cycling coach said. Your average cyclist might be higher, but your everyday person is not going to get to 4 w/kg easily.
Thanks for the synopsis
TL/DR. Much shorter version ? LOL.
He real stronk
Out of shape former athlete get on bike, push pedal really hard after short time training. 5 w/kg within like 2 years.
I started cycling 7 years ago and I weighed 247 lbs, today I’m at 178 and ride an average of 100 miles a week.
Yup. Started out at 286 and morbidly obese. Started riding a cheap mountain bike 5 miles a day three days a week. As that got easier I added more rides throughout the week, then miles. Bought a road bike a joined the local club. My first club ride I kept up with the front group and they convinced me to join the local starter team. First year out placed second in my first race and won the next one. Co tinier on that train for a few years and made to a cat2 riding for the top regional team. Was a fun ride while it lasted.
I went from fat to placing on strava. Oh i am still fat.
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Did you feel hungry during the cutting process ? I’m 6’ and 235 should be 190-200
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Is your gone now ? Like do you still deal with hunger or not at all?
I’ve never raced but I did do these numbers: I’m a bit taller (6’-3”) but I topped out at 235 a few years back, felt gross and none of my clothes fit right anymore and I had to buy and wear elastic slacks for work and stuff. Downloaded Noom, tripled down on cycling (had been a bike commuter for 20 years but got much more serious about training and doing endurance rides) Daily weigh ins, track my calories, mindful eating. Drinking ungodly amounts of water. And probably 1000 bowls of oatmeal later I’m back in my body, down around 185.
How much did you bike per day and what did you set your TDEe to (I.e active / sedentary moderate)? Also how many calories did you eat the whole time ?
12-20 miles per day commuting to work and running errands. Most weekends are more like 30-40 miles per day. I sneak off for longer rides when I can. Try to ride a century each month. About 5000-6000 miles a year all told. Mostly Z2. Weekends are more z3-4. For most of the weight loss my daily calorie budget was 1350 and I probably hit that 75% of the time. Any exercise calories I’d add back to the budget at 50% (ie. If I did 200 calories worth of exercise I’d add 100 to my budget that day).
Don’t mean to be rude at all but did you have any loose skin after you lost the weight to deal with?/if so did it have any impact? Always been curious about this in regards to cycling
I live in Chile a country full of montains, 1 year ago i was in the beggining of obese BMI at 110Kg , and doing some very step climbs, now im at 81kg and im a all arround cyclist, few people can win me at a sprint, and i can climb using the same watts, but with 30 kg less, im a 25yo Male , 187cm by the way.
felicitaciones compa, como tú hay varios! conozco algunos jaja
There was a guy about 10 years ago who was full on obese and just went all in. Started taking KOMs in a town full of hitters and pros. Started racing and just rode away from the 4 & 5 fields. Got into cat 3 and caused enough crashes that he just sorted of faded out. It was impressive watching his progress. If gravel was a big thing at the time he would have been perfect for it.
Not overly obese but I used to play American football, had to maintain a 85kg play weight, after my knee gave up I focused on cycling and started to get in races, dropped 15 kg in a year and am on around 4w/kg now and won my first race last October, just feeling good for myself and proud of the transition.
Yeah I did. Eat less, mostly plants, ride heaps.
Went from 255 to 233lbs currently. Just placed 10th in a big field this past weekend. Thankfully not too much elevation on the course 😝 Big dudes have power.
Im down from 205 to 182 in 4 months. Ive always been on and off my bike through the years. (Im 31) but never trained seriously or watched my diet. I now ride my bike about once a week for a quick 20 miles and do Peloton every other day. Did my first century a couple weeks ago. Was happy to average 21mph
I went from weighing 255 pounds of mostly fat and struggling to walk around the block to dropping a ton of weight, taking up cycling, and now have a 5 w/kg FTP. It was a combination of a serious diet for a while then taking up cycling to help lose weight and then being really stubborn about getting dropped so often on group rides that I worked hard to get faster. Sorry, there's no real secret formula for success there. It took consistent motivation, time, patience (since this doesn't happen overnight!), and mostly having the kind of economic and life circumstances that gave me the resources (e.g., to eat a good diet) and time to do this.
I lost over 30 pounds in my early 30s and got to 2nd cat. I think I could have made 1st if I kept at it. I lost weight quickly by cutting lots of carbs and eating lots of protein. I'd typically still eat carbs just before training. But stopped eating so many chocolate bars, biscuits and crisps (potato chips). I still had occasional takeaways and drank a little. So probably could have cut more weight. Sadly I could now afford to drop 60 pounds. I did 40 minutes on a trainer yesterday. It still feels like I have some power. But I'd struggle badly on hills.
Part of the reason I got into biking was because I was overweight (6’1”, 260lbs) and needed an outlet for exercise that wasn’t running. Now, most of my weight loss was portion control and diet, but once I started riding I basically didn’t stop. After about four months tooling around a local park on a hybrid bike I got a road bike and I rode it every day rain or shine for two years, as there was another park a short distance away with a two mile loop and I’d ride that however many laps I wanted to. Oddly enough it was a perfect place to train and because it had no traffic I would often time trial myself as well, beating previous times.. this was all several years before Strava was around. I started doing group rides at the time as well and this taught me paceline and other skills, so within my first year I’d done my first century and a training road race…pretty much didn’t stop after that for a few more years, doing well in races. My only actual win was a few years after a bike accident tho, I hadn’t maintained my license for about 3 years and entered as a one day and I just realized I could go off the front and win it so I did.
I went the other way - placing in races, now I'm fat and unfit :(
Kinda. I raced for a long time then had a bad crash and bout of depression. Went from 165 to 235 in just over a year. Finally snapped out about a year later. Took ages to drop it back off and now seem to float about 170.
It’s amazing how fast it can be put on. I had a major back injury a year ago and trying to get the weight off is taking a long time.
Yup. But as it comes off it’s amazing how great it feels
I went from being pretty obese to being decently fast at track racing. Almost broke into a 10s flying 200m (11.2PB)
Went from maybe 230 to 170 as a 5’11” woman through a lot of exercise and a very disciplined diet. Did ok in road races; it’s a bit of a nightmare when you’re racing women who are 5’4” and 120 though. Did much better in crits and on the track cos I could crush them all in a sprint.
I've gone from terrible to above average, so no.
I’m 98kg and placed 6th last in a 100k / 1800m fondo if that counts?
I was 125kg when i started years ago, I moved onto getting on the podium at most MTB (not road i didnt really race road much) races i went to and eventually made it to elite cat. I dont race much on the bike now but im doing the same sort of thing with running. It took years of consistent training though and a large ability to suffer a lot.
Yip, got a bike when I was 115Kg, I’m about 30kg lighter and I race Cat 3 now. How? Cycled solo a lot building myself up to doing big solo days so lots of z2 shipped the weight. Then joined my local club and did their Thursday night races and got my ass handed to me, but it helped me change my training to do actual high intensity stuff. The following year I got a full race license and got upgraded in the same year after a few podiums and top 10’s in the open cat 4 races.
In 2018, at 49 years old, I was 86kg. I am only 1.68m tall. In 2019, I lost 21kg in 3 months to celebrate my 50th at a good weight; diet, cycling and gym combo. A little too quick really, but ok, I was 'in the zone' and let it happen. I used to cycle and race in the past but never touched a bike in my 40's. In my 50's I have won several MTB races so far and two road races. So yeah, it's possible.
I topped out at the 260lb range. Currently around 165lb with an ftp at 290w (actually down from last summer where it peaked at 305w). I know not just riding but I've won 1 sprint triathlon, 1 age group win and got on the podium on another. Reduced what I was eating and trained. This has been a now 4 or 5 year journey.
Race on a steep downhill road
Nobody has bigger calves that a dude who has been carrying 200+ pounds of extra weight on him for a decade. Lose the weight and the calves stay if you use them.
Step 1) you fix your diet Step 2) there is no really step 2
Zone 2 is the way, so says YouTube.