Newbie seeks your wisdom.

Your chills? Can't help ya. Your eating habits? You obviously know you need help in that department and weight loss will only occur when you eat better, not necessarily depriving yourself, but knowing moderation. Your butt? start with the saddle and getting fit properly and I'm sure there are padded shorts in your size. Just gotta look around.

You say, "I’m a carb fiend, not a sweets junkie". To your body, it doesn't make much of a difference. It sounds like the vast majority of your carbs are the easily-digestible sort -- sugar, HFCS, white flour, white rice, etc. That stuff is overloading your system with sugar, and that sugar turns into fat. Look at the juice you drink -- odds are it's loaded with either sugar or HFCS.

Congrats on the cycling, but don't think, as a lot of people do, that exercise is the primary determinant of weight loss. It's only accountable for about 20%. And in your case, with a 10 mile ride, it probably doesn't burn off more than 250 calories - equivalent to 1 large glass of HFCS laden fruit juice. Do the exercise to improve your muscle tone and endurance; change your eating habits to lose weight.

I personally don't buy the common line of calories in = calories out. Imagine if you were looking at cars, and made a statement like "1 gallon of gas will move your car 30 miles." Everyone would consider such an equation ridiculous. Why? Because it totally ignores the engine that's in the middle of the equation. A gallon of gas in a diesel hybrid will get over 200 miles; a gallon in a Hummer will get 10.

Same is true of the body - your metabolism is your engine. If you load that engine full of the wrong food, even if you drastically cut the amounts, you'll have a very difficult time losing weight. Sure, it's possible, but the success rate for the typical low fat / high carb diet recommended by the USDA is less than 5%. Overall, Americans have cut their consumption of fat in increased their consumption of carbs, and now we're in the middle of an obesity / diabetes epidemic.

You may find the low fat / high carb diet works for you, or you may try another approach. I've found it much easier to lose weight over the past 5 years by changing my approach to carbs. I get them primarily from fruits, vegetables, and whole grains. I do eat chocolate occasionally, but always the dark variety with a minimum amount of sugar. This approach may work for you too, and may be easier to stick to, since it doesn't involve starving yourself.

HI Saraya,
another newbie here, age 45 and started cycling about 4 weeks ago, and because im careful what im eating too, the weight is just dropping off. Like u i started with a small ride, but got bitten by the bug and out most nights now and doing between 25-35 km per night.
Get urself a pal to go with u its so much more fun and u keep each other pushing.
Once u have done a few hills u will find the feeling of actually getting up the impossible is fantastic, (although u cant get up breath for a while).
I go pretty cold quick, but not as bad as u describe, perhaps a bath.

good luck, keep it up its great fun, Ellen

I am not qualified to give health/diet advice and can't really help you with your freezing issue and other questions. But a simple calculation of 41 miles over 107 days means you only average a bit more than 2.5 miles per day or under 18 miles per week. I don't know how long it takes you to go 10 miles but you will need to work out for an hour or more at a time at least 3 times a week. So at minimum you should be trying to do 25-30 or more miles a week even if it is only 5 times a week at 5 miles each ride at 5 miles per hour. 10 mph is a leisurely pace on flat ground. So you will have to work up a plan to gradually bring this up to where you are working out longer and longer and harder and harder. This assumes that your doctor says you are fit enough for this.

I started riding consistently about last July with the goal of getting more fit. (Not that I was falling apart or anything.) I was not significantly overweight but liked the idea of losing 10 pounds or so. I started at 5'7 170lbs and 58 years old. I'm fairly muscular so that was not a lot of weight for my height and I just had the start of a paunch on my belly. Well I ride about 70-100 miles per week, rain, snow or sun and often fairly fast so it is generally a work out not a leisurely ride. Sometimes it is only 15 miles and other times 50. I haven't changed my eating habits much although I never was much of a snacker and don't drink any soda or sugared drinks. So I feel the additional exercise alone has reduced my weight about 10 lbs in that time period and everyone says I look fit and trim. So you see what I'm getting at. You'll have to make a serious effort to achieve significant results from your starting point. Get your mind totally committed to this and you'll be able to accomplish it over time. You are young and need to make a lifestyle plan you can carry in to the future.

Obviously if you want to lose significant weight you have to find the discipline to change your eating habits and lifestyle. This may require outside help and a big change in how you shop, what you eat, and how you prepare foods. You can't have unhealthful food in your home and expect not to eat it.

Freezing issue, can't figure that one out, you should probably see your doctor to rule out any problems. Your also not going anywhere near far enough, 107 miles in 41 days is 2.5 miles a day, that's assuming your riding most days, you need to ramp up distance, when distances are less then 10 miles, then add 1 mile each time, do not be afraid of traffic or hills. If your worried about being hit from behind, two things can really help, a mirror (I have a take-a-look mounted to my helmet ) and I run a rear (red) light in blinker mode when riding during the day. With your experience I would stick to day time riding only, for now.

Everyone hates hills, even though I returned to riding 4 years ago, I still run into some hills, I'm going to walk. There was one yesterday, if it would have been paved, I probably would have ridden up, it's a gravel road, and I walked up and down.

One of the respondents said about not believing in calories in - calories out, but it actually is true, you need to make sure that the calories your expending are more then your taking in, and when you reduce the calories your taking in, you need to increase the quality of those calories. Eat as much local food as possible, remember if it was grown next door and then sent elsewhere for processing, it does not count.

[FONT= times new roman]Thanks very much everybody for the replies. Sorry I didn’t respond yesterday. I didn’t have the email notification thing set correctly. [/FONT]

[FONT= times new roman]A work colleague follows a Paleo diet and today was day one of me trying it. So far I have been really pleasantly surprised as I don’t feel hungry at all – though I am REALLY missing my coffee! I’m going to take some healthy snacks with me for tonight’s shift, so I’m not tempted to cheat.[/FONT]

[FONT= times new roman]I’m only actually cycling 3 times a week at the moment, and that’s because I’m a coward. I have yet to go out by myself. Due to being a night worker and unsociable sleep patterns, there are only 3 days that hubby or teenage son can come with me. (They’ve been really great.) [/FONT]
[FONT= times new roman]I know I must grit my teeth and ‘grow a pair’ though, so I get out more often. [/FONT]

[FONT= times new roman]Thanks again for all advice. [IMG]/img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif[/IMG][/FONT]

Just a couple of recommendations for reading, since you're willing to try the low-carb approach.
Good Calories, Bad Calories, by Gary Taubes, goes into all the science behind the low carb approach. It can be a bit of a slog, especially if you aren't science oriented. But it has some of the most thorough explanations of why the low fat / high carb (and with it, the "calories in, calories out" idea) doesn't work for most people.
Why We Get Fat and What to do About It, also by Taubes, is a more lay-oriented approach to the same idea, and much easier to get through.

What you're finding with the Paleo diet is what almost everyone who tries it discovers -- high carb diets keep you hungry all the time, especially those laden with sugar and HFCS. And what researchers are finally beginning to expose is that high carb diets actually hurt your heart a lot more than higher fat diets.

On the chills issue:

The basic problem is that you’re exercising. You are generating excess internal body heat, which the body must get rid of (hyperthermia, or high internal temperature can kill). As a result, you sweat, your body's normal cooling mechanism. Compound this by the fact of obesity-you have a large amount of insulation (fat). Your body is used to an easy time regulating temperature-and is suddenly presented with a problem…

When you exercise, you generate large amounts of internal heat-which the body sheds by sweating.

You then stop exercising-but the cooling mechanism (sweating) doesn't stop as fast-and your core temperature plunges.

The net result is what you're experiencing-chills and shivers-the body attempting to re-establish equilibrium:

Chills-cover me and keep me warm...

Shivers-I'm not warm enough-generate more heat by involuntary muscle contraction.

I can speak volumes here-I've got the same problem!

Here's what works for me:

As soon as you get home from a ride-strip. Your clothes will likely be saturated with sweat-and will interfere with the normal cooling processes.

Take a shower, and pay attention to how you feel. If you're cold-get hot. If warm-cool off. I say this as you didn't mention factors such as ambient temperature or humidity which can effect the body's attempts at temperature regulation.

Dry off, dry clothes, and figure that for the next hour or so you'll be shedding excess heat-dress accordingly. Layers works well in this regard.

I must also mention that certain metabolic disorders can also influence these sensations. If they persist-seek medical attention.