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Re:How to lose weight. No, really. by kmavm on Thursday November 19, 2009 @01:18PM (#950726)
An hour of hard cycling burns about 700 kcals, which is a medium-sized meal. A candy bar is on the order of 250 kcals typically.
Re:How to lose weight. No, really. by xiaoma on Thursday November 19, 2009 @02:26PM (#950872)
Very true. I burn 1000 kcals in an hour of running on an easy day, and closer to 1300 during a tempo workout.

Also, the health benefits of cardio are numerous, ranging from stress reduction to neurogenesis to longer telomeres. It's not just about how good looking your body is.

Re:How to lose weight. No, really. by gamble on Thursday November 19, 2009 @11:11PM (#951865)
700 kcals is on the extreme high end for an hour of cycling. You'd have to be fairly heavy already and pushing it as hard as you can go. A normal person putting in average effect is probably more like 250-300 kcal.
Re:How to lose weight. No, really. by kmavm on Saturday November 21, 2009 @02:50AM (#954334)
I weigh 145. 700 kcals is about "tempo" effort: hard, but still fun-hard. All out, in the best shape of my life for one hour is around 900 kcals. I'm in good, but not phenomenal shape; my brief flirtations with road racing ended in utter humiliation.

I know this because of my on-bike power meter, which measures mechanical work in kJ. That "perfect hour" was around 280 W, and I've done it twice. (Cyclists have a very narrow range of biological efficiencies, so you can just multiply mechanical by a constant to reckon metabolic work.)