How much you have to pedal to lose one kilogram of fat

If one of your main goals for cycling is to lose weight, you've made the right choice. Because cycling is very useful for developing a very complete exercise that helps you to lose your body fat, which is the weight, so to speak, that we don't want. But how many pedals do you have to give to burn each kilo of fat?

The first formula for losing a kilo of fat on a bicycle

All we are going to tell you, keep in mind, are approximate values. Your metabolism and the type of cycling you do determine to a large extent how much fat you can lose by cycling, and how long you can do it. And don't forget, along with the fat output, the input: what you eat, which counts as much or more. So the data needs to be put into perspective.

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But if you are looking for an approximate formula to know what you have to do on a bike to eliminate a complete kilo of fat, we have it.

First of all, you should calculate how much energy you are spending on your cycling route. The estimate is obtained by multiplying the average watts you have put into the hub by the time in hours you have spent. We do this in hours so that the value is also in hours, so estimate the decimals if there are fractions of an hour.

So, this multiplication of average watts per hour, we multiply it again by 3.5 and we get the right value. 200 watts for two hours, to give you an example, would give a burn of about 1440 calories.

That's the first of the multiplications, to know the calories you burn. But calories are not exactly synonymous with fat. So you have another calculation left.

The second formula for losing a kilo of fat in cycling

We have the calories we have consumed. So if we are able to know how many calories it takes to burn a kilo of fat, we have the calculation done. You can do it taking into account another important fact: more or less, 1 gram of fat is composed of 9 calories.

You almost have it, because now you need to make a simple rule of three, the simplest and most useful mathematical rule we were taught in our school life.

Therefore, for a kilo of fat you would need to burn about 7800 calories. So if in your two-hour workout that we proposed before you have burned almost 1500, then with 5 similar trainings you would have that kilo less. If you train between 2 and 3 times a week, something very healthy, let's say that in a couple of weeks riding a bike will have made you lose a kilo. 2 kilos a month just by riding a bike. A good average, without risks and healthy.

Losing weight is not a Cartesian thing. There are no miracles, no wild diets or food crashes that pose more of a risk than a mostly long-lasting method of losing weight. You can lose more weight and faster, but it usually results in a crash that leads to a quicker and even greater weight regain.

With these two simple calculations, plus a very careful diet, losing a kilo of fat on a bike is a matter of multiplying and dividing. It's that simple.