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How to Maintain Cycling Weight – Transition from Weight Loss

By Jiri Kaloc

Getting to your optimal cycling weight can be really tough. It might take a big race or the whole season of riding to shed enough weight. But then the holidays and off-season come and your weight shoots back up. It happens very often. This series will be all about tips and habits that will help you maintain that optimal weight throughout the whole year.


Keeping the same weight sounds really easy compared to trying to lose weight. You just do what you did so far and it should be no problem, right? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Research shows that maintaining cycling weight might be even harder than dropping it. That might be because what makes you good at losing weight doesn’t always make you good at keeping it off.

Bicycle Handlebars
Can you maintain your cycling weight? © Profimedia

The rules change post weight loss

Let’s say you followed a strict diet plan, tracked food intake, avoided doughnuts, and weighed yourself regularly. All with one goal in mind – reaching that optimal weight. These are very effective techniques that help with weight loss. But now that you reached your ideal weight, you don’t have a clear goal anymore and you probably don’t want to live with these restrictions for the rest of your life. The weight management rules change again.

Adjust the skills you have

To successfully lose weight, you had to develop many skills. You know how to create new nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle habits. You know how to prevent binge eating. You know how to stick to a plan. You did all of this while living in the real world full of stress, distractions, and super attractive foods. This should give you confidence that you can do this. It will take time to learn a new set of habits but these will serve you for a long time.

You made it in a world full of attractive snacks. © Profimedia

Three key changes

In the rest of this series, we will go over three main skills you developed through weight loss. We will show you how to adjust them so they keep serving you well for the weight maintenance phase too.

The first one is diet flexibility. You worked really hard at saying no to food to prevent overeating and stay in a deficit. Now that you are at your optimal weight, you need to learn how to find a balance between being too restricted and out of control.

Finding a balance is crucial. © Profimedia

The second one is lifestyle sustainability. You created a lot of new habits, maybe you started working out in a gym to burn more calories. Now it’s time to take a new look at your lifestyle and see how to make it enjoyable in the long term.

The third one is motivation. Having a clear number you want to see on a scale is a powerful motivator. Now that you don’t have that anymore, you have to take a close look at your deep motivation. Knowing why you’re doing all of this is essential.

Next up in How to Maintain Cycling Weight series