Why do I gain weight over the winter, even though I carry on cycling?
Many people who are regular sportsmen and women find that even though they stick to a good diet year round, during the winter months they do gain a few extra pounds, only to shed them again the following season. I have found the same thing, and it can be a bit depressing! But take heart, because it’s not the end of the road.
Winter brings with it a few certainties:
- dark nights
- short days
- cold weather
- illness.
Our bodies have adapted over millennia to cope with these seasonal changes and, unfortunately for those of us living in a western world where we have central heating and work that lasts 24/7 and isn’t affected by sunrise and sunset times, it throws that natural rhythm.
Eating is how, I believe, our bodies have learnt to cope with those 4 points that I have raised above.
When there are shorter days we have should in theory have less opportunity to do work (hunting, gathering etc) so we might as well sleep. Eating helps us to sleep. However sleep in cold weather can be dangerous if you are a cave-man, without the exertion our body temperatures drop so we need to put on fat to keep us warm, especially if there is a risk of little food around. Also, more sleep gives us the recovery to work harder when we do have daylight hours to work by. So it’s a win win situation.
Unfortunately for us, our modern jobs don’t go away, we aren’t Neanderthals, and we don’t have a seasonally affected rhythm of life. So the opportunities to actually get out there and burn off that excess are fewer. In other words our bodies say eat more, but the chances of getting rid of it diminish.
Then our metabolic rate slows – who wants to burn off that keep-you-warm fat if it’s going to keep you alive? Better conserve it until the winter is over, thinks our evolved body.
And then lastly comes illness. Illness is staved off with good food; and when you get ill you can’t eat the same, so again you need the fat.
What I am saying is that gaining a few pounds in the winter is no bad thing, as long as it isn’t few stone.
There are a few things you can do.
- Keep to the diet – I always say the British Heart Foundation diet.
- Get an SAD light box because it helps to keep your body clock at the right time even when you get up a couple of hours before dawn
- Get natural daylight whenever you can. Go outside in your lunch breaks
- Take a multi-vitamin
- During the party season, follow my suggestions on Party Strategies
And lastly, don’t stress about it. A few pounds out cycling might seem as though all your hard work cycling to lose weight is for nothing, but it’s just your bodies natural way of keeping warm. As long as you aren’t adding stones, the extra will drop off in the spring when you can hit the road again within 4 weeks. Just slacken the belt a little.
Free: The British heart foundation: lose weight…for good book
It’s not just the Neanderthals who lived very differently from how we do nowadays. Only 200 years or so ago, most of our ancestors worked in agriculture or cottage industries where they could only work between dawn and dusk, candles or oil lamps were very expensive, fuel for heating was scarce whereas blankets were relatively affordable. So they slept a lot more in winter than in summer, ate as much as they could afford at Christmas, struggled to survive the winter then partied hard on May Day. It’s hardly surprising that our bodies haven’t yet evolved to cope with a world that expects no changes at all between winter and summer!
Indeed!