THE CC DIET: WALKING AND CYCLING

One of the principles of the CC Diet is you can add in major exercise to boost your target, in the form of bonus Cs, and thereby allow extra food to be consumed.

Any significant exercise is eligible, as you see fit.  Let's look at two common and typically easy forms of exercise, both of which can be done in a socially-distanced manner.  Lycra optional:

• Walking
• Cycling

WALKING

The amount of energy you consume is principally dependent on your weight, with speed making less of a difference.

According to the ready reckoner in this article, converting kcalories to kJ using a factor of 4.18, the energy can range from 2.2Cs per mile for a 7 stone person to 6.7Cs per mile for a 21 stone person.  As it's only approximate, I work on 4Cs per mile for me.

As a non-impact exercise that can be socially-distanced and take in interesting places, walking is ideal for many people.

I've extended my route to get to the shop for my daily groceries from half a mile to a full mile.  I've found that's simple, not that much more time-consuming, and makes the trip more interesting.

Indeed I'm trying to get 3 miles of walking in a day, typically split into two walks, and often taking in the sunset.  Or sunrise now it isn't at silly o'clock.

A dog or two completes the experience.  But entirely optional.


CYCLING

Tempting

Cycling is another non-impact form of exercise.  Unless you fall off. Best too to keep clear of vehicular traffic.

One way to do that is to use a stationery exercise bike.  That will tell you how much energy you've used:

• If in kJoules, simply determine Cs by taking the rounded number of hundreds of kJ,  e.g 465kJ is 5Cs
• If it only displays calories (or kCal) then multiply it by 4.2 (or 4.18) first.  So 100kcal is 418kJ which is 4Cs

A real cycle lets you get to vantage points to better see the sunset or sunrise, and generally see what's on your journey.  For cycling, weight is similarly more important than speed to determine how many kJ you consume, though the greater variability of speed makes this important too.  Plus of course how far you go.

Here's a calculator that takes your weight, time and distance and converts it to kcalories consumed.  It's worth refreshing the page between calculations.  Remember to multiply the kcalories by 4.18 to get to kJ, so 100kcal is 418kJ which is 4Cs.

At a reasonable 15 mph, energy consumption per mile is around half walking, as cycling is more efficient:

•  A 7-stone person would consume around 1.3 Cs per mile
• A 21-stone person would consume around 3.9Cs per mile

Increase speed to 20mph, and that adds about 20%.   The final Cs calculation will only be approximate, so should be rounded to the nearest whole number for target purposes.


IN CONCLUSION

So whichever form of exercise you choose, enjoy the experience and the extra food!