treadmill versus stationary bicycle

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i recently switched to the stationary bicycle. i used to walk 30 minutes on the dreadmill but now i am cycling for 1 hour on the bicycle.

i have actually gained weight. my belly has gotten bigger. i don't understand. i haven't changed my eating habits ether.

There're still a lot of variables to consider. If the resistance on the bicycle is low you may not be getting as many calories burned as you think compared to the treadmill. Or if your eating times have changed that could also have an effect on calorie loss.

or your body has become inured to the relatively predictable stress from the stationary bike, you may need to mix it up a bit to keep your body off-balance and burn more calories. I fell into a similar rut until I alternated exercises. it is very important that you incorporate interval training into whatever exercise routine you choose.

Wouldn't the bike be using less muscles because you are sitting down?
I'd go back to walking, it is a natural exercise for us humans.

Running is arguably considered to be the best cardio workout although an exercise-bike is obviously easier on a person's joints. Put the treadmill on a slight uphill grade to reduce stress on the knees, etc.

the dreadmill does make me soaked in sweat. and my friend once told me:
"if you're tired and sweaty, then you're doing it right"

i will go back to the dreadmill.

dreadmills are less dreadful if you have good entertainments to distract you in your exertions.

i always play a game while walking on the dreadmill. i just wanted to use the exercise bike because it didn't use any electricity. i like saving energy.

I have a "dreadmill" which doesn't use any electricity, it is strictly a friction machine. it makes me sweat. I have it set on an incline so it is like walking uphill. the beauty of it is I avoid the rain and cold [western Washington in the cold 6 months of the year] and yahoos and their dogs, and I don't have to worry about walking downhill which aches my joints.

i would love a nonelectric dreadmill, but aren't they very expensive?

EDIT: i just checked google search and they are only around $100!? wow! i thought they were over $5000. maybe that was for one that generated electricity.

they are the cheapest kind of treadmill, often they can be found in second-hand stores gathering dust, for next to nothing.

I think a stationary bicycle is not that good to train your body in whole. While you will use the leg muscles mostly, your chest and arm muscles wont have much to work on a stationary bicycle. I drive outside and live in a mountain area, so that forces me to use chest and armmuscles as well, so you need them in general for the balancing (Because nature is never 100% plain as riding a stationary bicylce is.) as well that driving upwards forces me, out of my low body weight, to stand up and so use the handlebars as anchor for my upperbody, and so be able to kick with more pressure in the pedals. That forces me as well to use belly, chest, shoulder and armmuscles.

While, when riding on a stationary bicycle in gym club, I could easily drive without arms, and used them for holding books that I read.

I wish I could still ride a regular upright bike, but since accident summer before last my balanced is not what it used to be. luckily I have found recumbents exercise my upper body as well as a regular bike.

You won't lose weight by doing prolonged steady state exercise. Aunt Blabby mentioned doing intervals and that's the key. The other key is variety.

Think of maths - you can do arithmetic like adding 7+5=12 and 11+15=26 all day long. You could do a thousand of those, but if you didn't do a single algebra problem like "find b if 3b+7=40", then you would never be improving your maths. You need to put in some intensity. Just doing 5 algebra problems would make you a lot better at maths than doing 1000 more easy sums.

It is the same with exercise. Easy repetitive stuff gets you nowhere.

INTERVALS WITH HIGH INTENSITY
Walking and cycling at a moderate pace, like the simple sums, is not a challenge to the body, and exercising for an hour can be WORSE than for 30 minutes, because of the following fact - MUSCLE tissue uses extra energy. Muscle uses energy just by sitting there doing nothing, as well as when it's used to move the body. However your really long cardio session is breaking down muscle and sabotaging you.

Prolonged steady state cardio --> using up all sugar stores in the body --> body breaks down muscle to create sugar --> lose muscle

So, you did the cardio, but you ended up losing muscle, now you have less muscle to burn energy at rest.

Instead, put a LOAD on your muscles, ie increase the intensity of the workout; that could be walking very fast or jogging, or going up hill, for perhaps 30 seconds in each 3 minutes; or on the bike, increase the resistance for 30 seconds per three minutes. Make it HARD, so that you are extremely glad to have a break after 30 seconds, but not so hard you're going to throw up.

You also don't need to do an hour a day - you can do 20-30 mins if you are truly working and loading the muscles. Loading muscles causes them to grow to accommodate the new strength demands.

Shorter cardio with intervals --> not all sugar stores are used AND muscles have to grow --> gain muscle rather than losing it

The muscle you have preserved or gained can now spend all day, even when sleeping or sitting down, burning energy. The harder you work the better, really load and push those muscles for short bursts.

Some people even advocate doing only 20 mins of cardio three times per week; as long as you are doing resistance training ie weights.


VARIETY
The body gets used to anything - it's amazingly adaptable. It will find little ways to make your exercise more efficient. You really must change on at least a medium term basis.

Some possibilities you could consider
- variety within your workout - instead of doing 30 seconds of faster walking or cycling, get off the machine and do pushups for 30 seconds fast and hard, or sit ups, or squats, or best yet - a skipping rope!; remember to WORK HARD
- variety within the week - keep on your program for 5 days a week, have a rest day, but also one day look for an opportunity to do something different; yoga, swimming, walking outdoors, frisbee, tennis
- variety within the season - each 4-6 weeks change the whole program, with new stuff for 4-6 weeks

It seems like you're more comfortable with leg-based cardio, but I swear to you, merely doing a few upper body exercises will increase your weight loss and make your shape more balanced

Like a lot of life, you sometimes have to work hard to get results - and you also have to work smart.

BTW you definitely need to be in control of your diet otherwise exercising is pointless for weight control.

play a game on the treadmill? When I'm on my treadmill I'm spending the whole time making sure that my shoelaces don't come untied