Why Doing Less Training Can Lead to Better Weight Loss for Busy Cyclists

We can already hear the sound of keyboards smashing as angry followers scream:“I need to do more – much more – to lose weight!”

Well, if you are genuinely sedentary, you’re probably right.

If you’re a couch-potato who barely moves, rarely trains, and spends most of the day sitting, then yes – doing more exercise will almost certainly help with weight loss.

But we’re fairly sure most of our readers are quite the opposite.

Most cyclists struggling with weight loss look like this

You guys are, by and large:

• Driven

• Busy

• Time-crunched

• “Doers”

• People who struggle to sit still

• Often described as obsessive (in the nicest possible way)

You’re juggling:

• Stressful careers

• Family commitments

• Time restraints from all angles

• And an insatiable appetite for training

So for you – the busy cyclists already doing a lot – doing less training might actually be the key to sustainable weight loss.

Here’s why.

The most important point

Your body does not discriminate between stressors.It doesn’t care where stress comes from.

It only registers two things:

• Total stress load

• Total recovery capacity

That’s it.

What counts as stress?

Your stress includes (but is not limited to):

• Work pressure

• Cognitive load

• Poor sleep

• Emotional stress

• Travel

• Decision fatigue

• And hard training

Physiologically, it all goes into the same bucket.

Where time-crunched cyclists run into trouble

Time-crunched cyclists often reach capacity in terms of the sum total of all stressors.

Training gets stacked on top of:

• Long workdays

• Early mornings

• Poor sleep

• Mental fatigue

When chronic stress stays high for a prolonged period of time, cortisol levels remain persistently elevated (McEwen, 1998; Sapolsky et al., 2000).

This isn’t controversial.It’s well-established stress physiology.

Why chronically elevated cortisol makes fat loss harder

When cortisol remains elevated over time, several things happen that directly interfere with weight loss:

1. Insulin sensitivity worsens

Chronically high cortisol reduces insulin sensitivity, making it harder to shuttle nutrients toward muscle and easier to store energy as fat (Dallman et al., 2003; Rosmond, 2005).

2. Fat storage is prioritised – particularly centrally

Elevated cortisol is associated with increased abdominal fat storage due to higher glucocorticoid receptor density in visceral fat tissue (Björntorp, 2001).

3. Metabolic output can down-regulate

Especially when high stress is combined with under-fueling and poor sleep, thyroid output and resting metabolic rate may be suppressed in some individuals (Rosenbaum & Leibel, 2010).

In short:The body shifts into a protective, energy-conserving state – making fat loss harder and weight gain easier.

The classic mistake: responding by doing more

Here’s where things unravel.

When weight loss stalls, highly motivated people rarely back off.

Instead, they respond by:

• Adding more hard sessions

• Cutting calories aggressively

• Doubling down on discipline

But adding more hard training:

• Increases total stress load

• Further elevates cortisol

• Reduces recovery opportunity

• Disrupts appetite regulation

• Increases fatigue and decision fatigue

Which, unsurprisingly, compounds the problem (Loucks et al., 2011; Stults-Kolehmainen & Sinha, 2014).

This is why effort goes up… and results go backwards.

The counterintuitive solution: train less

In this instance, you need to do the counterintuitive thing.The thing that probably feels wrong.Or weak.

You need to do less.

What “training less” actually means

Training less does not mean:

• Doing nothing

• Becoming inactive

• Losing chunks of fitness

It usually means:

• A tangible reduction in total training duration while life stress is high

• Fewer high-intensity sessions

• Fewer workouts that leave you completely frazzled

And a shift toward:

• Low- to moderate-intensity aerobic work (the kind that leaves you feeling like you could have done more)

• Strength training with proper rest

• Walking and general movement

• A concerted focus on sleep

• Adequate, consistent fueling

Why weight loss often improves when stress drops

When total stress comes down:

• Cortisol normalises

• Insulin sensitivity improves

• Appetite regulation improves

• NEAT rebounds naturally

• Recovery improves

• Training quality improves

Weight loss stops feeling like a fight.

It becomes steady, boring, and sustainable – which is exactly what you want.

The takeaway

The issue isn’t always calories.Very often, it’s capacity.

If your stress capacity is already full, adding more training becomes counter-productive.

So if other stressors in your life are unavoidable and you’re already at capacity, hard training has to be reduced to lower total system stress and restore recovery capacity.

Once equilibrium returns, you’re in a far better position to achieve safe, sustainable weight loss – especially for busy cyclists.