A Way to Make Winter Weight Gain Work for You

By Kevin Kolodziejski

You’re about to read why gaining some weight in the winter might not be the worst thing in the world for your cycling come summer. What comes first, though, is a confession that doesn’t exactly constitute a news flash — especially if you happened to glance at my byline.

I’ve never been pregnant.

Once in my early thirties, however, I gained weight over the winter as if I were well into my second trimester and noshing every night on nachos topped with marshmallows and bacon strips slathered with Nutella. Yet I did not look as if I were formerly petite and presently pregnant. By lifting more, eating more, and cycling less, my back broadened and so did my shoulders. The size of my quads increased a bit more than an inch without a commensurate increase in my waist. The added muscle got me some compliments from females and some criticisms from males — specifically two cycling teammates.  They gave it to me good after our first race that spring.

It was a 12-mile time trial, always held twice each season, and contained three significant climbs. I had won both races the last two years. As I ascended each climb this time, however, it felt as if an overweight albatross had suddenly sank its claws into my shoulder and was frantically flapping its wings. My perceived rate of exertion went through the roof, and my race went down the toilet. I finished sixth, more than 1:30 slower than my winning time the spring before. While there’s a happy ending to this story, a happier one with far more at stake will be shared first.

Giving Birth, Getting Faster

Only six months after giving birth to a daughter, Makenna Myler ran a 10k-race almost three minutes faster than her best effort when she competed at that distance (as Makenna Smith) for Brigham Young University from 2011-2016. By doing so, she did something that her coach told her was rather improbable. She qualified for the 2020 U.S. Olympic trials that because of COVID-19 were held in June of 2021. According to Doug Robinson’s report for Deseret News, Myler kept running throughout her pregnancy and won a $100 bet with her husband in the process. When she was nine months pregnant, he wagered she couldn’t run a mile in under eight minutes.

She crossed the line in 5:25 and told Robinson the effort felt “uncomfortable” yet “natural.”

As a result, Myler believed she’d be a better runner than before after a few months of typical training.  But no one could’ve ever guessed — not even her coach — that a national-class runner could improve as much as she did relatively late in her career and after giving birth. There are, however, physiological reasons for why so many long-distance runners get faster after a pregnancy.

A 2014 study in the journal Cardiovascular Research found pregnancy enlarges the heart and increases blood volume in ways similar to exercise. Moreover, pregnancy causes the rib cage to expand, potentially increasing lung capacity. Add to the mix that other research has found increased levels of the neurotransmitters that make us feel good in women postpartum, and the pregnancy-improves-distance-runners argument strengthens. But Myler also believes something else occurs, and I concur.  That carrying all that extra weight is like lifting weights all the while you go about your normal day. I see it more akin to wearing a weighted vest, but the end result is the same.

A newfound strength that translates into newfound speed after serious training resumes and the weight is shed.

It just makes sense. Once a distance runner has had time to recover from a pregnancy, running at her former training pace without most of the weight she’s become accustomed to feels easier. Similarly, as you ride a bike up a hill during a time trial, regardless of ability level or gender, a loss of eight pounds has to feel as if that overweight albatross who had been perching upon your shoulders and flapping his wings frantically on prior climbs has flown away.

I can vouch for the latter.

Dropping Added Weight, Setting a PR

That subpar, early-season time trial years ago followed by my teammates’ talking-to caused me to make changes. All lower-body weightlifting was put on hold until the off-season. The amount of weight used when I worked my upper-body twice a week was reduced significantly — to weights light enough so I could perform 25 to 50 reps. While I had been eating only healthy stuff that winter, I had been eating more than before. So I cut back on cals, carbs, and eating late at night. But because I was still training and racing, the cutback couldn’t be too dramatic. Instead of limiting myself to a set number of calories, I followed the Confucian belief of “hara hachi bun me,” ending the meal once you are 80 percent full.

I also rode more total miles when compared to the same time the year prior.

By the second time the hilly 12-mile time trial was held, I still weighed two pounds more than the racing season before. But according to a device I had purchased a few years ago to check body fat percentage, I was carrying almost a quarter of a percent less than last year. In other words, I had retained about four pounds of the muscle I had added in the winter while losing about two pounds of body fat I had carried before the bulk-up. The change increased my speed while in the saddle without a noticeable loss of power when I needed to stand. (I say “noticeable” because I wasn’t using a power meter back then.)  That led to a TT nearly 30 seconds faster than my prior PR on that course — though I finished second. (Some kid on his way to becoming a pro made an appearance and smoked us all.)

Equally as important was how the muscle that remained affected the full cycling season. That new power in the saddle remained throughout, and I had a couple of better-than-normal finishes in my weakest event, the criterium, during mid-to-late July, a time when I tended to hit a lull and not race well.

Putting Mother Nature to Work

So why should you care about a TT PR of mine from nearly 30 years ago? After all, time trialing isn’t exactly the cycling craze right now, especially ones where you spend half the time climbing. But dieting is. According to data calculated by Statista based on the U.S. Census data and a Simmons National Consumer Survey, 184.83 million Americans did so in 2020. And at least a few million of those people, I’m sure, began to diet because of weight accrued over the winter. In fact, a cumulated average based upon multiple surveys has the typical American adding five to seven pounds of weight in the winter months each year.

So I say to you, why fight Mother Nature? Instead, do as the inimitable martial artist Bruce Lee suggests: “Be water, my friend.” Flow with, don’t fight against, your body’s genetic instinct to add weight each winter. But pour your water in a “muscle cup,” and then bottle it differently in the spring.

For a failsafe way to do the springtime “bottling,” and shed unwanted weight at a safe rate of about a half pound per week, read “Consume Macros Mindfully, Drop Weight (and Your Buddies of Climbs) Definitely.” For a way to add muscle in the first place, read “The Wiggle Room in the Weight Room,” Parts I and II.

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Kevin Kolodziejski began his writing career in earnest in 1989. Since then he’s written a weekly health and fitness column and his articles have appeared in magazines such as “MuscleMag,” “Ironman,” “Vegetarian Times,” and “Bicycle Guide.” He has Bachelor and Masters degrees in English from DeSales and Kutztown Universities.

A competitive cyclist for more than 30 years, Kevin won two Pennsylvania State Time Trial championships in his 30’s, the aptly named Pain Mountain Time Trial 4 out of 5 times in his 40s, two more state TT’s in his 50’s, and the season-long Pennsylvania 40+ BAR championship at 43.