Sensitive Topic: Rider Weight/Fitness

[Jambarissa]

I'm a fan of diet and nutrition studies. There's plenty of evidence that exercise does very little for long term weight loss. Yes you can starve yourself and exercise loads and it'll come off but it's not sustainable.

People who exercise a lot tend to sleep deeper for longer, fidget less and often eat more. If they exercise to excess their reproductive system will pause and their immune function will diminish. Most of the calories you burn are just to stay alive.

I saw a great study comparing an office worker to an elite athlete to a hunter gatherer and over 6 months they burned the same calories relative to their sizes. (wish I could find this again, leave a link if you know!).

I have seen friends lose weight when they've bought a horse or dog and they put it down to the extra exercise but I think it also stops you snacking and eating from boredom.

Despite having 3 horses on DIY and riding 2 of them regularly I think I am unfit and losing strength as I get older, although I'm a reasonable weight. I know I should do something about this but really don't have the time or energy.

 

[Equi]

I lost more weight doing walking rehab than I ever did riding. I think we kid ourselves about how much we do.. a typical ride for me is 30-40mins and most of it is probably walk with a few trots and a canters thrown in. Riding is never going to be a weight loss tool for me.

 

[AShetlandBitMeOnce]

I lost 3.5 stone in May-Nov 2023 through diet alone - I was going to the gym on and off but not enough to make any tangible difference, Dex is on 5 day livery so it wasn't that.
I now go to the gym 3-4 times a week and lift heavy, however my riding fitness is rubbish, I went on a 1.5 hour hack today on a friends horse and the muscles running up either side of my spine from my lower to mid-back will be agony tomorrow. The best way to increase calories is by routine daily habits to increase TDEE, taking the stairs and not the escalator, going back up stairs rather than savings a few things for one trip, walking to the corner shop rather than driving to the further one.

My BMR is around 1770 according to my apple watch data, and I burn approx 390-450 calories doing a heavy 1hr20 min leg session at the gym according to the same watch. It takes 3500 calorie defecit to burn 1lb of fat, so those gym sessions are only loosing me an additional 1lb of fat every 10 sessions. However what it is doing is increasing my muscle mass which will increase my BMR (same reason the same size man will have a higher BMR as their muscle mass is naturally higher than mine); that and it sets me up for the day mentally and stops me from eating rubbish.

Dropping calories too low is a false economy as your bost starts to 'shut you down' to save on energy expenditure as it thinks you're going through a famine, you won't fidget as much, your respiritory rate will drop, it won't keep you as warm, it will slow how quickly you digest food, it will reduce your metabolism and naturally you will have less energy so you won't workout as hard, you'll save the sweeping for the morning or got o bed as you have a headache or you'll eat what's in the fridge rather than walk to waitrose!

 

[LEC]

I was thin when I spent 9 months riding full time but also because of calorie control. I ate less because I was pretty busy.

I am struggling badly with my weight at the moment due to being pushed into chemical menopause. I am back in the gym but I have a terrible sweet tooth that I never used to have and I am like a Labrador as never feel satisfied. I am better at weekends as don’t eat much and mucking out 4 and riding 2, but it’s not enough. Should be better in summer as I eat better but even with riding 2, I need to go to the gym 3x a week. I need to lose a stone to be at my best riding but it’s not easy.

 

[Widgeon]

Maybe I'm weird but I went from a size 12-14 to a size 8-10 when I bought my pony. Does sound like much but I've lost cms all round.

Same here, I keep weight off much more easily having a field kept horse on DIY. I'm certainly regularly out of breath, heaving bales around and shoving barrows through mud! In terms of actually riding, I think fast hacking helps with cardiac fitness - decent gallops leave me a bit puffed - but anything less than that I'm not so sure.

I agree with others though, that while I am very strong and have good stamina (I can do a day on the hills no problem) ask me to go for a jog and I'd die in a heap.

 

[Widgeon]

Saying that, if I didn’t have the ponies, I’d probably be even less fit than I am, so i’m sure it’s doing me some good.

I think you'd be shocked if you gave up the ponies - when I had a gap between sharing and buying my own I was horrified at how much less I could eat

 

[exracehorse]

I lost more weight doing walking rehab than I ever did riding. I think we kid ourselves about how much we do.. a typical ride for me is 30-40mins and most of it is probably walk with a few trots and a canters thrown in. Riding is never going to be a weight loss tool for me.

Agree. A potter out along the bridleway each day will do little to lose weight. Very few calories burnt. I’m the opposite. I’m underweight. I have my four horses to turn out. Feed. Muck out. Poo pick. Stuff 8 haynets. All in 50 minutes so, I tear around. Then drive to clients to clean their houses. Then ride. Then home. Clean my house. Bed at 9pm. Up at 6am. I eat cereal for breakfast. And have a sandwich, yoghurt. Fruit. And sometimes a mars bar etc if sugar level low. Then I don’t eat until the evening. One meal. No snacks. Plus half a bottle of wine I’m probably burning as much as I’m eating. So, weight stays the same. I know if I go on holiday and sit on a beach all day, I’ll gain.

 

[Cadbury]

From what I understand exercise by itself doesn’t help much in terms of actual weight loss, as your body simply needs more food to replace the energy it’s used up!

 

[Squeak]

Yes, there is that. Maybe it's a personal thing in particular for me but I don't eat badly at all and I never seem to lose weight, I've only gained but luckily at the moment, it's staying the same.

It only made me think about it when I saw a picture a few days a go of a rider competing and mid-air over a cross country jump. She wasn't slim around the stomach or legs but she must be pretty fit to be doing that?

I see some shockingly unfit riders competing xc although admit myself that I've been caught out by not being as fit as I thought for xc. Some riders don't go xc very often or aren't very effective xc/ just sit there and so aren't necessarily fit.

As others have said though there are also riders who are fit but aren't slim due to other factors.

 

[scats]

I was worried when I broke my ankle because I’m quite a hungry person and I was concerned that I would balloon, but the reality is my appetite disappeared. I realised then that I’m so hungry because I’m so active.
But it’s not cardio activity, that’s the difference.

If riding a horse care alone was enough to keep people slim, we wouldn’t see many larger equestrians and riders, but we do. Infact, more so now than ever. A poor diet/excess calories is always going to trump activity unless that activity is intense/regular cardio work.

I’m slight, but half a stone has crept on which I need to get rid of.

 

[Cloball]

I certainly noticed when I went on a riding holiday and spent most of it galloping out of the saddle. I found new muscles in my back, core and thighs. I think I was the fittest I've ever been when I worked on a yard riding up to 5 a day. With only one to ride I think I would struggle to get 'that' fit.

 

[alibali]

I think it's pretty well documented that you can't exercise your way out of a bad diet. Meaning that no amount of exercise will counteract eating too much or the wrong sort of food. I have read that weight management is 80% diet, and 20% exercise - the latter because it speeds your metabolism more than because you exercise off, say, 500 calories in a session. So the riding and yard chores won't, I fear, help you to lose weight but they will contribute towards fitness and metabolism. A good day's hunting every day might make a difference but probably because you don't eat a lot while you're out! I know for myself that I exercise a lot and am generally active, but still have to be quite careful in what I eat.

Totally this. An active lifestyle will be good for your health but is unlikely to do much to help you lose weight. My most effective, sustainable and healthy method of losing weight is to only eat food made myself (from recognisable ingredients) and cut out alcohol but otherwise not restrict myself and maintain my active lifestyle with dog walking and horse care/riding. If I want cake I can have it so long as I bake it myself! I also double the vegetables in any recipe and don't restrict portion size as the veggies bulk it out and make it less calorie dense. I really don't do going hungry so portion size is very important to me!

Sure its hard work cooking from scratch, I work full time doing 11 hour days Mon-Fri when you include my commute as well. But the improvement in my general health by cutting out all the ultra- processed food and alcohol is incredible (I suffer from ME and really shouldn't be able to do anywhere near as much as I can do now) so for me it's totally worth the additional commitment. The main hack I use to make it easier is batch cooking. I only cook around 2 or 3 times a week but make sure when I do I cook enough to put a further meal in the fridge for a couple of days time and one in the freezer as well.

Then it's just down to greed versus motivation as to whether I bake a cake, lack of time/motivation usually wins which helps the waistline but I don't feel I'm depriving myself coz I could have baked the cake if I'd really wanted it! The bad news is that even an active lifestyle and cooking for myself/not eating ultra- processed wasn't enough to shift the weight it was only when I gave up alcohol too that it literally started dropping off. That was also when my health really took a turn for the better and I noticed a huge improvement in my ME as well.

Sadly now I find I can't even have one drink in an evening without feeling the effects the next day and have to accept if I want to stay well I am going to have to be t-total Worth it for the continued improvement in my health but I loved a wee drink to wind down and enjoyed the taste of wine and gin. Luckily I have discovered that Tanquerry 0.0 is actually a really good substitute. Nozeco is just about acceptable but I have yet to find a nice alcohol free white wine or lager if anyone has any suggestions....

 

[Backtoblack]

Riding walking mucking out gardening housework are all exercise, walking and trotting for half an hour on a quiet cob will use less calories than half an hour on the gallops with a fit racehorse. It's about intensity. So, riding is better than laying in bed or sitting in a chair. However to loose weight it requires less calories in than calories out so dietary changes and/ or restriction is also needed.

 

[Ahrena]

I’ve always been surprised at the baseline fitness horses seem to keep me at.

I run an annual fitness test for work and it’s the only time a year I run and it’s a breeze. I’ve found it harder since I’ve not been riding much but still very doable.

It was a shock when I had to do the test as part of a transfer and I was in with a bunch of new recruits who were telling me about how they’d been training and half of them failed!

Weight is a different topic though. When I worked as a groom, I could eat anything and stay slim. With just my own - not so much.

 

[gallopingby]

As already said it depends on your diet and level of activity. Years ago, before arenas and indoor schools became the thing to have, in winter l only rode at the weekends as l was working during the week. The weight crept on but by May l had lost the ‘winter weight’ often this was as much as a stone but l would be riding two horses most days, hacking and schooling with some fast work, which left little time for hanging around eating, and quite often l wasn’t in the house until it got dark although l did have a rather convenient set up with a BF who loved cooking and would appear with decent quality food which he cooked for us both.
l don’t think an hour or so of riding a few times a week would have much effect equally l wonder how much difference there would be if you compared a fit show jumper / eventer of 50 years ago to one in todays world where lifestyles are so different.

 

[Abacus]

Totally this. An active lifestyle will be good for your health but is unlikely to do much to help you lose weight. My most effective, sustainable and healthy method of losing weight is to only eat food made myself (from recognisable ingredients) and cut out alcohol but otherwise not restrict myself and maintain my active lifestyle with dog walking and horse care/riding. If I want cake I can have it so long as I bake it myself! I also double the vegetables in any recipe and don't restrict portion size as the veggies bulk it out and make it less calorie dense. I really don't do going hungry so portion size is very important to me!

Sure its hard work cooking from scratch, I work full time doing 11 hour days Mon-Fri when you include my commute as well. But the improvement in my general health by cutting out all the ultra- processed food and alcohol is incredible (I suffer from ME and really shouldn't be able to do anywhere near as much as I can do now) so for me it's totally worth the additional commitment. The main hack I use to make it easier is batch cooking. I only cook around 2 or 3 times a week but make sure when I do I cook enough to put a further meal in the fridge for a couple of days time and one in the freezer as well.

Then it's just down to greed versus motivation as to whether I bake a cake, lack of time/motivation usually wins which helps the waistline but I don't feel I'm depriving myself coz I could have baked the cake if I'd really wanted it! The bad news is that even an active lifestyle and cooking for myself/not eating ultra- processed wasn't enough to shift the weight it was only when I gave up alcohol too that it literally started dropping off. That was also when my health really took a turn for the better and I noticed a huge improvement in my ME as well.

Sadly now I find I can't even have one drink in an evening without feeling the effects the next day and have to accept if I want to stay well I am going to have to be t-total Worth it for the continued improvement in my health but I loved a wee drink to wind down and enjoyed the taste of wine and gin. Luckily I have discovered that Tanquerry 0.0 is actually a really good substitute. Nozeco is just about acceptable but I have yet to find a nice alcohol free white wine or lager if anyone has any suggestions....

Noughty sparkling white is amazing for non-alcoholic ‘wine’, I don’t really like any of the others as they are just like fizzy fruit juice. This is something like a glass of sparkling wine. Haven’t tried their red or rose yet.

 

[vickyb]

I no longer ride, but when I did I was always fit. However, a lot of my riding was fast work/long canters on big strong horses. When I started doing that kind of work, I was amazed at how out of breath and weak I felt afterwards, but of course, I got stronger and much fitter over time. I noticed the difference too if I went running as the riding definitely had a beneficial effect on my stamina. One thing I miss is the strength I had - both core strength and straightforward arm strength for carrying bales and bags of food. I think just pottering about on gentle hacks barely uses any calories - it's the difference between, say, doing a bit of deadheading and actually doing some double digging, to use a gardening analogy. raising the heart rate and breathing harder, to me, are signs that the exercise is doing you good.

 

[Winters100]

I think that most of us, especially as we get older, need to be incredibly careful about what we eat and how much, for years I have written down everything that I eat, because I know how easy it is to gain. I have also always felt that the idea that people who are larger gorge on food is a bit of a myth. I have a friend who is quite overweight, and when she was staying with us I saw that she mostly ate not very much more than me, with the difference being that she added in a few small, but high calorie items, for example at a coffee shop having a latte, and eating the little biscuit on the side, wheras I would have a green tea and leave the biscuit. If you think about it 1 kg of fat is about 7700 calories, so if you eat an excess 250 calories every day for a month then you gain 1kg, which you can easily do with a latte and a couple of biscuits, and over a period of years adds up. Then if you look at how much exercise you need to do to burn 250 calories it is quite a lot, so I don't see how riding as a leisure activity would help too much, unless it was in the case of someone whose diet went only marginally over their daily needs.

 

[Ali27]

I sometimes wear my “Myzone heart rate monitor” and hardly get any MEPs even in an hour’s schooling lesson with a fair bit of trot and canter.
The only way to lose weight is to create a calorie deficit so upping active calories helps but the important part is nutrition!
I’m 51 and have lost 10 kg in the last 2 years. I started at 68 kg and didn’t think I was particularly overweight at 5ft 6 and was a 10/12 but it had gone on my stomach (middle age spread)! I joined the gym and for the first 8 weeks, cut out alcohol and junk food and ate more protein and lost 6kg easily.
I’m super active now, run/ train 6 times a week and compete in Hyrox fitness races. I don’t bother weighing myself much as my weight doesn’t seem to alter. I eat pretty healthily as need to fuel my intense training properly.
I see so many people who are overweight and when you see their shopping trolleys, it’s easy to see why!

 

[Nudibranch]

I don't know if it's the same for everyone but when I ride more, I look slimmer and more toned. But my weight doesn't change at all.
As mentioned lots here, what you eat has much more impact than any amount of exercise.

 

[gallopingby]

I sometimes wear my “Myzone heart rate monitor” and hardly get any MEPs even in an hour’s schooling lesson with a fair bit of trot and canter.
The only way to lose weight is to create a calorie deficit so upping active calories helps but the important part is nutrition!
I’m 51 and have lost 10 kg in the last 2 years. I started at 68 kg and didn’t think I was particularly overweight at 5ft 6 and was a 10/12 but it had gone on my stomach (middle age spread)! I joined the gym and for the first 8 weeks, cut out alcohol and junk food and ate more protein and lost 6kg easily.
I’m super active now, run/ train 6 times a week and compete in Hyrox fitness races. I don’t bother weighing myself much as my weight doesn’t seem to alter. I eat pretty healthily as need to fuel my intense training properly.
I see so many people who are overweight and when you see their shopping trolleys, it’s easy to see why!

Looking in people’s shopping trolleys is naughty but very interesting

 

[lynz88]

Haven't read all the responses yet....I have a MyZone and connect it to my Garmin so I get incredibly accurate readings of heart rate, etc. (Calories are virtually impossible to count accurately). Before horse went lame, I noticed that a 20 min ride doing just walk and trot would give me an average heart rate of equal to or more than doing a Body Attack class (and I know my form is really sh$% when I ride and I don't have any of the riding strength that I used to have many moons ago). Yet, I started doing BA when I was regularly riding and found BA to be incredibly difficult and really sent my cardio fitness to a whole new level. The "work" that the body is doing, while very heavily cardio based, is completely different between these 2 activities. I have noticed a pattern that when I do regularly get to ride (even just a 20 min school session at walk/trot) in combination with the gym and now my PT, I lose weight, look more toned, and fitness goes to yet another new level.

I think a lot depends on what you do, how you do it, and a large part of this in general is also what you eat. I watch my OH do "lunges" and "squats" and "push ups" and though he isn't unfit by any means at all, his form makes me wince as now having been doing PT for 5 and a half months (it already did make me wince but even more so now) has really changed the 'how' I do things. The knock-on effect is amazing though!!

 

[lynz88]

I sometimes wear my “Myzone heart rate monitor” and hardly get any MEPs even in an hour’s schooling lesson with a fair bit of trot and canter.
The only way to lose weight is to create a calorie deficit so upping active calories helps but the important part is nutrition!
I’m 51 and have lost 10 kg in the last 2 years. I started at 68 kg and didn’t think I was particularly overweight at 5ft 6 and was a 10/12 but it had gone on my stomach (middle age spread)! I joined the gym and for the first 8 weeks, cut out alcohol and junk food and ate more protein and lost 6kg easily.
I’m super active now, run/ train 6 times a week and compete in Hyrox fitness races. I don’t bother weighing myself much as my weight doesn’t seem to alter. I eat pretty healthily as need to fuel my intense training properly.
I see so many people who are overweight and when you see their shopping trolleys, it’s easy to see why!

Wow good for you!!!! I find MyZone to be a bit funny with some things. My MyZone doesn't give me any MEPs when I go for a good walk but my Garmin (if I keep it unconnected) will give a totally different reading. Do you wear it as the chest strap when you ride? I've found the wrist to work quite well for riding (not tried chest as is a faff especially in the winter lol!!). Last week it told me that my HR was 47% (it should have been at minimum, 74% if not much higher) after 2 squat rounds and was desperately out of breath - I was wearing the chest strap.

I'm also nosey in the shopping trolley regard and do the same!! Very, very telling is all I can say....

 

[sbloom]

Not read the replies but being overweight is so often much more to do with emotional stuff and how our relationship with food is. Exercise should be to help the heart and muscles and to be healthy and, especially for older women, is unlikely to be the key to weight loss. We're not bunsen burners with calories in, calories burned, and the difference being weight gain or weight loss. So much affects how hungry we are, what sort of food we reach for, how well we manage sugar highs and lows etc. I direct people to Rebelfit on FB, and David Sanders is an equestrian off horse coach who looks at nutrition etc.

I DO recommend a couple of lovely ladies trained by David, who have massive skill sets from elsewhere too, for rider conditioning including fitness. Us being able to sit well on our horses is far more important than most realise and ultimately affects long term soundness.

 

[Ali27]

Wow good for you!!!! I find MyZone to be a bit funny with some things. My MyZone doesn't give me any MEPs when I go for a good walk but my Garmin (if I keep it unconnected) will give a totally different reading. Do you wear it as the chest strap when you ride? I've found the wrist to work quite well for riding (not tried chest as is a faff especially in the winter lol!!). Last week it told me that my HR was 47% (it should have been at minimum, 74% if not much higher) after 2 squat rounds and was desperately out of breath - I was wearing the chest strap.

I'm also nosey in the shopping trolley regard and do the same!! Very, very telling is all I can say....

I wear my “Myzone” on my chest. It usually agrees with my garmin but I do find to get MEPs, I have to be doing exercise that gets my heart rate up! Although I do have a naturally low resting heart rate and I guess my fitness is pretty good now! My garmin says my VO2 max is 51 so in top 1% of women my age!
Wall balls, burpee broad jumps and interval running is only thing that tends to get me in yellow! I hardly ever get red

 

[lynz88]

Ohhh PT and Body Attack (especially the super older ones with fun music) get my HR into the red but yes, unless my HR gets into 60% and above, my MyZone doesn't seem to count it as anything which is annoying as my OH's does! I've got the same Garmin VO2 Max as you and resting HR hovers around 45 bpm but hate running

 

[Winters100]

My most effective, sustainable and healthy method of losing weight is to only eat food made myself (from recognisable ingredients) and cut out alcohol but otherwise not restrict myself and maintain my active lifestyle with dog walking and horse care/riding. If I want cake I can have it so long as I bake it myself! I also double the vegetables in any recipe and don't restrict portion size as the veggies bulk it out and make it less calorie dense. I really don't do going hungry so portion size is very important to me!

This is a great way of doing it. One of the things that I really notice in the UK is just how much processed and prepared food there is. When I was last in the UK caring for my Mother I tried to keep to broadly the same diet that I have at home, but as I could not get out to shop was ordering online and buying a lot ready prepared for shelf life. I could not believe how I gained weight, but when I started looking at the packs more closely it was obvious. Where I live if I want tomato soup I go and buy tomatos/onions/peppers and make it, because the supermarket does not have a prepared version, but when I worked it out the pouch of soup that I was buying in the UK, which was marketed as 'fresh' and 'healthy', had more than double the amount of calories than the version that I make at home. It also had quite a lot of added sugar, which seems totally unnecessary, as the one I make has none. I don't think that I have ever bought a ready meal here, and our local supermarket has a choice of only 3 or 4, mainly they would be seen as something to buy in an unusual situation, certainly not for daily consumption. When you make the food yourself you are much more likely to be careful with how much fat / sugar / salt that you add, in a way that manufacturers of processed food are not.

 

[oldjumper]

Before I start, this is something I have always been curious about and I want to make it clear that this is not a shaming post in any way! I am not the lightest weight rider and could do with losing weight myself. It may not be a sensitive topic but I wanted to mark it as such in case.

I was always under the impression that riding is exercise so in my mind, I think if I ride more, I can lose weight but then I see that there are quite a few bigger riders that compete/event or ride daily and wonder, does riding not actually work that well in form of exercise/weight loss? As you need to be so fit for a lot of aspects of it and even all the general horse care duties so it doesn't make sense to me how we are not all super slim from doing so much? It may be a dim question but it's just something I've been curious about. I'd always thought that riding and general care like mucking out/poo picking etc would be enough in form of exercise but maybe it isn't. I'd love it if it was, that would make losing weight easier!

Afraid I can’t help with the science but from personal observation….all my bunch of riding buddies are well over 65, some still compete/hunt but most just hack and school. All are very slim and very fit for age. Apart from riding out most days the common factor is keeping horses at home (or on rented land) so have to do all work ourselves - stable, pasture management, carrying water when pipes frozen, weeding, fixing fences, washing horse box….
Throw in dog walking, gardening and weekly Pilates classes there is very little time in the day to eat much at all. Sounds flippant but actually scarily accurate! I suspect it’s all the ancillary activities that help to not put on weight rather than actual riding.

 

[Ceifer]

The only way I lost weight riding was when I was riding 8 a day. I was then underweight and had two lovely bursitis lumps on my seat bones .

In seriousness though, I believe that as riders 99% of us could be fitter to be able to ride better - whether that’s functional fitness (yoga/pilates/weight training) or cardio and maintaining a healthy weight.

 

[McGrools]

Afraid I can’t help with the science but from personal observation….all my bunch of riding buddies are well over 65, some still compete/hunt but most just hack and school. All are very slim and very fit for age. Apart from riding out most days the common factor is keeping horses at home (or on rented land) so have to do all work ourselves - stable, pasture management, carrying water when pipes frozen, weeding, fixing fences, washing horse box….
Throw in dog walking, gardening and weekly Pilates classes there is very little time in the day to eat much at all. Sounds flippant but actually scarily accurate! I suspect it’s all the ancillary activities that help to not put on weight rather than actual riding.

Yes I suspect it’s the weightlifting aspect of horse keeping that keeps us fit. The water buckets and wheelbarrows, hay bales, feed bags.
Good muscle tone must really keep metabolism up xx