Monthly Archives: May 2021

CyclingDiet Product Review

By: R. Michael Brown, Freelance Writer [Follow on Facebook: @RMichaelBrownLLC]
📸: Let Ideas Compete is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

After joining a bunch of Facebook cycling groups I started to receive ads for CyclingDiet. You may be getting them too because you are part of the Facebook groups or post about cycling.

As a former US Olympic Cycling Coach and professional freelance writer, I thought I would take a look at their plan and write a review to be helpful to other cyclists.

The bottom line, BUYER BEWARE!

According to their Facebook ads and their Facebook page [@cyclingdietforweightloss] they say, “Fun, easy, and safe way to lose weight! Find what will work for you with 60-sec quiz approved by cycling coaches and experts and get your personalized plan & diet!”

So I purchased the program to check it out and it cost $66… not including the international charges because the company is based in Lithuania (Didn’t know that when I registered).

In addition I paid an extra, $4.99, to get the “rush” evaluation on the quiz I took. They say the personal evaluation is done by cycling coaches and experts.

I signed up as a beginner to see what they were teaching new cyclists. When I received my plan it included some generic daily workouts for before and after stretching, calisthenics, and bicycle training. You could easily come up with these on your own via the web for free.

But when I got to the diet part, and you are led to believe with a name like CyclingDiet this is the robust part of their offering, all it had was a Cycling Recipe book in a PDF showing calorie amounts for the few dozen recipes they provided. No daily plan, no meals to sync with the daily cycling and off-day workouts, no technology to track your calories… Just two mentions above the recipe “book” that showed total daily calories you should stay within to maintain weight and total calories you should target to lose weight.

Honestly, you could buy a paperback weight loss cookbook for under $10 and get more information.

What they sent me is what their “cycling coaches and experts” came up with?

After working with Olympic cycling sports nutritionists and many nutritionists over the years on my own diet and my daughter’s because she has Type 1 Diabetes, the CyclingDiet isn’t a diet or diet plan by any stretch of the imagination.

The whole plan is basically – stay under 1,500 calories a day and you add it up on your own. Oh, and exercise a lot. Not worth $5 let alone $66.

If you’re used to MyFitnessPal, Fitbit, WeightWatchers, or the many other online programs, CyclingDiet looks like a bad joke.

Plus, when I attempted to get a refund after telling them the deficiencies in their product, they gave me some back and forth customer support static and said they would refund only half ($33) and it may take 2 weeks to process.

So just to check on them by doing a Google search, turns out the company for CyclingDiet, UAB Kilo Grupė, in the first few Google results, are about “unauthorized charges” and scam alerts.

Now I’m going to have to watch my PayPal and bank accounts to see what happens.

They buy a lot of online ads. They’re everywhere. I blocked them.

As you can imagine, I won’t recommend this product. Far from it.

In fact this is the best $33, hopefully, I’ve ever spent if it helps you not fall for this waste of your time and money.

If you need a diet, talk to your medical doctor or a licensed nutritionist. They work with you and legitimate online programs for you to evaluate, plan, and track your diet. That’s the safest and will get you the best results.

Happy cycling!

For more free reviews and stories go to BrownieBytes.net

Sunflowers for Mothers

What an Olympic Medalist, Homeless in Seattle, Wants You to Know

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By Scott Greenstone, Seattle Times staff reporter

When Rebecca Twigg was 7, she rode a bike for the first time. There were no training wheels, but Twigg took off like she’d done it in a previous life. She fell only when she realized she didn’t know how to stop, and steered into a wall.

“I took to the road like I was born to do it,” Twigg says today. “Except for the little part about stopping. I’m not a very good planner.”

The Seattle-raised athlete went on to become one of the most famous American cyclists in the ’80s and ’90s, winning six world championships and medaling in two Olympics. She appeared on cycling magazine covers, in sponsor ads and in features in Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair.

Rebecca Twigg was the darling of the cycling scene in the 1980’s & 90’s

But then, in 1996, she left the team abruptly during the Olympics and the next year, retired from cycling. She re-entered the workforce. It didn’t work out.

“Once you’ve done something that feels like you’re born to do it, it’s hard to find anything that’s that good of a fit,” Twigg says today. “Anything else that feels that way.”

Rebecca Twigg has now been without a home for almost five years in Seattle, living first with friends and family, then in her car, then in homeless shelters and then, for a night, under garbage bags on the street downtown. She hasn’t had a bike for years, and no one recognizes her anymore, she says.

See More [Seattle Times]

BrownieBytes Take

I was in the US Olympic Cycling Coaching Program in the late 1980’s and early 90’s and met Rebecca once and saw her working out many times in Colorado Springs at the Olympic Training Center. She seemed to be a very dedicated and down-to-earth person. It’s a shame that this has happened to her.

So many athletes put it all on the line with very little financial backing during their amateur athletic career. Once that career is over most don’t have any financial backing and struggle to reinvent themselves. I speak from experience on this, both as a reinvented athlete and coach. Reinvention skills are the key to life.

— R. Michael Brown