I have an exercise bike at home, I’m quite overweight and I would like to start losing it as soon as possible.

How many miles a day do you think I should do?

(I am starting on the easiest setting)

Thank you.

dont listen to people giving you a set time to go one there, firstly you need to be eating right, if your key aim is to lose weight then buy healthy foods and if your really serious then weigh them so that you can accuratly count your calorie intake. as for the exercise bike, many of them come with calorie counters on them to give you an idea of how many calories you have burned on each use, if your counting calories then these can be an excellent guide on how long to stay on the bike, if not, the way i started using static cycles (which greatly helped me to lose around a stone in 4 weeks) was to do a few days of just using the bike and seeing what sort of time/distance/setting i felt most comfortable to stay on there for. after i had established my comfort zone with the bike i started setting goals with sort of rewards to act as a bit of an insentive. for example i may aim to cycle for 20 minutes but as an insentive to work harder i will make the condition that if i can cycle 7 miles in 18 minutes then i get to stop 2 minutes earlier however if i dont then i have to carry on for the full 20 minutes. i find this helps greatly with motivation (those were just example figures you should work out what is comfortable for you and as your level of fitness increases set higher limits and boundaries and try to find ways of making it more interesting than just sitting on a bike!!!

I just got an exercise bike (used) and it is killing my butt! There are so many pads on the market, what do you think is the best? Is there anything I can do in the meantime (rig up my own cushion somehow??). thanks.

Take short rides until you butt gets use to the saddle. If you haven’t ridden a bike for a while it takes a little time to get use to it. A gel pad can make things worse, make sure the saddle is at the correct height and the angle. You want your weight to be on your sit bones. You can try a folded up towel or a piece of 1 inch thick foam rubber.

http://bicycletutor.com/adjust-seat/

My mom’s exercise bike which is pretty much brand new is broken (the tension won’t work so I’m assuming the tension cable is broken) What causes this to break? She is blaming me and my friends but I don’t think we did it. Anyone know what causes the cable to break?

The cable shouldn’t break unless someone was applying a lot of pressure. Check the manual in the trouble shooting section. It should be under warranty. It could be as simple as the cable slipped in the clamp.

What is a reasonable time to cycle ten miles on an exercise bike?

Depending on What type of stationary bike:

It the sit down with the pedals in front of you: 1 h 15 min

Pedals under you (like actual bike) 50mins

I’m 18, weigh around 140 pounds and I’m around 5′6. It takes me around 20 minutes to burn 100 calories (on medium resistance). But I don’t know if that’s ”normal”. So I’m wonder if 100 calories is normal.

And how much weight you can lose by dieting and using an exercise bike alone. Any tips and diet suggestions?

Well you can definitely put a bit more effort in it!! Hahaha. I used to use the bikes at my gym when
i would go with my dad and would basically not put in any effort and wait for him to finish (after I did 30 min on something else) and I would get about the same as you. So try to petal faster!! The bike is really not ideal for working out because your body doesn’t even have the natural resistance of your weight (since the seat supports you) and your upper body isn’t involved. Plus its really really easy to just slow down your pedaling. So if you can find a different way to exercise, jogging is really efficient and jumping rope can cut fat in minutes a day since its SO high energy. But if this is your only option and you want to lose weight (which from you description you dont need to, but I get the whole bathing suit season coming up thing) I suggest you turn down the resistance and start to petal FAST and then slowly add resistance so you don’t lose speed. Starting on a med resistance and going kinda fast/kinda slow is the least efficient way to work out though because your body does that kind of activity at that kind of stress level when it walks and carries the weight of your body. So crank up the speed! Even if that means lower resistance to start. Good luck!!