When it comes to weight and body dysmorphia, we cyclists can go toe-to-toe with any thirteen year old tween who has done their time flipping through the pages of Vogue and Sixteen. However fit and thin we might be, at some point it dawns on us that we’re not as light as we could be. The obvious solution is to buy lighter parts for our bikes, but eventually we will run out of parts to buy or money to spend. At that point, we’ll have no alternative but to start losing weight.
On the surface, this is a fairly simple matter; calories in minus calories out is the magic to any weight loss voodoo, right up to the point where it stops working because the “calories in” part deviates from our lifestyle or our metabolism decides we’re old and that since everything else is slowing down, it should too.
It is at this juncture that we ask ourselves how we can lose those kilos that seem unwilling to melt from our bodies. The answer varies depending on your lifestyle, body type, how loud your Awesome is, and your ideal riding weight. (By the way, similarly to the number of bikes to own, your ideal riding weight is one kilo less than your current weight, or weight ideal = weight current – 1). But assuming that you enjoy eating, alcohol, or anything else that doesn’t suck, it will require doing something drastic.
My journey through weight loss started with doing everything the same but riding more until that program stalled, and then I started doing sit-ups and leg lifts, both of which meet the aforementioned suck requirement. And then I cut back on beer and wine, which sucks even more, but that’s when things really started happening. A surprising side-effect of cutting down on booze, by the way, is that although you get less charismatic, you feel better in general and sleep better in addition to losing weight. It turns out that alcohol is a poison or something. Who knew?
But now that my V-Jersey isn’t stretched like a balloon on a pumpkin, I’ve moved on to worrying about my upper body, which is bigger than a typical cyclist’s thanks to 15 or so years of nordic ski racing. Which brings me to Ullrich’s sleeves. I have always had it in my mind that Jan and I are of similar physique, aside from the quads and calves and the devilishly good looks. But my stupid sleeves are always tight, and his were always loose. I take off my jersey, and sure enough, there’s that little mark that the sleeves made on each of my arms. Infuriating. The only solution is to focus completely on wasting my upper body into nothing.
Since I’m not doing anything outrageous like routinely lifting weighty objects or doing pushups, the only conclusion I can draw is that I’m carrying too many groceries into the house at once. I’ve therefor moved to a strict regimen of only carrying one gallon of milk at a time. It takes twice as long to unload the car that way, but all that walking is good for my cardio, you just have to push through the pain. I also alternate hands every few strides if I’ve parked more than a hundred meters from the house in order to avoid becoming lopsided.
Finally, if this latest program doesn’t work out as well as I expect it to, I’ve also realized that while carbohydrates are an athlete’s friend in terms of providing easy energy to burn during a workout, they are heavy on the fork, and repetitively lifting forkloads of pasta into my mouth may be what’s causing my shoulders to bulk up unnecessarily. I’m therefor on the lookout for a healthy food source that can be drank from a straw or something in pellet form that I can peck out of a bowl.
It’s drastic, sure, but drastic times call for drastic measures, and I’m determined to get there eventually.
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I lol'd at the Phil and Paul soundboard part I wonder if there is a Sean Kelly soundboard as well.
Seriously though I'm not one of those Americans who has rose colored glasses on about L.A. and even tho I knew in my mind that this kind of thing was bound to happen eventually I still find myself pretty disappointed and a little angry about all of it.
The thing is that I already spent a lot of time being pissed off at a sport full of cheaters, as a big Baseball fan at about the same time that Lance won all those tours. Its just not worth it having all that hatred and anger in my heart about it. I like pro cycling but at the end of the day it is only a sport, its not life or death.
@San Tonio
Not sure about the King Kelly soundboard, but Team JVA has a Jensie soundboard and it's amazing.
http://teamjva.com/jens-voigt-soundboard/
First post......
a little bit of comic relief wouldnt go amiss here, http://www.theonion.com/articles/havent-we-all-done-steroids-in-a-way,29317/
@LA Dave spot on. His ride up Luz Ardiden is still my most favourite cycling moment. Whilst that fact has more than a little to do with there being effectively no live Euro cycling on Australian tv prior to about 2000 -when the dust settles Armstrong should be regarded with admiration.
But what do I know? I love Vino.
@Sauterelle
Pure fuck'in GOLD!!!
@the Engine
You, my friend are a well educated genius. That sums up a lot. Most useful bit of WS I've seen in recent memory.
I realised a while ago that he true measure of a man's charcter isn't the big, showy things he does, but in what he does when he thinks nobody's looking. It's called integrity. If LA had laid it bare like Bjarne Riis, I would have been mightily impressed. Call me naive, but I think Livestrong would have come out better for it too. Instead we have more of the same BS.
We'll never know if he could have done what he did if the entire peloton were clean. Doping helps some more than others. Who knows if a clean Ullrich would have torn the legs off a clean Armstrong? It would be silly to think that anyone could answer that question with any confidence at all.
What it comes down to is that this changes my opinion of cycling not at all. I'll still ride, and I'll still watch.
Cycling News mentions that USADA may make their evidence public over the next few weeks or months, even though LA is not fighting his ban. Will we then see an enquiry into why the federal fraud case was dropped so surprisingly when evidence was readily available? That, and how much shit is about to hit the fan at Aigle, is going to be interesting. Unfortunately for cycling, it's possible that LA's ban is just the start, not the finish.
Fuck this! I'm going for a ride...
Not usually a fan of Kimmage, but enjoyed this read.
@meursault
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/26/cycling-clean-up not sure if insert link is working... I'm not going for a ride, at work and bike is in hospital, very sick.