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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@LA Dave
It depends, I guess on what sort of character you would like to hold up as an exemplar.
If it's the maniacal man who would win at any cost and actively denigrate those who would suggest that not playing by the rules is acceptable, good luck to you.
@ten B
Amen, brother. That is what I tell my kids everyday.
Never understood the visceral hatred of Pharmstrong by some here. Seems to be a double standard when some of the same people have a carbone for Pantani. I lost respect for Armstrong from the same source I gained it - cycling. He was always talking about "the team". He could have exited with class during his second "comeback" Tour attempt when his personal tour went off the rails. I remember watching and thinking "If it wasn't all bullshit, he will come out and ride for the team now." Wrong. Made everything he said about teamwork over the years meaningless egotistical nonsense.
Well, that and the fact that Lance is a shill for Michelob Ultra. How does that effect me? Any organized ride that has beer at the end seems to think this beer is the one cyclists want now. Thanks Lance.
Why hasn't Wiggins come out screaming how he was robbed of a 3rd place in the 09 Tour?
@brett
Could be a number of reasons:
@ten B
Gold star for you, my friend.
@brett I'm actually curious about who will be the first cyclist to step out and stake claim to the carcass of those tours...i.e: I finished 5th, but was the first clean finisher! It'll be interesting to see (if happens at all)....any one care to render a guess? Maybe no one will do that?
@itburns
I can't speak for others, but I will say this; though Pantani may have doped, he wasn't the sort of guy to rub everyone's noses in it. He doped, he won, then snuffed a lot of blow, and ultimately died as the result of the fact that his life fell apart after being found out.
Lance on the other hand, doped, was called out in it several times from many sources, and used intimidation and the legal system and apparently some friends in the UCI to keep it all quiet whist loudly proclaiming thatheh was the best in the world. He ruined a lot of people's careers to support his own.
A bit of a difference there.
@Leroy
Maybe not exactly. But, and this is a big but, as JB points out in that article the difference between #1 and #100 in say the TDF, is 2%. That's a ton. In a local racing thread, a former pro who is now a physician, weighed in on this debate. I've raced against Kirk.
"Just commenting generally and to nobody in particular, on the perception that everyone doped...
This is not my experience. There is an entire generation of riders with the talent to race on TV in July (for example) who chose not to dope. They decided to compete clean even if it meant ending, limiting, or placing a ceiling on their careers. Most of those folks are not involved in professional cycling anymore and are unheard, unseen. I agree though that the power of doping during that era created a selection process that resulted in the majority of athletes at the higher levels of the sport being folks who were willing to dope. I also thing that things have been improving over the past few years."-Kirk Willett
So during those years, you either doped to some degree, or, like what happened to Kirk (who's worn the yellow at the Tour du Pont), you become pack fodder in Europe. It's too bad that negative light is being cast on our sport currently, but in the long run, it'll be better.
@Oli amongst the many articles on Armstrong, here is one that talks about the impossibility of being "de-inspired" after being inspired way back when. Think you were saying something similar. Makes sense. KWC.
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