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Body Dysmorphia

These aren't the men you're looking for. Photo: Tim De Waele

I am thrilled to announce that for the first time in my life, my chest measurement is smaller than my hip measurement, an accomplishment I’m not sure many men around the world would be proud to admit. A Cyclist has no use for an upper body, we’re not going about lifting things with our arms; we are the sort of people who do all our lifting with our legs. We just need enough to hold the handlebars and pull from time to time while chewing the bar tape; beyond that, upper bodies are little more than extra weight and I’ve got more of that than I need already.

When I boasted about this tremendous feat to a few work colleagues, none of them showed any appreciation for my accomplishment whatsoever. Mostly they looked at me askance, not unlike how my dog looks at me when I’m talking to her in complete sentences. I could sense them resisting the temptation to start rotating their heads until they fell over like she does. The most any of them could muster was joking about how I must look at the beach, at which point I returned the favor of not having a clue what they were on about. Honestly, I’m much more worried about looking good in my skinsuit than I am about looking good in my mankini.

The first thing one observes when meeting Pro Cyclists is how tiny they are; they look like normal folks on TV but when you see them in real life they look like birds with a gland problem. Alpine ski racers also look like normal people on TV, but when you see them in person you realize they are thrice the size of a normal person, plus two. Either of Bode Miller’s arms are bigger than my right gun, the bigger of the two.

Kate Moss said that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels. Apparently even Kate Moss couldn’t go her whole life without saying something sensible eventually. Being light on a bike is an amazing feeling, and we sacrifice all socially acceptable aesthetics in this pursuit. To be skinny is also to look good on a bike; hunching over a top tube chewing our handlebars isn’t a terribly flattering posture to begin with, one not made any more appealing with a gut protruding into the void.

I’ve never heard a Cyclist say they are happy with their weight, or that they feel they are skinny enough. No matter how skinny we are, we are still too fat. Most Cyclists greet each other with a little pinch on the arm to gauge one another’s weight – the first intimidation of the ride or the first bit of morale, depending on which side of the pinch you are. “Cyclists’ Sizing” is a phenomenon where a rider needs to wear their bibshorts a size bigger than their jersey. This is the maximum body image goal of the Cyclist, to have massive guns and a tiny torso.

I’m on the train, but I’m not there yet. To hasten the journey, I fancy the 5am Spanish Turbo Session in full leggings, long sleeve jersey, and casquette in order to kick start my metabolism in the morning. And then I skip breakfast and lunch. And dinner, if I can manage it. I prefer to cut calories out of my food diet than out of my drinking diet; success is all about setting attainable goals.

frank

The founder of Velominati and curator of The Rules, Frank was born in the Dutch colonies of Minnesota. His boundless physical talents are carefully canceled out by his equally boundless enthusiasm for drinking. Coffee, beer, wine, if it’s in a container, he will enjoy it, a lot of it. He currently lives in Seattle. He loves riding in the rain and scheduling visits with the Man with the Hammer just to be reminded of the privilege it is to feel completely depleted. He holds down a technology job the description of which no-one really understands and his interests outside of Cycling and drinking are Cycling and drinking. As devoted aesthete, the only thing more important to him than riding a bike well is looking good doing it. Frank is co-author along with the other Keepers of the Cog of the popular book, The Rules, The Way of the Cycling Disciple and also writes a monthly column for the magazine, Cyclist. He is also currently working on the first follow-up to The Rules, tentatively entitled The Hardmen. Email him directly at rouleur@velominati.com.

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wiscot says:

Jan 14 2016 at 6:27 am

@Teocalli

Some years ago I was told by my Chiropractor when I commented on me getting a bit podgy from too much jam rolly polly in the canteen he replied that “it’s not what you eat but when you eat it”. His message was basically no carbs in the evening.

So when I needed to lose weight after a mystery illness followed by enforced layoff through injury I followed that method and cut out “white carbs” in the evenings (potato, rice, pasta, bread) and also cut out snacking. Riding 3 – 4 times a week clocking average 170 – 200 Km total it was quite easy to shed weight.

Turns out there is solid science behind this as shown in a TV programme last night. Our bodies naturally increase fat and sugar levels in our blood in the evenings to feed our body overnight. So if you eat later in the evenings your blood levels effectively double up and so with excess sugars and fat your body has little option but to lay down the excess on your ribs.

The problem we have in modern life is that it is often difficult to eat well at midday and we tend to eat easy food in the evening (pizza/pasta – white carbs) then sit in front of the TV and go to bed.

Ideally whatever you eat when you get home in the evening you should do as soon as possible. Great evening meal for me is smoked salmon steak (or other oily fish) on a bed of salad in the summer or stir fried veg in the winter. In general now I try to avoid white carbs in the evenings altogether.

Yeah, I've heard that too. I try not to eat after 8pm at the latest. Biggest issue is the long winter evenings. Too cold and dark to get outside and the warmth of the house and the TV are just too condusive to snacking mindlessly. (Not that I do, cough, cough . . .)
RobSandy says:

Jan 14 2016 at 7:35 am

@wiscot

@Teocalli

Yeah, I’ve heard that too. I try not to eat after 8pm at the latest. Biggest issue is the long winter evenings. Too cold and dark to get outside and the warmth of the house and the TV are just too condusive to snacking mindlessly. (Not that I do, cough, cough . . .)

Doesn't count as a snack if you have it with a beer. Fact.
Ron says:

Jan 14 2016 at 7:46 am

Is that the ghost of Axel Merckx haunting the lads in the lead photo?

Funny timing with this. After a good block of years doing nothing more than cycling and futbol, I've officially lost enough bulky muscle mass from years of sports-related weight training that I'm now doing a mid-work day weights circuit twice a week.

I'm 5 kg lighter than my playing weight in college, but I have no interest in looking like a professional cyclist. Happy to care some light muscle, plus I'll have to be carrying a baby soon, so I need to retrain the upper guns a bit!
Ron says:

Jan 14 2016 at 7:50 am

For getting weight down, I've always found that eating every three hours works for me. It's a pretty small window, so if you stick to the schedule and have overeaten, it'll be uncomfortable to eat again in three hours. A very good reminder to eat just enough.

Plus, I started doing this religiously with my first post-college desk job and it really helps the workday fly by. Even if you like your job, that's not a bad thing.
ErikdR says:

Jan 14 2016 at 7:58 am

@wiscot

@ErikdR

@KBrooks

This is the beauty of hardcore touring/bikepacking. If you ride long enough, day after day, you can scour the aisles of the Quik-E-Mart for the highest-calorie snacks and stop at every roadside barbecue joint and still lose weight. Sometimes alarmingly.

F***ing spot on, Bevan! In the summer of 2014, I cycled across the eastern USA: anything between 90 and 160 km. per day – 6 days a week, for 4 weeks. The trip was fully catered and the chow was tasty and substantial, to say the least. I munched my way through ridiculous amounts of food – and came home 6 kg lighter than when I left and looking trim. That didn’t last more than a few weeks, though…

A few years back a two girl band called The Ditty Bops played Milwaukee. They were riding their bikes between gigs while someone else drove the van. It was a national tour. Those girls were ripped!

I'll bet they were. Being in a Human Powered traveling road show would do that to you, I reckon.

A national tour! So these ladies actually crisscrossed the U.S. on bikes? That's certainly worthy of respect.
Sparty says:

Jan 14 2016 at 8:23 am

@ErikdR

@wiscot

@ErikdR

@KBrooks

This is the beauty of hardcore touring/bikepacking. If you ride long enough, day after day, you can scour the aisles of the Quik-E-Mart for the highest-calorie snacks and stop at every roadside barbecue joint and still lose weight. Sometimes alarmingly.

F***ing spot on, Bevan! In the summer of 2014, I cycled across the eastern USA: anything between 90 and 160 km. per day – 6 days a week, for 4 weeks. The trip was fully catered and the chow was tasty and substantial, to say the least. I munched my way through ridiculous amounts of food – and came home 6 kg lighter than when I left and looking trim. That didn’t last more than a few weeks, though…

A few years back a two girl band called The Ditty Bops played Milwaukee. They were riding their bikes between gigs while someone else drove the van. It was a national tour. Those girls were ripped!

I’ll bet they were. Being in a Human Powered traveling road show would do that to you, I reckon.

A national tour! So these ladies actually crisscrossed the U.S. on bikes? That’s certainly worthy of respect.

From May 23 through September 2, 2006, the Ditty Bops embarked on a cross-country tour by bicycle to promote the release of their second album, Moon Over the Freeway, while advocating a call-to-action about pollution and energy conservation. They traveled from Los Angeles to New York City, logging 4,502.75 miles.^[6]
kixsand says:

Jan 14 2016 at 8:23 am

Universal truth here.

I'm lighter than I have been since my early 20's - 80kg @185 cm and yet I am still plagued by thoughts of how effortlessly I would climb if only I could lose a few more...

And if I am to be honest with myself, there is very clearly a few more pounds around the mid-section that could go. The truth that I have come to see is that those pounds only go with a change in diet and that is a difficult change for me to make. I think it would be easier if food wasn't the last addiction left to me...
Amanda says:

Jan 14 2016 at 8:55 am

I find that while it's a struggle on a personal level, it's also hard on a social level. "Oh, you ride your bike so much, you can eat whatever you like! Why won't you have some more of X food?"

Because the lighter I am, the better I perform on that bike! When I started I was 5 ft 6 and 11 stone, and it was hellish. It's so much easier at 9 stone. I sometimes point out my guns and that usually stops them, but it can be mentally draining to hear such things.
KogaLover says:

Jan 14 2016 at 8:56 am

@Puffy

Your BMI is 18.6. BMI's below 20 and above 23-ish have a higher mortality rate. Eat and live up to your name, you're far from Puffy.

Oh, and btw, I would be in the other unhealthy BMI category unfortunately: CWFMW in summer but right now probably TFTC
SamV says:

Jan 14 2016 at 10:24 am

At my peak last season I was down as low as 52kg. I'd guess this winter, I'm up to 54kg or so. Still thin for 167cm, and surprisingly, cutting down from 2500-3000/cal per day wasn't too hard. But, I'm with @Teocalli on the snacking. Ordinarily I'd just be getting home from a ride around 7:00 pm. Now at that time it's already been dark for hours, I'm being drawn towards the couch, and may or may not be on my second beer.