My favorite feeling is perhaps the empty hollowness of hunger. That statement, in itself, is a declaration of the privileged life I’ve led; it is borderline obscene to boast of such a thing in a world where 842 million people don’t have enough to eat. Nevertheless, being lucky enough to have been raised in America and just competent enough to hold down a job, I find myself in the enviable position of needing to invoke “discipline” in order to experience this sensation.
All that aside, I love feeling hungry, both physically and metaphorically. Physically, being hungry brings something primal out in me; there is an edge that awakens which feels dormant when I’ve eaten. I’m sharper, more alive somehow.
When I eat or drink too much, I feel it in my flesh; I feel the lethargy that comes with food everywhere. I feel it on my back, I feel it in my limbs, I feel it in my eyes – everything is weighed down and blurred. When I am overweight, I find I can go all day without eating and hardly give it a thought. When I’m training and riding well and my weight is down, I can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner and never feel sated. That is the feeling of hunger to which I refer; not a desire to starve, but a physical condition where sustenance feels impossible to achieve. This is a beautiful state where everything feels alive and there is a sharpness and precision in every motion.
There is also a metaphorical hunger, which I don’t think we can achieve without the physical sort. The metaphorical sort is borne of desire and need. This is what drives us to achieve more than we normally would. Sean Kelly talks of this hunger in his book by the same name; in his opening chapter, he says he would rather fall into the any of the greenhouses below the sweeping hairpins along the descent from the Poggio into Sanremo than face defeat by Moreno Argentin. That is hunger in the metaphorical sense.
I am a better person when I feel hunger; I have drive, I have humility, I have courage. When hunger stirs, we come alive with an urgency we don’t otherwise find. Without it, there is no compulsion to act, to fight, or to endure.
I know as well as any of you that I've been checked out lately, kind…
Peter Sagan has undergone quite the transformation over the years; starting as a brash and…
The Women's road race has to be my favorite one-day road race after Paris-Roubaix and…
Holy fuckballs. I've never been this late ever on a VSP. I mean, I've missed…
This week we are currently in is the most boring week of the year. After…
I have memories of my life before Cycling, but as the years wear slowly on…
View Comments
Kelly-Argentin never gets old:
10-4 to all the results described from eating and drinking too much. I get to do it often. The job includes traveling and entertainment = very good meals. Big ones. And nothing like a lotta good miles on the bike to turn the body in to a furnace. I'm amazed at how much I actually want to eat when I'm really enjoying long summer days, riding all week long with the occasional racing on weekends. Always that special hunger... It is a very cool thing. Daylight savings time can't come soon enough! RC
Great timing on this article for my annual hunger fest. You nailed it. Lent is on the immediate horizon and it is just the catalyst any cyclist needs to drive the hunger bus. Delete alcohol, sodas, sweets, coffee and tea (merely vehicles for sugar and milk for me, anyway), then ride your ass off for the next 45 days. The physical hunger this creates is only satisfied by large heaping helpings of the V. You will find yourself determined not to waste the opportunity. As long as you are foregoing all of these creature comforts, you don't want to be ridiculed as the twat who gave it all up and then was 5 pounds heavier. By Easter, voila!, 10 pounds gone. Oh, and the feast at Easter, after the morning ride, is heavenly. If you are not an observer of Easter or Lent, just do it for the Merckx of it!
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=sStK1KG8lnA
@wiscot
I've heard many a tale of the winter you guys are having out there. I'll tell you that after a few days - let alone months - or riding on a bike effectively bolted into place, you will giggle with the joy of a child at the feeling of leaning your bike through a corner.
After the holidays, I remember going to work and wondering at that strange feeling in my stomach - I was hungry for the first time in days.
@Darren
I don't know, man, but I hear you. Change up your regime (bananas a tuna, I hope that's a joke!) and your body might respond to it. Or ride through lunch, forcing you to skip a meal and kick up your metabolism.
@Barracuda
I heard an interesting discussion on NPR the other day where a dietitian was discussing that people overlook fats because of their reputation for making us...well, fat. Anyway, she pointed out that fats are often what help us feel sated and without them, we'll eat more than we need of other things in order to feel the same level of satisfaction from less food with a slightly higher fat content.
Frank, this is beautiful. Really. I love this article.
@Nate
Repost on that.
@wilburrox
Yes! Those long rides are my favorite for that. I'm due for one; I'll just take one cliff bar as emergency bail-out and go all day with no food, just to feel that deep, hollow feeling.
@piwakawaka
Sugar is sugar, it's all carbs. It doesn't matter what form beyond how/when it's absorbed.
The reason weight loss plateaus is because, I believe, the body has begun to take further measures to protect itself. Your body has made some changes to slow the weight loss down, so you'll live through this famine and survive! Try mixing it up a bit. Do a mini carbo-load for a day, change what you're eating, go a day with low carb or something. Personally, if I find a mini-carb load does the trick to get things moving again.