Sunday, March 29, 2009


When I Don't Ride I Don't Write
(About Anything Interesting)

Yes, I have trouble writing when I don't ride my bike. A rest week produces very little material for a bike-based-blog. I generally try to steer away from boring people with the banal existence I stumble through outside of my biking life. So While I wait on the uploading to Vimeo of the totally wicked awesome video I edited during the extra hours my insomnia gave me this morning (thanks insomnia, you rock!) I will share some more super-secret-crazy-crap with you.

If you are actually versed in the intricacies of diet and nutrition then the following will look like the ravings of a lunatic. If you are more like me and base your day to day actions on a hodge podge of half-remembered and misinterpreted articles and incorrectly overheard advice (that often...er, sometimes works), this will make a lot of sense.

Since I've been here, doing this blogging thing, I have generally been pretty skinny. There have been fluctuations (wild!) in my weight during that period, but mostly I have stayed pretty thin. Therefore, in the great American tradition of having a mild amount of success in a given area, declaring yourself an expert, and getting up on a soapbox to tell everyone else how they too can have such mild success I will share my "diet" with you.

But first...further qualifications! I have not always been thin, I was a fat kid. How fat? It doesn't matter. In the lead up to the last presidential election there were people out there trying to tell us that Obama is not black. Defining "black" as term used exclusively to describe those descended from West African slaves. The KKK doesn't care who you're descended from. If Obama had gone to Bob Jones University would he have been allowed to date white women due to the technicality that he was not actually descended from West African slaves? My point? You are as black...or as fat as people (white/jerks) think you are. And I was fat enough to get made fun of for years.

My Norwegian neighbors took Polaroid photos of me sitting in a chair in the kitchen with my shirt off, my rolls stacked up, my boobs hanging over them. They had never seen a fat kid before, they wanted to send the photo back to their friends in Norway.

After a trip to the swimming hole in High School one of my good buddies told me later that one of the girls present said that I had "the worst body she'd ever seen".

Thirty pounds overweight or three hundred pounds overweight, that shit hurt.

Unlike being some other color than paper white or gay or disabled due to a congenital birth defect or an accident, being fat is generally something you can change. I was fat, not because of some glandular or emotional problem. I was fat because I was lazy, played Nintendo constantly, ate snickers bars and drank coke all day, and did nothing active whatsoever. That is the case with most fat people I'm afraid.

I just wanted to spell that out for you because people often say things to me like "Oh it's easy for you, you have a great metabolism". I am not naturally thin, I try hard. I have the torn up fat kid photos to prove it.


The story of how I stopped being fat initially is something I will spare you from...for now. I will get on with the VERY SERIOUS BUSINESS at hand.

This is what I eat throughout the day when I want to lose weight for the big bike races while training wicked, wicked hard:

  • At around 7:30-8AM I get up, have a big glass of Orange Juice with my generic Multi-Vitamin and make my two spinach and egg wraps*.
  • If I'm doing a longer, harder training ride on the way to work I'll have a GU as well. Shorter ride? I'll just go with some GU2O in the water bottle. If I'm just commuting, no food at all.
  • If I've done a hard ride, when I get to work I have some chocolate milk before I change out of my clothes. A little while later I'll eat one of my two spinach and egg wraps.
  • A couple hours later I eat the second egg wrap.
  • An hour and a half or so after that I have a small yogurt.
  • About three hours before I plan on riding home I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
  • Between then and when I get back on the bike I have an apple or a banana.
  • If I'm doing a 2+ hour ride on the way home I'll have another GU.
  • For dinner, if I'm being good, I'll have a big salad with tofu, chicken, or fish, tons of colorful veggies and maybe a small amount of cheese.
  • If I'm too hungry to sleep later on, I'll have a glass of soymilk.
* Spinach and Egg Wrap:
- Begin heating pan on medium heat
- Scramble three eggs (I don't use milk) with a little salt and pepper
- Spray or coat pan in thin film of Olive Oil
- Dump eggs in, swirl pan to distribute egg evenly
- When they firm up, split into two halves and flip them
- Throw a small amount of cheese on (I usually use Feta) and some hot sauce
- Toss some spinach on top, sprinkle some salt on top (helps the wilt)
- Put a small Tortilla over each pile of egg and spinach and throw a lid over the pan so the spinach steams and the tortillas get soft and supple
- Let them sit while you go brush your teeth or make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich something
- Wrap 'em up, put 'em in a tup(perware container) and take them to work where you'll make your co-workers jealous because they ate McDonalds for breakfast.

That's about it. The idea is that you keep your energy up, never get bogged down, and never get ravenously hungry to the point where you freak out and eat something gnarly. It works for me anyway. Once a week I go out and go a little nuts with the food and maybe the drink. Other than that I just (try) to avoid fried foods and baked goods when I'm actually trying to drop weight. Once I'm racing and at a good weight I'll have a scone or cookie when I feel like it. Fortunately for me I worked in an Ice Cream shop when I was 13, and that pretty much killed my sweet tooth, by drowning.

OK, more than enough out of me for today, the alleged awesome Video will have to wait for tomorrow.

2 comments:

rick is! said...

good lord, I'm glad I didn't start out fat. what you just described is what I eat in a day before lunch. I'd be a mess if that is all I ate.

zencycle said...

My daily breakfast consists of a 10 oz glass of whole milk, a 10 oz glass of OJ, and a 16 oz coffee with a tablespoon of sugar and a couple oz of 1/2&1/2

It actually works out to be pretty close to 600 calories, depending on the amount of 1/2&1/2.

On race days I'll also eat a banana and a whole toasted bagel with peanut butter.

On days when I'm planning a long training ride from somewhere else, I'll stop at mcdonalds and get a bacon, egg and cheese biscuit, and hash browns in addition to the coffee/milk/oj. I can ride for 4 hours without feeling the need to eat after that. I might not win any town line sprints, but I won't get dropped.

Right now I'm about 5 pounds overweight, but I've just started bike commuting, so I'll be in my zone by the end of april.