Banjopickin wrote on 06/02/17 at 2:51pm:

even when I was considered fit, I was never fast. Something about being 6'3" and always being 200lbs+ I used to love to climb, now I dread it. There was a short period when I know I was drinking too much. But then I quit for a couple of months ,and now I only drink occasionally. I seem to crave that IPA taste, but one or two beers satisfies it . I like the new wave of juicy IPA's I can'r wait to try Highland's Hawaiian IPA. It's 8% abv. Thank god that session &^&^ is finally on the downturn

drinking beer is part of CX, not sure why no one else gives it a try!

And yet some of the best riders I know get drunk/high as hell all the time,  eat cheap ass Mexican food the night before races and stay up way too late. Not sure how they do it but they do. 

And here I don't do drugs and am not considered much of a partier. I've drank craft beer since it's first big inception in the early 90's. And even then it was after a bike ride that I led from a brewery. And I drank beer whenever I went to a concert. Another one of the things I like to do. I maybe do junk food maybe twice a month. I still like cycling, but not the long marathon sessions I once did. 5 - 10 miles is more my speed now. But when it comes to diet and working out, it always comes down to the beer. Different metabolism. And they tell me that the older I'm getting, my metabolism slows down, and beer is the casualty of my metabolism. So cutting down isn't helping much. What will I do after a ride in the mountains. Maybe go to the soda shop

I wish I would hit that Plateau where it seems I'm losing weight. It just doesn't seem to go down. Very frustrating😕

Impaler 58 wrote on 06/17/17 at 3:17pm:


How long is a 'marathon session'?

5-10 miles won't burn much off, regardless of age. 

Diet isn't nearly as important when you're just fueling your body, as in being a high level- professional athlete. You need to eat lots of everything. 

For the discussion at hand, diet is important as is riding a lot.

Impaler 58 wrote on 06/18/17 at 11:46am:


Get off the carbs.
No sugary drinks or sweet fruit juices. Water, tea and black coffee are the drinks for you. No bread, refined grains, etc.. No chips, french fries and other starches. Sorry, but pizza and Subway doesn't make the cut by a long shot (only eat the toppings). Neither does oatmeal, cereal or pasta. Or pancakes, waffles, donuts or biscuits. Or nutrition bars (fake news). Whole grain is better than refined grain, but it still doesn't make the cut. Don't eat it. 
Eat vegetables, meat, nuts, eggs, etc... Cheese and butter are cool. Limit fruit and especially candy. 
If it comes in a box, don't eat it. 

If it says low carb, don't eat it. If it comes from wheat flour, don't eat it. If it doesn't grow and come in its natural state or come from an animal source, don't eat it. If the government or TV says to eat it, don't eat it. Beer? Nope sorry. Nothing more than fermented carbs. If you must, limit yourself to one.
Don't eat breakfast (handful of nuts or a piece of fruit if you can't stand it). The first meal of the day should be a sensible lunch, the last should be dinner. 
Watch the weight magically fall off your body.

You want eat out all the time, cool. Same rules. Don't eat the bread and don't eat the fries or refined carbs. Everything else is fair game. There's a reason why cheap restaurants and the food industry wants to feed you this stuff.. It's cheap junk nutritionally speaking, lasts forever on a warehouse shelf and they get to stuff more money in their pockets from peddling it. I admit, eating it is better than starving to death. But that aint you. Most of it is subsidized by the government. It's a win win for them. Unfortunately, you and your body lose.

You can also consider 24 hour fasts. To do this, once or twice a week, eat dinner, then don't eat again until the next night at dinner (liquids are fine, buillon, coffee, tea, etc..). But this shouldn't be necessary unless you've got serious health problems related to diet. A few teaspoons of trail mix or peanut or almond butter should address any momentary weakness you might have. If you like pickles or cucumbers with dijon mustard eat them with zero guilt.

mountainbiker90 makes a decent point. Some extreme athletes need lots of calories for building muscle. Especially body builders, football players. You're not one of these guys. And they're not getting these calories from sugar or refined carbs. They get them from real food. What is real food? It grows and is in its natural state or comes from an animal. And isn't made in a factory, or a laboratory with an ingredient list that looks like something from chemistry class.

Calories are generally not the problem. The problem is hormonal. Insulin especially. It's known as the fat storing hormone. You're body doesn't know the difference between a piece of pizza, a banana, a glass of orange juice, a 6" sub, french fries or a snickers bar. Nope sorry, pizza is not a vegetable. Your body treats all refined carbs and sugar the same. And it stores these calories as fat. You wont burn them unless you're an Ethiopian running a marathon everyday or lifting weights like Arnold (and trust me, he didn't eat it either). 

It's actually worse than that. Carb rich processed foods especially have little nutritional value. Therefore, if they are the primary source of your diet, your body will still be hungry, causing you to eat even more of it storing it as fat and getting very little nutrition from it. It's your bodies way of saying, hey guy, I'm dying here and you're not feeding me anything but junk. And you keep doing it.

It's very simple. You want to lose weight and especially fat, limit the carbs and eat real food. 

Buy a scale and weigh yourself daily. Once you get to the weight you like and you get your body off the carbs and sugar, you can have a cheat day occasionally.

You can thank me later.   

Have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them for you.

If you can imagine anything worse for you than sugar, it would be the ingredients in diet soda!

It brings up the question about some liquor . Some are said to have zero carbs

Impaler 58 wrote on 06/19/17 at 6:54pm:


tequila/vodka are your best bet