Bicycling Magazine’s “250 Best Cycling Tips” had this to tell me:
“The ideal amount of body fat for an elite male rider is 6 to 9 percent, for a woman, 11 to 14 percent.”
I found it mildly hilarious that I would somehow have to lose close to 10% of my body fat by spring. Putting it up as my gchat status message, a fellow legal-eagle-cyclist-Belgophile IMed me:
“Story of my life, friend.”
Manorexia is old news in the cycling world, but when all a guy has to do is eat 2 cheeseburgers a day rather than 5 to lose weight, where does that leave the girls? When 20 to 24% of the average woman’s body consists of fat, how do you shed the pounds? By eating tissues? Doing the Master Cleanse…forever?
Sure women are built differently than men – except for maybe my sister who could probably eat nutella and peanut butter all day and still clock in at an envious 96 lbs – but that doesn’t mean I’m not prone to self-conscious pangs of guilt and gluttony. When Brett saw a picture of M1 pre-riding-seriously-several-times-a-week-and-losing-more-than-25-lbs, he [half] jokingly called him fat. When I heard that, I wanted to either run on a treadmill until I lost 20 lbs or eat a whole chocolate cake. Instead I sighed and got back on the rollers the next day.
What can you do? Surrounding yourself with guys who seriously love racing will teach you a thing or two about training and the mechanics of a bike, but it’ll also have you inspecting your arms and legs to see if the veins are popping out of them yet. It’ll have you wearing loose t-shirts to hide love handles and anything less than washboard abs. “Fat” and “skinny” in the cycling world aren’t defined by normal people. They’re defined by the Olson twins.
Which is enough to have me – usually the only girl in the crew – feeling like the resident blimp. And it’s not too far off base; poptarts and cereal for dinner my first year of law school left me with 10 additional pounds that I’ve been trying to get rid of since. But now officially in my late-twenties, and with dreams of Kissena, there’s a reason to drop those 10 pounds [and hopefully more].
So I’ve been cutting calories, avoiding refined flour, and riding and running whenever I’m not at a desk. It’s slightly embarrassing; it’s actually the first time in my life that I’ve been concerned about my weight, and ashamed by it.
Sounds kind of like confessions of a developing anorexic, huh? Don’t worry. As we were discussing the need to drop weight, my legal-eagle-Belgophile friend said:
“Manorexia takes dedication that I just don’t have.”
I agreed. I’m just too damn lazy.
14 responses so far ↓
you should try anaerobic exercise. strength training is by far the most effective way to change your body’s appearance and composition. I’d say some of your workout time would be better spent at a squat rack than on a treadmill, especially if you’re serious about track.
Those numbers are crazy. I am a muscle guy by nature and if I got my BF down to that %, I would pass out. 😉 As most nutritionalists will tell you, people who have less than 8% or so body fat are generally not healthy people, regardless of what they look like.
I was reading that if you eliminate sugar and consume more healthy fats then your body begins burning fats as opposed to what its been accustomed to burning, sugar. Makes sense.
lifein360 — ahahaha i tend to bulk up a lot and my gearing on the track bike probably isn’t helping. yeah those body fat % are crazy…especially for the women!
william — the atkins diet? no thanks. i’m mostly vegetarian so cutting out all carbs isn’t feasible. i do try to stick to carbs with a low GI though.
[…] See the original post: being the blimp […]
Elite Cyclist plus Law school may be a difficult road to hall.
An old friend from Madras once said to me when i was racing back in 84′ – “you can be a great cyclist or a great engineer, but it is not likley you will be both – it is focus that will make you successful – you must choose”
Don’t worry so much about your weight.
I agree with Neal on adding anaerobic excercise to the mix. i am sure you are aware of periodization and Dec is the time to start.
Check out Eddy B’s Bicycle Road Racing Manual – old school Training manual, great for the archives and simple yet effective program. He recommends eating to cyclists.
Peter Mooney says, “Eat to Ride, Ride to Eat”
11-14%??? well if body fat is that low, you won’t have to worry about menstruating!
that is a ridiculous number and 6-9 for men is also ridiculous. remember what the french say: at a certain point in life, you must choose between your waist and your face. if you are too thin, you will look like a crone.
have a peanut butter sandwich, you’re too thin already.
I lost 25 pounds in high school. Yes, I was one of those fatties who suddenly shed everything.
The hardest part for me was to let my stomach shrink a little / get used to smaller portions. It took me a week or two to begin to adjust. Really, it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t exercise super-strenuously, only marching band practice for an hour 3 days a week, for 4 hours 2 days a week (it’s not strenuous until close to showtime). Also – marching band practice. I was one of those kids.
My previous daily diet would be:
1) Breakfast of buttered toast, fried egg, coffee
2) Lunch of sandwich, fruit, some other snack, milk
3) Large dinner
4) Snacks (oodles of Cheetos)
5) Large bedtime snack of ice cream or something like it.
I cut it down to:
1) Light breakfast of toast with jam or butter, black coffee or only with milk, no sugar
2) Lunch of grilled chicken salad, really light on dressing, boost flavor with a few sunflower seeds, croutons. skim milk.
3) Same dinner, but cut about 1/4th – 1/5th off of your normal portion. Adjust depending on how full you used to get – I used to stuff myself at each dinner.
4) ~100-150 cal snack of anything you choose. Yes, we can watch different carbs, fats, etc, but to me as a bio major, calories are calories. Regardless of how they metabolize, you have to have a net loss if you want to lose fat.
5) Drink tons of water. It’s a habit that stays (annoyingly) to this day. I’m a thirsty boy.
The most important thing I found was to eat what you wanted. Obviously you can’t demolish a tub of ice cream or start licking at a stick o’ butter, but if I wanted some Cheetos, I’d get some. Pour a reasonable serving in a bowl, seal the bag, walk away. Eat them and be happy. Take a sustainable approach. You do not need to be elite weight – not until you need to start making podium in elite races. I’m sure though, by then, you’d be training enough to just destroy whatever calories you’d eat.
As neal said, perhaps try a little strength training. Also coming from a non-athletic background, I thought strength training meant going to the gym and lifting horrendously painful amounts of iron over and over. Not true. If it’s really difficult, it’s probably counterproductive / harmful. Plus, people new to strength training usually build a ton of muscle really quickly. The extra muscle provides a small metabolic boost to your regular baseline calorie consumption.
I comment here a lot having never met you before, haha. You have interesting topics.
Kaiko, didn’t you hear that it’s Fat Talk Free Week?
http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/fat_talk_free_week
Anyway, body fat % is not directly related to cycling performance so I wouldn’t worry about it that much. You would be better off concentrating on sustainable power for the durations of your goal events first. Get your power up (i.e. ride intervals), then worry about cutting weight after maybe 2 yrs of structured training. If you want to be fast. If you want to just look good, ride more, eat less. Weight loss is a pretty simple game of calories in – calories out. You can ride yourself skinny without becoming fast because all it takes is time on the bike and the self-restraint to eat less. Getting fast also requires a fair amount of ride time but it takes more than just “hopping on the rollers.” Structured intervals are the most effective way to do this.
Kurt – Elite cyclist + law school is entirely possible, my teammate Adrian is going into his second year at UW Law and just signed a contract with the OUCH pro cycling team for 2010: http://goodsensations.blogspot.com/
Lang
pugetpower.blogspot.com
kurt — thanks…and like lang says, it’s not impossible
robyn — awesome! two birds in one stone! ahahaha just kidding.
cheshyre — yeah i’m cutting down on portions and mostly stick to fruit and veggies. refined flour makes me crash like crazy, so i’m avoiding that. it’s tough, as you know, but i’ll get there. and thanks for commenting!
lang — DUDE!!! HOW’S BEING PRO IN SEATTLE??? better than swarthmore, i hope. also why are you reading up on women’s rights? yeah i know, i need to log in more miles but the whole one gear thing is an awesome motivation killer. and i don’t have the $$$ for a powermeter. BUT by the time i see you (2012, i hear?) hopefully i’ll have a shit ton of gears. thanks for the advice!
Kaiko,
I apologize for the confusion, I meant to say a diet heavy in starch causes your body to burn sugar instead of fat. Your body turns the starch to sugar and delivers them to your cells quickly, makes your brain happy and leaves you wanting more. Because of this you may end up with more fuel than you need and end up putting on weight. I scanned this article from the May 2009 issue of Bicycling. http://www.flickr.com/photos/xg43x/
Don’t cut starch, whatever you do. That will wreck your glycogen stores – and you need those if you plan on doing any sort of endurance activity. Low-carb diets are for 400-lb men on Atkins, not endurance athletes.
Try some HIIT, which I’ve had good experience with. Basically, it is 20-30 seconds of 100% effort alternated with intensity of around 40-60%. So: sprint->jog->sprint-jog->sprint-jog->repeat. You’ll need to eat carbs to do this, though.
It’s healthy to remind yourself that manorexia is a relatively new fashion in cycling. I first noticed the change in 1996 when Bjarne Riis stomped all over the Tour with his stick-figure legs and arms (and pocketfuls of dope, as it turns out). Suddenly, even Merckx, Hinault and LeMond looked fat to me, and those were the guys that I was devoted to when I got into the sport. Even this season, when I’ve been at my thinnest and fittest, I felt 20 pounds overweight riding behind some of the Cat 1s and 2s on local training rides. It messes with your head, even when the veins are visible in your limbs and you know you’re in good shape. But I steer myself back in line by looking backward at the beefy Belgians I admired back in the day, not the waif-like Walloons cruising the peloton today. I think you can be your natural self and still be fast. Like some of the other commenters have said, do intervals, ride lots and eat normally. Basically, be you.
I gotta chime in here on a few things.
@neal weight training is great for health and well being, but for become a faster cyclist its mostly a waste of time. Cycling is about oxygen transport, not 1 rep max. The percentage of 1 rep max that it takes to turn over your pedals is incredibly small. Unless you’re only a match sprinter your time is better spent turning the pedals. If you want your back to stop hurting, or want to be able to stand up straight off the bike (for people who are into that kind of thing) then yeah, do some core strength.
Before I was a competitive cyclist I enjoyed a 10 year career as a competitive nordic skiier. At my peak performance, probably my junior year in college, I tipped the scales at 178 pounds and 5% body fat. I ate everything in sight.
Last year, after winning the TT at Fitchburg (in the cat4’s mind you), taking 3rd in the GC, and going on to win the working mans stage race a week later, I tipped the scales at 155 pounds, and I still was eating everything in sight. Bear in mind, I’m 6’2″.
If you want to drop weight, ride more. Most pros don’t obsess about their food as much as amateurs, because they’re riding so much it really doesn’t matter. You want to eat whole foods, avoid processing, and just ride.
You can count macronutrients and calories all you want. Just ride the bike and ride it consistently. Listen to your body, eat when you’re hungry, stop when you’re full. I’m reminded of the wisdom of Bobke on this one :
” Self-hate propels the bicycle faster than all the 30/30/40 ratio flim-flam, phin-phen scam artists combined. Let retired generals, Enron satanists, Juan Exxon Valdez, and Guantanamo bay-detained Islamic Jihadists eat right. It is way better to crash hard and eat wrong.”
-J