No, I’m not starving myself.

It’s one thing to stand next to the pregnant lady and joke about who looks more pregnant.
It’s totally another when she gives birth, the kid turns a year old, starts walking, and I still look pregnant.
I’ve reached my breaking point.

Some background: In the spring of 2001, I was in a motorcycle accident.  I came over the crest of a hill to find a truck parked at the bottom, turning left.  There was oncoming traffic, no shoulder, and I didn’t have the space needed to stop. I ended up hitting the back of the truck at somewhere between 40 and 50 mph, which lifted the truck into the air.  As luck would have it, I slid underneath the truck.  Gravity (a concept proved by many times before I came onto the scene) was illustrated by the truck landing on top of me……..and pretty much crushing everything on the left side of my body.

Yeah, um, ouch.  It sucked, a lot.  I no longer remember how long I was unconscious (we don’t say comatose) I do remember the morphine once I woke up, but only because the fucking machine they gave me didn’t work.  No matter how many times I smashed on that fucking button, it just didn’t work.   At least that’s what I thought at the time.

Anyway, before the bike accident, I was pretty active.  I’d recently gotten well informed about my allergy to gluten and was starting to deal with that.  I was pretty healthy.  However  after the bike accident I pretty much stopped doing any sort of exercise.  Partly physiological, partly psychological, and partly environmental.  I just stopped moving.  When you combine the lack of movement with beer, pain, and working from home, the outcome is weight gain.  I gained 20 pounds and never dropped it.

For whatever reason I’m now tired of carrying around this extra weight. My knees are mostly destroyed from hiking many, many, many miles while in my 20′s, but the stress added from the psuedo-baby-in-my-belly doesn’t help at all.  But mostly, I’m tired of carrying it on the bike.  It makes absolutely no sense to spend thousands of dollars to save 45 grams in rotational weight, while carrying around an extra 25 pounds of weight around my gut.

Remember when I mentioned that whole gravity thing? While I can’t really show you weak nuclear or electromagnetism by dropping an apple out of window, gravity’s pretty easy.

Let’s assume that I can produce 250 watts.  (Ignore the power test below.  It’s still winter.)
Let’s assume that I want to go climb Mount Ventoux.  (just for the hell of it.)
Let’s assume my bike was a UCI legal 6.8kg. (UCI can bite my ass.)
Let’s assume that this calculator is correct. (It is.)

At 185lbs, it would take me 1:45.46 to climb it.
At 160lbs, it would take me 1:33.53 to climb it.

Uh-huh.  So, I’m doing the diet thing.  Nothing fancy, no pills or crazy combination of acids and proteins or cutting out dairy and sugar, or whatever—I’m just simply eating less, keeping track of everything that I do eat,  and eating many small meals rather than just once a day.  (shutup, I know, I know) As of right now, at my current weight, I’m “allowed” roughly 1800 NET calories per day.  If I go out for a 3 hour ride and burn 1000 calories, then I can eat 2800 that day.  If I don’t do fuckall other than sit at my computer, then I can only have 1800.

It’s an ambitious plan, sure.  There haven’t been many things that I’ve ever been really dedicated to completing.  This is one of them.  By June, I’m going to be 25 pounds lighter.

And no, I’m not starving myself.