Was this gal a runner at some point? If so, she deserves admiration for her efforts.

The winter weight is stubborn this year. For reasons far too complicated to elucidate here, the workout schedule has been steady, then fitful. Which means a few things do not fit so well. So I’m fit full. Like the fertility goddess next to this text, I need to shed a pound or two.

Square man

By some sort of measure, I’m a square man. 34” waist and 34” inseam. 6′ 1.5″ in height.

Been that way for years and years. A happy weight. Between 167 and 174 is where I like to stay year round.

 Carbo season 

But then carbohydrate season comes. Starting roughly around November 23 when Thanksgiving rolls around and extending through January 15, which is about when the Christmas cookies run out, there are carboyhdrates everywhere you look.

And I, like so other many runners and riders, have a weakness for carbohydrates.

Carbo loading

There is an excuse of sorts in my athletic history. At one point carbo loading was all the rage.There were spaghetti dinners held the night before marathons. “Carbo loading” consisted of depleting your reserves with a hard workout and then filling them back in with the supposed fuel of carbohydrates.

Dietitians don’t exactly laugh at the notion nowadays, but carbo-loading ain’t exactly what it used to be. Not for runners. Nor for riders. It isn’t that highly recommended any more. Go with a balanced diet, high in whole grains (?) if you must, and lots more green and orange vegetables. And lean meat if you like it. But overall, the recommendation is to eat less carbohydrates.

Carbo loaded

Nothing builds fat like excess carbohydrates. Turns out excess carbs turn quickly into fat. Beer bellies come from the excess carbohydrates in beer. Which makes sense, if you think about it. There’s no fat in beer. It’s not like bacon or meat. Beer is made from things that go “poof” like wheat and other grains. Mix them up and let them ferment with a little sugar or whatever and you get beer. The algorithm is clear, but the calories in a good beer never really go away. Do not even talk to me about light beer. It’s an abomination, as are most commercially produced, grandiose, over-advertised beers with slogans like “Tastes Great. Less filling!” that hope to convince you that you can drink a lot of the stuff and not get fat.

Fat damage 

But beer is not the main culprit in making most people fat. The carbohydrates in popular foods do far more fat damage. Bread is a big one. So are cookies and other flour-based sweets.

Sugar Cousins

In fact carbohydrates and their close cousins, the Sugar Family, are lurking around the corner in everyone’s diet. Carbohydrates stalk you like an obsessed former lover. They will not leave you alone. Not even when you are sleeping. If you wake up at 4:00 in the morning there is an entire kitchen cabinet just waiting to turn you into a fat blob. The aforementioned cookies are always a quick fix. Chocolate. Crackers and Merkts cheese. The list goes on and on. Those damned carbohydrates. They claim to love you when they really hate you.

 Jilted carb lovers

And like a jilted lover, they keep coming around even when you’ve quit them. It’s like the evil spirit of your former lover follows you around channeling their wickedness through the thoughts of others.

“Will you have fries with that.”

“Will you be having dessert today?”

“How about another round?”

Intervention

To win the battle against this jilted lover takes an intervention of sorts. One must almost objectify the problem in order to overcome your cravings for carbs. It’s an addiction, really. Carbs are really a form of food drug. The perfect comfort food. They fill you up and make your tummy really happy and then have nowhere to go if you don’t go run or ride them off within a day or two. So they hang around your system and make you fat. Your belly expands. Love handles. Cellulite. Whatever your fat problem, you can probably point back to carbs and find the problem.

Carb depression

It’s depressing in many respects. It’s hard to avoid carbohydrates even in church. The hosts served in the Christian faith may be unleavened bread at times, but not always. Even Jesus said  “I am the bread of life.” The Lord’s Prayer says “Give us this day, our daily bread.” You can’t escape carbs even heaven. That makes all of earth a kind of living hell. Turns out even God is trying to make you fat.

Cutting carbs

You can go the austerity route and cut carbs out of your diet. A few years back when the anti-carb rage first became the mantra, reaching even the mainstream press, which can be dull as a hammer when it comes to understanding real health trends, avoiding carbohydrates became a fad. That undercut the seriousness of the issue, and how important it really is to watch what you eat. Especially if it is a carbohydrate.

The Golden Ring of Carbohydrates

For someone schooled all their life to think that bread is good, the lesson can be hard to learn, and even harder to put into practice. With bread and carbs sticking out everywhere like the proverbial golden ring of dietary satisfaction, it is difficult if not impossible to avoid carbs altogether.

Burning carbs

Which puts us back where we started. The only real way to win the battle of the carbs is to work out enough to burn off those excess calories. It helps to weigh your dietary choices (pun intended) in order to make yourself aware how many helpings of carbs you are taking in a day.

Treating yourself. Too much. 

For me the weakness is treats. Rewarding myself for working or quelling a sudden hunger pang is the worst of the treat habit. But you have to look at yourself like a pet of some sort. Feeding your pets treats all day is going to make them fat and unhealthy? You think you’re so different? Dream on.

But my weight crept up to 178 and that’s a discomfort zone for me. I don’t look much fatter at that weight but it can definitely be felt around the middle. It cuts down my options on the best of my wardrobe. I know that to be true. So there’s motivation.

Summer dreams

2 summers ago I bottomed out in terms of recent low weight. That summer’s cycling and running brought me down to 163. It had been 15 years since I was that light. Having missed a few weeks of group rides due to scheduling, my new low weight drew stares and questions from the guys in the group. “Jeez you look fit,” one of the regulars said. “Have you lost weight?”

I had. Long rides and a few long runs were paring off the excess pounds. It felt great to be that fit. But I don’t want to go any lower. Not for any reason. Through college and beyond my racing weight as a distance runner was 140. I could eat all the carbs I wanted and not put on a pound. 90 mile running weeks will do that for you.

High mileage eating habits

But years go by and those high mileage eating habits don’t change and the carbohydrates keep doing their stuff. Cheap energy. Either burned or stored. Sooner or later it catches up to you.

“Hey,” it says. “I’m excess weight from eating too many carbohydrates in your current training schedule. Mind if I ride along?”

You say “Yes, I do mind.” But the carbs don’t hear you. They’re hiding in a layer of new fat, and that really can be annoying. It weighs you down literally and figuratively. The irony of weight gain is that it makes it harder to train… hard enough to lose the weight you need to lose. That’s a Catch-22 if ever there was.

Damn you, carbs! Damn you to hell!

But sometimes change only happens when you get mad and motivated enough to want to change. And like many a winter-weight runner and rider,  I’m pretty damn well mad at myself for adding those few extra pounds. The reason is comfort food and lazy eating habits. Not the diet of champions or even a happy weekend warrior.

Guess it’s time to determine whether I’m a champ or a chump. Onward we run and ride.