Bikeforums.net is a forum about nothing but bikes. Our community can help you find information about hard-to-find and localized information like bicycle tours, specialties like where in your area to have your recumbent bike serviced, or what are the best bicycle tires and seats for the activities you use your bike for.Neil_B
08-04-07, 06:10 AM
Becky's blog has a must-read entry on rethinking yourself as an athlete:
http://www.myworksinprogress.com/?p=63
My own thoughts, from my blog in January, are below:
http://historian2wheels.blogspot.com/2007/02/as-often-happens-something-ive-read-on.html
During the meal Dan suggested I was learning to ride a bicycle to lose weight. I said, perhaps too arrogantly, "I don't need a bike to lose weight. The average person doesn't need it to lose weight."
And then the truth hit me. Hard.
I'm not an average person. The average person doesn't need to take up bicycling to lose weight. They take it up because it's a fun sport. And as a sport, the more seriously they take it, the more they get out of it. If that means they fine-tune their diet and exercise to better improve their performance, so be it. That's what they do.
My entire weight loss program had been based on what Dan called a "fixed income" - basically the same calorie totals and the same foods regardless of what I was doing as far as exercise. Yes, the average person could do that and lose weight. A lot of weight, in fact. But I'm not now an average person. I'm a bicyclist. OK, perhaps a budding bicyclist recovering from obesity, but a bicyclist regardless. Which in turn means I'm an athlete. I'm in training for a sporting event, and I need to think differently about how I exercise, how I eat, how I train.
When I began to lose weight, I needed to learn to stop thinking and acting like a fat man and start thinking and acting like an average person of normal weight. That's been a struggle, perhaps even more of a struggle than losing weight, and it's a struggle I'm still fighting. Learning to ride my bike, and ride it well, is also going to be a struggle, but I suspect it's going to be a lot easier once I accept that I am an athlete in training.
http://www.myworksinprogress.com/?p=63
My own thoughts, from my blog in January, are below:
http://historian2wheels.blogspot.com/2007/02/as-often-happens-something-ive-read-on.html
During the meal Dan suggested I was learning to ride a bicycle to lose weight. I said, perhaps too arrogantly, "I don't need a bike to lose weight. The average person doesn't need it to lose weight."
And then the truth hit me. Hard.
I'm not an average person. The average person doesn't need to take up bicycling to lose weight. They take it up because it's a fun sport. And as a sport, the more seriously they take it, the more they get out of it. If that means they fine-tune their diet and exercise to better improve their performance, so be it. That's what they do.
My entire weight loss program had been based on what Dan called a "fixed income" - basically the same calorie totals and the same foods regardless of what I was doing as far as exercise. Yes, the average person could do that and lose weight. A lot of weight, in fact. But I'm not now an average person. I'm a bicyclist. OK, perhaps a budding bicyclist recovering from obesity, but a bicyclist regardless. Which in turn means I'm an athlete. I'm in training for a sporting event, and I need to think differently about how I exercise, how I eat, how I train.
When I began to lose weight, I needed to learn to stop thinking and acting like a fat man and start thinking and acting like an average person of normal weight. That's been a struggle, perhaps even more of a struggle than losing weight, and it's a struggle I'm still fighting. Learning to ride my bike, and ride it well, is also going to be a struggle, but I suspect it's going to be a lot easier once I accept that I am an athlete in training.