I do some self-contained touring, with camping and cooking. I try to do one two-week, one one-week and several long weekend trips every year. I came to the conclusion several years ago that I was often overeating. I think some of it is psychological. I also think that some of it is due to overestimating how many calories you actually burned on your ride. A moderate, 50 mile ride does not equal a large pizza with extra pepperoni. I ended up dropping the intake for days that were not very difficult and don't feel like I lose anything in the way of performance--as long as I get the types of intake my body runs best on.

When I spent three months riding across the county west to east back in the day I actually gained weight when we hit the plains/Midwest, and it wasn't muscle weight. How did that happen? Because I was still eating like I was riding in the mountains. Also, the types of stuff we were eating and portion sizes when we ate out instead of cooking (which we did more often during that part of the trip), were not exactly good for you. I remember staying two nights at the HI Hostel at Lake Itasca, MN. There was no real grocery store around. The first night we scrounged up some sausages and baked beans from a small store and cooked them on the grill. The next morning I had a huge pancake and sausage breakfast. That night we ate out. Went to some place on all-you-can-eat fish night. Sounded healthy, until we realized that the fish was greasy, deep fried perch. I remember salad bars with a few, basic green vegetables and tomatoes then things like macaroni salad and potato salad.

During my 2015 tour in the Black Hills, which I didn't cook on, I quickly came to the conclusion that ranch dressing must be the official state condiment of South Dakota. It was everywhere on nearly everything. The first day I stopped for a burger and some burger shack at a campground. Squeeze bottles of ketchup, mustard and ranch dressing. That night, most of the vegetables at the salad bar were mixed with the stuff.