Food glorious food

I like food and I like a beer now and again. Nothing wrong with that.

It is however a lifestyle which, if overindulged, will cause a rapid and alarming expansion of the waistline. I have long promised myself that I would not become the out of shape 40 something that populates so many of our workplaces. A belly bulging over trousers is not a good look and health-wise it's a real worry. We are as a population getting fatter though and there's a reason why it is so common a sight.

Before cycling to work, my daily activity consisted of little more than walking to the car, from the car to the office, around the office a little bit and then a reverse of the process to get home again. Most evenings, I'd then crash out on the sofa infront of the TV to recuperate before sleeping and starting the whole thing over again in the morning.  Day after day. Month after month. I started to get fatter and unfit. I did used to work out now and again but arriving home tired does not leave one in the right frame of mind for serious exercise and so it's easy to let it slip.  Excuses I know, but also just a sad fact of modern life.

I've always had a decent appetitie but once I started cycling to work, I got noticably hungrier.  A casual Google revealed that, on average, someone of my build cycling at the speed I do burns off 600 calories in an hour.  I cycle for just under two hours a day and so I now burn an additional 1,000 calories or so every day.  My expanding waistline, and fear of my rising weight, meant that I had not been near the bathroom scales in a while so consequently I have no idea what I weighed in March when I started riding.  There's no doubt though that I've lost fat.  Previously "snug" trousers now have plenty of room around the waist and I'm not nearly so paranoid about wearing slightly tight T shirts any more.  All good really.

However, it does mean that I need to carry food with me to work and try to make sure it's something that will fuel my commuting well.  Being obsessed with carrying as light a load as possible, I tend to try and make sure that my food is pretty light too.  As a result, tins and large containers of liquid are out!  Furthermore, as I work in an office, kitchen facilities are minimal (toaster, kettle and microwave tops) and so anything thast needs cooking also needs careful thinking about. 

Dried noodles are pretty good but I find that heavily flavoured "Pot Noodle" type things end up tasting dreadful after a couple of days of a similar thing.  Oddly, the cheaper supermarket "Value" noodles are not nearly so bad.  Fruit is good fuel and I always try to bring a banana or two with me.  When I'm organised enough to remember to buy some, dried fruit and nut mix is cycling-nutrition gold!  I continually plan (but have yet to organise) a mixture of porridge oats, powdered milk and sugar that I could just pour boiling water on for second breakfast when I get to work.  Both received wisdom and my own experience have shown that a combination of good, high calorie food grazed throughout the day give me the most energy in my legs for the ride home.

But, if push comes to shove, as it frequently does at the end of the month, I'll pack pretty much anything.  Jam, cheese or peanut butter sandwiches are great and also very cheap.  Inevitably though I am ravenous when I get home  and have to try hard not to scoff half a packet of biscuits before dinner is ready.

Despite all of the above detail, I'm not too obsessed with losing weight.  I don't have much of a spare tyre any longer and I suppose all of these hard Winter miles will get rid of a bit more.  Just staying healthy and staying in shape is what matters most to me now, which cycling manages in spades.  Best of all though, with so much exercise in the week, I can eat or drink more or less what I want the rest of the time and it doesn't shoot automatically to my waistline! 

Another beer?  Don't mind if I do! 

Running on empty

My journey home from work yesterday was very weird.

I had been expecting to have to lug everything (laptop, shoes etc.) home over the weekend but it turns out that they want me back in the same office after the Bank Holiday and so I left all of the heavy stuff there. So, buoyed by the happiness that only a Friday afternoon before five days off work can bring, I fairly zoomed out of work on my bike.

The few miles to the railway station passed really easily and I noticed the lack of weight in my rucksack. Everything felt so smooth and easy and I whizzed along wearing a big grin and maybe even singing. On the final stretch home though l, things changed markedly. On a clear day, with light luggage and minimal wind, I found myself crawling in first gear up hills that that I almost top-out in third on a good day. I wasn't out of breath and my legs weren't burning with lactic acid or anything like that. I just had no power left in my muscles at all. Nothing. It was basically as though I'd run out of fuel.

This thought was compounded by the fact that the last two miles of the journey were spent fantasising anout ever more calorific foodstuffs. I started off very sensibly by imagining spooning down a huge bowl of muesli with fruit, honey and yoghurt but it wasn't long before I was mentally tucking into a Big Mac meal, large fries, full-fat coke, the works.

I made it home eventually, breaking no records on the way, and hit the kitchen like a swarm of locusts! After a couple of jam sandwiches (quick to make) and a large helping of pasta bake, I felt a lot better.

What's interesting though is it seems that when I'm low on fuel, far from craving the instant but short-lived high of sugary sweets or drinks, it's fatty calories and salt that my body wants. The only other time I've really felt like that was when I finished the Great North Run half-marathon a few years back. No Lucozade sports recovery drinks at the finish for me - I headed, almost zombie-like straight for the burger van and felt brilliant immediately afterwards.

As a learning point, I should probably carry some reserve food with me. I've tried those sports gel things before and frankly they're manky but I reckon a handful of wine gums would have seen me home in better shape. I'll stick a packet in my rucksack for emergency use I think.

I'll just have try not to scoff them when I get peckish at the office.