Aw shucks. Well, as a matter of fact..

But my waist is the same as it was in High School...
The other day someone was lamenting their chronological weight gain. They then asked me how I stayed so skinny. My first impulse was to deny being skinny, but I enjoyed the moniker so I let that slide. Then I was about to dismiss the comment with a reply to the effect of, “just lucky I guess,” when I decided to be honest. “I work like hell to keep my weight down,” I said out loud. I’ve ridden almost three thousand miles so far this year, and I say “no thank you,” a lot more than I want to.

When I was younger I ate breakfast from a cereal bowl that was the size of my head. I could kill a half gallon of ice cream by myself in a day or two. I would take two sandwiches in my lunch. When our group went out to dinner, we took our total number of guys, divided by two and ordered that many extra-large pizzas. Now I eat cereal out of a dish that probably holds little more than a half a cup. I still love dessert, but again the dishes are getting smaller and smaller. I weigh myself almost every day.

Sometimes I feel hungry and I tell myself that is okay. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not any kind of pillar of self-control. It is just that the bar for what I consider indulgence is so much lower than it used to be. Last winter when one of my teammates was trying to goad us into riding farther, his comments about being wussy, or being girly-men didn’t faze me in the least. But when he asked if I had been putting on weight (which was without basis, just another attempt to coax me to ride longer that day) he hit a nerve.

I think I train pretty hard. While I don’t live a life of self-denial and endless suffering, I do try to use some judgment on my diet.

What is stunning to me is that after doing all that, I still get my butt kicked by plenty of guys who are so much fitter than me. I suppose I could lose another ten pounds and train even more, but I’m not sure I am willing to pay that price.