For the second week in a row, I joined the San Diego Bike Club Saturday morning ride. It starts at UC Cyclery, and is a 40 mile, reasonably fast-paced ride through the hills of the north coast. There’s a wide range of abilities in the group, and while I didn’t get dropped going up the early hills, I couldn’t keep up on the big descents with my fixie (can’t coast, so your legs get in the way of gravity).

So I grouped up with a few “B” riders about my speed, and we worked together for the rest of the ride. This is my first group ride where I took a some pulls in front, and did a lot of work. I was pretty tired going up the last big climb on Torrey Pines hill, with one gear, in my jeans and t-shirt. (Everyone else wore cycling kits and had gears. Yes, I’m trying to be different.)

I haven’t been this tired in a long time. I ate about 1400 calories before and during the ride, but I was really hungry for some fat at lunch. I ate two fish tacos from Taco Rey on 4th, and just slumped in the chair for 10 minutes afterwards.

I bought some fresh whole wheat linguini from Assenti’s this week, and I ate about 300g of it last night. I made some fresh pomodoro sauce from some nice, ripe roma tomatoes, basil and olive oil. So picture two full plates of this stuff, a scone from the corner cafe, a piece of bread, and 50g of almonds, and that’s what I had after 8pm last night.

Yes, we have a global obesity epidemic. Yes, I’ll watch any food-obsessed documentary. Sure, too much refined sugar is bad for you. But hold on about “everything we know about diet and exercise is wrong”, and “what if the solutions were the problem?”.

Katie Couric’s (producer and narrator) Fed Up is supposed to be an Inconvenient Truth about the food industry. The conspiracy she reveals is that people crave sugar (and salt and fat, but not mentioned in the movie), and they’ll act like addicts to get it. Plus, corporations will try to sell it to you to make money. (Shhh! Don’t tell anyone, it’s supposed to be a conspiracy!) But seriously, the one good point in the movie is that “personal responsibility doesn’t work in the face of addiction”.

There’s lots of footage of obese parents and their kids telling you why they want to change, and how they’re going to get clean, and get their lives together. But like all addicts, they’re just manipulating us, and soon, they’re looking for their next fix. (One kid in the movie is eating an entire huge bag of chips while he’s saying this.)

So the movie gets the food addiction point right. But that’s about it. There’s a bunch of scary statistics that don’t matter, and they want to blame a lot of scapegoats.

What Fed Up wants to do is to impose federal regulation on sugary junk food. They think things are bad enough (save the children) to warrant this. So, you have to believe that 1) people can’t break their addiction to foods with added sugar, 2) some type of tax or labeling regulation will be easy to implement, 3) it’ll be effective in decreasing obesity, and 4) they’re won’t be any unintended consequences of this law. Good luck with any of those requirements.

Please stop demonizing scapegoats like Ancel Keys, George McGovern, potatoes, rice, and “calories in / calories out” for our problems. The positive message has already been clearly, wonderfully delivered in movies like Forks Over Knives, and you can get personal instruction from anyone who’s learned to eat correctly (hint: we eat a lot).

Eating right and exercising work, but we never get a chance because of the Pleasure Trap of food addiction. Once people (re-)learn how to cook whole foods, and experience the real tastes of delicious fresh foods, they break the addiction to the processed junk that’s killing the nation. No regulation needed. It’s a simple, all-natural solution.

Felt like some fun carbs today after breakfast, so we walked a few blocks to the Donut Bar for a treat. I picked up a Butterfinger cake donut (yes, it has crumbled candy bar sprinkles in the frosting), and (half of) an old fashioned. The best thing about a high-carb diet is this kind of treat is never out of the question. They’re just calories. It’s not like I’m trying to stay in a state of ketosis or anything. I’m not saying you should eat tons of this stuff, but you can still lose weight having the occasional treat. BTW, you appreciate this stuff a lot more when you rarely taste it.

Pasta is a really light meal when you don’t add a bunch of oil, cream sauce, or meat to it. I’m guessing the pasta has about 500 calories, and won’t bother counting the vegetables and small amount of oil. I’m still hungry, so I’ll probably make a salad next.

This is Hollie again, leading the full Sunday morning spin class of 11 girls and me. But I don’t show up just for the view, we all work our a**es off for the highest, fastest calorie burn you’ll get anywhere. Every workout, I’m racing like it’s the Tour de France, and end up completely soaked. Plenty of other people in the class take it all very seriously, and this studio is our dojo.

There is no way I could ever get close to keeping up with fixie racers downtown (especially at my age), without these workouts. I can ride a lot harder here than on the road, because I don’t have to worry about saving enough energy to get back home, or to even control the bike. Sprints here are all out power exertions, then collapsing on the handlebars for air. (Forget what I might look like. Just watch Hollie.)

Just finished a fast fixie group ride with the AWLF/Cretins from downtown to Point Loma and back. We blazed out to Mission Bay, did a fast lap around Fiesta Island, and rode through the streets of Pacific Beach. We finished with a climb up Catalina in Point Loma, and pace-lined it back downtown.

These guys are fast racers (the guy in the middle is doing a trackstand at the light), and it was all I could do grab a wheel and hang on. Once I tried to close the gap to the leading group, and got stuck in “no-man’s land”. Made me think, “that was a dumb idea”. Well, maybe next time I’ll be smarter, or stronger.

George (on the right, w/o a helmet) crashed spectacularly right in front of me, at a pretty good speed, when we were racing up a hill in PB. He blew a tire, bent and cracked his rim. He changed his tube, and soldered on. Two flats and a crash. I made it back in one piece. Amazingly fun time.

Nine months ago I could barely move and was miserable. Now, 20 kilos lighter and in pretty good shape, I roll with the hipsters in my ‘hood downtown.

Rode around with the Awarewolfs last night for a little bit of exercise. It’s been warm around here, about 30° C before sunset last night. We rode down the big hill on Washington. Thank g*d for my front brake. I’m never taking it off.

I got a nice surprise today when Hollie brought me some eggs from her backyard chickens. She gave them to me after the spin class she taught this morning, and I cooked them up for breakfast. I scrambled them with a little half-and-half and butter. Add some fried up potatoes, mushrooms, and onions, and it’s my favorite breakfast after a 1000 calorie spin burn. I’m still completely fascinated by one-degree-of-separation food.

I needed to pick up some more vegetables, so I stopped by the farmer’s market after spin this morning. These vegetables were picked from a farm in Fresno yesterday. The people selling the vegetables also picked them, and drove them down. It’s great to know where your food comes from, to have some connection with it. I’m not sure if I eat this way for my health, or because it’s so anachronistic.