The Paris Hotel in Las Vegas has a little Potemkin village wrapped around the casino gaming floor, with quaint old European cafes, shops, and restaurants. They also put in cobblestone streets and painted a reasonably convincing cloudy blue sky on the ceiling. So when I finished my 90 km fixie ride up to Red Rock and back, I rode into the casino and ate a petit sandwich with a Perrier at Le Cafe, in my sweaty t-shirt and jeans. The street scene was so authentic, that the only bicycle in a Vegas casino looked about right.

Las Vegas Blvd in front of the Bellagio also looks like Europe, with its tree-lined streets and lake-front view. There’s no bike lane, so you have to race the cars on The Strip like it’s the final sprint up the Champs de Elysee. You could stage a nice criterium there, only blocking off a few streets. (The Strip is so slow, everyone drives on the back streets anyways.)

Anyways, I managed to eat lots of bread, fruits, and vegetables, with little meat or fat. There wasn’t any bakery in Paris, but I bought a big bag of Rold Gold pretzels from the sundry shop near the elevators. My weigh-in this morning was good, and I lost about a kilo over the last two weeks.

I was feeling hungry before dinner, so I made a bread run on my bike, and picked up a ciabatta loaf. My legs were pretty tired, so I only made two hill efforts, and got back home to enjoy the bread. It seems that ciabatta isn’t great after sitting for 8 hours. I also noticed it’s significantly cheaper ($3.75) than the fancier fougasse ($5.75), and it tasted like it.

Anyways, that didn’t stop me from eating the whole 500g loaf in 10 minutes. I’m not worried, because I’ll need the glycogen for the long weekend rides. I’m not stuffed, and will probably eat something else with friends at a restaurant tonight. Maybe I’ll order a fruit plate. Anything I order will be low-fat, because any fat I eat at this point is going right to my adipose tissue.

I ended up eating rice and vegetables for dinner, and some more tortillas afterwards.

Every three days or so, I run out of tortillas, and I make a run to Gabriel’s on 25th & Imperial. It’s always open, as they’re making tortillas around the clock for stores and restaurants. The assembly line is right behind the counter, where they stack and package the tortillas that come off the machine. They keep some bagged tortillas in an insulated box, so if they can’t give you a bag right off the line, they still have warm ones for you.

I always buy the same thing: a 3 lb (1.36 kg) bag of fresh corn tortillas, and 2x 500ml of fresh salsa (red and green). The total is $6.85 USD (the tortillas cost $1.55). They taste the best when you eat them out of the bag, right on the spot. They’re soft, warm, rich, and aromatic. Sometimes I’ll buy them for lunch, and bring the rest home for later. I’ll eat about a pound of them per day, which is only about 1000 calories/day (about a third of what I eat).

No, this isn’t a small pretzel. It’s a 400g loaf of something called fougasse, a semi-flat bread related to Italian focaccia. I remember my neighbour mentioning it, as we both shop at Bread & Cie on 5th. I’m glad I took a picture of it, because it was gone in about 10 minutes. It was so good, and I was really hungry after 4 days of heavy riding, that I finished it all in one sitting.

It’s wonderful eating freshly baked gourmet bread without any guilt. Since going low-fat (< 10% of calories), and trusting the science on de novo lipogenesis (DNL), I eat this stuff until I’m full. The carbs just get stored as glycogen in the muscles, and not as fat in adipose tissue (no matter what Gary Taubes says).

This fougasse was so soft and fresh, and the anise and sesame seeds added a nice aroma. It really hit the spot. This is the way people should eat. I can’t believe I used to be afraid of bread. I had to prove to myself that a pound of bread a day was safe (by losing weight eating 30 lbs of bread, and by researching DNL). Now, count me in the low-fat, plant-based camp again.

Today is a rest day with lots of carbs to replenish the glycogen stores. At most, I’ll take a 5 km walk before dinner. Then I’ll cook up a big bowl of noodles, some popcorn, tortillas, etc. While some people think about restricting calories, I only think about what I’m going to eat next.

I’m back in serious weightloss mode again, so it’s time to fuel the body with carbs, and to avoid dietary fat. I’m riding about 200 km/week, so I’m burning lots of fat on the road and in spin class. I might burn 50 – 100 g of fat on a long ride, but a high fat meal could easily replentish it.

While it was fun eating lots of meat last month, and enjoying butter with my bread, I’m going back to the classic low-fat diet. The body does not store excess carbs as fat (de novo lipogensis is slow, < 10g/day), but excess dietary fat is directly stored by the body. So, I’m going to try to limit my fat intake to < 50g/day.

I enjoy the taste of food with minimal added fats, so it’s not much of an issue for me. I’m not worried about eliminating my fat intake, but just keeping it under the fat I burn.

I’m inching towards my final goal weight of 70 – 75 kg. If I burn 50g fat/day (around a 500 calorie deficit), I’ll only lose 1.5 kg in a month. It’s slow-going, and I’ll have to be careful. Fat tastes good, but if you don’t burn it, you’ll store it. Fortunately, carbs taste good but aren’t stored as fat.

Rode around town with the Bike Party on Halloween Night. There were some pretty creative costumes, and it was fun to be part of a moving group of friends.

There’s a few of these little family restaurants stuck right in the middle of residential neighborhoods in the barrio south of downtown. These places are probably grandfathered-in from an era when no one cared about trivialities like zoning laws. Check out the Google street view to see what I mean.

They have a pretty good enchilada plate combo for $5. They’re pretty serious about their enchiladas, and make them with care. Stop by if you’re close for a unique experience.

The Awarewolfs held the 2nd Annual Costume Crit(erion) tonight behind the Air and Space Museum in Balboa Park. I showed up a bit late, so I didn’t see Bojac win the main race. Afterwards, we headed out for a late night ride through North Park, ending up at Pioneer Park. Appropriate for Halloween, it started out as the first cemetery in town, but is now used as a park (only a few headstones remain).

I was on the bike all night, riding around and having fun. If there was ever a real-life Peter Pan experience, hanging out with the fixie crowd near midnight would be it.

All this goes into the pot of soup I make once a week (plus a cup of pasta, and some lemon juice, not shown). It’s really easy to make, and always turns out great in 20 minutes. You saute the usual mirepoix (onion, carrot, celery) first, adding garlic in at the end. When the onions are translucent, you add in all the chopped ingredients, water, and some broth or bullion. I add the liquid from the cans of beans, and usually hold off adding the zucchini, squash, and bell pepper until the last 7 minutes of cooking, when I also add the pasta. All together, it only takes 20 minutes of total cooking time, with very little prep.

After cooking your own soup, you wouldn’t even consider eating canned soup again. That stuff is junk food by comparison. Campbell’s says “Soup is Good Food”. I agree, but wouldn’t consider a can of Campbell’s to be good food.