Body Imagery and Cycling ...

[Hellgate]

Originally Posted by weaponsgrade

One of my favorite past times was to go out all day, deplete myself, pickup a super burrito the size of a newborn with all the trimmings, a 6-pack, devour that thing while watching a DVR recording of a race that happened earlier in the day, go into a food/beer coma, and wake up in time for dinner.

Hellz yes!

[beeatnik]

The skinniest grown men at the World Famous Rose Bowl Ride. Note the curved backs and awful positions

[Andy sti]

Originally Posted by XXtwindad

This is a very candid and interesting post. Thanks for sharing.

Male cyclists of your caliber (and perhaps a few notches below) have a unique perspective on the stresses that accompany body imagery issues.

There's a dirty little secret in the fitness world that's rarely discussed: training clients who want to lose "five or ten pounds" is very difficult. And they're overwhelmingly women. Those five or ten pounds are chimerical. For many women, it's a one-way ticket to a roller coaster of despair.

I'm 6'1" (185cm) and I "like" to be around 155lbs (70.5kg). Right now I'm closer to 159lbs or 72kg and I don't like it. I'm not racing this year so it doesn't matter from a performance standpoint but I still like to ride hard and train. Maybe age has something to do with it - I'm 49 - but I don't think so. Maybe I've just been lazy but I still average 10-14 hours of riding a week. Maybe I just need winter to get here so I can get back on the skinny skis to build some muscle up. In reality my 2kg weight difference has not impacted my riding at all but I do notice it in the mirror.

[scottcw2]

6-1 and 155 sounds unhealthy. I'm 6-1 and the least I have weighed at that height was 175. I would ideally be 190.

Just call me fat (for LA).

[denapista]

6'1 140lbs is straight nuts! I'm 6'2 and I can't even fathom weighing 140lbs (Chris Froome).

I cringe when I see pro's on the podium in sneakers and you actually see how skinny the climbers truly are.. No way 6'1 (140lb) is a normality granted its in the scale/range, according to health information.

[makoti]

I lost 20lbs this year. No one I knew thought I needed to, I'm sure, but the difference in how I feel on the bike is huge.
5'9" and 145. That's as low as I care to go, but I am aware of the skinny look, so I try to hit the gym to have SOME upper body tone. I'm not overly successful.

[zetroc]

It might be instructive to count the number of times people on this forum use the word "fat" to denigrate other cyclists. It happens all the time and is mostly unchallenged by others. If people don't make an effort to change the culture it will just perpetuate itself.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by joosttx

no. I know no one who obsessively diets or worries about their body image that ride bikes. for me, I feel good skinny and feel bad fat. That's why I choose to be skinny. Sure I would love to lose 5-7 more pounds. But I do not obsess about it. I doubt the pro peloton has a rampant body image issue. Since weight to power is so important in bike racing up hills sure they obsess about that but that's not about body image that's about winning.

agree with this one.

[joosttx]

Originally Posted by denapista

6'1 140lbs is straight nuts! I'm 6'2 and I can't even fathom weighing 140lbs (Chris Froome).

I cringe when I see pro's on the podium in sneakers and you actually see how skinny the climbers truly are.. No way 6'1 (140lb) is a normality granted its in the scale/range, according to health information.

When I ran in Highschool and College I was around 135 at 6’1. The lowest I got was 128lb. At home (in high school) i would eat an entire box of either saltines or Ritz crackers with peanut butter and almost a bottle of 2liter coke for an afternoon snack before a big dinner.

[AngryScientist]

Originally Posted by XXtwindad

Cycling culture makes anorexic tendencies totally acceptable. You’re allowed to skip dinner, go to bed hungry, because it’s a good way to shed the pounds." [/B]

...

i'm not a "serious" cyclist, just a recreational hack, but i have a hard time believing this statement too.

serious cyclists care about performance, and to perform optimally, the body needs to be fueled, rested and recovered. i think most of us know and understand that we can not put down our best efforts on the bike if we are literally starving, and i think we all know and understand our bodies will not recover properly if we do not re-fuel properly and rest appropriately.

i am not discounting or not believing the quoted person's view, i just dont understand.

[Davist]

I remember a TV show called "frontier house" or something on PBS, where people would basically reenact the sodbuster/homesteader days. Putting in rail fences, clearing 20 acres with a horse, etc. Just coffee, fat back, beans and what you could hunt. One guy was dropping weight like crazy, was down to 135 at 6'1" when he started 6 weeks earlier at nearly 200. The medical folks out of concern checked the civil war Army records, and sure enough, around that time, pretty normal weight. So, I think our perspectives have changed significantly.

[dem]

Originally Posted by benb

I am curious how skinny you were for him to say that. It's pretty well documented that some doctors have often given up on giving overweight folks a hard time about their weight, it'd be more weird if you were questioned and you were at a healthy weight.

I am around 6'1" and 158. But I do tend toward the gaunt/ectomorphic side. However, I still have a good inch of fat on my gut, I'm probably around 10% body fat. I could drop down to 150ish and not be "unhealthy"

A dirty secret is men can go very low on body fat and not be unhealthy - it is very difficult to maintain an "unhealthy" body fat level for a man.

I go with the earlier theory in this thread: americans are just fat, so if you're on the lower end, you will stand out. I see a huge (ha) difference just going from CA to.. say.. arizona/texas.. much less the southeast.

[mcteague]

Originally Posted by denapista

6'1 140lbs is straight nuts! I'm 6'2 and I can't even fathom weighing 140lbs (Chris Froome).

I cringe when I see pro's on the podium in sneakers and you actually see how skinny the climbers truly are.. No way 6'1 (140lb) is a normality granted its in the scale/range, according to health information.

According to the BMI, 6’1” @ 140 lbs puts you at the low end of normal. So, not too nuts.

https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/edu...MI/bmicalc.htm

Tim

[Jaybee]

Whats amazing to me about Froome is not that he is 140 lbs, but that he still has the muscles to push world class TT efforts at that weight. I know when I was (like joost) running at around 6’, 135 lbs I both looked like a skeleton and barely had the strength to pick up a fork.

[joosttx]

Originally Posted by Jaybee

Whats amazing to me about Froome is not that he is 140 lbs, but that he still has the muscles to push world class TT efforts at that weight. I know when I was (like joost) running at around 6’, 135 lbs I both looked like a skeleton and barely had the strength to pick up a fork.

I couldn’t bench anything but I remember scoring in the 90th percentile in a sit-up test at a health club where the Dallas Cowboys trained when I was in college. #glorydaze