Ha! It’s the other way round with me and my mum. Who recently went all iDave* when told that her blood pressure was near fatal and she’d have to be on medication for the rest of her life. Suddenly full of resolution she cut out carbs (bread and potatoes) and ate plates of veg with meat on the side and lost several stone. Not quite enough to come off medication completely but she has been able to reduce it and is still going so maybe she will eventually.

*Her own version, I didn’t point her at Singletrackworld although maybe I should have done.

If she’s already at weight watchers she wants to lose weight so you don’t have to tell her. If it’s not working you can offer to help her stick to it (or go one better, add in exercise and make sure she eats the exercise points as if she doesn’t it slows down weight loss).

The clubs do work – although I think they work better for people who don’t follow blindly (my business partner gets dirty looks for running to her weekly weigh in – she’s lost weight really quickly as she is very knowledgeable about nutrition and exercise and just needed a framework to get fit again after having a baby).

I lost a stone from cycling to work – top of healthy weight to lower end of healthy weight – and it’s been really motivating to keep it off – I like being faster and fitter and looking good in clothes. Once weight comes off it feels worth it – just got to get into the positive spiral. You can help by making it worth it… everyone loves new clothes!

There was a flicker of hope that I could do it when it said 8 May in the last but one para… but no, I will be mopping the bf’s brow or whatever you’re supposed to do as he takes on the Fred Whitton on the 13th. Next year.

Where from and what time? I’m interested…

8th or 13th May? Sounds great btw.

Don’t regret not getting Asos.

They are mega comfy to wear, but I regret to say that (lovingly bought gift from boyfriend that they are) they require that I take all my clothes and helmet off in order to have a wee. I then spend rest of ride redesigning them in my head. Which makes for repetitive ride thoughts… and extreme bladder control.

I sometimes borrow his bib shorts and cross the straps over which works ok for comfort.

Love that they’ll lend you a bike lock to park outside their shop too.

Nice all round – good for cycling visitors and also for local shops (i.e. me) as it means that people can get cake and wander round without worrying about their bikes too much.

Catflees, I declare you a secret German.

We did half of it on CX bikes (the Walsden, Watergrove reservoir, Rooley Moor Road onwards past the windmills) until carbon cranks stopped play with a naughty snappage. Have done most of the the Widdop side on other occasions and that bit is particularly ace and fast on a CX.

So big yes – depends on the conditions whether it’s faster on a CX. They do love the cobbles of Rooley Moor Road.

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Mary Towneley Loop[/url] by BeateKubitz[/url], on Flickr[/img]

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Mary Towneley Loop[/url] by BeateKubitz[/url], on Flickr[/img]

That was completely ace! We started pretty late (just before 10am) so I guess that it was quieter on the Koppenberg by the time we got there.

Made all the cobbled climbs (nice being cheered up by locals and even some bloke walking breathed ‘keep pedaling’ as I passed him). I was one of the slower climbers and exchanged smiles with quite a few blokes who were similarly not speedy but determined.

Only did the 136km – but pleased as it’s only my third 100km+ ride ever (the first two were earlier this month) & 6 hours 50 sounds pretty respectable…

But did anyone else find the last 12 km on the flat in the face of a howling headwind the most difficult part of the whole thing?? Like you think you’ve cracked it as you roll over the lip of the Paterberg and can smell the beer and frites in the offing, but no, wait, there’s a wall of resistance that gradually slows you down until you think it was all a mirage and you’re stuck riding the wrong way on the travelator of doom. Until, after an eternity and a half you notice that all the people around you sprinting to the line and you realise you might make it after all…

Anyone else in the queue for the DFDS ferry sailing at noon? There are lots of cars with cross bikes on them.

+1for whole meal versions… Less processed = better.

Quinoa cooks a bit like couscous but is whole grain and lower GI and a bit of a superfood. Yummy in salads, or with a stew on top. Can be cooked one handed (I foresee a lot of buying veg and meat pre-diced for the one-handed but with a slow cooker & lazy garlic, decent stews should be possible). Today’s lunchbox: sauteed chopped smoked bacon, onion, chilli with a sprinkling of long pepper mixed with boiled quinoa to which I added sliced curly kale just before it finished cooking. Allow to cool, slice in tomatoes and top with a spoonful of extra virgin olive oil and a little balsamic.

Weight watchers is my pet hate – the idea of mutual support in a group is fine but all the ‘low cal’ treats are rubbish, full of chemicals of dubious use if not actual harm. Plus the points mean that you can eat junk and still think you are doing yourself good when you’re not even eating a conventionally balanced diet never mind a properly healthy one. My business partner uses the weigh ins and points as a structure for losing weight but gets dirty looks for running in!

Insulin question again, does anyone know whether the sleepy after food feeling is a) increased glucose levels in blood b) the insulin spike as it sets out to deal with increased glucose c) the drop to low blood sugar post insulin or d) something else / the process?

I was very lucky as my mum was one of the original whole food evangelists (not the world’s best cook so I feel as though I was brought up on gravel and chaff) so I can’t really eat much processed food (I tried a McDonald’s at 21 in an act of rebellion and felt so sick I haven’t done that again). I think to get a good relationship with food you need to start young and if you’ve not be taught about nutrition from an early age you have a real uphill battle to retrain your body and taste buds and habits. Hats off if you’re onto it – it’s really worth it.

As for me I am just a bit worried about getting the balance right since I have stepped up the exercise – I seem to be less intolerant of carbs but that may not be a good thing.

Dgoab it is halfway down page 3 – tomhughes posting. That’s before the ‘best fats’ guide (pages 4-5) and the ”diet and arrhythmias and epilepsy’ discussion page 6 moving onto lifespan of caveman and woman…

Dgoab I think it’s partly the salt in crisps. They get me like that (although I do like them anyway, but much more so in presence of bike) plus when cycling I find myself adding salt to food when I used never to put it on anything.

Knowledge, solo, knowledge…. Really interested in the statement about insulin blocking the use of energy stores. I used not to be able to eat sugars, cake or white bread – they made me feel sick or drunk, particularly if hungry – but I have taken to eating the most astonishing food (for me) eg the morning after my first 140km bike ride for breakfast I had cereal then, still hungry, hard boiled egg, two honey waffles, a slice of pizza, little cubes of aged gouda, mini cherry tomatoes and, er, a chocolate Danish – ie virtually everything the Belgian garage had on offer). This is not the quinoa salad of my dreams… But then we did the Koppenberg and a few other climbs over 75km and I was fine. What has cycling done to me?

Great thread, loving it. Please can I come on the dietary discussion ride? No qualifications apart from love of butter, cooking and default food intake being low gi, low on processed food and simple carbs. Find that cycling makes me desire and use more simple carbs (tangfastic haribo, cake anyone?) than I have ever before which is slightly doing my whole food ‘no junk here please’ head in. I am not worried about my bmi or anything, and I am as good as I should be for the amount of riding I do, just interested in the insulin cycle and what’s happening.

Any advice on best start time and parking? Will be driving from Antwerp. I have been trying to imagine 25,000 people converging on Oudenaard. And failing…

We’ll be there. Eeeek. On my Jake the Snake CX bike – impossible to miss in 25,000 people, I’m sure. :-)

Still a bit vague about the start and whether it’s better to start early or a bit later for fewer crowds and bottlenecks.

OMG! I nearly offered to set you up with one of my friends oblong in an oblique ‘forum ride in the upper Calder Valley’ type way but luckily read IanMunro’s link in the nick of time (how’ve I missed such a classic? I haven’t laughed so much on a wet afternoon for ages). In view of the possibility that you’re an unhinged maniac, please could you post a few more details?

Current (lovely) bf is 4 years older than me.

Ex was 21 years older than me. After the initial bit it was awful. And really really hard to get out of (my house and it feels pretty shit throwing an older bloke out, even after I discovered that he was hacking my emails and had nicked my phone).

Anyway, if any of you older blokes with lovely young wives and girlfriends have so much as a single green-eyed thought, go and get your head examined before you make her life a misery.

Aaagh, it clashes with London Fashion Week…

@makepiece
Knitwear, sheep and traveling between the two on a cx bike. Mainly. Am about to tweet about free wine.
And stalk a few forum members.

Hi Vanessa,
I’m a bit further over in Tod. I’ve only got a cx at the mo but when the MTB is fixed I am game for a spin round Lee Quarry over your way. Not this week as I seem to be going to Belgium. On holiday. To ride at least a hundred km a day. 8O

Not sure how that happened but also have many nice cx/hard tail loops round Hebden and Tod and am always up for a loop of the Mary Towneley.

Beate (can be found in Makepiece in Hebden bridge when not being battered to death by Belgian cobbles)

I was lent a full suss confidence booster which got me hooked. I think weight is more of an issue for women – we tend not to have as much sheer power and are usually lighter as well so the bike-to-girl ratio is higher.

If your girlfriend is not very tall consider a ws bike as it’s more likely to be a good fit but if tall just go for something that works. Initially I was much more worried about falling off and looking an idiot than about colour schemes. Only after a year or so have I noticed the opportunities for matching kit. And pink clashes with almost everything.

My business partner moved from Tod to Bacup, where her university degree, interest in food containing vitamins and work ethic are regarded as curiosities bordering on perversion. She had a baby a year ago and the health service there is entirely geared towards teenage pregnancies and alcoholics who chain smoke (from the level of ‘advice and support’ offered). Always feel a sense of relief when I get back over Sharneyford into Calderdale. Are you sure you want to move?

Donk, I hope you’re not casting any nasturtiums that I might be a ‘right mincer’? I just believe if you’re going to win, win in style. And as I wasn’t going to win* I might as well keep the style…. :wink:

*Hmmm, at that point I might have been winning in the VW category :oops:, I just didn’t have a clue until the results came out… maybe you have a point

Have to say I rode the rocky bits *on a cross bike* until the lap where some naughty boy mountain biker overtook me by riding on the smooth… Have to confess I took the smoother route on the second one just to chase him down and berate him… Ok, berate his back from a distance… :oops:

Thanks! :D

Passed TJ and Slow old git and waved but I think you’d pulled up for a mo, if you remember a blonde on
a cx shrieking ‘hurray for tandems’, that was me. He wouldn’t let me bring ours and forced me to struggle round on
my own :cry:

Hi John thanks for the trail banter/ abuse and ‘rolling the trail flat for the cx ers’ :D

In the event didn’t do too badly by walking – proud of 154th on my skinny bike and, thanks to turning 40 last week, 2nd vet woman :P

Hi Bunnyhop :-) glad you got home ok, was a bit of a struggle to get you up that hill!

Wanted to stop and say hi too but we had to try and get home before the snow stopped play… In the event it was fine once we’d shoved the blue camper up the hill in front of us so we could leave the park. Hope it made it the rest of the way (and everyone else made it off the site ok).

It was fab. Even on a comedy bike :wink:

I wear go faster lippy all the time. I’ll be testing out the fastest colour tomorrow :D

Hmmm, looks round… that’ll be three ‘cross bikes in the lobby, two road bikes and an unloved ss in a downstairs bedroom. I didn’t realise that they were huddling in for warmth. There’ll be a riot in the barn when the MTBs find out.

Only one of these is mine but what with him moving his bikes in I’ve reached the ‘if you can’t beat them, join them’ stage.

I tested my ‘race’ clothing set up on the ride in this morning and decided to upgrade to salopettes and a puffer jacket. Brrrrrrr.

It was cooooooold (but gorgeous). I had to give the sheep seconds. Loving that the paths are more solid than in summer though and I pedaled in pretending that wind chill is some kind of unknown treatment for cellulite. It makes it seem worth it…

Yes. The bbc is showing sunny, and if it don’t sun you can ask for a refund of your licence fee.

I am going to sleep muttering ‘it’s only a ride in the park on a sunny day’ from now on. Better to live in a happy illusion :D

The weather is the least of my worries. I had a nightmare that Harry the Spider and Terrahawk chased me round the changing rooms trying to dope test me me for Sudafed. 8O

Been watching too much Belgian cyclocross I think, or eating too much cheese…