JustaJoe

I learned something from my dogs: Go the opposite way on your route every few days, the scents (scenery, hills) are completely different! Worksforme.

rsbob 

My dog, Harlee, now calls the shots on his walks. He refuses to get out of the car to walk if we have done that walk too many times, so we go to a different location just about every day ( we have 8 different walking areas.) When there and walking, if he doesn’t want to go a certain direction, he will stop and look at us. We then ask which way, and invariably he will take us where he wants to go. If he gets bored or tired, he will stop, look at us, and then turn around and head back to the car. We find it hilarious.

Now weren’t we talking about bikes? He does not cycle, but would love to be towed in a trailer, however he weighs too much.

terrymorse 

Hmm.

jadmt

I agree with this. For me on a 100 miler at a decent pace for me ie ~19mph average a couple of beers do it for me. I know some people probably would not do well on that but it works for me.

Fredo76

For what it's worth, maybe not much, my biggest weight loss came before I re-started riding. At 6'2", I went from 245 lbs to 195, mainly by intermittent fasting, often only one small meal a day. I also drank a lot of broth, which felt filling and satisfying, but make sure it's not one with salt as the second ingredient. I'm at 210 now, and intend to try it again.

rsbob 

And so is the beauty of an open forum. Everyone has a voice, no matter how well based on research, or not. You can extrapolate from there.

t2p

???

worked for me

t2p

weighs too much ?

we’ve seen dogs his size pulled on trailers by old farts - but it was on level mups

one bike rider / trailer / dog combo was particularly amusing - the dog was outfitted with sunglasses or goggles and a maybe a cap of some sort … they sped by quickly near an intersection - or we would have attempted to get a picture … wore a big smile for the remainder of the day after that

also seen dogs carried on baskets in the front of the bike and rear of the bike - one time both combined …

and a few times seen dogs on the shoulders of the bike rider … fairly big dogs too … bike riders were wearing a backpack which enabled the dog to place it’s rear / back legs on the top of the backpack …

crazy stuff …

PoorInRichfield

FYI... Butter (fat), especially from a grass fed animal, is a superior and natural energy source, although not a "quick burn fuel" like toast (carbs) because fats take longer for the body to process. Country Crock, on the other hand, isn't butter at all. Beware of highly processed foods versus the natural alternatives (butter, eggs, meat from grass fed animals, etc.) that humans have been eating for millennia. Heart disease in America is a 20th century issue (Ref: PubMed) brought-on by the mass consumption of cheap and convenient highly processed and high carbohydrate "foods" (food substitutes) that have little or no nutritional value.

wolfchild

Fake food...Yikes ..... a toxic cocktail of chemicals and heavily refined oils...throw that poison away and start using real dairy butter.

Trakhak

Thanks for the link, but nothing in that PubMed abstract supports your claims above. It specifies that heart disease was a major cause of death in the 20th century (it's now the 21st century, of course) but has declined since the 1960's ("After peaking in the mid-1960s, the number of heart disease deaths began a marked decline that has persisted to the present"). That decline has taken place concomitantly with the increase in the mass consumption of highly processed foods that you mentioned.

The easy availability of cheap foods loaded with fat, salt, and sugar is likely the main cause of the obesity epidemic in this country (and, increasingly, in others as well) and thus is responsible for many of the unhealthy consequences associated with obesity. But apparently an association with heart disease is less obvious.

(Edit: just realized that I typed the bit about foods loaded with fat, etc., between bites of a Boston cream doughnut I bought while shopping at the local supermarket this morning. Oh, well.)

Trakhak

The topic/trope of highly processed foods being inherently evil is an interesting one. Many people would be suspicious of a food with the following ingredients:

Anthocyanins (pelargonidin-3-O-β-glucoside, cyanidin-3-O-β-glucoside, pelargonidin-3-O-rutinoside, cyaniding-3-O-(6″malonyl)glucoside, pelargonidin-3-O-(6″malonyl)glucoside)), flavonoids (derivatives of quercetin, kaempferol and isorhamnetin), cinnamic acid derivatives (isomers of 1-O-p-coumaroylhexose, 1-O-feruloylhexose, 1-O-p-coumaroyl-β-glucose, 1-O-trans-cinnamoyl-β-glucose), tannins and related compounds (gallotannins, glycosides of ellagic acid and methylellagic acid, free ellagic acid, flavan-3-ol derivatives), and triterpenoids (methyl or hydroxyl derivatives of tormentic or dihydrotormentic acid).

That represents a (partial) list of the chemical components of a strawberry.

My semi-educated guess is that consuming limited amounts of processed foods in an otherwise healthy diet is probably less worrisome for your health than consuming consistently excessive amounts of all-natural foods.

Those aren't the only two choices, of course. But the consumption habits of plenty of people fall into one of those two categories.

rsbob 

Today’s pre-ride breakfast: Oatmeal with raisins, almonds, cinnamon and Greek yogurt. Protein from yogurt and almonds, and carbs from oatmeal and cinnamon for taste?

Edit: Oops, I forgot to drink a couple of beers. Darn!

terrymorse 

Cow milk fat (butter) is healthier than margarine, but "healthier than margarine" is a really low bar.

There are way healthier alternatives to cow milk fat. Just about any of the nut oils, for instance.

I switched from oatmeal to muesli a while ago. Several different whole grains for variety, some fruits and nuts. Soy milk and Greek yogurt, egg whites occasionally.

Trakhak

Too much work. For the last 30 years or more, for breakfast (and multiple other times during the day) I have oatmeal straight out of the big cylinder mixed with cold water from the tap (don't care for cooked oatmeal) and raisins. Fifteen seconds prep time.

Sometimes I throw in cocktail peanuts. Usually Dannon coffee yogurt on the side.

pepperbelly

Wow. Tough room! 😎

zandoval 

Peanut Butter and Jelly on French Toast... Nuff Said...

jadmt

my breakfast was delicious and fulfills all nutritional requirements for a health body...

Jay Turberville

There are always confounders in these observational studies. Surely the significant and steady decline in smoking has reduced heart disease incidence and deaths. Add to that better medicines and surgical methods and we shouldn't be surprised by decreased deaths. If our diets hadn't gotten worse, the perhaps the improvement in outcomes would have been more significant.

In addition to a crappy diet, I think reduced activity is probably as significantly a contributing factor to obesity and the related metabolic diseases.

Just about everything I read associates Metabolic Syndrome and Type 2 Diabetes with increased risk of heart disease and stroke. So the association poor diet ---> metabolism issues ---> heart disease is pretty clear. That said, genetics and behavior matter and some overweight people are actually metabolically healthy while some normal weight people are metabolically unhealthy. Apparently a lot depends on where your body stores the fat. The big danger seems to occur the body stores a lot of visceral fat. Obesity makes that more likely but does not necessarily indicate it.

wolfchild

There is nothing bad about dairy fat...Dairy fat is actually very healthy for you. Humans have been eating dairy for the past 8000 years..

terrymorse 

There are healthier fats than dairy fat.

"Scientists around the world simultaneously showed that saturated fat—the kind in butter and lard—increases both “bad” LDL cholesterol and “good” HDL cholesterol, making it similar to carbohydrates overall but not as beneficial to health as polyunsaturated fats from nuts and vegetables."

Harvard Public Health

wolfchild

Junk science.

terrymorse 

Hmm.

Jay Turberville

Well. It's nine years old. That seems like an issue to me. This seems to be more current.
https://www.health.harvard.edu/stayi...s-bad-and-good

But the problem with all of it is that they show "associations" and say things like "linked to". This is weak sauce. Also consider that most of these studies are based on general populations that are typically sedentary and overweight. If you are an outlier compared to the population in a study (like maybe you ride your bike 3-4000 miles a year), the amount of relevance to you may be pretty low. To find out you'll probably have to read (and understand) the actual study. And when you do, you might find other details like the degree of risk increase/decrease. A detail mostly missing in the Harvard article I cited. But most of us typically just trust some other expert's interpretation. We want to hear "good" or "bad" and be on our way. And while we're at it, we usually pick the expert that says the thing closer to what we want to hear.

Butter is almost certainly neither good or bad. It's almost certainly OK if you consume it in moderation and stay active or very active.

pepperbelly

For what it’s worth I rarely use margarine for anything. I usually scramble my eggs and put them in low carb tortillas with crumbled Jimmy Dean turkey sausage. Add a little Pace picante and have really good breakfast taquitos. I don’t eat that every morning though. Some days it’s a tomato sandwich on Sola keto bread with Miracle Whip and a salad for lunch.
If I fry eggs or anything else I use olive oil. I don’t use flour. I make chicken breast or salmon or whatever in my air fryer. I have air fried zucchini chips.
I eat healthy most of the time but I also like bbq. I figure it will even out in the end.
My dr and cardiologist are happy with my. The weight loss and very good lipid panels and ither blood tests tells us I am doing something correct.
Probably most of my issues cycling are from being out of shape. I stopped playing softball at age 50. It was fun but 50 is just too old to stand at 3rd base.
I tend to start topics here because I don’t have anyone around to ask questions or check things out. This forum for me is like a garage bull***t session.
I can tell a lot of y’all are much more serious riders than I am. I am more recreational.