Nobody reads The Fat Cyclist for useful advice. Or at least, I hope not, because I never give useful advice. Unless you count a detailed recounting of "how to eat like a sideshow freak" or "how to fall off your bike and hurt yourself, while still looking comically ridiculous" as useful advice.

No, I think it’s safe to say that I’m long on absurd overdisclosure and wild exaggeration, and short on practical information.

And yet, last night I started thinking (hey, your brain’s got to do something while you brush your teeth): I’ve been riding for ten years or so, now. Certainly in that time I must have learned something of real value I could share. And in the space of three minutes (ie, the period of time required for  a good teeth-brushing), I had thought of three simple, useful pieces of advice that have significantly improved my riding experience over the years.

So yes, one day after I reveal that I can behave like a complete lunatic, I’m asking you to consider taking my advice. Here you go:

1. How to Breathe

When I first started mountain biking, I got cramps in my side every single ride. Cramps so painful I would get off my bike and wait for the pain to go away. While I was thus waiting once, Stuart rolled up to me and asked what the problem was. I told him about the stitch in my side, and Stuart said four words:

"Breathe deeply. Exhale fully."

I got back on my bike and tried it. I inhaled to capacity, and exhaled as far as I could. He was right. I had been breathing too quickly and shallowly. With that, I went from being the guy who was always having to stop and rest to being the guy who could turn the cranks forever. If I wanted more power or speed, I would do the same thing, but faster.

Those four words of advice very nearly make up for the fact that it was Stuart who basically caused me to get a concussion on my first mountain bike ride ever.

2. There is No Such Thing as Bike Burnout

Toward the end of just about every riding season, I’ll try to set up a ride with friends, but will get a variation of this response: "No, I’m sick of bikes." Or sometimes, I’ll be the guy who says, "No, I’m burned out on riding."

This is just stupid.

Here’s what’s really happening if you don’t want to get out on your bike: you’re in a rut. You’ve been riding the same kind of bike, in the same way (or same set of ways), on the same terrain too much. It’s become routine.

Any time I’ve kicked myself off the couch and tried a different kind of ride, I’ve been astounded. If I’ve been riding road exclusively, I’ll say, "I’d forgotten that mountain biking can be so intense and beautiful and demanding." If I’ve been mountain biking a lot, I’ll say, "I’d forgotten that road riding is so fast and quiet and smooth." Or, in my case right now as I learn to ride in the velodrome, "I had forgotten what it feels like to be an absolute beginner." Or when I ride my fixie to work and back, "I had forgotten what it felt like to be completely demolished by a climb."

If you’re not having fun riding anymore, mix it up (even if it does go against the routine Chris Carmichael personally wrote for you). You’ll find you still like riding as much as you ever did.

3. Remember to Have Fun

I have been on lots and lots and lots of endurance races and rides. I have never quit, even when I’ve been really slow and fat. This is because of my very most clever trick:

I have fun.

I think lots of cyclists look forward to a long ride or race forever, but then once they’re on the course think of nothing but the finish line. I propose that if you remember to actually ride in the moment, look around and consider what a cool thing it is to be on a bicycle, that — whether you’re doing an afternoon-length ride or a 24-hour race — you’ll have a better time and won’t get tired as quickly.

OK, I just made up the part about not getting tired as quickly. But if you resist the urge to think about the end of the ride, I guarantee you’ll enjoy more of the ride itself.

Today’s weight: 160.8. I did this by basically not eating anything yesterday, and then not fasting after 5pm yesterday. So, yeah, I made my weight goal. But I’m sure my weight’s going to be higher tomorrow, and I’ll have a lot of work to make my weight goal next week.

Bonus blood pressure / cholesterol info: I — as usual — blew things out of proportion. My blood pressure yesterday was only trivially higher than it should be, and my cholesterol levels aren’t dangerous. Basically, I need to cut back on the salt and eat more fish (or take flaxseed oil supplements), and I’m good.

Bonus weekend event: I’m doing the Seattle Randonneur’s 100km Populaire (110 km, 1650 m/5400 ft of elevation gain) tomorrow. Unless I chicken out.

After yesterday’s news that I have high blood pressure (130/90) and high cholesterol (221), I realized that my life is about to change. I realized that after my doctor’s appointment today, I will probably need to make additional changes to my diet. I realized, above all, that I’m probably going to have to say goodbye to salt and mayonnaise: my two favorite things to add to food.

At first, this made me sad. No salt? What good are tortilla chips without salt? What is Cholula but some hot peppers in a bath of vinegar and salt? No mayo? What good is a peanut butter, banana, and mayo sandwich without mayo?

Then I got mad.

Real mad.

The problem was, I didn’t have anyone to get angry at. The only thing that could be said to be at fault was my own body and the way it processes food.

Fair enough, then. I’ll get angry at my body, and punish it with food.

I resolved to spend the day eating with a vengeance.

Round One: Lunch

The only reasonably-short line in the cafeteria was the salad bar, which wasn’t exactly what I originally had in mind to kick off my act of gastronomical defiance. However, I decided to take it on as a challenge. I would build a Bad Salad.

This turned out to be almost disappointingly easy. On top of a very small bed of lettuce (put there mostly so that I could still claim it is a salad, as opposed to an ad-hoc casserole), I put a couple of hardboiled eggs, two different kinds of cheese, several cherry tomatoes (just for color), some cottage cheese just in case the other cheeses got lonely, croutons, a double-fistful of sunflower seeds, and then drenched it in ranch dressing.

Where I work, the way they charge you for the salad bar is by how much it weighs. For me, they had to bring in a special scale.

Round Two: Afternoon Snack

Within a few hours, I no longer felt like I was going to explode. This is not, mind you, the same thing as saying that I felt hungry. I was not in the same area code as hungry. But I was still feeling angry, so decided to continue to show my body who’s boss. Luckily, there’s a vending machine on my floor. "Take that, stupid heart!" I said, plowing through a Snickers. "Who’s got high cholesterol now?" I asked my blood, as I easily dispatched a KitKat bar. "What, you think I eat too much salt?" I taunted my blood pressure, as I munched with affected carelessness on a Salted Nut Roll.

And then I ate the rigatoni with chicken and alfredo sauce I had in the fridge. I had planned on eating that for lunch today, but I didn’t feel like I had sufficiently made my point.

Round Three: Dinner

My good friend Jeff was in town yesterday, so we went on a short ride — just to get our appetites worked up — and then he took me to dinner. Since he’s a Very Important Vice President of a Massive Publishing Conglomerate, he of course volunteered to pick up the tab when we went to the Acupulco Fresh taco shop.

Taking advantage of Jeff’s (employer’s) generosity, I ordered the Burrito Grande Al Pastor, with the red sauce enchilada dip. And an order of chips and guacamole. Don’t skip on the sour cream if you want a tip, OK? And hey, lookit all the tasty different kinds of salsa at the salsa bar. I think I’ll have some of each.

I dispatched the burrito quickly and efficiently — some might even say "savagely."

Jeff watched in horror.

Round Four: Late Night Snack

Apart from a lot of bike riding, I would say that the factor most responsible for my weight loss since I started this blog is a simple rule I set for myself: After dinner, I’m done eating for the day.

I broke that rule in every way possible last night. Golden Grahams were just the beginning of it. "Stupid body," I thought to myself (I might’ve been speaking out loud, it’s hard to say). "I diet and exercise and eat crazy amounts of vegetables and fruit and high-fiber cereal, and you’re still going to go all middle-aged on me? Well, then, I may as well eat Golden Grahams. And hey, there in the pantry: I spy with my little eye a box of Oreos. I bet I’ll have no trouble finishing those off. I wonder how Oreos would taste with peanut butter on them? Wow. Really good. Let’s do that again."

Was I done? No, I was not done. I was still angry. And the next expression of my indignation would take the form of a tortilla, heated for ten seconds in the microwave to get it nice and pliable, upon which I would spread peanut butter and chocolate frosting.

OK, arteries. Are you ready to cry ‘uncle’ yet?

Do I Have a Point?

Apart from the therapeutic effect of confessing my sins, does this little horror story have a point? Nope. I was just mad at my body for betraying me, and so punished it by eating like there’s no tomorrow. And I admit, I had a lot of fun completely ignoring — in fact, running contrary to — all my eating rules for a day.

And if my doctor’s appointment this afternoon goes like I expect it to, that was my last food frenzy for quite some time.

Today’s weight: Do you really think I would weigh myself the morning after eating like that?

PS: The Errorista — my sister — and a.Toad — my "Hot Blog Pick for Q3′05" (see my "Blogging Cyclists" list) — are both featured on MSN’s What’s Your Story site this week, which is not a small deal. Congrats to both of them.

As a person who has elected to be known to the world as "Fat Cyclist," I would think it’s safe to say that I have very few illusions about my how I look, where my blood pressure is, and what my cholesterol level is.

I would think that, but I would be wrong.

You see, at my fattest, I assumed that my cholesterol level would be high. And since every time I get my blood pressure checked, the checker says, "Woah, you’d better talk to a doctor about that," I’d assumed my blood pressure is a little high, too.

Brilliant Plan

But I had a plan: don’t go see a doctor until I’d lost the weight and gotten full-force into healthy mode. And that’s pretty much where I am now. See, I’m not really fat anymore — I still have about ten pounds to lose, but that ten pounds will put me into my "serious racer" weight range.

So I figured it was safe to go see a doctor and get the lab work done, to verify that I am, in fact, a superb human specimen.

Don’t Panic. Well, OK. Go Ahead and Panic.

You know, there’s nothing quite like a voicemail from the doctor’s office to completely freak you out.

My blood pressure is high. My cholesterol is high. The doctor would like me to make an appointment to see him at my earliest convenience.

That’s all the voicemail said. So I, quite reasonably I think, have interpreted that to mean: "You are the middle-aged poster boy for a heart attack."

So, I called the doctor’s office this morning and set up an appointment for my earliest convenience, which is not until tomorrow at 5:00pm. This, conveniently, gives me 31 hours to blow this waaaaay out of proportion. Which is what I intend to do. If at all possible, in fact, I intend to have a heart attack before the doctor’s appointment, just to underscore how seriously I’m suddenly taking all this. Which is to say, I’m as serious as a heart attack. Literally.

OK, I’m done with that joke now. Let’s move on.

The Dumb Thing

You want to know what the dumb thing is, though? I’m not worried about short- or long-term medical implications, I’m worried about how this is going to affect my riding.

Today’s weight: 161.8 lbs.