Thursday, January 10, 2008

The Dangers of Starvation Diets

The Holy Grail of competitive cycling is the power-to-weight ratio: increased power and/or decreased weight lead to faster climbing and more wins.

While some of us are inherently gifted in this regard, others generate a whole bunch of power but also carry a whole lot of weight, so we are always trying to lose a few pounds. But if we lose a lot of weight very quickly, we sacrifice some power in the process and change ourselves from fat-guys-who-can't-climb into slightly-less-fat-guys-who-still can't-climb. And without all that power, we're slow on flat roads, too.

All of this is probably common knowledge amongst Bonobos in the the know. (That line is funny because of assonance, the repetition of a vowel sound within a line.) However, a more dangerous consequence of losing too much weight too soon is much less widely known, so I've posted the following image as a reminder: don't restrict too many calories!



You can't win a sprint if you're locked up in a plastic cage.

5 comments:

Flatfish said...

Enjoyed the assonance! (That line is funny because assonance starts with the word ass). Might I add that there are those of us that are fat guys who can't sprint and are always trying to loose a few pounds so we can climb. Problem is that we still can't develop enough power to climb and with out that power we are still slow in the hills. I'm a small guy that is too fat to climb and not powerful enough to climb. Where do I fit in?

I may need to go find an accepting Bonobo community to live with.

FWS said...

Hey E.O'B...
Not being a English Professor.
I don't know anything about
ASSONANCE! But I do know about
having my As*# on a barbed wire
fence... (See post below) And... According to the PhoTog, I uttered a succession of 4 letter words all in a row! Is that the same thing?

BIG said...

Losing too much weight has never been a problem for me and they can't make a plastic cage BIG enough for me.

BIG

Lee said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lee said...

Start chewing more gum.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7180800.stm

Nice post, not surprised that bonobos fixed on the a$$ thing. Well, I've got 1 word for you all -- asteroids. It's like 2 words in 1.