Awesome, this is something that has really helped me too. Not power gain exactly, but the idea of creating performance goals and letting those determine your eating habits. Rather than the opposite; feeling like there are certain ways you need to eat, and performance being determined by whatever those eating habits happen to be.
I’ve always struggled with weight, and always seemed naturally bigger than those around me. Was never a cyclist growing up. 4-5 years ago i decided to try and get in shape, which is what got me into cycling.
I went from around 80kg to about 64kg in a year or two. Counted calories meticulously. Didn’t realize it at the time, but developed a bad relationship with food. At the time it was very much a body image thing, and was mostly lifting weights with some cycling as ‘cardio’. I found myself making excuses to skip events with friends etc.
Fast forward, started cycling still very nutrition conscious and was just riding with friends for a year or two. Not training, no power meter etc. Eventually, i started taking it more seriously, and still counted calories etc, and weight settled at around 65kg. Was like this for a number of years. Performance on bike also stagnated, and i simply couldn’t get my FTP over 320 or so. Have had a lot of struggled with depression in last decade, and cycling really helped. However, it has meant i find is hard to relate to those who don’t have that active lifestyle - which where i live is a lot. Then again, found a good group of people to ride with, and was happy for first time i can remember.
Come covid, and i basically fell off the wagon. Went from someone who could easily live with being ‘slightly hungry’ all the time, so having all out food binges. To counter this, i found myself training more and more. Stopped looking at weight, as didn’t want to know. The one thing i did track, was my power, which increased a lot. FTP went to about 360. My 3 min power from a few years ago, is now my 20min power. Did this have something to do with eating more? Probably, but im sure i could have found a middle ground.
I’m now about 70 kg (~15% bf). I’m in the process of slowly getting weight down slightly, but in a healthy manner rather than being pedantic like i have in the past, and no desire to go back to where i was. I’ve found more balance. Do I need to lose weight? Not really, but I’d kind of like to have that cyclist build again, and currently i’m on the verge of being able to perform at races which are a relatively high level.
Do I have a problem? Yes, but i’ve learnt to accept that for now - and the satisfaction i get from cycling and being good at something outweighs the sense of failure i once felt. I came from a bad place, being aware of my thoughts more is turning that around.
Ride on
12 Likes
Scrolling through this and other related threads I’m SO glad to see someone else on the same wavelength!! I used to be much heavier, but when my Garmin scale was starting to confuse my weight measurement with my husband’s (I’m 5’5", he’s 5’8") I knew I needed to shift things…that was back in 2016 and I’ve gone from 155lbs down to my lowest weight of 122lbs during racing season (but still at 21-22% bodyfat). I’ve been training and racing road and CX since 2017 and REALLY struggled at the end of 2019 with obsessing at staying at 126 NO MATTER WHAT, even with headaches/sluggishness/reduced performance on the bike AND on my nordic skis all while training for my 2nd Birkebeiner race…once the pandemic hit and racing wasn’t on the docket for the rest of 2020 I said screw it and stopped obsessing, weight definitely crept back up to 132lbs (23-24% bf) but with the sheer volume of riding and how I was performing physically I didn’t care…went back to structured training last October but also added some basic strength training to my TR and with added stressors/pandemic fatigue, languishing, and frankly getting frustrated and demoralized by my training numbers (because I didn’t have a full season of road/CX racing to rely on!) has been hard, but with both doses of vaccine in my system I’ve been able to get back to spicy group rides (i.e. what got me into cycling in the first place!) and with the nicer weather back on the MTB trails (another new-er hobby that challenges me in SO many ways)! Hoping to keep upping volume and intensity over the summer so weight can drop and I’ll be ready and a contender for 1st place for my “A” race in August (Day Across MN: https://the-damn.com/).
Now if only I could figure out how to keep the pounds off without starving myself or spending 6 hours on the trainer in the off-season… 
Others have noted they LOST weight during the off-season and I don’t know how that can be, I do indulge a bit in the usual holiday treats but I guess as I’m getting closer to 40 I’ll have to be even MORE strict about portions and treats… 
4 Likes
This is so humbling, i’ve been through the process for many year and the coming to accept it and just deal / live with it is something i have come to as well. Fixable completely? Maybe but livable with while maintaining sport and training for sure.
I think the main thing people don’t tell you is the anxiety around it and what that causes. When you don’t care or worry (even if you under fuel) you end up mentally in a better place which is terrible!
My main problem now still is the weight yes its low and i keep getting told it should be high but no matter what i do it won’t go up. I have a pretty good training program and lifting program to. Half of me think now i’ve been this weight for so long its my new set point and my body really does not want to stray from it.
That aid im not going to slam pints of ice cream just to gain, i value my health too much for that a love my good nutritious food!
Not exactly cycling related, but I recently listened to Rich Roll’s podcast with a runner Mary Cain, who was a part of Nike and Salazar’s team. It’s once again a story of being too “out of shape”, only this time, losing weight was being pushed on the athletes by their coaches and staff.
And also, the new triathlon olympic champion Flora Duffy also spoke openly about her issues with disordered eating. It seems that weight management problems are very prevalent in all sorts of sports.
2 Likes
I think some folks might resonate with, and learn or find value in, a bit (or a LOT) of what we discuss in our conversation here.
It’s worth a listen, in my humblest of most-biased opinions.
7 Likes
Part 2 is out. Sharing because I think there was some pretty positive feedback from the first part. This one might even be more interesting, helpful, & encouraging.
8 Likes
wonderful share Alex, thanks as always!
1 Like
Awesome will have a listen while studying I reckon.
1 Like
Today was a very good (albeit unplanned) experiment in what fuelling does and why not eating ruins performance.
Went out with a bottle of with one scoop of carb drink in, a bar and a gel for a short loop. Problem was it was nice out so I decided to go to the coast. This then led to going off road along the coast further away from home, then having to wait to eat the gel until I was closer to home and rationing drink.
I’m home now and far more tired than 65km should suggest.
It’s a good reminder to fuel the work!
3 Likes
I recently hit rock bottom with my own disordered eating and found this thread. It is really nice to hear comments from other athletes because I can relate much more to being driven to bad habits by a desire for performance, rather than the typical discussion about “body image.” I’ve honestly been struggling with food for as long as I can remember. Starting around the age of 5, I remember constantly getting in trouble for “snitching” cookies or the like. Even at that early age, I was basically binging, I could eat dozens of cookies or other treats in a sitting very early on. Throughout my childhood, I didn’t care at all. I was a really active kid with a metabolism I would dream of having today. However, my obsession with overeating was constant, and lead to a consistent pattern of deception and theft from my parents. I would sneak ridiculous amounts of treats, and steal cash from my folks to get mountain dew and donuts at school. I swam competitively in high school, and started hitting up local mtn bike races, which lead me to add a stop at burger king on the way home from practice every day to eat two whoppers before dinner. As I entered adulthood, I started to gain weight as I continued to binge on treats.
When I got married, it only got worse, because my wife was very health conscious and clearly not happy when I ate poorly, so I slipped back into deception so that I could keep my bad eating habits out of her sight. For the most part I stayed relatively active with a mix of basketball and cycling, which slowed down my weight gain, but I was definitely becoming more unhealthy all the time. Then I tore my ACL and ballooned to 260 lbs (my healthy weight at the time was probably somewhere around 170-175 lbs). When I realized that I was fatter than my Dad who had been relatively obese my whole life, I got obsessed about losing weight. I started counting calories like a maniac and started working a pretty aggressive exercise routine, which soon grew to 5 sessions of running or cycling a week and 3 hard hours of weight training. Wow did I get rewarded. In 6 months I went from 260 lbs to 170 lbs. Compliments came from everywhere and I was soo much happier. However, once I hit 170 lbs and felt like I’d “made it” I really struggled to eat a balanced diet, rather than one of calorie deficit. As I reintroduced “normal eating” the binging returned. This time, however, I was pretty determined not to let the weight return, and so pretty soon I began purging.
Soon after this, I had yet another knee injury, and another surgery, and once again the weight came back on. I climbed back up to 234 lbs, in spite of the purging, and started to show symptoms of pre-diabetes. I got freaked out. This time, instead of just counting calories, I completely eliminated sugar from my diet and all carbs that weren’t “naturally occurring.” (in other words, no bread, pasta, or rice, but carbs in fruit and vegetables were totally fine). This is also when my cycling really kicked into high gear. Once again, I had a lot of success losing weight and receiving praise, and because I was so careful about how I ate, the purging (mostly) went away.
I was doing OK until I hit a really intense bit of stress with both home life and work, and then I did something that really increased the problem: I found a way to hide the statements from one of my credit cards from my wife. With this in place, my binging became absolutely ridiculous. I have a 35-minute commute every day, and literally every day I was stopping for junk food (no sugar, though, I kept that bit going, except for during training, where I eat 100 grams an hour of sugar) as frequently as 3 times during that commute. I would then find a trash can at a local park or church to throw away all the evidence, walk into the house, head straight to the bathroom, and purge. It became something that happened at least once a day, and sometimes as often as 3 times.
Somehow I managed to keep all of this hidden from my wife, but the deception drove me to start thinking about killing the habit in some way. I started meeting with a counselor and started trying to build up the resolution to fix the problem so that I could have a more honest relationship with my wife. Then she saw a credit card statement. I finally fully opened up and confessed everything that had been going on for years (15 years, since my first purge).
Now I’m 12 days into a big effort to change. Maybe it’s because of cycling and stopping eating sugar earlier in life, but once I get the ball rolling, I can be pretty determined. I have only mildly binged once (at a community event, not at a gas station) and I haven’t purged once. However, I am really struggling to figure out what it means to eat healthy. I don’t want to continue down the same path, obviously, but I also really don’t want to gain weight. My current body weight isn’t insanely trim, (I’m hovering around 17% body fat) so I feel like with just a little bit of slipping, I could fall back into an unhealthy weight, and be headed in the wrong direction. While I feel ready to fight the battle with binging and purging, I really don’t know how to find the balance between being conscientious about what I eat in a healthy way, while not continuing to build an unhealthy relationship with food. Stopping binging feels (mostly) possible. Stopping purging feels possible. Having the right relationship with food feels completely out of reach.
10 Likes
One thing with the thought of slipping that I try to remember is that yesterday is done and dusted and tomorrow is a whole new day. If I binged on biscuits today it’s done but it won’t mean I’ll do it tomorrow.
It’s a good thing to try and work with (bloody hard to get into your head for everything but you can but try).
3 Likes
You probably already know this, but keep seeing a counselor and take any referrals for additional medical help seriously. What you’re describing is not a habit, but a known and diagnosable illness. Trying to work through it on your own may be incredibly difficult, and there are great medical professionals out there who have dedicated their careers to understanding and treating eating related illness.
Good luck, we’re pulling for!
6 Likes
Thank you for sharing your story! There is a lot of elements that I can definitely relate to and have experienced myself. 12 days is great! Keep taking it one day at a time.
I am glad you are seeking outside help from a counselor. In my own experience, I found being able to talk to a professional helps tremendously and also allows prevents me from a) bottling it all up or b) unloading on my wife.
4 Likes
Trying to work on reframing my mental talks I give myself during hard workouts.
For so long in my workouts I’ve bullied myself into trying harder for the interval/run/pushups/whatever with phrases like “come on fatty” or “you’ve got this you fat bastard”, this clearly is not a good method and doesn’t help me outside of working out keeping me sane.
I’m now really trying to reframe my phrases saying thing like I’m strong and crushing it, or dropping/leading out my buddies. No idea how long it will take but positive mental attitude has got to be good.
Not entirely sure about the point of this post, just talking I guess.
3 Likes
@firemunki
Sounds like a good plan to me. A new narrative can combat old/unhelpful ways of thinking.
What helped me a lot is reframing my goals towards pure performance, rather than body composition or body image or anything like that. This doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be disordered thinking or lead to a disordered relationship with food. But I’ve found it generally keeps me healthier and keeps my weight up.
So when I’m doing a hard workout, I try to focus on the adaptations and performance gains, rather than how many calories I’m burning. And when I’m making food decisions, I’m thinking about fueling for those goals. And i can include occasional cookies and treats into those food decisions because I know I’m working towards well-rounded and sustainable eating habits to meet my goals.
1 Like
I’ve come to this thread because I feel I have fallen into Binge Eating Disorder or Disordered Binge Eating. It’s come to a head with a (second) incident involving alcohol, but it’s the same route cause - bingeing.
From reading up, the classic is bingeing leading to being overweight. I’m not, but I am now accepting that I am bingeing even on days I’m in overall deficit. For context, I did diet for years, as I went from 125kg plus down to 70kg (sustainably, up to probably the last 6 months). It was everything in moderation, no foods or food groups excluded. Weight crept up a little over last covid lockdown, and have been trying to address that, but I’ve slipped into “saving” calories and then eating relatively healthy snacks in the evening Monday to Friday. My “not sweating it” at the weekend has become binges on more calorific snacks and drink in an uncontrolled way.
This post is the first time “saying” I have a problem.
After getting very drunk at the weekend, out, I’ve done soul searching and identified the actual cause (I think). It’s not alcohol per se, I just binge on something/ anything. It may be popcorn the night before a long cycle, beer the night after a long cycle, crisps the day after a long cycle.
Will be trying the self help route out initially, and maybe the book mentioned by @cbrink I note in the reviews part of the criticism of the book is the not focussing on possible life events. I don’t believe I have experienced those, it’s years of focussing on my diet that has lead me to this spot. In a roundabout way, I’m back to “don’t diet on the bike” particularly if that is just to eat lots of something in the evening!
5 Likes
I’m not going to try and give advice since I’m in no position to with all my issues but what I will say is: well done for the introspection to realise and publicly say “I am struggling”.
That first step is hard. Good luck and stay strong.
4 Likes
Just to come back on this - I went to a GP in my practice who specialises in eating disorders. Initial approach is rebalance and change habits, with the very heavy caveat if it’s not working come back. Seems to be going ok so far. I know from giving up smoking, 28 days is the habit changing timeframe, but so far so good.
6 Likes
Hey, jumping in on this thread as I have started a support group for athletes with EDs and/or REDs (relative energy deficiency in sport). It’s a space where we share tips and support each other through the mental and physical aspects of recovery, and can share things more privately as it is anonymous! If this resonates with you, please feel welcome to join: REDs Recovery Support Group. 
1 Like