There are a few goals we have for everyone we work with. It doesn't matter if the individual's goal is performance, weight loss or rehab we look to achieve this with all of them?Do you know what 'it' is?What we're looking to achieve with all these clients is help them be as lean as possible. And here's why.For a movement, non-collision sport athlete one of the goals is to generate as much strength and power per unit of body weight. In cycling, the unit of interest is watts/kilo. And to improve is to increase our power, decrease our mass or both. Sometimes an athlete has maxed out on the power they can produce but they are carrying a few extra pounds. Leaning up a little bit can be the difference to increased performance.Obviously for the weight loss client we want to shed as much unnecessary mass as possible while keeping as much muscle as possible.And for the rehab client a leaner physique helps in a number of ways. A leaner indivudual can move better than an overweight one. They will have more energy to do more. And a leaner frame takes stress on load-bearing joints. With the knees for example, every pound that is shed takes four pounds off the knees.With my own training and goals I'm looking to be as lean and strong as possible. With the fondo coming up in a little over a week all the hard training should be done or wrapping up soon. And now it's just a matter of dialing in the nutrition and resting up.Obviously a lighter bike helps, especially when climbing hills. But instead of looking to save grams by upgrading seat posts, wheels and bottle cage holders, it would make more sense to shed pounds on the scale.For example, going from an...

Nighttime Eating Without question, one of the single worst habits I have (at least that I am willing to publically detail…) is that of “night eating.” Now, I don’t know if night eating is a “thing” in the clinical sense but it sure as shooting is a “thing” when it comes to my life. And it’s not new. I’ve been lost in the world of post-midnight munching for decades. Nighttime Eating at an Early Age It all started back when I was seven or eight. Mom and dad would send me off to bed where I would lie for exactly the amount of time it took them to vacate the lower level of the house. Once they were out of sight I would discreetly slip to the downstairs television set and supplement my cultural education. Without a word of a lie, I spent a good ten years crouched a maximum of five or six inches from our old Zenith television between the hours of midnight and 4am, hand on the power button ready to switch it off the very second I heard movement toward the stairs. During these hours I consumed all manner of forbidden television fruit, from All in the Family to Cheers to the Tonight Show to Late Night with David Letterman and far beyond. Alas, my consumption was not limited to entertainment. When you’re watching this much telly this late into the night you get hungry – real hungry - and no food was safe when I went hunting. Common (and Not So Common) Nighttime Eating Snacks My ideal snack tended toward the salted varieties – chips, crackers and what have you - but I would never limit myself to that. Oh no, I also freely enjoyed chocolate bars, leftover pizza, milk, cereal, cold lasagna, bread, butter, crackers,...