How to Eat Like a Fat Cyclist
I ride my bike a lot. I ride about 250 miles per week, in fact. That’s enough that I should not have to worry about weight at all. And if I ate like a normal person, I probably wouldn’t.
But I don’t eat like a normal person. My appetite is enormous, and my taste in food is lowbrow, as well as occasionally bizarre. Which means I like cheap, bad food, I like lots of it, and I like some odd combinations.
If you were me, then, here would be your favorite foods.
- Cold cereal. I am entirely serious when I say that I could happily live on nothing but cold cereal and milk. Honey Bunches of Oats. Cap’n Crunch, in all its incarnations. Honey Nut Cheerios. Count Chocula. Reeses Puffs. Fiber One (yes, really). Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
- Tortillas. As you will see below, tortillas play a prominent role in many of my other favorite foods. However, let it be said: I like tortillas just plain, too. Warm in the microwave for 20 seconds and serve with Cholula hot sauce. Yum.
- Peanut Butter and Honey Sandwiches. I have thought — more than once — to myself, that if I had to eat just one thing for every meal for the rest of my life, it would be peanut butter and honey sandwiches. But that’s only true if the bread is from Great Harvest. The white bread, I mean. Don’t pollute my bread with whole grains or sunflower seeds.
- Burritos: From El Azteca in Provo, UT. Specifically, the Chicken Chipotle burrito. You know, it’s very difficult to have one of your favorite foods be location-based.
- Peanut Butter, Banana, and Mayonnaise Sandwiches: Everyone wrinkles their noses at this one, and I don’t try to convince anyone to try it. My mom made these for me when I was a kid; I liked them then, I like them now. I can’t get my own kids to try them, though. I think, though, my mom used Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise. My tastes have since matured and I am confident in asserting that Miracle Whip would more appropriately be named Abomination Whip. This is good with a tortilla instead of bread, too.
- Spaghetti: I eat spaghetti at least three times per week. I make it in enormous batches. For a long time, angel hair was my favorite pasta, but I’ve been favoring bowtie pasta lately. Served with a big spoonful of cottage cheese on top, and more black pepper shaken on it than you would think healthy.
- Spaghetti Sauce Burrito: Take a tortilla, spread some spaghetti sauce on it, add several dollops of cottage cheese, microwave for 25 seconds, wrap, and try to eat without it spilling all over yourself. Really, is there anything that isn’t good with a tortilla?
- Bananas. Bananas are the fast food of the fruit and vegetable world. While most fruits have skins, bananas have packaging. They have no hard hidden objects inside you can bite into. And while they don’t have an expiration date per se printed on them, a quick glance tells you when a banana is not yet ripe, when it’s too ripe, and when it’s perfect. Bananas have a mild flavor and soft texture that make them perfect for toddlers, octogenarians, and triathletes. Bananas are good alone, good on cereal, good with ice cream, good in pie. When they get old, they’re good as a baking ingredient. Really, the only thing a banana needs to be perfect is a creamy filling. Bonus banana fact: Most people peel bananas the wrong way, starting at the stem and peeling down. If you try peeling from the other end, you’ll find two things. First, you can now use the stem as a handle. Second, it’s easier to start peeling at this end. I promise you, your life will be 3% easier if you use this technique.
- Golden Delicious Apples: Most people think of apples in a very general sense. This is wrongheaded thinking, and must stop immediately. Granny Smith apples are so hard and tart they are generally only eaten on a bet (good in apple cobbler, though). Fuji apples are nice and crisp, but have no more flavor than paper. Golden Delicious apples, however, are both golden and delicious. And while bananas have their own removable packaging, Golden Delicious apples let you eat the packaging. Just polish the apple on the leg of your pants — this is a very effective way of ridding the apple of any germs and pesticides — and enjoy.
- Scrambled Egg Burrito: I’m proud of the technique I’ve developed in making this. Spray Pam into a cereal bowl, crack a couple eggs into the bowl, pour in a tiny bit of milk, sprinkle salt and pepper in, whip with a fork, and microwave for 2 minutes (1 minute per egg). Flop onto a tortilla (of course) with a little cheese sprinkled on top, microwave for another 10 seconds, add lots of Cholula, wrap and enjoy. My 11-year-old believes this is the best food in the world.
- Mayonnaise: I may as well admit it: I love mayonnaise. It’s good on everything, and not half bad by itself. I apologize to everyone I just creeped out.
Special Instructions on Eating Like the Fat Cyclist After a Really Big Ride
Eat everything, in any combination. Do not worry about taste. Just fill the void.
Comment by je | 02.2.2008 | 6:44 am
Good thing Cheesecake Factory wasn’t open in your area at the time. you’d have never dropped the lbs.
have fun at the hog.
Comment by Mark | 02.2.2008 | 6:44 am
Great Harvest bread? Ugh.
I know this is an old post, but their bread is the definition of mediocre.
Comment by cyclingphun.blogspot.com | 02.2.2008 | 6:47 am
Fatty, do you want to adopt one more, slightly older, ok too old to adopt son? The scrambled eqq burrito IS in fact thee perfect food. Also, while I don’t claim to know all, or most maybe even any, of the mysteries of God, I have to say that I think that God too loves Cholula, dare I say he might have had a divine hand in Cholula? Also, Honey Bunches of Oats is the perfect cereal. I cannot tell you the last time I had it though, I’ve been sticking to Sprocktboy’s Muesli, I think it might be the only way I’ve kept weight off. One question though, what about Chinese, and more importantly Thai and Indian food?
Comment by Mike Roadie | 02.2.2008 | 6:59 am
Ever wonder why they call it “Miracle” Whip?? It might as well be called MYSTERY Whip…..just look at the ingredients on that label!
The Scrambled Egg Burrito is pure genius……and peanut butter (Skippy Natural, I’m not kidding; it is THE find of 2007) is ALWAYS great…..so are bananas!
Black pepper cannot be bad for you….and Cholula is good, too; but try Melinda’s–even better.
Does Susan eat like this too????
BTW, we got our first few hits on the LAF site this week….we need a whole lot more!
http://bayarea08.livestrong.org/mike
Enjoy the Frozen Hog!!!!
Comment by jt | 02.2.2008 | 7:32 am
Fatty, you’re right about the banana peeling method. I discovered it for myself when I noticed that monkeys peel bananas from the non-stem end. I tried it, and everything you said in your article is true, except the 3% figure. I think it’s more like 5%, but perhaps that’s a function of how many bananas a person eats.
Comment by je | 02.2.2008 | 7:33 am
I luv me some great harvest bread. it’s a heckuva lot better than wonder or grandma sycamore’s stuff.
Just think what the list would be like if places like Cafe Rio or Bajio were around back in the day.
Do they serve mayo at those places?
Comment by Phil | 02.2.2008 | 10:27 am
Congratulations Fatty, you’ve just made me insanely hungry. Thank you very much!
Comment by Tina C | 02.2.2008 | 10:30 am
I never could eat the peanut butter and Mircle Whip that my dad ate. He added sugar to his. I just can’t bring myself to eat that combo. Love, love, love Great Harvest bread, even the nutty ones! Too bad I can’t get it here in south Texas…
Comment by Lee | 02.2.2008 | 12:37 pm
Good stuff, Fatty. One of my faves is grilled cheese sandwich with salsa. Heat the bread w/cheese on a griddle, when the cheese begins to melt open the sandwich and apply liberal scoops of salsa to the center. Close it up, give it another minute or two, remove and enjoy!
Comment by Chris | 02.2.2008 | 12:38 pm
it’s like someone got inside my head and voiced all my culinary desires. wow. i love mayo, only kraft or best foods thought. nothing else will do. mayo and cheese. i also like it on my spaghetti too. sometimes i put mayo on sandwiches with a spoon just so i can lick it afterwords. yea! finally i feel normal. is this normal? if its wrong i don’t want to be right.
Comment by wing-nut | 02.2.2008 | 12:52 pm
Down here in Texas, ranch dressing is their mayo. They put it on everything from pizza to peanut butter. You can always tell a Texan (but you can’t tell ‘em much.) Honestly, you don’t have to ask if they are from Texas–wait 5 minutes and they will be sure to tell you.
When I was a skinny little kid my doctor was actually concerned that I was too skinny. On one visit he told me to come up with my favorite sandwich and eat it at a 4th meal every day. I decided on peanut butter (sometimes on both pieces of bread) butter(the real stuff) and a dusting of sugar. It worked and now I am no longer the skinny kid I was 30 years ago. Unfortunately it is still my favorite sandwich and I often have a 4th meal with a tall glass of milk (4% please, or even better straight from one of the dairy farmers tanks).
Comment by Judi | 02.2.2008 | 1:36 pm
This blog always makes me hungry.
Comment by Weiland | 02.2.2008 | 2:26 pm
Here in Texas there is an entire industry built around the breakfast taco. Vendors sell them along the side of the streets, most BBQ places sell breakfast tacos. They’re everywhere, and they are damn good. I sure can become a fatter cyclist eating too many of them.
One other thing I’ve noticed since moving to Austin from Salt Lake, they’ve never heard of Fry Sauce. Utahns love their fry sauce and most restaurants in Utah have their own mixture and in fact you can buy Fry Sauce at most grocery stores. I’ve had to import “Some Dudes Fry Sauce” down here and have given some out to Texans. It’s about 50/50 as to their liking it.
Comment by Stuart Dootson | 02.2.2008 | 3:36 pm
Golden Delicious??? Sorry, Braeburn are the only apples to eat.
Comment by Not a cyclist..... | 02.2.2008 | 4:44 pm
Cottage Cheese on spaghetti? You CANNOT be serious. Cottage cheese on salad, cottage cheese with fruit, those I can deal with, but on top of hot pasta? I just don’t understand! Does it come out like lasagna sans cheese? Please to explain.
Comment by benji | 02.2.2008 | 4:53 pm
i was making pie with friends the other day, and after it was finished, i ate a big piece of raw pastry… i swear the reaction was pretty much the same as if i told a racist joke at a UN meeting or something… i never knew it’s odd to eat raw pastry. I didn’t help the situation by then questioning if it is still ok for me to eat slivers of butter…
Comment by Rob L | 02.2.2008 | 4:57 pm
Wow fatty! Our eating habits are suprisingly similar!
Cereal – Hell ya, excluding Fiber one.
Tortillas-Gonna Try this soon
PB and Honey – I usually use a few chocolate chips instead. Jelly is also good
Burrito’s-Yep
PB B and M – No way…alergic to Bananas
Pasta -Yep good with butter or ricotta
Apples-Love em but alergic
I follow a pretty strict Meatarian Diet since I’m now allergic to most uncooked fruits and vegtables. Starches are tasty! Sweet potatoes make a great snack!
Comment by fatty | 02.2.2008 | 6:57 pm
mark – great harvest mediocre? if you say so, i guess. but i still love it.
mikeroadie – susan’s food tastes are quite a bit different than mine.
jt – your math is impeccable and i hereby subscribe to it.
je – mexican places are ganging up on me. close to where i work, there’s a cilantros, lonestar taqueria, barbacoa, bajio, and a chipotle. i can eat mex at a different restaraunt for lunch every workday. my diet has no chance.
lee – i’ve never tried grilled cheese with salsa, but it sounds like nachos, so how could it miss?
stuart – since i originally wrote this post i’ve actually moved over to jonagolds. i’ll try braeburns on your recommendo tho.
notacyclist – cottage cheese on spaghetti makes it taste like lasagne, but not as fattening.
benji – i love pastry dough, too. i thought everyone snitches pastry dough.
rob l – if we eat the same, i sure hope you’re not a skinny, fit guy. cuz that would mean nature is just too cruel.
Comment by je | 02.2.2008 | 7:17 pm
fatty,
update us on the race.
and if it’s the chipotle I’m thinking of, we need to meet for lunch someday soon. my treat.
Comment by vincenzo | 02.2.2008 | 7:48 pm
i will have to try the spaghetti sauce burrito
Comment by leroy | 02.2.2008 | 7:55 pm
You do know that fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches are what did in Elvis’ waistline, right?
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Comment by Chris | 02.2.2008 | 11:11 pm
I second the ability to eat tortillas all day long. My wife and I just moved back to the States from South Africa and one of the things I missed were tortillas and all tortilla related food.
Anything wrapped in a tortilla is brilliant.
Comment by IndoorRolyPoly | 02.3.2008 | 12:31 am
Felling a little adventuress? Try buttered toast, with baloney, Grape jelly and Kraft single slice cheese. It really is quite good…
Comment by Debamundo | 02.3.2008 | 12:42 am
Love the new photo. I’ve been following Jill’s blog for quite a while. She’s amazing, isn’t she?
Comment by wing-nut | 02.3.2008 | 9:56 am
There are just too many similarities of tasty unhealthy food between many of us. It is a wonder we don’t all explode in greasy globs all over the walls of some Emergency Room.
Comment by Rob L | 02.3.2008 | 1:20 pm
Fatty – No way, no matter how hard I go I cycle in weight infinitely from 215-222. If I ever saw 210 I would probably stop, drop and eat till I popped
Comment by Anna | 02.3.2008 | 3:04 pm
Sounds like you love tortillas as much as I do.
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