ABOUT the Great Balkini 

Despite trillions of words published on diet and exercise most of us have not been motivated into a higher state of food consciousness.

Consciousness raising is a tough sell because the follow-up – actively changing your lifestyle -- is tedious and lousy with discipline. Alice Waters began the "Delicious Revolution". Her formula for educating Americans about taste, health and nutrition sounds too good to be true -- and it is. Despite its sublime simplicity, actually implementing her principles in an age of fast and processed food is bothersome work for athletes and couch potatoes alike. The bad food is everywhere – easy to get and hard to resist.

I’ve been studying up on nutrition in order to improve my cycling. My personal Cliff Notes on the topic, so far, are as follows:
  Step 1: Eat Less.
  Step 2: Eat only fresh, unprocessed food chosen from all groups.

If we all became suddenly healthy would the fall of the junk food industry topple the American economy? Who cares? The Declaration itself says you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of healthiness.

Civilization, for all its amenities, hasn’t altered our hunting and gathering instinct, but it has sure made things easier. Forget sustenance, excess is the new benchmark for success. That’s great for your bank account, but food is egalitarian; its quality dictates our health, and calories consumed vs. calories burned are ultimately the measure of us all.

As recreational athletes we already have half of the diet-exercise formula in play. It must be way easier to get people we enjoy vigorous exercise to eat better than it is to get people in poor physical condition to exercise – right?

I Was What I Ate

For those like me who live to eat, hard exercise is a godsend. Living in Miami years ago I reveled in a glorious decade of year-round bike riding and automatic weight control. Cuban food was dirt cheap and irresistibly healthy. Platefuls of black beans, rice, yucca, plantains and fish or meat along with an incredible variety of tree ripened tropical fruits were the perfect fuel to burn during hours of flatland riding. Midway through my long daily ride I could pick ripe star fruit off the trees.

Now I’m on automatic weight gain in Maine. In winter, even eating less, I still put on 10 pounds because I ride the bike slower and 75% less. I crave exercise, but walking and gym time don’t begin to make up for daily riding with faster people.

Like most Yankees, my weight rises and falls with the season. I know that gaining and losing weight is not the best idea, but at least by eating wholesome foods, my body stores fewer harmful chemicals in my fatty winter tissue. Come summer. I admit, I enjoy watching and feeling the pounds melt off.

I’m lucky to be older than most of you because, in my childhood, we were forced to eat real food. There were no fast food restaurants or vending machines at school. Candy and soda were rare treats and our family almost never dined out. For years my mother cooked breakfast, made school lunch for four kids and we were required to attend a sit-down dinner every night. Everything was made from scratch. We kids had to help. I ate a lot of real food and the habit stuck.

There was a downside. We had to eat everything on our plates before we could be excused from the table. Choking down weird vegetables and watery fish builds tolerance if not exactly character. Listening with a straight face to a stern lecture that someday haddock would cost more than steak and I’d like it better was so absurd it invariably brought on the giggles and banishment unless everyone else joined in.

Now at restaurants I never order steak and invariably order haddock. Truth is even as a kid I got used to eating fish and some of the veggies weren’t half bad. Admit it to my parents? Never. They’d just pile more on the plate. But this anecdote goes to prove tastes change. It’s never too late to begin the cycle of healthier eating.

Eating is no longer about survival. It’s a mind game, and games take practice to play well. Here are a few tips that work for me, and may work for you.

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