Chris Carmichael’s insights on training provide cyclists with some of the best information available today. If you haven’t yet explored his work, you really should. His fitness and nutrition programs are offered in just about media form. Even if you haven’t consumed any of his products, you would have to be living with your head your bottom bracket not to know he is out there, offering the same programs he used to train Lance for Le Tour through Carmichael Training Systems (CTS).

I am a media junkie and a cycling fanatic, which means I see and hear Chris just about everywhere I go. Yet, I do not feel like I am overdosing on CTS. To the contrary, one the main reasons I subscribe to Bicycling magazine is to read his monthly columns.

Did you see his recent piece on off-season weight gain and how to avoid it?

It was remarkable, because in it, Chris shares that he lost 15 pounds in 2006 to prepare for the Leadville 100 in Colorado. He states that he is quite determined to keep the weight off this coming winter, and he goes on to form a pact with us – his readers.

“Let’s make a deal,” he writes. “I won’t gain more than four pounds this winter, and neither will you.”

“Okay, Chris Carmichael,” I said to myself after reading his article, I’m in. I won’t gain more than four pounds, if you won’t.”

For me, that means I can float up to 150 pounds, but that is the absolute ceiling.

So you can imagine my horror when I looked down at the scale and saw this.

Eeegad!! Thanksgiving Day (November 25 in the USA) was still a week away and I was already above my max! I managed to control my weight through Thanksgiving. But the toughest days are still ahead of me.

In that November column, Chris prescribed a diet for the off-season rider. Its 2200 calories should be plenty to eat and keep us feeling full. But the problem is I was still eating pretty close to the 3500 calories per day level that he detailed in his in-season plan. Cutting 1300 calories from the daily intake would be painful and difficult with all the holiday parties still to come.

Chris has some great advice for dealing with the situation. I have my own plan of attack.

1. Pack a lunch and eat in. Bringing a lunch from home insures I am getting the right foods in the right amounts when I am at work.
2. Snack on whole foods. I am fending off mid-morning and mid-afternoon hungriness with fruits, nuts, and raw vegetables.
3. Back-off on the carbs. Increasing dairy with string cheese and yogurt boosts protein intake and helps me to feel full longer.
4. No more high-carb grazing. I am replacing post-work, pre-dinner crackers, cookies, and chips with a tall glass of milk and Ovaltine. When I need a bedtime snack, I am trading the ice cream for a cup of sugar-free hot cocoa.
5. Turn up the heat. I love spinning classes. It is fun to ‘ride’ with so many friends. But I have switched out the spinning for solo sessions on the trainer with my Litespeed and, you guessed it, iPod audio workouts with Chris Carmichael. The music is great and the workouts are more challenging and atuned to the serious cyclist than what I get in my spin classes.

So now, the week after Thanksgiving, I have got my weight stablilized. I am hovering between 149 and 150. That is four pounds up from my late summer/early fall weight, six pounds up from the Cascade 1200, and 10 pounds over where I want to be in June when I ride the Portland to Glacier National Park 1000K with the Oregon Randonneurs.

So Chris, how is it going for you?

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