Manage the CARBS!

Since embarking on the Paleo diet for over a month, one thing constantly on my mind was how to keep tabs on the amount of carbs I was eating. In the movie "Fat Head", an excel spreadsheet appears to be in use to track carbs. That's a bit too old school for me and a real hassle. Surely there must be a modern alternative - designed with a sole purpose in mind - keeping tabs on your carbohydrate intake.

Enter a brief search on the iTunes app store to discover Carb Manager. After taking a leap and using this app all I can say is this - it's the real deal. If you are doing a Paleo, Zone, Atkins, or any other sort of low carb diet this is the app you NEED today. If you are not on a low carb diet the information this app provides is still incredibly useful. If you don't have an iPhone then you need one so you can put this gem of an app to good use immediately.

Now, I have downloaded a slew of diet and exercise apps over a year - designed to keep tabs on calorie intake, calories burned, food eaten, etc, etc, etc. All of them were kind of "meh" at the end of the day. I will call these other apps "single use apps" similar to "single use kitchen gadgets" - in that after the first use to justify the expenditure you never use them again.

Carb Manager is an app that you will go to on a daily basis if you are serious about tracking your carb intake. For $3 you get an app that does just about everything in an information rich, yet simple to use interface. About the only thing it won't do is prevent you from shoving all those carbs down your gullet. Lets be honest - it's hard to avoid carbs in today's modern "we put CORN in EVERYTHING" diet. This app lets you keep tabs and make wiser decisions. Seeing the bar graph fill up to your individually determined "carb max" for the day is a real incentive. If you go over and see the green bar turn red - well you start to think ahead for tomorrow - need to make better choices. Something about keeping tabs and "writing things down" helps immensely in this regard.

Lets take a look at what your 3 bills gets:

The first step is to add your individual settings and set a carb max. Make it whatever you want depending on your goals. The app asks for some basic information and can be edited at any time.

Ready to add what you are eating, or make some choices based on the data BEFORE you put the pie in the hole? Select the "Foods" tab and either go by category as shown above, or do an individual search. There is a LOT of stuff within these individual categories and at first it takes a bit of time to sift through the information to find the right thing. Once you do and add a food item to your log, it shows up under a "recent search" menu. 

Once you find the food you ate (or will eat) you hit "Ate It Today" and are presented with a choice of what meal or as a snack. Forget to add an item yesterday? Just hit the left arrow at the bottom to change the button to "Ate It Yesterday." Keep hitting that left arrow to go back in time and add it on a specific date. Hit the right arrow to "Will Eat Tomorrow" or keep hitting that arrow to set up that food for your future. Slick. Turns out you like to eat this particular item a lot? Hit the star button near the top right to add it to your favorite food list to make finding it again easier.

The great thing about this app is the clear and graphic nature. Hmmm, should I eat this 22g Net Carb crepe? Thats a lot of "green" in that pie chart methinks... Are you close to your carb max? Hit "Log" for a quick look. Does the crepe have any redeeming nutritional qualities to justify the indulgence? Hit "Full Nutritional Info" and then decide - crepe or not to crepe? (Hint: PASS!)

Under the "Log" tab you will have a daily read of your total carb intake compared to your set maximum after you add your foods. Excellent. As a bonus, you get to see all the other important information like calorie intake, total fat, and protein.

Overshoot your max for the day and you get a red graph. Don't worry, no alarm bells go off and your iPhone wont taze you, but seeing your log go from green to red is a bit of a bummer. My May 20 was "Epic Fail" on my goal. It is actually pretty amazing what seeing the graph will do to affect your eating choices. At the top menu you can hit "Food" to be taken a level deeper:

Wonder what specifically you had for dinner? Here it is. If you want to see the deeper nutritional information for a specific item, just tap the right arrow and you will see a breakdown of that individual food. Neat.

Hitting the overall "Nutrition" tab at the top lets you see in explicit detail where you are with all of your vitamins, minerals, fat, cholesterol, etc. There are 32 nutrients here. Are you getting your Iron? Getting your daily allowance of Folate? Vitamin K? Now you will know. This information is very interesting to watch over the course of your meals.

Over time, you can track your carb intake compared to your set max via the "Graph" tab. See what days you bombed and do better next time. Most excellent.

Information freaks fear not - total carb intake isn't the only thing this app graphs. When you fist go into "Graph" you select what you want to see. Carbs is only one of a slew of choices. See also your fat intake, protein intake, fiber, sugar, cholesterol, as well as all the vitamins and minerals! If you are tracking your weight, you can graph that as well.

Three bills goes a long way for all of this information. I think I have finally found an app that is easy enough to use that I can stick with it. Carb Manager is easy to use and packs an impressive amount of information. I highly recommend checking it out.

Idle Me This...

Nothing beats adding some bling to your bike more than adding some functional bling. The kind that not only looks killer but also makes an immediate and noticeable improvement in your ride quality. Enter here the Terracycle titanium tooth idler.

TC Idler = Smooooooth

This is the "premium" version of their idler wheel. They also offer an aluminum cog "sport" version for a bit less money. Before I get into the reasons I installed this, I will say that on nearly all of my recumbents I have installed Terracycle idlers. I feel that in every case they have added a level of smoothness and quiet to the drivetrain.

On the B1, the results were equal to those on my other bikes. Immediately I noticed a much quieter drivetrain through the idler section. The OEM ICE idler is not a piece of junk, mind you, but even after only 300 or so miles it had started to show obvious wear grooves. Nor was it very quiet. The Terracycle idler really made an improvement in this area.

A bit of functional bling goes a long way to creating a quieter ride.

Another thing that was immediately noticeable was a much smoother flow of the chain. Since the idler is a gear - as opposed to just a rubber roller - the drivetrain flows much smoother. Why? Well the chain just goes easier over a gear as opposed to chewing into a flat rubber surface under tension. Some may debate this, but after seeing the wear that results on flat surface OEM idlers on my bikes in the past (a LOT) versus the wear on my older Terracycle idlers (little if any I can notice) I am sold.

Terracycle sells idler kits for a lot of recumbent bike and trike makes. I highly recommend them. For the B1, there was no specific kit, but ordering up the proper size idler for a direct swap replacement was simple and always an option.

Fat Head!!

We have been following the paleo diet now for a while with a lot of success. Add to this - I feel better now than I ever have. What follows is the documentary film "Fat Head" and it is a must watch for everyone who wishes to hear some amazing information about diet, history, politics, etc.

Ride Less to Ride Better

Ill say it. I think that a key to getting into better shape - better overall fitness - is to ride your bike LESS. Yes, ride less often and for fewer miles. My regimen lately has led me to believe that piling on huge miles os not going to do you any good fitness wise.

That said, high miles over continual multiple days is good training - for boredom and preparing your rear end for a full on ass-hatchet assault. But since we are talking recumbents here we can ignore the need to develop full-on taint calluses to ward off upright bike seat issues. A recumbent that you are dialed in on is like sitting in your favorite easy chair. You don't need to train for the pain, you just sit and smile.

Now when I say ride less, this is not a pass to just ditch the wheels and watch game shows. Ride less and change up your workout. This is particularly important if you feel that you have hit an exercise plateau and are not making progress like you want. If you are topped out on the bike, simply adding more and more miles will not get you over the hump. You need to get off the bike.

When you do get off the bike do something different. Interval train. CrossFit. Do some air squats. Push ups. Run 400 meter sprints. Pull ups. Leg lifts. Etc etc. Muscle confusion is what you need to get over the ridge. When you do get back on the bike train at a harder intensity for LESS time. Don't destroy yourself over huge mileage and call it training. It is likely that the shorter more intense workouts will improve your cycling (even distance cycling) and your family will be the better off since you won't be gone for hours and hours on end every darned weekend.

The other pillar to this change is diet. Shut off the processed food faucet. Just shut it off. I will go as far to say dump the carbs and dump the ridiculous idea of "carb loading." The carbs are wreaking havoc on your insulin levels and that is never a good thing. If you want the definitive source that carbs are the real killer, take a read of Good Calories Bad Calories by Gary Taubes. For me, I have been largely carb free and have never felt better. CrossFit and training my body at activities OTHER than just riding the recumbent has helped my weight loss and my riding/climbing abilities have improved drastically.

Hey, Sweet Fenders!

Over the winter I had the opportunity to give a good test to my Woody's Fenders on the QNT. They work great and as a bonus they look awesome. For many weeks of riding locally in PDX the fenders have had a real share of Portland wet. I am pleased to say they still look like new and are holding up great.

No rain today but looking good for it - just in case... it is Oregon after all.

It wasn't until the recent Monster Cookie ride in Salem, however, that I realized Cody's great fenders are also a real attention getter. Lots of "cool wood fenders!" from people on the approach. Added bling = added visibility I suppose.

The irony is that the weather was clear as a bell, but I decided to sport the fenders for the Cookie anyway. Given that this years Cycle Oregon is on the coast, I want to have some long mileage with these fenders to see how they stay put and to eliminate any rattles, etc. that may arise. Last years CO only had one day where I wished for the fenders (left them at home) but this year riding on the coast = fenders are on the must pack list.

They see me rollin... dry.

One day of riding a trike in the wet rain - leaning into corners only to receive an eyewash with wet road grit is one day too many. Normally on a day ride from home I will go without if the weather is good, but a week ride in Oregon allows too many days for possible rain. Sorry weather guy - can't trust you all on a week out forecast.

So - good to go to date on the fenders. Wood = trick looks and effective. Surprisingly light too. One of the benefits of being on the trike is that I can let go of the inner weight weenie and go in 100 percent style.

Time lapse with the Go Pro HD

I can not wait to use this camera on this years Cycle Oregon. Finally have the time lapse tricks ironed out and will be using this ability to capture a setup of an entire Cycle Oregon camp! That will be a great addition to the eventual 2011 video. :)

Here is my short sample of a time lapse at the beach...

Bell Citi Helmet - The Right One

Finding a cycling helmet that works for you is a very personal thing. It is likely that one brand will fit your head, while another will make you feel like your head has been shoved into a vice. For this reason trying on helmets before you buy is a wise idea. A while back I decided to try out a Bell Citi helmet - and after a few months of use I am glad to say I tried it.

The first bonus of this helmet is its rounded shape. There has been some reports that pointy helmets, while very flashy looking, can increase the incidence of rotation injury in an accident, as the pointy shapes catch on the road surface, etc. See this link for a great resource on all things bike helmet.

A second bonus of this helmet is that I can fit my small ipod speakers right into two of the front vents. In the picture above you can just see one in the vent. Having some inspirational tunes on th eroad without the need for headphones? Priceless. The ability to have this sort of setup right on the helmet to easily go from trike to bike? Icing on the cake!

The helmet I went for is super high visibility yellow. Definitely plus points in the "dork" factor but if that means more visibility then so be it! This helmet has adequate vents without feeling too wide open, and thats even with me clogging up a few of the vents for tunes. the visor is a great addition and goes on and off the helmet with ease and is easily stored. On my past helmets I have usually pulled off the visor and lost it in the toolbox, but for the Citi I decided to leave it on. I was quite surprised how effective it is in keeping the rays (when they are shining!) out of the eyes.

Other notable features are a great head strap adjusting ratchet that works well and a rear mount for a blinkie. It should be noted that this helmet is slated to be DISCONTINUED, so get one now - BUT it is going to be replaced by a model named the Muni, which will have an even better adjustment system than the Citi.

For a closer look at these new helmets take a peeky peek here:

Overall a great helmet for commuting - but good for weekend warrior and or club riding as well. It won't net you any "Lance points" for style, but oh well. Plus, it's much more satisfying to pull up alongside the full kit guys in a bright yellow rounded lid like the Citi before slamming it into the big ring and taking off anyway!