Matt

Hey Robert, I'll start working out again and give you something in a few months...LOL On a serious note, there are a couple of vegan athletes I know of around town here so I'll contact them and find out more about what they are doing and see if we can't get a profile to you...

I'd like to know more about what experiments they plan to conduct, and who gets the collider time with the most money. No opinion otherwise. I think this stuff is cool, though.

Hey sophie, looks ok to me. I'd say that protein might even be high for what you need, and I wouldn't worry so much about it being too specific. But: What kind of workouts are you doing? What are you fitness goals? Is there a specific reason you are tracking this closely? The macronutrient values seem to be a good proportion--particularly for an athlete--but you might consider getting more whole foods in your diet, including greens and fruit. The consideration there would be to get a more balanced set of vitamins and minerals. I'm saying this all without knowing more about the above questions, so a little more background might help.

Congrats, VeggieGirl. Yeah, cheese is one of the most highly addictive foods, and Neal Barnard even talks about it in his book Breaking the Food Seduction, along with all those others we crave. I truly believe it's harder than meat or sweets or anything else simply because of what I've read it does to the brain chemistry, not to mention the rest of the body...

Awesome to hear. This is great for veganism in general to get publicity, particularly athletes, IMO.

Good call! There's a new version of phpbb as well that looks pretty cool...

I mean blasphemy on the cheers part.

Blasphemy!

Yummy...

Robert, Richard, et.al.: Just an FYI...you probably noticed this but you are getting *tons* of spambot account creations in your forums. I noticed about two months ago there were about 4000 members and now there are close to 10K. There's no real true defense against this as hackers get better against the CAPTCHA image verification, but it's been so long since registering that I don't remember if you had that set. I co-admin a couple of tech forums (vBulletin-based) and we have the same issues, but there are ways to mitigate them with minimal affect on new "real people". Let me know if you'd like me to share my experiences with this stuff. I feel like I've had to deal with it ad nauseum...

Thanks, JW! Good to hear from you guys. Too funny, potter. I still suck at hills, so don't hold your breath. Got some power, but mostly just from riding uphill to work... The lean muscle is coming in and I'm not bulking up from the traditional BB standpoint, but using the muscle and having the metabolism going again does wonders as you guys know. I feel like an athlete again. I'm going to do my best to make it up there this summer. Things are going well. I've simplified my life and removed a lot of stress things that I just don't need and I'm focusing on raising my family. We planted a couple of raised beds recently and started growing organic veggies. Most are doing well but we had some frosty evenings which hurt the kale and spinach. But it's been great to share with my kids. Anyhoo, looking forward to meeting you guys whenever...JW, are you going to VV08? Potter, are you still in MD? I thought you moved out west.

I'd really like to come and it certainly is on my consideration list. As with the last two years I've been wanting to join up but my familial considerations take precedent with my limited vacation time. This year already looks like no exception. I need to hammer with some vegans so I'm really going to push going. I think it would be cool to come up with my son and just the two of us hang out with everyone, but he's still pretty young (4) so he wouldn't be able to "ride". But he'd have a blast, I know it, and it would be a great experience. Anyone else with kids as well? Albeit a different topic, but if we have people watching kids from time to time that also might be cool. -Matt

Free hugs forever.

I am not big on "alternative medicine" as it really hasn't worked for me, but a couple back spasms ago I visited a chiropractor and it did wonders. I came out feeling like it had never happened, though moderate pain returned after a few hours, of course. When I have back spasms I try to keep my back in as neutral a position as possible and rest. But I also try to walk around working on keeping my back very neutral and try to get my heart rate up and anecdotally I seem to recover more quickly when I get blood flowing to the extremities.

Clipless pedals/shoes are one of the best things--hands down--you can do to improve the quality of your ride, once you get used to them. I always equate moving to clipless as like going from a dialup modem to DSL or Cable Modem. You'll never go back. The power increase you experience and overall comfort (assuming you get the right shoes for you and your position on the bike is good) are 100 times better than clipons and any other shoe. I ride Sidi shoes right now (mens, of course) but I don't remember the model. All synthetic, though. Paid a lot of money for them but they fit the best and I've had over two years of great riding in them. I prefer the Look-style pedals rather than SPD, speedplay, or other types because I've found they hold my shoe better and psychologically it feels more secure. You gotta make the leap into clipless. It's night and day. If anyone says otherwise they never tried clipless.