Pane Mio

What do you think about carbs?

Mark Sisson says:

Not very much. In particular, refined carbohydrates are a primary factor in contributing to obesity, type 2 diabetes, anxiety and depression, lack of energy, inflammation, metabolic syndrome or “Syndrome X” and heart disease. I subscribe to the Primal Blueprint diet, which essentially follows the evolutionary model of meats, fish, greens, nuts, vegetables and limited fruits. I believe the evidence is compelling that carbohydrates in grain form, especially the highly-processed varieties found in most restaurant and prepared items, are simply not a good energy source for human health.

I have been thinking about this for a long time. Trying to put it off actually. Nothing amateurish about this procrastination. It's about bread. And its role in my diet (ooops that word). So let's get this straight for the record: I heart(h) bread. I love sourdough, rye, french, rustic, shepherd, extra sour dill, eight grain, oat, pumpernickel, garlic, pita and pan bread. I eat a lot of bread. Breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner. Nothing makes me happier than soaking up the last bit of soup from a bowl with a thick slab of crusty pane. I am Italian and it is in my blood. Sangue della sangue. I once traveled up the entire coast of Italy (Naples to Genoa) subsisting on nothing but pane, vino and formaggio. I was a happy and healthy guy.

But those wonderful days of adventure and wanderlust are gone. And they will stay gone unless I take care of this sack of bones and stay healthy and fit, ready to answer the call should it come. Consider the pain and agony if one of my old buddies was to call and invite me for a ride in Italia, and I answered that as much as I'd like to, I am fat and out of shape. I can not allow that to happen. That call will be answered in the affirmative, certamente.

And that is why, dear VBA, I try to stay fit and healthy. That and racing of course. It is also why, then, that the RCVman is about to embark on yet another laboratory experiment for your benefit, OK, and mine too.

Here is the test: You know I love bread. You also know that there is controversy regarding its place in the optimum diet. Hence, I have devised the following highly scientific HoM protocol to find out if my body, metabolism and (Euro) DNA, is better off without it. Therefore, beginning on December 1, I will eat no bread for the rest of the year.

And see what happens. Next week I will do a BMI test, weigh in, and maybe even get a blood sample analyzed. We'll go 31 days senza pane, keep the same training regimen, and see what the results say, just in time to…….

Make a New Years resolution.

The Good, The Bread and the Irony.