Training Update

Week ending January 20:

Weight: 185
exercise: 45 min spin, 1:15 bike ride (14 miles)

Felt like I was getting the flu earlier in the week, so took the time to rest. It's almost exactly 2 months till the white rim.

Most Ironic Book Yet.

Yep, I must be an idiot for finding it...

But on the topic of "idiots" and "dummies" books, which the overwhelming amount of them keeps me away from box bookstores, seems to play on the nature of wanting something easy. People must be lured to buy them because they think they have some magic that will educate them on topics they have a hard time with.

Kinda like miracle diets you might say.

Gosh, speaking of, let me see if there is an idiots guide to weight loss....be right back...

What a shocker, there is..



and



and the real shocker is, dieting for dummies and the idiots guide for weight loss actually have reasonable advice...Not that one needs to buy it. They can find all the knowledge about exercise and healthy diet on the web.

Bust My Gut Update 13

Today's weight 185 lbs.

Training for the week.

Riding 5 days, total of 69 miles.
Spin Class 2 days, 1 hour each.
2 hr hike.

Food intake. Who knows? Good at breakfast and lunch. Lots of beer and eating out at night.

Todays hike included, ironically, part of a trail we ride all the time, Hall Ranch. We even ran into a fellow biker, who was hiking as well.

It's interesting how the deer are very tame on Hall Ranch trails. I have ridden by them on a bike while they are resting less than 10 feel from the trail.

What I have been waiting for.

32 GB mp3 player without a hard drive.

Sandisk view


Well I lied, I want more than even 32 GB but my harddisk iriver barely held my music, was bulky, finicky and had poor battery life. This is what I have been waiting for.

Since I got the iriver, I moved to a Sandisk e280 8 GB player. Small, compact and long battery life. I really like it but hate deleting and adding music.

The view not only has 32 GB of memory, it has a slot for and SDHC card and with an 8 GB card currently available, I can have a player with 40 GB that is compact for less than $400.

I can put all my music on it now....well almost.

BTW, by the time I buy, I'm sure it will be a lot less than $400. Way cheaper than Apples' offerings no matter when I jump.

And next year, I will probably be wanting the 64 GB version for sure...maybe even the 128 GB version. Seems silly, but it will be HD movie capable by then, and all I want is something for my music.

Weekly training update: 12/31-1/6

This weeks workouts included:

2 days of riding to work, 1:15 hours each for 32 total miles.
1 hour of spin class
2 runs totaling 1:05

Next weeks plan

5 days riding to work
3 spin classes
1 run or 1 bike ride or an xc ski day.

Bust My Gut Update 12

Just over a year ago I started my "bust my gut" posting over the winter to lose weight from a previous year of gaining weight when I worked too much and didn't exercise. My weight this time last year was 193 pounds.

I know fitness isn't all about weight, but in my case, riding a bike, I feel my weight happens to be an indicator of my fitness.

I had an ambitious goal of 170 pounds. Seemed so easy in concept since I weighed around that much in 2003. Well this is five years later.

I worked hard and made some progress and wound up at 178 lbs in October 2007, training to ride the White Rim in Utah. It might have been enough since I was fit, but didn't meet the goal of 170 lbs. But that is ok when you feel fit.

In November, I still tried to exercise; Ride a lot but not nearly as much as I wanted. Plus, there are all those holiday parties starting, food everywhere...Oh my. Then December arrived along with the cold, short days and the snow, followed by excuses.

Today, I am at 187 lbs!

The bad news is that it's 9 lbs more than last October! The good news it that it's 6 lbs than last year at this time.

I guess that makes the conclusion that I lost 6 lbs on one year! Fair enough. I wish I could count the calories in all the beer I had over the year and subtract it.

Analysis aside, here is the plan.

--White Rim in a Day March 20: First, we set a goal to do this ride again, but this time in March. Huge deal. Huge motivator. Pressure like this is good.

--Spin class: Three days a week. Spin is the most intense exercise I do, ever. Every time I do it, I feel like I can't make it past 10 minutes, but actually survive the 40 minutes afterward. I go away buzzed and feel the results the next day.

--Ride to work: I'm stopping making excuses for not riding in and actually riding in with ice on the roads. The key is having good clothing, fenders, and lighting to get home.

--Running: Yep, I started running for about 30 minutes on days I don't ride or spin. Running is actually fun when I lose myself in my mp3 player.

Good weather rides: If the ground is dry, I will have no problem riding at least an hour a day.

--Eating: Back to whole grain bread and not eating junk. I thought I was doing that, but the occasional taco bell slips in here and there, and my Wahoo's fish taco binge happens here and there, with their zillion calorie Kahuna Grande along with two margs racking up the calories. I also find myself eating big breakfast burritos for breakfast again. They are good and breakfast is good but lots of calories for breakfast is not so good.

What really works for me is the bonking breakfast. Get up, drink coffee, ride to work, then eat an early lunch. They say don't skip breakfast because it's so important, but I think it depends on the person. Once I get my weight down to a target, I will eat a decent breakfast because I feel so hungry if I don't. But early on I can skip it, and exercising with low blood sugar makes the body dig into the other stored reserves such as fat.