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.
