Two weeks since I realized (again) that I've been growing sloppy about my eating and exercise habits. I guess snacking for me is like smoking. I could never stop at one so the only way to control it is to avoid it.
My goal was to lose 10lbs in 30 days. I lost ~ 5lbs in the 1st week so I thought this was going to be a snap, but I've been wrong before and it looks like it will be the case again. My weight hovered up and down a bit and I end week two exactly where I was a week ago, at 229.5. This isn't a horrible thing, as I have stayed on a generally reduced calorie "diet" and I haven't snacked or binged at all. My weekly mileage on the bike is up around a hundred and I saw some encouraging power numbers last night, 173 watts avg, 192watts NP and I didn't feel ragged when I got finished. Heavy rain and a late start had me quit a lap early and the PT malfunctioned due to wet contacts.
I didn't hit the weights as planned, so that is an area for improvement, nor did I do any running. I still want to set the 2nd rack up in the garage and keep the rollers there for more experimentation. Maybe I'll try and fit a set of roller bumpers to the frame a la the e-motion rig.
A quick note about the pic. Wednesday night Iain wanted to run on the MHBW, so we did the usual thing from SCCC. He did 5k out at race pace, then an easy run back. I went easy/moderate out to the 6m turn around then came back hard. Outbound leg in 22:30, back in 20:00 (17.3). Had to slow down a lot for pedestrians, so I'm still pretty happy with the return leg. Once I finished the inbound hard effort I did some easy spinning back and forth until Iain got back to the car. The max effort pictured was a middle ring spring up the hill from the 890 Jct.
229.5 this am. Tonight I had a lesson but no fencing as it was just coach and I and we were both beat. Had plans to come home and do a recovery spin on the KK, but dinner and lounging won out. Still no snacking so I should feel good about that.
Rode Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Went ok. Power was uninspiring but I can't really complain. No repeat of the bad twinges.
Had a good, if not short ride last night after work. Was a bit pressed for time so I had to cut it to 9 laps at the campus in order to pick Iain up at 8. Eastbound leg felt really hard (slow). Felt like a nasty crosswind. Power was not exciting (159w entire/199w 20NP), averaged 17.2.
Felt a little off later with some cramp/twinge sensations in that spot by the left nipple. Had a nasty repeat of the same today at work that shook me up and got me thinking I might want to go get an EKG run. Trying to tell myself its dehydration/fatigue/meds/etc.
No time to test tonight on the bike, Iain's birthday and had to bring him to x-country practice.
Have remained quite disciplined about not snacking at night and keeping dinner on the frugal side. Weighed 229.5 this am. Hoping to be down around 220 before my (planned) visit to the cardiologist next month.
When I hit my 10 lb goal I'll reset that.
Great comeback ride from Lance today. After letting a gap open up within 5k of the summit of the Col du Petit-Saint-Bernard he put the hammer down and bridged up tp Alberto, Andreas and Andy Schleck. Unfortunately Jens Voight augered in on the descent and was taken to a hospital. Pray he has a speedy recovery.
Rainy day here so I logged a few miles on the KK. Ass hurt a bit but was manageable. Rode for 45 minutes @ 17.5 mph avg.
No snacking last night or tonight.
I was a little bummed when I headed out tonight as I had watched the end of stage 15 of the TdF. LA rode pretty well but lost 1:35 to AC and sits in 2nd only 11 seconds ahead of Brad Wiggins. Was hoping for some magic.
I had a decent ride though. Well off from where I was but decent still. Avg 17.3 over 18.9 miles, 170 watts/187 NP. Post ride I had a protein shake and some fruit, nothing else tonight so that's a win.
Great night out tonight, no wind and not hot.
Helped Gary and Allison move into their new house in North Schodack. Well organized effort with plenty of help and I was home by 3:30.
Started the day off with a 10 minute walk/run and a few squats and dumbbell presses. Iain decided at the last minute to go for a run and have Emily come along so we hit the MHBP around 7:50. Beautiful evening to do a quick (short) ride. Went 11.75 miles in around 43 minutes. Went at an easy pace out to the turn around (23:00) then hammered home in 20:00. (NP ~190 watts/VI 1.13)
Weigh in this morning was 234, no snacking last night or tonight. 3 in a row. Up too late tonight though.
So I stepped on the scales this morning at got slapped in the face. I've let my weight creep back up to 235. I can point to several areas where I've gotten lazy that have contributed this, so I'll start my goals there.
Diet: I've gotten bad about late night snacking and binge snacking. This must end. The first thing I did after I had the stent put in was to stop eating anything after 9 pm. I lost weight while I obeyed this rule, so I need to develop some self-control and abide by this.
Diet goals:
[1] No snacking after 9.
[2] No binge snacking ever.
[3] Lose 10 lbs in 30 days.
[4] Reduce caffeine intake.
Workouts:
I've gotten lazy about doing planned cardio and weight training. A good deal of this comes from putting things in my schedule that don't allow training as easily. Because I'm fencing 2x weekly and am often too tired and hungry to workout after class I need to watch my schedule more carefully. A convenient fix is to train in the morning before work but to do it I need to be able to get up earlier and well-rested.
Training:
[4] Get to bed no later than 12
[5] Get at least 30 minutes in before work.
Accountability:
I stopped weighing myself and logging it because I'd get depressed about lack of progress. Going backward is worse.
[6] Resume daily or weekly weigh ins, log results.
[7] Don't get too hung up on numbers.
Detailed planning:
Develop a set of cycling goals (power, time, distance)
Develop a set of lifting goals (prs, aggregates)
Develop a set of running goals(distance, time, speed)
Develop some body mod goals (weight, waist size, BMI)
This is day 2 of yet another new beginning. No snacking last night.
I hate starting over from scratch. Looking at my powerfiles I was forced to reconcile the fact that I rode only sporadically last year and finished up the season doing that ride with Thaddeus and Gabe at the battlefield. So now, I'm fat(ter), slow and have no power compared to where I was. Really disappointing after viewing the data from my last good indoor session before that string of bad ones. After going from 20-minute 200 watt intervals to having my leg burn from a 140 watt effort really destroyed my desire to get on the bike.
So I have to learn to keep things in perspective, because there's more at stake here than just wattage.
At least last night I was able to average 16.7 mph over a short haul at the campus and that is at least better than where I used to be and it doesn't feel like too far from 17.5 which would make me feel good.
I guess I should set a couple of goals but I'm going to think about them and start easier. I can break them down into physical and performance-related goals like:
Weight:
20 MIN NP
Time for 20 mile campus ride
Time for out and back loop.
I should also make some behavioral changes like:
Get control of the diet thing again as I've been slack about the late-night snacking.
Get out of the habit of staying up past midnight for no reason, or for relentless gaming.
Get into the habit of getting up before work and doing some kind of workout; treadmill, trainer, weights, heavy bag; bladework.
Get on the scale at least weekly and write down the weight.
Log all workouts but not get too worked up about performance hiccups.
So next time I post here I'll put up some goals and some data.
It's taken me a long time to get motivated to ride this year. Went out with Iain to the bike path so he could get his training miles in (4+) and found that the sections west of SCCC are pretty nice. Power numbers are low but not abysmal. NP for today was 180, 1:02/16.4 mph. Felt pretty good, last 20 minutes were challenging. Needed better fueling, but more important is miles, lots more miles.
