Saturday Ride In Between The Rain

When the rain comes, they run and hide their heads....

Or, the wait for a cloud break, throw on the gear and hit the road.

After a week off of riding, I was anxious to get back on the bike. With still very little free time, and coming off the flu/cold combo, it's been tough to get out and ride this week, but Saturday provided a quick opportunity.

The previous week was beautiful and I was able to do my 30 Mile Waconda loop. This week I started hitting rain at the 10 mile mark, and since I'm still hacking pretty good, at least a little each day, I turned and just made a 20 mile loop for the day. Every mile on the bike, outside of the garage, is a good one.

As you may have noticed, I replaced last years Livestrong ad with a mileage counter for the year...my goal is to ride 2000 miles this year on my bike. I'm at 82 for the year. To hit 2000, I need to average about 45 miles a week, or at least 15 miles each time I ride, and do that 3 times a week. With the slow start to the season I'm off pace by about 450 miles, so I've got some making up to do. Thank goodness we just Sprung Forward with Daylight Savings Time -- hopefully I can take advantage of the longer day soon!

Another goal I'm contemplating is doing this years Monster Cookie Ride, which leaves Salem, heads north for 31 miles, then turns back around for a 62 mile metric century. The ride is a relatively flat ride, with only some rolling hills along the way. I have also heard many a comment about the cookies along the ride, specifically the macaroons, which I'm sure I'd be tempted to try. Of course, as a chubby guy who took up riding to lose weight, riding my bike and eating cookies isn't really the plan of the ages to accomplish that goal. Hopefully I would burn more calories for the day than I would consume in cookies!

I'm also still wondering about Cycle Oregon, but just not sure I can take the time for the whole week, and/or creatively take the whole family out with. If I come up with good solutions for either, I may be in!

Hasta!

Day 369: One Year Later

Well, it's actually been more than a year, but figured I should commemorate the day somehow and dust this old blog off for a bit. So lets chat, over a hot cup of coffee from the Fogon, shall we?

On February 3 of 007, I set out to lose some weight. I won't bore you with all details in this post...you can go back through history and see the hows, whys, and whats that inspired me to get going. I blame it all on that Lifehacker, Kyle Pott. But I digress....I was pushing 260, and really wanted to get out of the whole Mexi-Claus look I had going on. I set many goals along the way, but really wanted to lose 50 lbs, and 124 days later, I did just that.

Now a year later, I'm happy to say that I've kept it off...well, mostly. Life got pretty crazy, busy, ugly, and stressful around September and pretty much stayed that way until just about now. Things are finally starting to feel like they may be getting back to normal. And I'm ready to get back into the swing of things and start making the next push.

I say I've mostly kept it off because I've fluctuated around that 50 lb mark off and on. Gaining back as much as 8 lbs, and losing as much as 3 more lbs for a total of 53 at my very best mark. Today I'm a good 5-6 lbs off of my mark, but still holding on to a 42-43 lb loss, which is the best I've ever done. I'm happy for that, but am feeling like I'm right at the Crossroads -- I'll either put back on my glutton hat, and get all jolly and fat again, or I'll get back to exercising, drinking water, and paying closer attention to the calories. I'm probably mostly writing this post for my own accountability in choosing the latter.

That's it. I'd have loved to have said I hit 70 or 100 lbs by now, but life happened. I'm trying to mix it all up now and see if I can't get stuff done and still lose weight. I think the next 50 lbs will be harder by far. :)

Hasta.

Day 295: Didn't Happen

Update: 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. Current weight - 208.6 lbs - 8.6 lbs to under 200 goal.

No pictures. No real time to post, but for those who are interested. Didn't happen. Same weight as two weeks ago. Too much going on. No real time to workout as much as I'd like. Not even a ton of motivation to post on a regular basis. Hopefully like gets back to normal before long.

Happy Day After Thanksgiving.

Day 279: New Goal - Under 200 By Thanksgiving

Update: 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. Current weight - 208.6 lbs - 8.6 lbs to under 200 goal.

No, I'm not on a blogging strike with the rest of the writing world. Life has just been crazy.

I'm on a new mission. Good news - I've continued to maintain the 50 lbs I've lost for over 150 days. Bad news - I haven't been working very hard at getting down any further, and I still have some work to do, so I'm setting a new goal. By Thanksgiving this year, I want to get that scale to show me a number under 200. So basically, I've got two weeks to lose 8+ lbs.

I realize this is an ambitious goal. In the past 4 months I haven't been able to do it...I'm not sure what makes me think I can do it in the next two weeks, but if you don't have a goal, you won't hit it. I actually think I have the tools to be able to do this, and here's are a few reasons why I believe I just might be able to pull it off.

#1 - I haven't been drinking water like I should.
I kind of knew this might happen - as the fall comes around, and colder days arrive, I tend to gravitate towards coffee more and more, and leave the water behind. Heck, it's possible, I've got a few pounds of pure water weight alone to get rid of, so I'm gonna try to hit the water again.

#2 - I'm not counting calories as strictly as I was before
One of the benefits of going through the process that I did with tracking every single calorie until I hit my goal is that I have a pretty good grasp of how many calories are in most things I'm eating. One of the downfalls though is that it's too easy to generalize, and give myself a little wiggle room. While I haven't had a hard time wiggling into my clothes or anything, I know that part of the reason I'm just maintaining and not losing, is that I'm taking in more calories than I was during my poundage dropping days. Getting back to cutting those down again will help.

#3 - I'm getting out on the bike a decent amount
After an initial scary experience on the rollers (see previous post) where I rode for 5 minutes without letting go of the wall next to me, I've actually made decent use of the rollers for exercise. Although it's still pretty tricky to even find 45 minutes to get out and ride, last week I was able to find 4 of 7 days where I could get out and ride in the garage, and on Saturday I even took advantage of the weather and got a 15 mile *real* ride in.

The rollers aren't exactly like real riding - no wind in the hair, no change of scenery, not the same kind of road friction - but they've been a decent way to get the heartbeat up, and do it on the bike I'm used to riding. It's definitely as close to real riding as I'm gonna get until we get back to the biking season again. Instead of the great outdoors, I'm now watching all kinds of streaming online tv episodes on an old laptop, and still getting used to being strapped on to a bike on 3 little spinning wheels. Two times now, I've just about gone down - not while riding, but when I forget to reach out for the chair to my left when stopping, and then have to desperately find the fridge behind me on the other side in time to stop from hitting the floor. I'm still an idiot on them.

Anyway, I think if I start putting down the water again, and watch the calories, along side of keeping up the exercise, I just might be able to get to under 200 lbs by Thanksgiving this year.

So once again, let the battle cry sound.....Release the Pounds!

Day 257: Rain and Rollers

Update: 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. Current weight - 206.6 lbs - 8.6 lbs to 60 lb goal.

"When the rain comes...they run and hide their heads...." Anyone?

Well, the forecast for the next week or longer is rain. Big surprise, it's October in Oregon...what else should I expect? And even though I have some great experience cranking out the miles in the rain, I'm going to limit the amount of time I allow crazy weather drivers to target me out on the open roads.

In addition to the weather, I'm finding that with school in session, business and church commitments, and the family schedule, that the only shot I have at riding these days is Saturday mornings, and frankly, that's not gonna keep the poundage off this fall. I need to be doing more. I've considered the whole Club option, but frankly, I've never liked that place, I'm not really a Club kind of guy...there's no real draw for me, and again, it's more an issue of time than weather, so finding time to pack up my gear and head to the club is going to be as tough as finding time to get geared up and go riding. What I really need to is be able to ride, indoors, after hours somewhere, on my bike, but such a place doesns't exist.

For folks that want to ride indoors, at home, during the off season or after hours, there are a few options, which I'll go through here today.

Stationary Bike
Yeah, I could go old school like this and pick up a $15 stationary bike, but frankly....ugh.


Bike Trainer
Another option is to buy a trainer, a device that basically you either hook your rear wheel to, or use as a friction device against your rear tire, and ride in place. Check out how much fun this looks like:


Rollers
So, the next option is to get rollers. Basically, these are treadmills for bikes, and just like treadmills, have the same type of pitfalls. It takes some serious effort to get up on them, and stay on them. If you 'youtube' bike rollers, you'll see all kinds of people who are videoing themselves trying to get up on rollers...and many times not succeeding.(Like the dude below) When people do get up on them, they really can't stand up on the bike, or do any real kind of riding...just to dangerous...and consequently...boring. Most people have a love/hate relationship with rollers...more on the hate side.


Fluid Motion Rollers
So this company called InsideRide took the rollers another step further and put them inside a floating cage, with rollers up on the side as well. Because of the added movement of the entire machine, and the added protection of the rollers on the side, you can actually stand up and step it up a bit on the bike. Still gonna be boring as all get-out compared to actually riding on the roads, BUT I can get out for an hour after dark without risking my life against trucks and cars that may not see me.


Every review I've read about them has given them 5 stars, and they seem to be the best indoor option for keeping the wheels rollin'. Another cool bonus is that they are made in Oregon, right over in North Plains....not too far from Maggie's Buns. Now I'll just need to pick up some copies of shows I've never watched, like The Office or 30 Rock, to fill my time while I'm rollin' away!

Hasta!

Day 253: Photo Op

Update: 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. Current weight - 206.6 lbs - 8.6 lbs to 60 lb goal.

Work with me baby, work with me!

Ok, I almost hesitate to post these, because some are not the most flattering, and well frankly, I feel like I've about talked my Challenge to death, but since these just came in from the official photog, here are the Kreutz Photography shots from Livestrong.

Here we are before the ride, thinking everything was just gonna be peachy. It was rainy and cold, but I was hopeful that it might just clear up and that at least part of the day might be dry. Of course, that didn't come to pass, but such is life, and it makes for great stories.

Funny thing is, I searched out some specific sunglasses that I'd read about - interchangeable lenses and all for different kinds of conditions - you can see them there in my gloved hands....turns out I never wore them. Lots of folks like them on the bike forums, so I got some Tifosi glasses. The lenses I have in them now really give everything a nice warm glow, even on cloudy days. I've only been out once since the ride, but used them that day and they were great!

Also that morning, we got the 'team' together and did a big group shot with everyone we could find in the rainy mess. I don't know the final count of the people that decided to show up and brave the weather, but we did have one of the largest teams riding that day. Here's a shot with the portion of the team I was in. You can find me, I look like I'm all cheeks and goatee on my face.

Next is the line up of riders in before the race. I think that's Lance and his buddies in the very small group at the bottom. The original 100 milers are on the left, and the 70 milers are on the right...and of due to the weather, we all did the 70 miles together. I'm about 1/3 of the way down on the right, up against the inside curb, but I don't think I could point myself out.


Then a close up of me leaving. I hate this shot because it looks like I'm all gut, but most of that is the jacket pulling away. I *am* still kind of all gut, but not quite that bad. Still hopeful here that the rain will let up.



Next, a shot where I'm giving one photog the pump fist pose I stole from Keijiro's ride last year. Definitely tears in my eyes at this point from finishing the ride.



Lastly, the final turn into the courtyard, and a little thumbs up to say 'hey, I'm still alive!' Totally worn out, wet and cold and ready to go find my family!



You can view all of the shots from our ride, and/or all the shots that I was in at: http://www.kreutzphotography.com/ - click on Livestrong Challenge Portland, then on Livestrong Ride and Run, and then my bib number is 937 if you want to see those. Gotta get on that next 20 lbs so I'm not making excuses for my gut next year!

Hasta!

Day 250 - Starbucks: The Thorn in My Fleshy Side

Update: 50 lb Goal Reached Day 124. Current weight - 206.6 lbs - 8.6 lbs to 60 lb goal.

The wetter and colder weather is quickly moving in, and we are officially entering my favorite time of the year, from now through Christmas.

One of the things I love the most about this time of year is enjoying the foods and drinks of the season. One cool and cold mornings and evenings, I love me some coffee, and in the past this time of year starts the official Treat Season as well. Fall Festival candy and cupcakes, pumpkin patch donuts and ciders, Thanksgiving banquets, every kind of pie imaginable, and then into Christmas candies and cookies and of course, more meals. When it's cold outside, the warm glow of a comfy fire, or even just the warm glow of a oven knocking out some sugar cookies has always made me happy. This year, it just makes me nervous.

I have already begun to think about how I can try to limit the damage of the impending holiday season, and one way I've already determined is to cut down the amount of time I spend at the Starbucks counter. Don't get me wrong, I'll still swing by for some drive-through coffee, or conduct my meetings at my favorite office away from the office, but I've got to avoid that glass case with all kinds of temping sorts and sundries. If you haven't been to a Starbucks during this time of year, then you may not know of what I speak, but there was one item in particular that just did me in last year, and I need to avoid making eye contact with it this year if at all possible.

I'm speaking about the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin. This little baby, with it's pumpkiny goodness, sweet cream cheese swirled through it all, and one little walnut atop the whole thing weighs in at 500 calories, and goes down like just a few M&Ms before I even know it. I think last year I easily consumed.....well, I'm not going to even guess how many I ate, because it's probably just embarassing. I ate them with abandon. Suffice to say that you could probably just paste a couple boxes of those babies around my waste and know why I had the 50+ pounds to lose that I did.

And if the Muffin wasn't bad enough, I was also tempted by every kind of holiday drink I could imagine there. White Chocolate Peppermint Mochas, Peppermint Lattes, Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Eggnog Lattes, Raspberry Mochas, Paddingtons Humdinger Lattes....ok, well that one doesn't really exist, but if it did, I'd be in trouble. Toss in any of these drinks, in any of the medium to larger sizes, and add another 300-500 calories without thinking. 1000 calories to be had between a muffin and a drink, without even trying!

I'm feeling strong about this one. I've seen the Muffins the last few times I've been in and a happy to report that I've resisted so far. Doesn't mean I won't have one at all this year, but the longer I can hold out, the better chance I have of being labled the Muffin Man when I start packing it back on. If you see me making a mad dash for the counter, knock me down before I get there...you'll be doing me a favor.

Beware the Starbucks glass case, it is not your friend!

Hasta