End of Month 5

So, five months down.  A little over a month until the Triple Bypass.  This has been the toughest month so far, mainly due to breaking my arm two weeks ago.  I think I was doing pretty well for losing weight this month, until I broke my arm.  That really screwed things up for me.  At this point, I still have some occasional sharp pain, usually when I twist it a little farther than it wants to go right now.  I keep hoping I'm ready to do some real training rides on my trainer in the garage, but I'm disappointed that I still can't put weight on the arm, and that I still can't shift gears.  I am finding some ways around it, mainly by riding the trainer without shifting, riding a spin bike, or running, but it's just not giving me the training I need right now.

Although my training has slowed, my arm feels a little bit better every day, so I can feel that it's just a matter of time before I'm back up to speed.  Once I'm on the bike again, I'm going to go hard.  I still have weight to lose to get to my goal weight for the Triple Bypass.  At this point, I'm not sure how I can get there, but I'll do my best.  Next week, I am going to start running at lunch, to take the place of my former lunchtime bike rides.  Once I am riding again, I'll be riding to and from work when possible, and running or riding during lunch.  And I'm going to need to be cranking out some big rides and climbs on the weekends.  I may also see if I can convince my wife to let me do a weeknight ride now and then.  The Lifetime folks do Tuesday and Thursday night rides, and a colleague is going to be leading some group rides up a popular local climb on Tuesday evenings.

Speaking of running, my daughter enjoyed the Cottonwood Classic 5K so much, she wanted to do another one.  So, tomorrow morning we are driving out to Louisville, Colorado to run the Taste of Louisville 5K.  Can't wait.  I'm so excited that she loves doing this!

On Sunday, we're going to be riding the family ride at Elephant Rock.  It's an easy 8 miles.  Fun for all of us.  Not exactly a challenge for me, but I love riding with the kids, so it should be cool.  I'd rather be riding the metric century with the rest of the group from work, but I'm just happy to be out there riding.  Stay tuned for my Sunday update to see how it went.  I am really hoping I don't crash and break my other arm.

Tomorrow evening, we're leaving the kids at Lifetime for a much-deserved Parents Night Out, where I will be celebrating my 10th wedding anniversary with my awesome wife Lisa.  She has put up with a lot of crap from me for 10 years now, and especially for nearly ruining summer for the last two years (my current broken arm, and last year with my gall bladder removal days before our vacation).  Oh, and tearing the cartilage in my knee a month before our daughter was born.  It really just goes on and on with me.  It's been a great ten years, and looking forward to many, many more.

I didn't post last night.  I'm not sure why.  I think I was just busy watching Arrested Development.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Crap, again.  Another cheesesteak.  Man, I love those things.  I need to start running or riding at lunch, to give me something else to do, and I don't just sit around craving food.
• Dinner:  A pretty delicious sausage link.   Aidell's Spicy Mango with Jalapeno chicken sausage.  Pretty happy I managed to hold myself to just one.  Typically I would have two.

Exercise:

• 30 minute walk at lunch.  Did that make up for the cheesesteak?  I don't think so.

Today's weigh-in:  181.4

As you can see, my weight has gone up in the past two weeks, which is very disappointing, but understandable given my broken arm.  This has really thrown me for a loop, and I'm dealing with it as best I can.  Given that my arm is feeling better every day, and I think I have a plan to get in some more running starting next week, I should be able to get that under control soon.  If you look at the May chart, though, I've lost 5 pounds this month.  It's not a ton, but it's ok.  At least I didn't gain weight.

If I want to make myself feel better, I can just look at this chart, which is my weight loss since January 1.  This actually looks pretty impressive.

So, yay me, I guess.  I still have a lot of work to do, though.  Bring on June!  I'm ready!

Trainer again

Back on the trainer tonight.  I decided not to wear the sling tonight, and just let my arm hang at my side.  I occasionally put my hand lightly on the bar.  It felt ok, so I tried to shift.  Putting that pressure on my fingers to push the gear lever generally caused pain to shoot up my arm, so I only made that mistake once or twice.  I'm just not there yet, I guess.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Ugh.  Cheesesteak again.  I couldn't help it.  I didn't feel like sitting at my desk for lunch, and obviously couldn't got for a bike ride.  If I can get back into riding at lunch, it will help keep me from eating crap.
• Dinner:  1 italian sausage link, with peppers and onions.

Exercise:

• 30-minute walk at lunch.  I had to run a package somewhere downtown, so instead of using a courier, I just walked it there myself.  Of course, I balanced that out with a cheesesteak, unfortunately.
• 70-minute ride on the trainer.  Again, since I couldn't really shift, I couldn't do a Spinervals workout, so I just watched the pilot episode of "Burn Notice" on Netflix.  I had seen a few episodes here and there and always enjoyed it, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

Today's weigh-in:  180.6

Arrested Development is back!

Season 4 of Arrested Development is now available on Netflix, and I'm about halfway through with the season.  As much as I've been waiting for this, I'm actually pretty disappointed so far.  I'm hoping it gets better.  But either way, once I'm done with the new season, I'm going to be re-watching the whole series from the beginning.  I really miss the old episodes, and the old style.  The new stuff just isn't doing it for me.

I hopped on my bike on the trainer today, and attempted to ride with one hand but still shift gears.  Unfortunately, it didn't go very well.  Trying to push the shift levers really caused more pain than I expected.  I guess I need to keep waiting.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Honey Nut Cheerios.  I just wasn't in the mood to make a smoothie this morning.
• Lunch:  I was out running errands today, and picked up a burger at Smashburger.
• Dinner:  Steak kabobs and green beans.

Exercise:

• I ran a couple miles with the kids this afternoon.
• We needed to make a trip to Lifetime tonight, so I did the audio Spinervals session again.  It was another good hour workout.  But I need to figure out how to get the audio tracks off of the video workouts, instead of continuing with the same audio workout over and over.

Self-portrait on spin bike.  I like the spin room when there's no one else there.

Today's weigh-in:  180.6

Can't think of a title

Posting late.  My wife was using the computer all night.

Another great day, and a trip to the pool at Lifetime.  Today, my wife and kids swam for a bit while I was putting in some time on the spin bike.  Jumping in the pool after sweating for an hour on the spin bike felt great.

Food:

• Breakfast: Farm-fresh scrambled eggs, with chorizo and diced peppers
• Lunch: 6" Spicy Italian at Subway
• Dinner: Spicy ginger chicken on the grill, and some bacon-wrapped jalapeños.
• Dessert: finished the first weekend of summer vacation with some from at Yogurt Yum! 

Exercise:

• 60 minutes on the spin bike at Lifetime, while the kids were swimming. I did Spinervals Audio 2.0 Mega Watts. I would prefer a Spinervals video, but can't figure out a good way to use my tablet on the spin bike.
• 3.5 mile run after dessert. 

Today's weigh-in: 183.4

Time for summer!

We kicked off the summer today by heading to the outdoor pool at Lifetime Fitness.  It was a pretty nice way to kick off the kids' summer break.  Looking forward to spending a lot of time there this summer.  Weather was great, and the pool was pretty awesome.

I also went for a nice run this morning.  I ran about 3 1/2 miles by myself, then when I got home, picked up my kids, and did another 1 1/2 miles.  This time, my daughter ran with me, and my son rode his bike.  Next time, my son wants to run, too.  Interested to see how that goes.  He's great, but I'm pretty sure running for exercise isn't really his thing.  Not sure he'll make it to the end of the street.

Oh, and hey!!  Arrested Development is back today!  Cranked through three of the new episodes on Netflix when we got back from the pool.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Steak fajita burrito from Chipotle
• Dinner:  Went out to get some pizza.

Exercise:

• 5 mile run

Today's weigh-in:  182.2

Beginning of the weekend

A somewhat active day today, despite my broken arm.  Today started with taking the kids to swim lessons at Lifetime.  While there, we noticed that the outdoor pool was filled up and ready to go.  I think it officially opened for the season shortly after we left.  Can't wait to spend some time at the pool!  During their class, I spent about a half-hour on a spin bike, following along with an audio version of a Spinervals workout that I received when I signed up for my Spinervals membership.  It was ok, but certainly not as good as one of their video workouts.

While at Lifetime, we also picked up some farm-fresh eggs from someone in my wife's class.  Looking forward to some real natural eggs.  I was kind of thrown by the color, though.  Some are kind of bluish-green, and the others were a more typical brown.

It's like Easter!

After that, we had to come home to get the eggs in the fridge, but then ran out to take all my XL shirts to Goodwill.  Yay!

From there, a stop at Qdoba for lunch with the kids, and off to Skate City.  We had my son's birthday party there last weekend, and he got a coupon for free skating for a month.  And we got some coupons good for on skating session for all the other kids that attended the party.  We got way more coupons than kids who attended, so my daughter used one today, and we still have a bunch more.  So we're going to try to get our money's worth out of Skate City.

After Skate City, we came home and decided to go for a run/ride.  I ran while the kids rode their bikes.  I felt pretty good today, and it seemed like I was keeping a pretty good pace.  It was pretty hot, though.  Tomorrow I may try to run early in the morning instead.

Then, home for a bit, and off to Lifetime to drop off the kids for Parent's Night Out.  My wife and I made a quick stop at REI, and had dinner at Rock Bottom Brewery, then did a little shopping.  Buying some new, smaller clothes for me.  Yay again!

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Steak fajita burrito at Qdoba
• Dinner:  Cajun fish tacos, with a double-serving of broccoli on the side.

Exercise:

• 30-minutes on a Spin bike at Lifetime during the kids swim lessons.  I did a part of Spinervals Audio 2.0 - MegaWatts. It was kind of weird.  Just Coach Troy talking.  I think you're supposed to do this with other audio in the background.  I guess there was some music in the gym, but I could barely hear it.  It was an ok workout, but the videos are much better.
• 3.4 mile run around the neighborhood with the kids riding their bikes.

Today's weigh-in:  180.8

TGIF

Well, it's the end of a miserable week.  This week did a number on my weight loss and training plans.  I'm trying to get back into it, and hoping for a better week to come.  Not much to say today.  It was the kids' last day of school.  I was hoping to start riding my bike to work once they were out of school, but that's obviously not going to happen for a while.

I managed to take a look at my mountain bike today, to assess the damage.  Looks like everything is in pretty good shape.  My bar ends are really scraped up, but that's not a big deal.  And my seat is crooked.  Easily fixed.  So, I think once my arm is ready, my bike will be waiting.  Looking forward to it.

Nothing much else to say today.  Looking forward to a fun weekend, but unfortunately not some good bike rides.  I might get out and do some running again, and plan to spend some quality time on my trainer in the garage.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar at my desk
• Dinner:  Some steak and turkey skewers on the grill, and a tossed salad.

Exercise:

• Not much, just a 45-minute walk at lunch today.  I was hoping to get on the trainer tonight, but ended up spending a lot of time getting a bunch of stuff ready to take to Goodwill in the morning.  Like everything else, it just seemed to take longer than it should have, because of my broken arm.

Today's weigh-in:  182.0

Medical update

It's been 6 days since I broke my arm (depending on when you read this).  The past week has been pretty miserable.  I was in some pain last weekend, but managed to spend some time running and on the bike trainer, trying to keep in shape for when I could eventually get back on the bike.  But once I got back to work on Monday, things went downhill.  I was annoyed and disappointed with myself, stopped working out and started eating like crap.  I managed to put a few pounds back on.

This morning, I went to see the orthopedic doctor for an update.  Things went about as well as could be expected.  They took some more x-rays, and my fracture hasn't moved at all.  That was very good news.  That meant that they could be reasonably sure that the break wasn't going anywhere, and I could start working more on my recovery.  I was told I didn't need to wear the waist strap on my sling, which was nice, and I could remove the ace bandages.  I was really happy to hear that, because they were really annoying.  Even better, they wanted me to take my arm out of the sling a few times a day to work on moving my arm, to get my range of motion back.  I am ok to type and use the mouse, and generally move my arm around, as long as I am not lifting anything more than about a pound.  And I am even free to try to tie my shoes, if I think I can (I can't).

I was warned about getting back on the bike yet.  He said it would probably be about 4 weeks until I could put that stress on it.  I really want to participate in the Elephant Rock on June 2, but I'm not sure that's going to happen.  (Lisa says if I ride with a broken arm, and fall and break my other arm, we'll be getting a divorce).

I'll be going back for a follow-up in about 2 weeks.  Wish me luck.

So, that good report today raised my spirits a bit.  Although I still ate like crap today, I managed to get on the trainer tonight and get some miles in.  I'm still looking forward to the day that I can shift with my right hand, because that will mean training for real.  This was really just pedaling tonight.  I find it hard to push myself without any kind of training video.  Hopefully soon.

I didn't post last night.  I think that's the first time since January 1 that I didn't post anything.  Sorry about that.  I just wasn't feeling it.  Typing with one hand sucks, my tablet battery was dead so I wasn't able to ride the trainer and watch a movie, I needed to wrap some birthday presents for my son, and Psych was on.

Hopefully, I'll be back to posting regularly, working hard, and losing weight again.  Stay tuned.  (Note: Pretty sure I put on weight today, especially once you see what I ate.  No more of that.)

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  cheesesteak again.  Man, I love those things.  I really need to stop that.  I don't know what's gotten in to me this week.
• Dinner:  Went out for my son's birthday.  He wanted to go to Red Robin, because they have balloons.  I could have had a salad, but I didn't.  Patty melt and fries.  I couldn't help it.  If I go someplace, and they have a patty melt on the menu, I have to get it.  I can't resist.
  Dessert:  Birthday cupcake.

Exercise:

• 60 minutes on the trainer.  Watched the second half of Hugo.  Thought it was good, but not great.  I enjoyed it.  I love movies, and this was really like a love letter to film, so I appreciated that.

Today's weigh-in: xxxx

More nothing . . .

I didn't do anything again today.  I am a little depressed, and just don't feel like it.  Maybe tomorrow.  We've got a lot going on, and it's hard to find time this week.  Today, my son had his 1st-grade musical, which took up time after work, and then we went to dinner.  Tonight, I needed to wash my sling, since it was getting pretty stinky after the last few days of working out.  And I'm not about to work out without my sling on, so I'm skipping a workout tonight.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  I was feeling annoyed at my injury, so I went to the cheesesteak place again.  I regretted it later, but it was sooooo good.  If I can't work out, I feel like eating right isn't going to be worth it, so I tend to cheat.  I need to get over that, and eat right all the time.
• Dinner:  Same issue.  Didn't feel like cooking after my son's musical tonight, so we went to CB & Potts.  I had a pulled pork sandwich.  I currently feel like crap.

Exercise:

• None.

Today's weigh-in: 184.2

Nothing today

Nothing to say today. Ate like crap. Didn't exercise. But my arm is feeling better. My hand was swelling a bit, so I took the bandages off for a while.

Food: 

• Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  I decided I deserved a cheesesteak.  It's been a long timr.
• Dinner:  Once again, Monday night gymnastics messed things up.  My wife got home late, so I had to take my son with me, which meant I couldn't go for a run like I'd hoped.  Got an Asiago Chicken Sandwich on the way home.

Exercise:

• None

Today's weigh-in:  183.8

Trying to figure out how to train

Again, trying with one hand, so just a short post.

Slept in today, did some cleaning around the house.  After lunch, I convinced the family to go for a bike ride while I ran.  Same route we did last weekend, but this time my wife came with us, too.  If I can't ride or swim, I guess I need to run.

After dinner, I decided to try to get back on the trainer.  I knew I wouldn't be able to shift gears, so I wouldn't be able to do my normal workouts, which involve a lot of shifting.  Instead, I just watched a movie, and shifted only my front chainring between the big and small ring (I only need my left hand for this.).  I left the rear cassette right in the middle, which is a nice easy gear in the small front chainring, and reasonably difficult when using the big chainring.  It wasn't a spectacular workout, but it was ok, and I burned a few calories.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie.  Lisa had to make it, since I realized I couldn't prepare the avocado.
• Lunch:  Steak fajita burrito from Chipotle again.  Yum.
• Dinner:  Steak pinwheel thing.  Stuffed with parmesan, spinach and garlic butter.  Also some broccoli and a tossed salad.

Exercise:

• 3.4 mile run around the neighborhood.
• 1-hour ride on the trainer, watching Hugo on Netflix.

Today's weigh-in: 180.6.  I feel a lot better about that.

So, I guess I'm running now

Can't write much today.  Typing with one hand is a hassle.

Terrible night's sleep last night.  Just couldn't get comfortable.  Took some good painkillers this evening, so I hope I can sleep better tonight.

Although I broke my arm yesterday, I still got up this morning to run the Cottonwood Classic 5k with my 8-year-old daughter.  There was a special elementary school division, and her school was participating.  She was really looking forward to it, so we registered together, and we've been training together for the past few weeks.  So, I just couldn't bring myself to skip it.  We ran together, with my wife and son cheering us on.  Caitlin did great, getting her personal best times for pretty much all distance segments -- 1/2 mile, 1k, 1-mile, 2-mile, etc.  She even looked up at me during the race and said, "This is fun, dad!"  She's awesome.

Approaching the finish.

We're awesome.  Yay, us!

After the race, it was off to the kids' swim lessons.  Usually, I like to swim laps during their lessons, but that's obviously not going to happen now.  Instead, I found some recumbent stationary bikes at Lifetime, and rode one for a while.

I'm realizing how many things I need two hands for.  Some things that proved difficult today:

• Tying shoes, or really any kind of knot.
• Putting on a belt
• Shampoo.  Ended up just squirting the bottle on my head, and guessing how much was coming out.
• Opening bottles of medicine.
• Using the computer.  I'm not very good at left-handed mousing. 
• Folding laundry.
• And buttons.  Buttons are now the bane of my existence.

Oh, and finally, another great stage of the Amgen Tour of California today.  Lots of attacks on the climb of Mt. Diablo.  And Tejay is still on top, ready to win the first stage race of his career tomorrow.  Can't wait to see him in Colorado in a few months.

Tejay, at the final stage of last year's USA Pro Challenge.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Special K.  We ran out of smoothie fixins.
• Lunch:  Wendy's chicken caesar salad.  We had a lot of errands to run today, to get ready for my son's birthday party, so making lunch just wasn't in the cards
• Dinner:  Beef and cheddar sub from Firehouse Subs.
• Oh, and a couple slices of pizza at my son's birthday party.

Exercise:

• 5k run at the Cottonwood Classic 5k.  I kept my sling nice and tight, and my arm generally felt pretty good the whole time.
• 15 minutes on a recumbent stationary bike at Lifetime Fitness.  I would have ridden longer, but ran into another cyclist on the way upstairs to the bikes, and chatted with him for a bit.  But I felt like it was still a pretty good leg workout.  I'll probably be spending most of my time on one of these bikes for the next few weeks.

Today's weigh-in: 185.0.  Damn, going the wrong way.

Disaster!!!!

Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!

After such a good day yesterday, today completely destroyed it.  I was out for my usual bike ride during lunch, which today was a 20-mile round trip to a little lake along the Clear Creek Trail north of Denver.  It's about the right distance from the office, and has a couple tables along the shore.  I typically stop there for a minute, take a drink, and turn around.

Today, with about 2 miles to go, I grabbed my water bottle and sat up, taking both hands off the bars just to relax for a few seconds before the final push.  I'm not sure what happened, but the front wheel just whipped around and threw me off the bike.  I landed hard on my right side, and just laid there for a few seconds, trying to gather myself.  And swearing.  A lot.  Fortunately, I was on a bike path and not a road.  Of course, if I was riding on a road, I probably wouldn't have been riding with no hands.

I picked myself up, and gathered my crap that was strewn everywhere, like my water bottle and sunglasses.  A quick check, and it seemed like nothing was damaged.  Except me.

I had some bad road rash on my right elbow, some pain in my right shoulder, right thigh, and left thigh.  Everything on the right side was from me hitting the pavement.  I think my left leg just got tangled up in the bike.  Another quick look shown me that I had ripped a huge hole in my shirt at my right shoulder.  I gathered my stuff and picked up my bike.  That was when I noticed the pain in my right arm.  This wasn't the road rash, it was inside my arm.

I got back on the bike and started pedaling.  I realized I couldn't put any weight on my right arm.  This meant steering with my left hand, and no braking or shifting with my right.  I managed to pedal most of the way back, but eventually had to hop off and walk up a steep hill near my office.  By that time, I was back on the roads, and couldn't afford to fall over if I started having trouble getting up the hill.

When I got back to the office, I took my bike downstairs, and went to go jump in the shower really quick.  Although I had already decided I needed to go get an x-ray, I felt like crap and wanted  to wash off the sweat, stink and sunscreen, figuring that would make me feel better.  Well, I'm sure it would have, except I couldn't figure out how to get my shirt off.  So I just grabbed my work clothes and threw them in a bag, went upstairs to grab a few things off my desk, and left.  Fortunately, I drive an automatic, so driving wasn't a big deal.  I got myself to Kaiser, and had to wait a bit until they could see me.  So I grabbed a chicken pesto panini and an Izze soda from the in-house Udi's cafe there, and waited.  I had to make the guy at the register open the soda bottle for me.

A quick visit with the doc, a trip to the x-ray, and another visit to the doc told me what I already knew.  I had a fracture of the "radial neck".  Well, I didn't know that, specifically, but I knew I broke something.  It's essentially nondisplaced, meaning the broken part hadn't really moved, so recovery shouldn't be too bad.  The doc just put it in a shoulder-immobilizing sling.  I'm going to see the ortho doc next week.

I got home and really wanted to take a shower.  But I needed to figure out how to take off my shirt.  I decided since the shoulder was torn open, it really wasn't worth saving, so we just cut it off.  Oh well.  Too bad, because I really liked that shirt.  When we took the shirt off, I saw my I had that pain in my shoulder.  Some pretty good road rash there, too.

I look, and feel, like crap.

Tonight was supposed to be a swimming night at Lifetime.  Obviously, that wasn't going to happen.  So my wife went to her class, and I stayed home to make dinner for the kids, and watch the Amgen Tour of California.  Go Tejay!

Not sure what's going to happen with this blog.  I'm going to talk about my recovery, and how I manage to train and stay in shape while waiting for my arm to heal.  The big problem is that typing is a real pain.  Typing today's entry is taking forever.  Future posts may be short and sweet, until I can type with both hands again.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Chicken pesto panini from the cafe at theclinic
• Dinner:  Chipotle steak fajita burrito.  Turns out unwrapping a burrito isn't easy with one hand.  Teeth were involved.

Exercise:

• Bike ride at lunch.  But you already knew that.

Today's weigh-in: 181.6

Buying some new clothes!

I've recently decided I needed to get some new clothes.  Typically, I have L and XL shirts, and my pants have a 36" waist.  I needed to get some short sleeve shirts to wear to work, and some new shorts.  So, I stopped by Kohls on the way home from work, intending to get some new Large shirts and some 36" shorts.  After trying on a bunch of stuff, I was thrilled to go home with some Medium shirts and 34" shorts.  Holy cow!  I haven't worn clothes that small in many, many years.  I'm pretty excited right now.

I had some meetings out of the office this morning, and got back to work in the middle of my normal lunch hour.  Instead of just slacking and taking a short lunch, I still took my hour bike ride, just a little later than usual.  And I was pretty happy with my ride today.  My average speed was 18.8 mph, which is my highest average speed for any of my lunchtime rides I've done this year.  For a typical bike ride, it's not all that fast, but I think it's pretty good for a mountain bike.  I think I can attribute my speed today to listening to my "Rockin'" Pandora station, instead of my usual podcasts.  I've run out of podcast episodes for now, so figured I'd listen to some Metallica, Tool and Alice in Chains, among others.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar after my ride
• Dinner:  We ran out to run some errands when we got back from work, and decided to go out to dinner.  Went to Chili's.  It was totally yummy, but seriously not good for losing weight.  Big Mouth Bites, fries, and a soft-pretzel appetizer.  And Coke.

Exercise:

• 17 mile ride at lunch

Today's weigh-in:  178.2

Big day!

Pretty excited today.  If you remember my post from last week, I discussed some upcoming milestones.  Well, today I hit another one.  As you can see at the bottom of this post, today I weighed in at 177.4 lbs.  About a year-and-a-half ago, I went on another weight-loss kick, and got down to 178 lbs, before I went back to my old ways.  So, with today's weigh-in, I have beat my previous weight-loss results, and I now weigh less than I have in years (and years, and years).

My next milestone will be 176 lbs., which will mark a weight loss of 50 lbs since January 1.

Stay tuned . . .

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar after my ride
• Dinner:  Caesar salad with chicken

Exercise:

• Bike ride at lunch
• 30 minutes on the elliptical at Lifetime, followed by . . .
• 30 minutes on a spin bike

 

Today's weigh-in: 177.4 lbs

Hey look, I decided to move the graph up another grid line!  Been a while since I've done that.

Inside and out

I had a lunchtime seminar today, so I didn't get to do a lunch ride.  But I managed to get in a run after dinner.  And since I haven't had a really good bike ride in a while, I figured it was time to get back on the trainer.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Catered lunch from Panera.  I had a turkey sandwich, chips and a cookie.
• Dinner:  Pork chops on the grill, and broccoli

Exercise:

• 3.2 mile run after dinner
• 65-minute ride on the trainer, with Spinervals 41.0 - Ascending Mountains in Leadville, Colorado.

 


Today's weigh-in:  179.0.  One pound away from another milestone.

Back on the bike

It's not much, but I managed to get back on the bike today, for a ride during lunch.  I really need to make this a regular ride, but work tends to get in the way a bit.  Tomorrow, I have a lunch seminar that I really don't want to miss, so no lunchtime ride.  But I should be able to ride some more this week.

This evening, my daughter had gymnastics practice.  I had planned to do some running during her practice, but my wife didn't get home from work in time, so I had to bring my son with me.  Since he was tagging along, I wasn't able to run around the neighborhood like I'd planned.  But I was dressed for a run, so I decided to pay the $2.50 to use the fitness room.  I was able to run on their treadmill a but, and then used the rowing machine, while my son played on some of the equipment.  Most of the equipment is really old, half-broken crap, but the treadmill is ok.  The rowing machine is old and cheap, but usable.  The stairmaster, elliptical and bike are pretty much worthless, so I avoided those today.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar after my ride
• Dinner:  With gymnastics tonight, our schedule was thrown off a bit, so we just stopped at Wendy's again on the way back.  I opted for the Caesar salad, and had them use their grilled chicken instead of their standard fried chicken.

Exercise:

• 20 mile bike ride during lunch
• 30 minute treadmill run, alternating 4 minutes at 5 mph,  and 1 minute at 9 mph.
• 15 minutes on the rowing machine

Today's weigh-in:  180.2

Disappointing day . . .

Totally beautiful day, and I didn't get in any riding at all.  Or pretty much anything for that matter.  Feels like a huge waste.  It was Mother's Day, and my wife seemed annoyed that I actually wanted to go do something.  I'm really disappointed.  Don't feel like writing much. 

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  We were out running errands.  Decided to switch it up a bit and stop at a place called Big City Burrito.  Wow, that was astoundingly terrible.  What a crap-hole.  Most likely the worst burrito I've ever had.  We are definitely never going back there.
• Dinner:  Pretty good.  Grilled chicken with a kind of southwest rub.  Green beans, and a tossed salad.
• Snack: Some cheese and crackers.

Exercise:

• Squeezed in an almost-2-mile run with my daughter this morning, which was fun.  But that's pretty much all I did.  Other than that, it was cutting the grass, grocery shopping, laundry, etc.  Sigh . . . 

Today's weigh-in:  182.8

Campfire night

Beautiful evening tonight, and the kids were begging for a campfire and s'mores.  My wife and I demolished our deck a few years ago, and installed a concrete paver patio.  Best thing we ever did to this house.  We love our patio.  It's so much more functional than our deck ever was.  And it's a great pot for a metal fire pit.  When the weather is nice, we like spending the evening out here with a crackling fire, listening to music and cooking marshmallows for s'mores.  Yum.

My wife had to work most of the day today, so I wasn't able to head out for a big ride, since I had to manage the kids.  I took them to their swim lessons at Lifetime thi morning.  It didn't go exactly as planned.  The past couple weeks, the lap pool was open and I was able to get a half hour of swimming in.  But today when we got there, the triathlon team had taken over the lap pool.  Fortunately, the swim lessons weren't using all the lane in the leisure pool, so I swam my laps there instead.  It's only and 18-yard pool instead of the 25-meter lap pool, but swimming is swimming, I suppose.

Once we got done swimming, we stopped on the way home for haircuts, and then lunch at Subway.  When we got home, we went out for a bike ride/run.  The kiddos rode their bikes, and I ran with them.  The City recently completed a trail extension that connected the bike trail behind the kids' school to another trail system on the other side of a busy road but taking the trail under the road.  We hadn't been across the road yet, so wanted to see where it went.  Made for a nice run/ride.

After than, my wife came home, so I headed out for an hour ride before we went out to dinner this evening.  Nice ride.  Sunny and warm, with just a couple sprinkles that passed quickly.

Oh, here's something annoying.  So, there's this Strava segment near my house, and I've only ever ridden it with the kids. So, I am always riding slow, or sometimes walking.  It's kind of a steel climb, so I sometimes have to walk next to the kids and push them.  Currently, I'm ranked 29th out of 29 on this climb.  This is killing me, and I want to ride once without the kids to move up in the ranking a bit.  On my ride yesterday, I was heading past, and was going to detour of my regular route to do this climb, but there was some construction equipment on the trail, so I had to skip it.  Today, I went past again, figuring the maintenance people would be gone, but no!  It looks like they are actually doing some construction on the trail, so there is all kind of construction fencing up, and I couldn't do the ride.  So, I'm stuck in last place until they finish their work.  Really annoying.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie.  Used some watermelon this time, which was pretty good.  First time we've used watermelon in one of our smoothie.
• Lunch:  6" spicy italian at Subway, with a bag of Fritos
• Dinner:  thin-crust pizza at Old Chicago
• No, I didn't have any s'mores.  I left those for the kids.

Exercise:

• 756 yards in the pool.  Weird measurement today, since I was swimming laps in the 18-yard leisure pool instead of the 25-meter lap pool.  Oh well.  756 yards ends up being about the same as the 700 meters I have typically been swimming in the lap pool.
• 3.6-mile run with the kids while they rode their bikes.  Different route than my previous runs, which was a nice change of pace.
• 23-mile bike ride before dinner

 

Today's weigh-in: 182.0

Ready for the weekend

Yet another quick update today.

I had a meeting out of the office this afternoon, so no lunchtime ride today.  But the meeting was up north, so instead of heading back to work when I was done, I just took a couple hours of sick time and headed home to get the weekend started early.  I grabbed some lunch at Chipotle, then went for a ride, before picking up the kids from school.

Then, this evening was the usual Friday-night trip to Lifetime, so I swam with the kids for about 45 then got in about 15-20 minutes in the lap pool.

My wife has to work on Saturday, which leaves me home with the kids, so I'm not going to get in the big ride I was hoping for.  Then Sunday is Mother's Day, and she didn't sound too keen on me going out for a 5-hour ride, so I'm not sure what kind of riding I'm going to get done.  I think I just need to play it by ear this weekend.

Oh, and here's something interesting.  Last year, I managed 86 hours of activities on Strava, and a little over 1,300 miles, for the entire year.  Currently, for 2013, I already have 113 hours of activity, and almost 1,700 miles.  So, it looks like I am going to be much more prepared for my big rides than I was last year, which is comforting.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Steak fajita burrito at Chipotle
• Dinner:  Yikes.  Back to Chipotle on the way back from the gym tonight.  Opted for a steak salad this time.

Exercise:

• 26 mile ride after work.  Did pretty well for having a belly full of burrito.  Got some PR's on a few segments, including 3 top-ten overall placements, which was cool.
• 700 meters in the lap pool at Lifetime

 

Today's weigh-in:  182.8.  Not bad, considering that includes two trips to Chipotle.

More rain today

A couple days at work with rain and meetings, so no riding.  And I have another meeting tomorrow at lunchtime, so another day without a bike ride.  I may try to get something in later in the afternoon, if it's not raining.

After a lot of rain and hail today, it ended up being pretty nice later, so after work I went for a little run with my daughter, and my son rode along on his bike.  We even made a stop over at their old day care to say high, which was fun.  Good to see those folks again.

Don't feel that great tonight.  Been a couple days since I've had a good workout.  Feel a little bloated.  Hoping for a better few days coming up. Another problem:  Trying to clear off the DVR.  It's close to being full, so I've been watching some TV at night instead of getting on the trainer.  The Amgen Tour of California is coming up next week, and I need to make sure there is space available to record it.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Stopped at Panera after a meeting.  Had a smoked turkey panini and a bag of chips
• Dinner:  Italian sausage with peppers and onions, and some asparagus

Exercise:

• 2 mile run with my daughter

Today's weigh-in:  184.6

Off day

Not much going on today.  Went to the gym tonight and did a few routes on the rock wall, but that's about it.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Steak fajita burrito from Chipotle
• Dinner:  Steak taco salad from Qdoba.  We were struggling to figure out what to do for dinner with the trip to the gym tonight.

Exercise:

• Nothing, unless you count a few routes on the rock wall.

Today's weigh-in:  185.0.  Yikes!

And . . . here's the rain

The rain finally came, but fortunately not until this evening.  So, I managed to get in another lunchtime ride, and a 5k run this evening.  The ride was great, but I got a little wet during my run.

Food:

• Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar after my ride
• Dinner:  Mini paleo pizzas, again.  Really tasty.

Exercise:

• 17 mile bike ride at lunch
• 3.25 mile run after dinner

Today's weigh-in:  179.8.  Sweet!

Hey, it didn't rain!

So, it was supposed to start out nice today, and then rain all afternoon. Fortunately, the rain never came, and I was able to get in a lunchtime bike ride again. Not much else to talk about today. I think the rain is now supposed to start overnight, so we'll see if I can get in a ride tomorrow.

Oh, and get this....  So, I'm riding my bike at lunch, along the Platte River.  First, I'm riding along and a bird flies out of the grass, and right into my front wheel.  He definitely got hurt, but managed to take off into the trees, and I lost him.  Then, minutes later, I looked off to my right, on the other side of the river, and there's a bunch o' turkeys!  Just walkin' around!  Weird.

What the heck?  It's a turkey!

Food:

• Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch: Protein bar after my bike ride
• Dinner: Crazy night tonight, and no time for normal dinner. On the way back from my daughter's gymnastics, the kids and I stopped at Wendy's. Although a burger would have been delicious, I opted for the new bbq ranch chicken salad instead. It was ok, but nothing spectacular.

Exercise:

• 16 mile ride at lunch. Got started a few minutes late, so I had to cut my usual ride a little short.

Today's weigh-in: 181.8

Nice ride today

Managed to get in a nice ride today.  It was pretty chilly, but the ride was good.  It was close to 50 miles, and I got in a couple good climbs.  I rode with my friend Dale, and we tackled The Wall from the classic Morgul Bismark route, and then headed over to the climb up to the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).  In between, we ran into a bike race and had to take a detour from our planned route.  The race was called The Koppenberg, and includes a couple miles of dirt road, and a pretty serious climb, especially for a road bike.  Here is a video of this section from back in 2010.  Dale and I ended up having to climb this today, which was definitely not expected.

NCAR.  A nice climb up from Boulder, and just a really cool place.

I really crushed the climb up The Wall today.  A couple weeks ago, I rode it in 7:16.  Today was 5:43.  Awesome.  On Strava, this puts me into 228th place out of 1,199 riders.  Hopefully I can improve that a little bit this season, once I get a little stronger, and especially when I'm dressed for warmer weather.

After the ride today, we had to get read for the Lions Club Relays.  This is a local elementary school event, with all the elementary schools in the district competing against each other.  My daughter raced for the 3rd grade girls.  She did awesome.

Awesome.

Got some rain in the forecast this week.  That's going to screw up my lunchtime rides . . . again.  Kind of annoying.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Grabbed one of those new flatbread sandwiches from Wendy's on my way home from my bike ride.
• Dinner:  Pork chops and broccoli
• Dessert:  We went out to Yogurt Yum! to celebrate my daughter's performance in the relay.

Exercise:

• 46 mile ride, 2,500' of elevation gain.  Felt great.

Today's weigh-in:  183.2

Milestones

So, last night I weighed in at 181.2 lbs.  It occurred to me as I was slowly waking up this morning that there are a number of weight milestones coming up, which is kind of fun.

• 180 lbs - not really a milestone, but it a nice even number, so that's cool.
• 178 lbs - This was the weight I hit a little over a year ago, the last time I went on a weight-loss kick.  At the time, it was my lowest weight in years.  So it will be nice to match that again.
• 176 lbs - This will mark a big 10-lb milestone for me during this effort.  176 lbs will mark a 50 lb loss since I started back on January 1.  50 lb is such a nice big number to talk about, so I am looking forward to that
• 170 lbs - Another nice even number
• 166 lbs - This will mark 60 lbs of weight loss this year
• 165 lbs - This number is my goal for this year, and the number that I wanted to be at for riding the Triple Bypass on July 13.   Right now, it still seems reasonable, but I would love to get even lower if I could.

I was looking online at some "ideal weight calculators" and the numbers are all over the board.  No one can seem to agree on how to determine this, and various calculations have been used over the years.  Based on what I saw, I would say my "ideal weight" is probably somewhere in between 155 and 165 lbs, so I think my goal is reasonable, and if I can beat it a little bit, even better.

In terms of cycling, weight becomes a little more interesting.  Cycling power is often measured in a power-to-weight ratio.  You take your measured power (with a power meter) or calculated power (based on a calculation of personal weight, bike weight, speed and elevation gain on a bike ride) and divide it by your weight in kilograms.  This gives you your power-to-weight ratio, a number that you can use to gauge your performance, and a good number to watch and improve over time.

Currently, I am fat.  No getting around that.  But I've lost over 40 lbs, and am getting closer to where I want to be.  Ever pound of fat that I lose makes me healthier, and improves my power-to-weight ratio.  And with all the training I did over the winter, and the outdoors riding I am doing now, I am improving my power numbers as well, thus further improving power-to-weight.  Pretty soon, I hope to be at my goal weight, where losing weight stops being a goal, and increasing power becomes more important.  I will need to start adding more power-based training to my routine, improving leg strength and building lean muscle mass while maintaining that ideal weight.  This will mean more climbing, and probably some weight training.  I found a good explanation of power-to-weight for cyclists HERE.

In terms of today, I wasn't able to get in a good ride.  The kids had swim lessons, so I headed to Lifetime and swam laps during their lessons.  After lessons and lunch, I spent most of the afternoon fixing up the family's bikes.  Cleaning and adjusting, getting rid of the weird little noises, truing the wheels a bit.  Then, we headed to the middle school track for some practice for my daughter's relay race tomorrow.  We were using a paper-towel holder as a practice baton.  Looking forward to the relay tomorrow.  Should be fun.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Ran out of avocado, so we didn't do a smoothie today.  Had a bowl of Special K instead.
• Lunch:  Steak fajita burrito from Chipotle
• Dinner:  The kids went to Parents Night Out at Lifetime, while my wife and I headed out to the movies and dinner.  "Oblivion" was the only movie that worked into the schedule.  It was ok, but nothing spectacular.  And then we stopped at Marco's pizza.  That's all we had time for before we had to go pick the kids back up.

Exercise:

• 650 meters in the lap pool at Lifetime.

Today's weigh-in: 184.8

Ready for the weekend

Quick post today.  It's late, and I'm ready for bed.

First, I'll point out that I just updated yesterday's post with a couple pictures I grabbed off the internet showing the two new products I bought, the top-tube bag and the sun sleeves.

I had a good day today.  Got in a 20-mile ride at lunch, a quick run after work, and some swimming this evening at Lifetime.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch:  Protein bar after my ride
• Dinner:  Chipotle chicken quesadilla at the LifeCafe at Lifetime Fitness.

Exercise:

• 20 mile ride during lunch
• A little under 2 mile run after work.  I was planning on running a 5k practice with my daughter, but she wanted to ride her scooter instead.  And after one lap of the school, she wanted to play on the playground, so I just ran one more lap while she and my son played for a bit.
• During my wife's class at Lifetime tonight, I managed to get in 500 meters of swimming.  I swam with the kids for about 45-50 minutes, and practiced some snorkeling with them, which was fun.  Then we needed to stop so I could get in some laps.

Today's weigh-in:  181.2

Nicer weather on the way

Lots of snow yesterday, but sunny and warmer today. Unfortunately, that meant that the trails were going to be covered with melting snow, which doesn't make for a great lunchtime bike ride. So, instead of riding today, I used my lunch break to make a quick run to Performance Bike and pick up a couple things.

After my ride last weekend, I got some good ideas from the other riders. First was a top - tube storage bag. This is a little pouch that lives on the top tube right behind the handlebars, giving me quick access to my food, rather than trying to grab stuff from a back jersey pocket. I am hoping this will encourage me to eat more while I'm riding.

This is the top-tube bag I bought.

I also picked up some sun sleeves. These are kind of like arm warmers that I wear in cold weather, but are white and a different material, helping to keep me cooler during long rides on hot, sunny days, without having to lather on the sunblock. I'm looking forward to trying both of these out, and seeing if they improve my overall comfort on long rides.

And here are the sun sleeves.  No, that's not me.  Just a random picture from the internet.

Since I didn't ride during lunch, I wanted to get in some kind of workout. So, after dinner I went out for a 3.2 mile run around the neighborhood. I was feeling pretty good. At the time I'm typing this, I haven't uploaded my run into the computer, so I am not sure how I did, but I felt like I was running faster than earlier runs.

The 10-day forecast looks pretty good, so I am looking forward to getting in a lot of riding and running over the next couple weeks.  Can't wait.

Food:

• Breakfast: Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch: Protein bar in the car on the way to the bike shop
• Dinner: Steak, broccoli and some watermelon. Yum.

Exercise:

• 3.2 mile run around the neighborhood.  Pretty happy.  Now that I've uploaded everything to the computer, I see that I managed to get my personal records for 1k, 5k, 1 mile and 2 miles.  My Garmin Connect report is below, but doesn't show that info.  Strava tracks my records, and you can find that HERE.

Today's weigh-in: 184.4

I can't believe it's snowing again

Not much to say today.  It's snowing.  Again.  This is ridiculous.  It put me in kind of a bad mood.  So, the snow was depressing, and I couldn't ride at lunch.  I walked out to go move my car before lunch (I was in a 2-hour parking spot), and the parking guy was giving me a ticket.  I tried to find another place to park, but I couldn't find a spot anywhere.  I found another spot a few blocks from my office.  Then, I went to grab lunch, and the cheesesteak place was packed.  And then, my phone crashed.  It told me my battery was dead, when it was basically fully charged moments earlier.  My food took forever, and by the time I got it, I had about 5 minutes to eat before running back to my office for a conference call.  And it just kept snowing.

Went to Lifetime tonight, but just belayed the kids on the rock wall.  No exercise for me.

Food:

• Breakfast:  Fruit / protein smoothie
• Lunch: cheesesteak and fries
• Dinner:  Caesar salad with chicken

Exercise:

• None

Today's weigh-in:  186.4