2/2/2009

 

For the final weigh-in, I went a little extreme, and rode my mountain bike up Sunrise trail, while limiting my fluid intakes over the 2 hr 15 min ride.  I had to drink some water, but I didn't even down an entire 100 oz, and by the time I got home, I was feeling it.  Like a boxing getting ready for a final weigh-in, I wondered how dehydrated I could make myself in a short time.  My final weigh-in was just 202.5 lbs.  I think my pre-ride weight was 205, so I managed to sweat away 2.5 lbs of water, beyond what I took in, which is roughly 40 oz of water.  40 oz doesn't sound like much, writing ithere, but it sure did feel bad yesterday. 

 

Anyway, I know 2.5 lbs won't make a difference in the contest, but I wanted to see what I could do, and now I know.  Managing to lose a solid 10 lbs in 7 weeks was great.  And the lifestyle changes I've made feel like they are here to stay.  Plus, getting down to 205 before the big super bowl party, and then being able to really enjoy the tremendous quantities of food we had, was awesome.

 

Congratulations to all of my BIG LOSER friends.

 

1/27/2009

 

We don't have much time left to drop much more weight, but it was nice to tip the scale at 206 today.  To hit my revised target of 205, I need to shed one more pound.  And I think I can do it, too.  Ninjitsu tomorrow, with a night ride on Thursday, walking 4 or 5 miles at the FBR Open on Friday (while trying hard to avoid the beer), and then a big 6 hour bike ride on Saturday should do just enough to burn off one more pound of fat.  And if not, it's been a GREAT ride so far.  I can't believe how my attitude about eating, food, and especially JUNK food has changed.

 

1/13/2009

 

I'm totally stoked to weigh in at 207 today.  Yesterday I was 208.5, had salad for lunch, drank more water than usual, and a couple of tacos for dinner.  Then this morning...BAM!  207.  I feel awesome.  I've kept to the plan of eliminating the truly horrible foods, and excercised regularly.  In this final 2 weeks I'm now going to work to get below 205, a weight I have seen in over 6 years.

 

1/6/2009

 

Again I haven't updated in quite a while, because not much has changed.  I'm still 210 lbs, which means I made it through the cookie infested holiday season without gaining weight.  At the dojo (karate) last night, nearly everyone else said they gained weight the last 2 weeks, so that feels like mission accomplished to me.  Last week I rode my bike 3 days, but karate was cancelled for holidays.  They were good rides, and I'm feeling stronger on the bike that I've felt in a while.  With the "normal" work week in full swing, I'm going to hunker down again on proper eating habits, and make sure I'm working out 5 days a week for the rest of the month.

 

12/22/2008

 

Wow, a whole week since I last updated.  I'm not going to bore with much detail.  Monday night I went to a Suns game instead of Ninjitsu.  I had 1 beer, but no hot dogs, or other junk food.  Plus I had a litre of water.  Wednesday night was Ninjitsu as normal.  Thursday night I showed a rental home quite late, and by the time I got home didn't do my 30 minutes on the trainer (bad Steve!).  Friday night we went to a holiday party, and I ate way too much.  Saturday I had to wait at home for Cox Cable.  They were 3 hours late, and caused me to miss my morning ride.  Saturday afternoon I showed houses in Tempe, and may have sold one, so it wasn't all bad.  Sunday I the double-bypass, which was near-epic.  Great ride.

 

For the week I weighed as much as 211 and as little as 209.  This morning I was 210.  Not much change from last week, but given the lack of 3 planned workouts, staying steady is just fine with me.

 

12/14/2008

 

 

I had 2 great mountain bike rides this weekend.  Saturday was nearly 3 hours long, and about 45 minutes from the end I was fairly well spent.  I could tell I had completely burned through the majority of my anaerobic reserves and had to go full aerobic the rest of the ride.  That means fat burning had to be happening, which felt great.  Post ride I hit Jamba Juice for a 3G  Energizer with protein, and then later the family all went to Flo's for dinner.  I didn't get a post-ride nap, and crashed by 8:30pm.

 

Sunday I woke up completely refreshed, but also found a box of donuts in the kitchen.  I think my wife is playing saboteur for someone out there.  At any rate, I had another 2.5 hr ride, this time up the Sunrise trail, which involves over 2 miles of sustained climbing.  It’s a brutal climb, and I simply cannot stay aerobic for sections of it, so I always end up bonking and then walking bits here and there.  Still, a great ride.  Nearly home, I ran into someone that had lost his cell phone.  I volunteered to help him find it, by using mine to call his.  The bonus was that we had to go back a ways and ride up another hill where you thought he might have left it.  Sadly, we never did find it.  A triple PB&J was the post-ride meal, followed by leftover Flo’s for dinner.

 

Overall, I couldn’t be happier with now a 5 lb loss in just over a week.  It seems like a lot to me, and I know there’s no way I can sustain that kind of pace.  But if I can trim another 5 lbs by the end of the month, I’ll be absolutely ecstatic. 

 

One final bonus:  Halfway up Sunrise a I ran into someone I know.  We were talking about his new bike, and then real estate came up.  It seems he's planning to buy his son a home in Tempe.  Woot!  A new client, and possibly thanks to REBiggestLoser.

 

12/12/2008

 

Wednesday night at Ninjitsu wasn't very aerobic.  We mostly practiced samurai sword stuff, and what we practiced was taking them in and out of a scabbard safely.  Honestly, you can't break a sweat doing that kind of thing.  At least I did 15 minutes of "warm up" exercises before that.  Thursday night (sit on the bike trainer night) I was at my first holiday party of the season.  It was at an Italian restaurant and I had a glass of wine and 2 fru-fru appetizers, but nothing of substance.  I think it helped arriving late, after the pizza had all been eaten.

 

This morning I weighed in at 212.5.  That seems like a nice start for the first week of the challenge.  Down 2.5 lbs.  It's actually a tad more than I would expect, so I'm pretty pleased with the first week.  If I can average a pound a week from here on out, I'll be elated.

 

12/10/2008

 

Monday night I had Ninjitsu as usual.  I'm allowed to arrive as early as 6pm, and help the begining class that runs from 6-7:30pm.  I like to arrive by 6:30, since all they do before then is warm-up excercises, and I'll get double that load when my class starts at 7:30p anyway.  Monday I arrived at 7p and during my "help" managed to face plant a newer student into the mat.  She was supposed to roll (oops!).  After that we worked on kicks and then kata #5, so we got some decent work in, but it wasn't super aerobic.  FYI, my class is Monday and Wednesday from 7:30p-9p.

 

This morning I weighted in once again at 212.  That's fine.  You can tell when you've worked hard enough to lose weight, and while my diet the last 2 days was good, I didn't do any cardio on Tuesday, so a weight hold was expected.  Overall I'm still doing well to watch what I eat.  I had a club sandwich at Subway for lunch, and then Chicken with corn for dinner.  Still no soda and no chips.

 

12/8/2008

 

Saturday's mountain bike ride left me far more sore than I expected.  I hadn't ridden the mountain bike since October, though with all of the road biking I've done since then, I was shocked at how "out of shape" I was on the dirt.  Saturday's route was somewhat technical (that means there were rocks and things that can cause you to crash), which requires more upper body strength and more bursts of anarobic effort.  The anarobic efforts really seemed to do me in, as my recovery time wasn't what I'm used to. 

 

I was able to get a good 2 hour ride in, but Sunday morning I wasn't feeling fresh enough to jump back on.  Sunday afternoon I was invited to a Fantasy Football League party, which was a horrible place to be during this challenge.  There was beer, pizza, chips, and all sorts of things that shouldn't be eaten.  I had 2 pieces of pizza, but no beer, and took it easy on the chips.  I came home and my wife had made more pizza (which I politely declined).  Knowing I had to get some excercise in, Sunday night I set up my road bike up on the trainer in the media room and spun for 30 minutes while watching Glory Road.  With the trainer set up, now there's no excuse not to use it. 

 

This morning I weighed in at 212, so the weekend seems to have passed without going in the wrong direction.

 

One final note:  I have not had a single soda (I primarily drink 7-Up), since the challenge started.  I'm going to attempt to go without soda until the challenge ends.

 

12/6/2008

 

Hmm, I forgot to eat dinner last night, and as a result managed to lose 2.5 lbs.  Probably mostly water weight, as I didn't drink as much as normal either.  I'm off to a mid-morning bike ride now, before showing property at 3pm.

 

12/5/2008

 

Weighed in this morning at 215 lbs.  I actually weighed myself 3 times.  Once I was 214.5, but the other two times I was 215, so the majority decision fell to 215.  I think having a late dinner (8pm) helped me gain that pound in a day.  I also didn't ride the trainer last night, since we hadn't officially started.  This morning I went with the decaf drip coffee from Starbucks.  So I'm off to a good start.

 

In my office was a box of donuts....actually succumbed at noon and ate one.  I guess I forgot to tell the office I'm now on a diet.  Doh!  Lunch was jamba juice, which is high in calaries, but healthier calaries.

 

Intro

 

I'm going to use this page like a personal blog for this topic.  I'll update what lifestyle changes I'm doing, and how it seems to be working.  Feel free to comment, share smack, encourage, whatever.

 

First up, The Plan.  From my blog:

 

I have 15 pounds I would love to lose, however, given the short time, I'll be content losing 5.

 

For the next 2 months, I’m going to get serious about my diet and kick up my exercising a tad.  Today I tried a non-fat, no-whip at Starbucks.  It was fine, but I think I’m just going to go all the way to a drip.  Heck, I’ll save $2/day at the same time.  The social aspect of Starbucks is still too compelling to give it up completely, so a drip it will be.  And french fries are now out.  100% gone.  If I can work in a salad, that would be nice.

 

On the exercising front, between cycling and Ninjitsu (martial arts), I’m already working out 4 days a week, but Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday are currently free.  I’ve decided Thursday nights I’ll be setting up my road bike on my trainer and spinning for at least 30 minutes.  Spinning on a trainer is extremely boring and past attempts resulted in 30 minutes as my meantime to boredom.  Given the short challenge, it’s 30 minutes for just 8 Thursdays.  I’m going to watch The Office anyway, it might as well be on the trainer.

 

In the spirit of full disclosure, this morning (12/4) I weighed in at 214 lbs.  That’s about 3 lbs lower than I was in July, which I attribute to a heavier training schedule for the Tour de Tucson, so my target weight is 209 lbs.