Lose some weight…

Here’s a good article on the benefits of working out and losing some weight:

Can weight training prevent diabetes?

I got nothing else.

“How’d you lose your weight?!”

I get asked all the time how I lost all my weight. Well, if you’re curious, here it is in a nutshell. It’s not a magic pill or a secret. It’s really quite simple and doesn’t take a huge effort if you’re willing to make small changes. Check out this article Introduction to Metabolic Efficiency and you can get an idea how I did it.

Dodging lightning

Managed to get my workout in right before it started pouring! 

Had a great interval workout on the bike and did a 4.5 mile run afterwards.

Have to run 13.1 miles and swim the 70.3 swim course tomorrow.  Should.make for a long day!

Shedding the weight off now!

Gotta get early if I’m gonna get it done.  Good night!

Maybe its a sign…

I think my wife is right.  She said, “maybe its a sign.”. What is she talking about?  Let me explain.

All week long, I faithfully ate ALMOST perfectly with the exception of Friday night (which didn’t give me much choices, but I should’ve planned).  I did 4 mi run on Fri, 1.2 mi swim, 40 mi bike ride on sat, 30 min swim, and a 4 mi run on Sunday.  Pretty good right?

Well Monday morning I anxiously jumped on a scale to see the amazing weight loss.  And….

I GAINED 2 POUNDS!!!! WHAT THE????

I guess at this point, I just need to quit jumping on the scale and look at my.accomplishments and physique.  I can happily say that my “love handles” are nearly gone, my shoulders and lats are much more defined, and my calves are massive compared to my high school soccer days.  I truly believe that I am in the best overall shape of my life even at 37.

I think its time for me to listen to my wife and stop weighing myself everyday…

Oh by the way, I’ve found that I can move the scale, ie, pick it up, set it down, and lose or gain two pounds.  What’s up with that?!

You CAN Eat Out with Reasonable Calories

Check it out.  We’re eating out at Red Robin getting my free birthday burger.  A typical burger here is 1000+ calories.  So cut the meal in half right? Wrong (for me at least).

Here’s what I’m getting:
Guacamole Bacon burger
-substitute Boca instead of beef (doesn’t do much for calories)
-substitute the lettuce wrap instead of the bun

-substitute side salad instead of fries

-ADDED freckled fruit salad

The result?  758 calories.   At least 240 calories less than most.  And I got to eat even more food then the regular meal!

Oink oink!

Back in the Saddle again!

Well, I did it.  Last night I got back in track!  I did a swim workout and bike ride.  In addition, I did a run tonight.

I didn’t do exactly what my training plan called for, but I did it.  You see, last night I was supposed to do a 30 min swum workout and a 30 minute run.  However, I wanted to make up the 60 minute ride that I missed.  The kicker was that my ling bike ride is Saturday so I didn’t want to do back to back rides.

So… I switched the bike and run.

On an even more positive note, I had lunch with my old boss and he said, “you’re losing weight again?  I can see it in your face.” It’s nice to know the hard workouts are paying off…

Setbacks

So you’ve been frustrated with setbacks right?  Well look above.  I have them too.

I was cruising along getting, set to hit my weight I was this time last year.  Then, pow! It happens!  A setback.

How did it happen?  A perfect storm of missed opportunities.  You see, there’s a saying, “train to eat, it to train.”  Well I thought I was eatin properly for long workouts this weekend.  However, one workout was half as long as I thought it would be and tthe other didn’t happen at all!

Saturday night I had a bunch of carbs to prepare me for a two hour run on Sunday before church.  Good right?  The problem is I didn’t get my butt out of bed to do it!  This compounded by need to do the yard work and spend time with my family that’s in town meant that I didn’t get my run in!  So I didn’t burn the extra 1300 or so calories I expected to!  UGH!!!

You can also see the peaks and valleys in the graph as well.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure what causes my peaks.  One word: weekends.  Yous think that since my weekends were my hardest workouts or races that my weight would drop dramatically.  Hey I’m human just like you!   I like to relax and enjoy the weekend too.  Maybe just a little too much enjoyment!

There tends to be an interesting phenomenon with endurance athletes.  They tend to celebrate their accomplishments with friends and family which sometimes leads to overeating.  For instance, my watch estimated I burned over 1700 calories.  Therefore, I automatically thought I could quit watching what I ate that day.

What can I say, I’m human and we make mistakes.  The biggest mistake was not getting out of bed to do my two hour run and burning the carbs off.  Now I’m forced to do it today which is supposed to be my day off.

Finish line:  Setbacks will happen.  When training, you have to stick to your plan or else you’ll surely have more of them than you want to.