Well, the Tour de France is over and my daily cycling addictions have now subsided … it’s back to my normal evening routine. No more staying up until midnight watching the race, reading tour blogs on the train, and peeking at Twitter feeds to see flat stage race progress. My evening is now wide open to relax a bit more and work on this dusty blog of mine. Just in time for the upcoming Healthy Living Summit.
Despite my two wheeled diversion I still managed to find time for workouts. I actually just finished up Week 7 of the Couch to 10k iPhone application from Felt Tip. It’s been a fun and well designed little application so far and it’s helped us to keep on track and following a controlled regiment for our race in the fall. The program is 13 weeks in duration with 3 days per week of running. It’s essentially an interval application that starts with 30 second running and 4 minute 30 seconds walking 7 times in week 1 and ends with you running for the entire duration of a 10k race when your done in week 13. We’re about to start running for 5 minutes and walking for 1 minute for about 70 minutes total in week 8, wish me luck.
Do you have supportive crabs?
In my random snippets of train time, when I wasn’t reading cycling blogs, I’ve been listening to a good health & fitness book on audiobook (more at a later date on which one) and they had a great analogy that really hit home with me the past few weeks.
Working out and getting healthy is a lot like crabs in a bucket.
People around you tell you what you can’t achieve, they often times tell you your wasting your time to try to lose weight or get healthy. They make fun of what your eating and are always making excuses as to why they can’t do it or better yet they want something for nothing. When you do succeed, they resent your success and don’t want you to get any further. They’re dragging you down like crabs in a bucket, each one pulling down anyone that manages to get above them.
What’s weird (and regrettable) is that often times the people closest to you pull you down and are the worst offenders of all … Poor choices are easier to justify when others around you are making the same poor choices.
Be responsible for all of your results, positive or negative, and realize that the choices of those around you influence your success so surround yourself with healthy positive people, not emotional vampires.
Do you accept responsibility for your positive or negative state? Are you responding to or excusing your current state?
I apologize for not getting my weigh-in posting out last week, I was primed and ready to write it and lazed out somehow. I guess I’m spending too much time at night cleaning the basement, dealing with floods, working out, and being darn tired … oh yea, and bike riding. My new excuse this week, and for the next few, at night is watching Tour de France.
Anyhow, on to the weigh-in … I’m going to do a summary up to last week, last week, and this week all in one swoop.
Previous Weight — 280.4 lbs (on 6/9)
Last Weeks Weight — 278.6 lbs
Current Weight — 276.8 lbs
Change In Weight — -3.6 lbs in 4 weeks
Not what I’d call inspirational but at least I’m down right? Progress, not perfection!
In order to own up to the last month and to see if I can’t improve on my losses, here are some things I’ve been doing differently that I think have led to poor losses this month and what I’m going to try to do to squelch them.
- Less Circuit Training — I’ve been running more, usually 3 days per week, and I’ve still tried to get weight training in for one day which leaves 2 days of workouts. For those I’ve either been cycling or doing the elliptical trainer at the gym. The fact of the matter is my body loves circuit training and I feel amazing when I do it. I’m going to get back to 2-3 days of circuits and 3 of running (till after the race) and double up on a circuit day doing traditional weight training. This isn’t so bad as I can do a quick 20 minute circuit routine after a heavier weight session. My rides are going to have to be seen as above and beyond more than replacing a workout.
- Bad Summer Food Choices — The heat and our laziness has led to far to many meals out. No, not every night or even close, it’s mostly just the weekend, but my body doesn’t react well to hardly any food from restaurants in their buttery high salt goodness. We need to squelch the multiple weekend meals out and stay on track. A free meal and maybe a healthy meal are about all I can handle before my body rebels.
- It’s Hot & Sticky — I’m just lazy at night in the heat and don’t want to cook. About all I can do here short of wearing a backpack air conditioner is get unlazy and push through it. We’ve been swimming a few times with the kids which has been fun and helps to cool off. The side effect of swimming though is a stop on the way home for some ice cream (part of those bad summer food choices) … hey, swimming and ice cream go hand in hand! I know … I know … less ice cream stops.
I’ll keep you posted in the coming weeks to see if I can pull these changes off. I think the food change is the largest contributor to my poor month to be honest. I haven’t been missing workouts, just changing the types of workouts I’ve been doing.
Goal Adjustment
As you may have noticed I missed my goal of 275 pounds by the end of June. I was 3.6 pounds from the goal. I knew it was going to be challenging but thought I could do it. I was certainly on track at the beginning of June but four weeks of poor performance will trip anyone up.
Due to missing this past goal and because it was so critical to my birthday goal (end of August) I’m going to need to tweak my next goals to make them actually attainable. Rather than shooting for 250 by 8/28 I’m going to shoot for 260 lbs. That’s still 16.8 lbs in the next 7.5 weeks which I think is quite challenging especially given the past four weeks and the fact that the summer is only going to get hotter.
I’m hoping for some big weeks but I don’t want my goals to be based on hope, I want them to be based on hard work and to actually be attainable.
What do you think, doable? Crazy? How are your summer goals going thus far?
Well, I’ve owned my new goal bike for three days now but I’ve only been able to ride it for only a few hours. I had actually planned at least three rides totaling like five hours but it was either pouring rain or we were busy. Such is living in Illinois in the spring when the weather is completely unpredictable.
Anyhow, I thought I’d share a nice laundry list of what I ended up with on this sweet bike.
- 2010 Lynskey Cooper Titanium Frame Size ML in Satin Finish
- Alpha Q Carbon Fork
- Cane Creek 110
- SRAM Force Front and Rear Dérailleurs
- SRAM Force Cranks (39 / 53 x 172.5)
- SRAM Force Brake Set (Front & Rear)
- SRAM Force Double Tap Levers
- SRAM Force Cassette (11 x 26)
- SRAM PC1070 Chain
- FSA Wing Pro 31.8 Handlebar
- FSA OS190 Stem
- Michelin Pro 3 Race Tires 700×23
- Mavic Ksyrium Elite Wheelset
- FSA SLK 31.6 x 350mm Seatpost
- Selle Italia SL Carbonio Flow Black Saddle
- Cinelli Cork Black Bar Tape
- Speedplay Zero Chromoly Pedals
- Sidi Dominator Mega Shoes
And here are a few quick pictures (aka bike porn) of the bike itself.
As you can see there’s quite a number of cool components to oogle over. For the short distance I’ve ridden it I can already say it’s amazing. My average speed is noticeably higher, I can stand and attack and not feel like my bottom bracket or frame is going to explode, and I feel like there is a crazy amount to learn and strive for with this bike. So far I couldn’t be happier and really think this is going to help my fitness greatly.
I had my first embarassing biking incident last evening. This is my first bike with clip in shoes so I’m a 100% novice at using them. They feel great while riding but I’ve only had to stop and clip out while riding a few times. Last night when I was coming home after a short ride I clipped out on my right foot and proceeded to tilt and fall left, hard onto my hip. I scuffed up my new seat, got freaked out that I broke my bike, bruised my ars and my ego as well as my neighbor was sitting there watching me.
Needless to say I’ll be clipping out both feet all the time upon arrival from now on.
Hello strangers! Sorry it’s been a while since I last wrote. Things have been very busy here on the home front. Trying to keep a balance with my new job, our c210k running schedule, normal workout schedule, summer playtime with the kids, bike researching, and everything else has been demanding. The only major damage that’s been done was to my blogging schedule, thus the lack of posts.
I’m happy to report, though a bit hesitantly, that I will have more time to post on the blog because my bike researching is complete. No, I’m not skipping buying a bike and nothing bad happened to me. I did however encounter a really really good deal on a road bike that was one of those right place right time kind of finds. I know it’s accelerating my goal gift a few months but my wife is on board and thinks it’ll help keep my workouts on track and keep me motivated this year. What do you think?
While I was researching my bike options including components, frames, saddles, proper bike fit etc. a bike showed up in the Lynskey Loft that was steeply discounted. The loft is where they place slightly used and new bikes discounted to clear their onsite bikes usually due to cancelations, bikes they used for photo shoots, or demos. Anyhow a new Lynskey Cooper with an SRAM Force build showed up with a steep enough discount that it fired off my early purchase alarm. The bike had only been used for photo shoots and had never been ridden plus it was a 2010 bike. To own a titanium bike now would be amazing!
Yes, as you’ve already guessed I pulled the trigger on the bike … actually it should be here some time tomorrow. I’ll post pictures when it arrives … it really is an amazing bike with amazing components. Now I just have to keep doing awesome over the next few months and I won’t feel guilty for pulling the trigger early.
I know you may be wondering how bike researching stopped me from blogging. First, you have to realize how detail oriented I am as well as how anal I am about researching all options for everything I do. Second my schedule for free time is fairly tight, I have several hours per night on a typical night but that includes time to workout and assumes that our kids go to bed without trouble. Something had to give and it wasn’t going to be my workouts, unfortunately it was my blogging.
Anyhow, enough explaining … I’m geeked about the bike and plan on seriously augmenting my workouts with some nice early morning rides every week. Details and ride information to be posted in the near future.
Weigh-In Update
It’s been a few weeks since I last weighed in due to some scheduling and laziness on my part. Combine that with bad Sunday food choices, like on fathers day, and I didn’t want to stress myself with a bad weigh-in. I instead wanted to focus on workouts, nailing our running schedule, and not falling off plan which I’ve done well.
I’m still planning on weighing in next week for my end of June goal of 275 pounds. I think I’m a bit off from the mark but I’m planning on kicking some butt between now and then.
How have you been doing? It’s been a while since we’ve talked.
I’ve been spending a bunch of my free time on the train and after the kids go down researching my goal gift, a new road bike. I’ve wanted a road bike for many years but I never could justify the investment given than I had a mountain bike already and seriously stressed that bike a lot. Now that I’m only about 30 pounds from my goal weight, I’ve lost 165+ pounds since buying that mountain bike, and said bike is over 10 years old I figured I can justify a new bike and that I’d better start researching my options.
I was pleasantly surprised when I started riding this season that not only was I able to go a long way, even on the first ride, but I was able to do it without a sore behind. Heck, I was even able to tackle the hills with some tenacity and came out wanting more. These are things that were much harder last year when I was 60+ pounds heavier. My bike also seemed to be less stressed this season with my lower weight and I was having a ton of fun.
Are You A Clydesdale or Athena?
I’m sure your asking … ummm, a what? Yea I was at first as well … most people dont take to kindly to being called a massive horse. Cycling is normally a sport of 140-160 pound riders on sub 17 pound bikes and a few of the high end bikes can’t even be ridden if your over 190 pounds. If you’re over that racer weight you’re kinda an outcast or in this whole new Cyldesdale category of cyclist.
A male is referred to as a Clydesdale and a female as an Athena (nicer than a horse I guess) and your in these categories if your over 200 pounds. I’m sure your thinking like I am, that’s most of America now days isn’t it? It seems like it to me at least but maybe I’m a bit jaded being in a community of people working on losing weight and getting healthy.
Carbon Fiber or Titanium
Given my special weight constraints while cycling I’ve been trying to research bike components and frames that can handle the stress I will put it under without folding the frame or requiring a lot of maintenance (aka $). I’m sure your thinking I can just drop into any local store and grab a bike and I’ll be just fine right? No, that’s not how I really roll nor would I recommend anyone do that.
I really like to have high quality components with solid craftsmanship and I’m going to be putting upwards of a 100 miles in a good week onto this bike. Try doing that with a Walmart special at any decent cadence or speed and come out alive. The difference in shifting, braking, accelerating, road shock, noise, or a million of other things is very noticeable with higher quality components. As the adage goes, you get what you pay for.
Right now I’m trying to narrow down the frame material. I’d like to graduate out of Aluminum (my current mountain bike) and into something stronger, stiffer, and lighter. I’m not at all concerned about the weight to be honest, the options just happen to be lighter and I should be the one losing the weight before the frame needs to. I’ve been looking closely at Carbon Fiber (CF) and Titanium (Ti) as options for the frame.
My biggest problem right now is weeding out the opinion from the reality when it comes to CF. I really love what the manufacturers are doing with CF, check out the frame on the Trek Madone 4.5 and the Look 566, a few of the CF bikes I’ve been checking out. Pretty sweet ahe? I’m just concerned about the things people claim about CF like:
- It’s fragile and cracks easily — Drop it on the ground or against something, sliding in a crash, hitting anything small and you can easily render the frame unsafe.
- It fails fast — When it does fail it fails catastrophically and very quickly at that. There are a lot of horror stories online about CF frames collapsing seemingly out of nowhere.
- It’s hard to get warranty claims fulfilled — Because of the fragile nature of CF number of manufactures seem to deny claims unless you do tons of fighting.
Some of these have merit and some not so much, it’s just hard figuring out the reality from the opinion. If you happen to know some details I’d love to hear from you.
I know people online tend to vent a lot but the mere presence of these stories cautions me. I’m not overly harsh on my bikes, actually the bike mechanic said he was impressed with how clean my bike and frame were given that they were 10 years old. Despite that though I have dropped it a few times and I’ve actually crashed trail riding at least 3 times. It’s hard for me to imagine that my expensive frame could be toast after a small crash or fall against a flagpole or something.
This is what’s led me to look at Titanium (Ti) as a frame material. I’ve specifically been looking at the Lynskey Cooper and Litespeed Xicon frames. They’re the only two frames remotely in my price range as Ti is pretty darn expensive. Fortunitly for me there’s a glut of Ti on the market and the economy is depressed thus manufacturers have responsed with cheaper frames.
It’s still very light (not as light as CF), extremely strong, and nearly impervious to scratching or other small damage especially if you go with the natural frame and not painted. The weakest point in a Ti frame actually is the weld which is much easier to inspect visually than every square inch of the frame like in CF. About the only things people can say bad about Ti is the price and the fact that the frames can’t be shaped as creatively as CF.
Bike Test Riding
I’m hoping to ride all of the bikes (or close cousins) before dropping the coin on one. I started this past weekend trying out a Lynskey R330 frame, it was the only Lynskey the LBS had but they could order me a Cooper. Unfortunately it was also tricked out with SRAM Red components, their top of the line group set. It can only get worse from here and while I was primarily interested in testing out the feel of the Ti frame it was nice to try out the SRAM shifting technology (more on that in a later post).
I was able to accelerate quickly on the Lynskey with little to no flex in the frame, very much the opposite of my aluminum mountain bike. The road noise wasn’t really noticeable or jarring but I wasn’t able to ride it very far either. It was certainly a completely different ride than my mountain bike, that’s for sure. I tried accelerating, stopping, fast turns, slow turns, hitting bumps on purpose, and some quick road obstacles and the frame was very stiff and responsive. Nothing in my limited skill set seemed to cause any concern while riding it.
I was mostly concerned about accelerating and how flexible the Bottom Bracket (BB) felt. Since it did so well I’m very excited to see if I can find an actual Lynskey Cooper or Litespeed Xicon to try out, easier said than done but I’m determined to find them as I have high hopes for these affordable Ti frames. I’m also planning on test riding the Trek Madone 4.5 or a low end 5 series as well as the Look 566. I’ll keep everyone posted when I do.
It’s that time of the week again and I’m coming into weigh in day ready to rock. We’ve been working on running for our 5.7 mile race, I’m pushing myself during circuit training, we ate really on track this weekend, and even though I’m fighting the end of a cold I still pushed through it. So here goes, jumping on the scale.
Previous Weight — 285.8 lbs
Current Weight — 280.4 lbs
Change In Weight — -5.4 lbs
That was way more than I expected. I was down a bit a few days after last weeks weigh-in but this is crazy. I have to admit I feel it this week, thinner that is. I’ve ventured into a new smaller bet loop but it’s not quite comfy yet. My pants and shirts that I just bought are all feeling big already and the other shirts I kept out of the box are downright ginormous on me.
I’m a bit more confident now in hitting this months goal weight of 275 pounds as that’s only 5.4 pounds away now. Last week it was a bit more insurmountable at 10.8 pounds. What a difference a week can make!
My goal for this new week is more of this last week, lots of focus and determination. It also helps a ton that my wife is firing on all cylinders now as well, two motivated people are always more powerful than one.
Do you have a significant other helping you along the way?
I used to be like most everyone out there when it came to eating right and working out. I made every excuse in the world to start tomorrow or in a few days.
It’s Friday, I’m going to start on Monday.
I can’t start today, I’ve already eaten bad, tomorrow I’ll do it.
I’ll start on the first, I’m to busy right now.
I’ve already eaten bad this weekend so what’s a few more days.
I just wanna relax, it’s been a crazy week.
I don’t want to waste this food I’ve already bought, once it’s gone I’m all in.
The list goes on an on. Every time I wanted to start I could think of a million reasons why waiting a bit longer just made more sense. Convincing ones self that tomorrow is “close enough” is much easier than realizing that today is yesterdays tomorrow.
Stop The Insanity
Get off the couch, put down the snickers bar, and just start changing your life. Stop making excuses or future broken promises and do your self a solid instead.
Start now, heck start yesterday! You know what you’ve eaten the past 24-48 hours. Write it down and start from there. Waiting till tomorrow will get you nowhere quickly, there’s always another tomorrow waiting to take it’s place.
I’ve dealt with being sick, having sick kids, hurt backs, sore muscles, bum ankles, a pregnant wife, holidays, vacations, and a host of other obstacles and yet I still stopped the insane tomorrow promises and decided to live in today. I still found time to workout and eat right.
Yea, you might have to watch less TV, there’s a shocker. You might even have to get up early (or stay up late) to do your workouts. The key is to just do it and keep doing it however it works for you. Get creative, get crazy, just get moving.
You can do the same thing I’m doing … if I can do it I’m certain that everyone who really want it can as well.
Life Happens, Get Over It
You will fail at something along the way, yes I said you will fail … deal with it. Just don’t be afraid of it and don’t expect it not to happen to you because it will and if you think otherwise you won’t be getting on track for a long while.
What you have to do instead is plan for it to happen. No, I’m not telling you to sabotage yourself and go buy a chocolate cake and I’m not giving you carte blanch to eat bad whenever you want. Instead I’m tell you to prepare for failure by resolving to not give up and to not let that failure cascade till it gets out of hand.
If you have a bad meal or miss a workout no biggie. Don’t stress on making it up by working out more or skipping meals, that just leads to a host of other problems. Instead, just don’t eat another bad meal and make sure you don’t miss your next workout. It’s a simple solution to a problem that can seem overwhelming and riddled with guilt.
The key is to get going and once your going don’t let life stop you from living. You can still enjoy a nice meal out, a BBQ with friends, an ice cream splurge here and there and all without guilt … just don’t make it every meal and know when to stop.
Life will throw you curveballs in the form of food and obstacles to working out. Your challenge is finding creative ways to roll with the punches and keep being that healthy new you and to NOT give up and restart tomorrow. You and I both know how easy those tomorrows become days, weeks, and years.
