Oops...

The results of my annual blood work came in for my annual physical.

It looks like I screwed up over the last year and my cholesterol is a little higher than it should be.

Apparently the LDL is supposed to be 2.0 or less. Mine was 2.09.

I've been given a few months to get it back down through exercise and diet changes before my doctor is ready to up my med dosage.

I've already got the exercise covered, but I've put on about 10-15lbs since last year, and I haven't been too careful about what I eat. So I'm going back to calorie counting.

I'm pretty confident I can get it back under control before November when I got back for more blood work. This little wake-up is the incentive kick I needed. :)

One week done

I have now completed one week of the Nike+ Kinect Training. I don't recall the YSFE (Your Shape Fitness Evolved) being this tough at the start. I guess my age could have something to do with it. :)

But, it is getting easier the more I do so I have to keep at it.

My shoulder is really bothering me more often than I thought it would. There are some floor routines, like Burpees, Mountain Climbers and The Plank or Plank to Push-up (or whatever the hell they're called) that are killers. I hope they get easier and aren't making my shoulder worse.

Today I decided to squeeze in an extra workout and discovered how to skip a set. It was plank to push-up and my left arm could not go beyond 8 reps to the required 10. I've always been weak with my left arm and push-ups, so having a weakened shoulder definitely didn't help the situation. Hopefully it improves over time.

The biggest difference I've found with the Nike game compared to YSFE is the affect on my abs. I never felt it this much in my abs before. They hurt, but it's a good hurt. No doubt the floor exercises play a big part in that.

So far there hasn't been any real weight loss difference. It fluctuates 5lbs both ways all the time, and that's all I'm seeing right now. Once it goes down more often than it goes up, I'll know it's making a difference. At least I feel good that I'm doing something. I hate how being inactive makes me feel like shit.

GOOOOOOOOOALLLLLL!

Almost 50 weeks and 58lbs later, I finally beat my weight loss goal this morning. At 209.2lbs, I am the same weight that I was in the mid-80s. That equates to 5" off my chest, 3½" off my hips, 2" off my neck and 7½" off my waist.

I've been battling weight issues for most of my life and this is another victory for me. :) But it didn't come without some help. I owe thanks to...

• Xbox 360 & Kinect for getting me motivated. It put fun into exercise. Seriously.
• Ubisoft's Your Shape Fitness Evolved game (despite bugs that still aren't fixed... hint hint)
• LiveStrong.com for helping me track calorie intake. Being more aware of what goes into me was important.
• My tape measure. When the pounds stopped dropping, seeing the inches continue to come off helped keep me going.
• My addiction to cycling this past summer. What else can I say? It's fun.
• My brain for not letting me stray too far. Too many plateaus to mention, but I knew this day would eventually arrive.
• My T-shirt hording tendency. Nothing motivates you more than seeing a "One day it's gonna fit me!" T-shirt finally fit.
• Successfully beating nicotine addiction almost 3 years ago. I knew if I could beat that addiction, I could lose weight.
• My family and friends for the support. Even when they told me to stop because "You don't need to lose anyone." :)

Part of me would still like to make it to 200lbs, as I had originally planned, so I'm still going to try and continue with my current progress. However, I won't be as concerned about small fluctuations with my weight.

 

Cycling season is over... sorta

The last time I cycled outside was a week ago. The weather took a turn for the worse after that. On the weekend I decided it was time to bring my bike inside and mount it onto the trainer so I could continue cycling inside.

My first indoor ride was on Saturday morning. I hooked up an old CCM odometer so I could track the distance, speed, and time. After ~3 hours of cycling I rode just over 72kms. I didn't intend to ride for that long, but I was watching TV at the same time and a movie grabbed my attention. :) (Spy Game, in case you're wondering)

I've ridden twice since for about an hour each time and I think that's what I'll stick with.

Cycling indoors is boring, unless you're watching TV at the same time, but the trainer can be a little loud so I have to set the TV volume louder so I can hear it. I've been wearing my iPod Nano and listening to fast-paced tunes to set my pace and it's working out pretty good.

I've discovered that when riding on the trainer my average speed is about 5kmh higher and I can "travel" farther distances in the same time. The downside is that there is absolutely no coasting. ;)

I also sweat like crazy without any wind resistance. It's unreal. It obviously shows that I'm getting a good workout, but I swear I could stay dryer if I jumped in a pool.

An hour riding each day is about 25-30kms. Over the course of a month, there's no way I'll get close to what I achieved while riding outside, but I'm fine with that. I getting really close to my weight goal so I don't need to work out to the same extent that I was over the summer.

I'm really hoping to reach that goal by the end of the week. I was close last week but then cut myself a little too much slack over the weekend. :)

Mr. Baggy Pants

Last night Sandra and I went through our closet — or rather Sandra went through the closet — and picked out stuff that I haven't worn in ages because it was either worn out or too big, or both. There were old jeans, hoodies, and track pants.

A couple of the pairs of jeans were really old. Size 42" waist old. I haven't been that size in 6 or 7 years. I kept them because I would wear track pants underneath them to go snow shoeing.

I decided to try them on for fun and I got Kyle to take a couple of photos.

It's hard to believe that I was once this size. Of course, having my arms in the waist make them appear much larger than they are.

When I started my recent weight loss, my jeans were a size 38" waist. They still are, but my new jeans fit me differently than the old 38s. Having said that, I may be able to wear a 36" soon.

It's strange how some things work

My recent plateau was frustrating and I had pretty much accepted that I may not get past it. I'm was actually pretty happy with the progress I made and my weight doesn't really bother me now.

This morning I weighed myself and saw that I had pushed past it, despite not being too careful about what I ate this week.

The scale read 221.6 lbs.

This means that I have now lost 45.4 lbs in total, again making it the lowest weight that I can recall in over 30 years.

I'm pretty sure my dental issue that forced me to eat less for a couple of days played a part in it. I've read that sometimes your body needs a bit of a "shock" to get past a plateau. Rather than limiting yourself to a set amount of calories per day, vary it once in a while. Exceed your calorie limit for a day or two, and then eat less than the limit for a day or two so that the average works out to what your limit is. That could very well be what happened.

Either way, I'm pleased with it.

WTF? No progress?

It would appear that I slipped, again, and didn't post an update on my fitness progress last weekend.

It's not intentional. I think I'm just too distracted with other stuff, like cycling mostly.

Maybe there's no point in posting a weekly progress anymore?  My weight loss has more or less come to a halt, despite my continued attempts and workouts. I still monitor my calorie intake, and it's mostly well under what it should be after deducting my workouts. I still weigh myself often and log my weight weekly.

I am extremely happy with my weight right now and plan to at least keep it where I'm at, which is somewhere between 225 and 229 lbs right now.

I'm going to continue to try and reach my goal of 200 lbs, but these final 25-30 lbs don't seem to want to come off without a fight. I have a feeling it's going to be a very slow process.

So, no more weekly updates. If I do happen to make some progress one week, I'll no doubt post something.

As mentioned, cycling is taking up a lot of my time. I cycle to work often. I cycle on the weekends often. I've even managed to get my wife to cycle with me on the weekend. We've been down to the By Ward Market to buy veggies and fruits on two Sundays in a row so far. The pace is slower than I usually ride, but it's still a lot of fun.

I challenged myself on Saturday. After my wife and I rode out to Petrie Island, I still wanted to continue to ride. So, I decided to see if I could make it to Pink Lake in Gatineau Park.

I made it, but not without some difficulty. The difficulty was following the marked trail, which ended up taking me deep into the woods around Pink Lake on unpaved and extremely rough, and weather-worn, paths. I ended up walking about 3 kms because the path was un-ridable on my bike.

Riding down from the lake was a blast. I managed to exceed 55 kph just coasting. Too much fun. :) The total ride was just over 50 kms. If I include the morning ride to Petrie Island, I rode over 80 kms in total on Saturday.

My next goal is to make it Meech Lake. That's about 36 kms, one way.

Speed bumps (again) — Week 32 progress

I was head out for a weekend of camping on Friday, and obviously that meant being gone for the weekend so I couldn't really post an update.

But I did weight myself on Friday morning... and I was up a few pounds. Not sure why. Well... yeh, I guess I do know why. I tend to indulge a little more when I work out more. In part because I'm not hungry, but I also feel like I somehow deserve a little more because of the extra effort put forth. So basically, I lose out on any of the benefits of the extra work out.

So that's that.

The cycling has definitely increased. If the weather is nice, I ride to work and home again. That's anywhere between 37 and 40 kms per day. Awesome.

I didn't get a chance to ride my new bike until Sunday afternoon, after we returned from a (wet) weekend of camping. It's awesome. I love it. I'm still tweaking the handlebar height and seat height. It feels better all the time. My average speed on the new bike has increase 2-3 kph.

Even though I'm off work this week, I rode it to work to drop something off. Later in the afternoon I took it out again for a ride downtown to the Rideau Canal Locks. I shot this with my GPSr's built-in camera, so the quality kinda sucks.

I also started keeping a log of my cycling. I had to dig back a few weeks on what I entered for fitness @ Livestrong.com. So far, since I started riding in the spring, I've travelled 541.5 kms. :)

 

Accelerating — Week 31 progress & other stuff

My weigh-in on Thursday was 225 lbs, but Friday was about 225½ lbs. My Birthday was on on Thursday, so I over indulged a little. :)

That was a 5 lbs loss for less than a week. That's the most I've ever lost in a single week. The cycling to work and home no doubt made the difference. I did it three days last week and I plan on doing it again this week if the weather cooperates.

Last week my bike started making a weird grinding sound when I was pedalling, but only when I started pedalling — putting more force on the pedals. I figured it was either coming from the crankset or the rear axel. Perhaps a broken bearing? I made an unsuccessful attempt to disassemble the crankset yesterday, but I gave it another go this afternoon and was successful. The bearings were fine. I cleaned it all out, greased it up and reassembled it. Unfortunately, the gridinging continued when I took it for a test ride.

I then decided that it had to be the rear axel. I took it apart, cleaned it, greased it, and reassembled it. One of the bearing casings was inside the hyperglide and I couldn't remove it. I hoped that poking enough grease into it would suffice.

I took my bike for another test ride and the grinding continued.

I was stumped.

Knowing that it wasn't the crankset or the rear axel, I felt confident enough that I could at least continue to ride my bike without too much fear of someting going wrong. I put away all my tools and decided to take it out for a longer test ride.

About 20 minutes into the ride, the grinding stopped. I decided to continue riding. In fact, I rode just over 46 kms. 2 hrs and 20 minutes later I was back home and my bike was still silent.

I don't know what the problem was, but it seems to be gone, at least for now.

I am long overdue for a new bike, but I'm having difficulty finding a 22" XL frame. A 21" frame may do, if the seat post can go high enough, but I have yet to find one that feels right. I'd really like a bike with front shocks, since my current ride has no shocks. My bike is about 18 years old. :)

Here's my dusty ride after this afternoon's outing.

BTW... the geek in me did in fact record the ride to work one day last week, but it's a pretty shaky video. I'm not sure if I'll post it or not.

Bumpy — Week 29 and 30 progress

I didn't post an update on my weight loss progress last week. It was a good one too.

That makes this Week 29 and 30 progress. :)

Last week I weight in at 229.2 lbs. My new lowest-to-date.

This week wasn't so good. I gained a little back, putting me at 230 lbs.

That's what happens when I skip a few workouts.

Cycling to work

Postponed

I had planned... hoped... that maybe, I could cycle to work tomorrow.

Those plans are on hold, for at least a day or two.

First of all, my newly chosen route needs to be re-evaluated. It seems I had picked every damned "Closed for construction" road between home and work. So, yeh, I need to look at that again.

That alone wouldn't necessarily stop me, but upon arriving home after cycling 42kms, I was greeted by a whole bunch of my neighbours standing around a massive puddle at the bottom of our parking lot. They then decided to start cheering me on, to ride through this massive puddle. A water main broke and the water was seeping up through the cracks in the pavement.

How could I say no? :) The water must have been about 5 or 6 inches deep.

Luckily a sink hole hadn't started. After the water main was shut off, and the water drained, all that was left was sandy mud. Despite warnings, a few cars actually drove over the area.

It's 9:45pm and they're just starting to dig to repair it. With the possibility of still not having water tomorrow after work, I'm not going to chance coming home all sweaty and gross.

Things I learned

I learned a few things during my ride today

Ogilvie Road between Montreal Road and Jasmine Crescent is an absolute nightmare to cycle on. I'd even go as far as to say it's dangerous. That stretch of Ogilvie Road is pretty bad for cars, and the edge of the road where cycling happens is probably worse.

Since Laurier was blocked off for running races today, I had to divert to taking the Mackenzie King Bridge over the the Rideau Canal. The first thing i learned is that it has a bicycle lane, on the inside lane. This is awesome. I then learned that Albert and Slater are probably better streets to ride on than Laurier. Since they are both 1-way streets, the bike lane is also on the left side of the street, away from heavier traffic like buses. More awesomeness.

Most drivers in Ottawa aren't assholes and they actually give you space to cycle at the side of the road. Some even change lanes. I had to dodge a lot of potholes and large puddles, and most people left plenty of room for me to do that. BIG thanks to everyone who does that for cyclists.

As for those who insist on practically clipping your elbow with their side mirror... fuck you.

 

The roller coaster ride continues — Week 28 progress

Since January, and interesting weight pattern has developed. It's like a roller coaster ride. Three weeks of loss, followed by one or two of increase, then loss, then increase.

This is my weight chart, captured from my LiveStrong.com page.

I'm not sure why it's happening. Is my body going through some kind of cycle on its own?  Or am I slacking off on my calorie counting every 3 or 4 weeks, and following up with an increased workout?

There are no charting abilities for calorie intake on LiveStrong.com, but I was able to export the data and create a half-assed chart to see if there was a similiar trend on my calorie intake. It does go up and down, but it doesn't mach the weight trend pattern.

Soooo... as you can see on that chart, my weight for this past Friday was indeed up. I guess (I hope) I can expect the next three weeks will be losses, which means I will finally break the 230 lb mark!

The weather this weekend has been pretty shitty, so I haven't been out cycling and it's not looking like I will today.

I have a new mini-goal for this week. That goal is to cycle to work at least one day. If the weather cooperates — and it looks like it will, based on the forecast — that day will be tomorrow. If all goes well, I may do it more than one day. I'd really like to see what kind of impact it'll have on my weight loss.

Better late than never — Week 27 progress

I'm late for posting my weight loss progress.

No big strides this last week. I was down about ½ a pound on Friday's weigh-in. I'm anxiously waiting for the day I get below the 230 lb mark. After this past weekend of... somewhat uncontrolled summer indulgence, that may be another week or two away. :)

 

Lowest to date — Week 26 progress

Friday's weigh-in: 231lbs.

My lowest to date, in over 25 years.

I went a little overboard this weekend though, so I expect a rough catch up week. My daughter had a Birthday party and it was also my wedding anniversary, so I did indulge in lots of good food.  I tried to make up for it today by going for a long bike ride. Hopefully it made a difference.

 

I'll fit in this one day...

I love T-shirts. I love free promo T-shirts. Give me a free promo T-shirt and I'll wear it. Guaranteed. (within reason, of course...)

What I've always hated is that more often than not that free promo T-shirt is either an XL or an L size. Being an XXL free promo T-shirt lover sucks.

In many cases — if I really liked the T-shirt — I'd tuck it away in my drawer for "I'll fit in this one day..."

That day has finally arrived.

This morning, while looking for something to wear, I came across a few of those T-shirts. I picked one out and tried it on.

It fit! It's not tight or even snug, it's a comfortable fit! I think it's an XL. I don't want to take it off to check for fear that I'll wake up from a dream. :)  But I can say that this particular one never fit me and I've had it for about 2 years.

I was half-tempted to try some others on, but I decided to wait and leave them for another day so I can be just as surprised.

It's little things like this that keep me motivated to continue my weight loss. I've got about 30lbs still to go. My friends and family tell me that I'll be too skinny at 200 lbs. I can't rememeber if I looked too skinny when I was that weight in my late teens/early 20s (I was the same height).  All I remember is that I've been self-concious about my weight nearly all my life, except for a short time when I was in the military and lost most of it, and I've never been told I was too skinny.

My doc says I should be 190 lbs. 200 lbs is the goal, but I'm pretty sure that I'll be happy at 210 lbs, but I won't know for sure until I get there.

I can't believe that I'm actually half-way to the goal. Go me go. :)

Back on track... deja vue — Week 25 progress

I'm back on it and made more headway. I credit two salad lunches and a ~30 km bike ride on Sunday. I'm down to 233.2 lbs — my lowest recorded weight to date in the last 25 years. :)

We bought our son a new bicycle on Sunday and after I topped up the tires with air and adjusted his seat, I decided to do a little maintenance on my own bike. Of course, I then had to take it out for a spin. I didn't plan on out for more than an hour, max, but as I rode I kept wanting to go further. I ended up at Petrie Island about 15kms away. I was happy to see that almost the entire bike path is now paved too. The last time I rode there two years ago it was all gravel. My weight loss and overall fitness improvements are definitely paying off; I wasn't early as tired after the ride like I usually am after the first long ride of the year. I'm tempted to work my way up to another ride out to Rockland like I did about 5 years ago.

I'm looking forward to the weekend and more riding, and getting my family into it as well. I doubt they'll want to ride all the way to Petrie Island though. :)

Another fail week — Week 24 progress

Failed the weigh-in this morning by a pound and a half. They seem to happen on a regular basis, followed by a catch-up loss. When I see the graph of my loss, it's like a roller coaster ride. As long as it continues to go down overall, I don't think there's any reason to be concerned. So I'm not. :)

 

Another good week — Week 23 progress

I weighed myself on Thursday morning and was 233½ lbs or something like that. It basically put me at half way to my goal. However, as of this morning I was officially 235 (I think). I indulged a little too much in free chocolate at work. :) Still good progress for this week. The new calorie limit is working out well. As LiveStrong.com adjusts it based on my weight, I'm allowed a hair under 1600 per day now.

With the new limit, I'm finding more and more that I need to work out somedays if I'm going to be able to eat anything decent for supper. It's not like I'm going overboard for breakfast or lunch either. They workout to 400-500 calories each. That doesn't leave a lot for supper, although it should. I just happen to like a little more sometimes at supper, or have a beer to go along with it.

That's the price I gotta pay and I'm more than willing to.

 

Nearly half way — Week 22 progress

I'm down 30.6 lbs in total as of this morning. It might actually be a pound or so more, but I forget my exact weight from this morning, so I erred on the side of caution and went a little higher.

I had a little help with the weight loss this week, as I had to fast all Wednesday in prep for a... uhh... medical examination on Thursday. Not a pleasant experience, but at least I reaped some benefit from it. :) I weighed myself on Wednesday morning before fasting and I was already down a couple of pounds. Nuff said.

I calculated that I have lost 1.3 lbs per week since I started this. It's not the 2 lbs per week that I had hoped to lose, but I think that' s probably a healthier rate in the end. At this rate, it'll take another 27 weeks to reach my goal, which brings me to around mid-October. That's a little disappointing considering I had hoped to hit my goal by mid-June, but again, probably healthier in the long run.

Having said that, I'm feeling really positive about the progress. I can't remember the last time I was this weight.

Success — Week 21 progress

It was close.

I was a little worried yesterday morning when I stepped on the scale and didn't see the kind of progress that I was hoping for. But this morning, seeing 239 blinking back at me made me was a great way to start the day. :)

239 is now my lowest official weigh-in so far. I had been a pound or two lower a few weeks ago, during a mid-week check, but by the time the Friday came around I had put it back on.

Onward and... uhh... downward!