Working out hard and...

...gaining weight?? I don't get it. I know that I don't exactly exist on salads and egg white omelets, but come on. 18 miles on the bike Tuesday, 5 1/2 miles running yesterday morning then 1.5 hours of tennis in the evening, then 18 more miles on the bike today, and I'm still up 3 pounds from last week. It just doesn't seem possible. I guess the one thing I missed this week was my basketball game Tuesday night (stupid Steve Miller concert), but that shouldn't make this much difference. I'm working on the 4th straight week not making a new low. I'm running out of time to reach my 230's goal before the cruise! And a possible beach trip to NJ next week isn't going to help things.

At least I'm not eating any of these:

Can you believe KFC's Double Down (which has chicken patties for buns and bacon and cheese in the middle) has barely over 1/3 the calories of the Friendly's Grilled Cheese BurgerMelt?  So you could eat 3 of them!

Hmmm, what would Homer order?

How far would this set me back?

Hat tip to Mark Sparacino for this one.  1500 calories and 79 grams of fat might just be worth it!

Yes, you saw that correctly.  The sandwich, at Friendly's, uses two grilled cheeses as the bun!

(BTW, I just looked it up.  That would be 37 points on Weight Watchers!  More than a whole day's worth!)

Things I learned this week

1. When biking a long distance on a sunny day, a short shirt that rides up a bit above the waist when bent over pedaling will leave a nasty inch tall sunburn line.  Kind of like a red belt!

2. Even though I thought I had gotten better, I still stink at tennis.  (Thanks, Anil!)

3. Cycling does get easier.  Obviously it should, just like running, but it seems to be happening pretty quickly.  I've gone from 12 or 13 miles to a little over 20 in a couple weeks.

4. My problem isn't the working out, it's the EATING.  Does anyone know of a safe, effective appetite suppressant?  I took phenteramine for a few weeks once, and it worked great for a little while, but then the effectiveness wore off.

Looking ahead...

...because I don't want to look back and see more failure.  Yes, I was up a bit this week.  But I was working out really hard, and I'm getting more fit.  I think I've just been "carbing up" a bit too much lately. 

But looking ahead, I realize that I only have about 6 weeks till my one year anniversary.  [I wonder what I should get myself for my anniversary?  Candy?  Flowers?  Gym membership?]  Therefore, I need to set a one year goal.  I think the goal should be reaching the 230's at least.  But that doesn't seem like that much of a stretch from here (Ha, famous last words!), so maybe something harder?  220's?  Unrealistic, I'm afraid.  Let's split the difference and say 235.  That's more than 10 from where I am today, so that seems reasonable.

I also plan on making my official "year" weigh in on August 20th, since the next day we leave for a week long cruise.  The cruise ends only a week before my Sept 3rd anniversary date, so I think the safer course is to weigh in for the year before the cruise, even if that does mean fudging it a little. 

Peggy, I'm also going to enlist your help again since I'll need to do a one year update on the body fat percentage.  You'd hope that 60 or so pounds should make a big difference!

As a bookkeeping matter, I've decided to stop measuring my total weight loss from the 295 I was the first week and instead measure from the 301 that I got up to before I started the blog.  That's realistically how I think about it.  I didn't do it that way at first b/c I didn't want to confuse the matter, but now that I'm so far into it I'm going to make the switch.

Almost made it back

I was up .2 this week. Like most weeks, that was a major accomplishment. I was up a full 12 pounds as of Tuesday morning, so I've lost about 11.8 in the last 3 days. I know this reads like a broken record, but wouldn't it be great if I could just maintain over the weekend and then be down a bunch the following week? Oh wait, it happened a couple weeks ago and I had my biggest weekly loss since the first week! So that would work! Now to set about doing it this weekend. Last weekend was a little tough with the holiday and all, and I'll have Erin staying here this weekend to keep me honest.

50+ pounds!!

Well, today was a milestone day.  I was 243.2 after this morning's bike/run twofer, and the 6.6 that I was down was the most since my very first week of blogging, back in September.  It also put me down 51.4 pounds since the blog started, so I feel good about that, also.  I also realized the other day that I've been doing this for 10 MONTHS now, which I truly can't believe.  I guess that puts my monthly average at 5.14 pounds, which seems like a reasonable pace.  But it hasn't been a nice, smooth, regular 5.14 per month but a series of plateaus and then drops.  Someday if I have time I'll use Excel to plot a line graph which should look pretty interesting.

The reason I'm down so much this week is b/c I've been a working man.  I took some leave Mon-Weds and spent the time pulling weeds and trimming bushes/trees and putting down mulch in 100 degree weather.  And also eating well and exercising at night.  I did start to feel it on Tuesday at hoops when after two games I had absolutely nothing in the tank and had to sit.  Normally I'm the guy wanting to run full court to get a better workout, but I was spent.  Today I did a little tri practice by riding for 12 miles and then running.  Big E, I'm not sure I'll be ready for the 14.06 b/c I was dying today.  Let's see what another week brings.

I also took some updated pictures last week and this week.  I haven't updated the slide show yet, but I'm going to soon.  I'd like to see if I can tell a difference.