Some weeks are harder than others for losing weight. If I hadn't mentioned yet, I do my weekly progress weigh-ins on Sundays. Sunday is also my rest day and cheat meal days (after the weigh-in). In fact, I just had home made sushi for lunch. Dinner will be back to the routine.
I've also learned to taper off my exercise on Saturday, so I'm not retaining water excessively for the weekly progress weigh-in. Being retired, I try to avoid hitting the trails on the weekend anyway; too busy. So yesterday, I just did an hour of indoor kayaking on my kayak erg machine; I was recovering from a long, indoor bike ride I did Friday, more on that below. I have an older model kayakpro ergometer in the attic. Here's an ad photo i found.
Weirdly, I felt kind of hungry most of this week, and it felt hard to not overeat. I did do a ton of xc skiing the week before, so probably related to that. This past week, I tried eating salad for dinner more, but i think my home made dressings were way more caloric than I thought. I made a lentil soup Friday, and that fixed my hunger issues (more fiber?). I'll have to do some googling to try and figure out why that worked. Having a brothy indian/mexican lentil soup with cooked mushrooms and/or spinach for dinner seem to work better than salad for dinner, weird. Live and learn I guess.
on a postive though, my blood pressure has been consistently good, if it continues, I think I may just start checking once a week. Today was 104/68. Eating well and losing weight, i feel like I'm out of the danger zone, so I can check less often.
Last Sunday my weigh-in was 228.9, and I spent almost all week after that floating between 230.1-230.2, but i did have a 229.1 weigh-in today. Weird to be happy with gaining 0.2lbs. But it's way better than 1.2 lbs, and I've been way ahead of my 1lb/week plan this year. No biggee. I could stay put for 3 more weeks and still be ahead of my 1 lb/week plan. I did well this Winter, and I think as I get back to riding outside, the weight loss will resume again.
Friday I decided to do a mega (for me) 55 mile ride on my indoor Rouvy bike trainer. Technically it's my specialized sequoia gravel bike on a Saris H3 trainer, using Rouvy software. It was my longest indoor ride ever (4hrs 3 minutes). It goes against my ethos of not exercising the weight off, but so be it. The day before (thursday), I did a 1 hr and 50 minute ride that felt easy, so I decided to just go for it Friday. In the past, my butt couldn't take riding more than 90 minutes, but the new SQ labs saddle is comfy.
One thing I like when riding Rouvy indoors is when I see big climbs like the picture below coming up on the computer screen. I snapped this photo of the computer screen with my cellphone during the ride.
The Rouvy software uses my bike trainer to adjust how hard I have to pedal, so combined with the screen views, I can kind of pretend I'm riding outside. Rouvy also has you input your weight, so it adjusts how hard the hills are according to your weight too. On the hills, I shift the gears on my bike so it's on an easy low gear (low gears, aka granny gears), just like I would when riding outside.
Riding indoors, you have to setup some fans to stay cool. There's no breeze like you get when riding outside. I also have my trainer on a rocker plate, so I can rock the bike side to side as I pedal. I made the rocker plate myself, it also slides back and forth a little as I pedal. It dramatically reduces sitting discomfort. The forces making the rocker plate tilt side to side and/or slide back and forth are no longer going straight to my butt. As far as I'm concerned it's a must for indoor riding. See my rocker plate blog post, click here
Over the Winter, I've really liked the Maine Ironman Rouvy route of the ironman race course that was in Maine a few years ago. I've ridden it 3 or 4 times this Winter. I usually just do 1-1.5 hours or so per day, taking 3-4 days to finish it. Nice to know I could do it all in one go now.
Ridewithgps also has the route. Different software I subscribe to for navigating when riding out in the real world. It made doing the Erie Canal super, duper easy. Like an old gps gadget but made for bicycles; way better battery life than trying to use your cellphone to navigate. You might need an account to open the following link, I don't know. https://ridewithgps.com/routes/43721905
RidewithGPS makes it easy to download the navigation to my bike computer, so maybe I'll try biking it in the real world someday. Zero interest in triathlon racing again though. I do like swimming but not with people kicking me in the face or getting swum over by some clueless idiot. Looks cool on TV seeing a big mass of people swimming in a giant pack, but it sucks being in the middle of it.
Anyhoo, the super long indoor ride I did Friday likely helped me drop a pound for my weigh-in today. I did go slower than my normal workout pace. I coasted on the downhills a lot, and in general, I didn't try super hard. I wasn't attempting to race at all, just wanted to do the ride in one go. I did move the seat back a tiny bit, and titled the nose down, but my butt felt pretty good for the 4 hours on the bike trainer which is far less comfortable than riding a bike outside. Nothing rubbed raw, and nothing sore the next day. After the snow melts this Spring, I want to start doing longer rides and not waste good weather.
During the indoor ride, I texted Jacqui around 11am to ask if she'd bring me some of the lentil soup I made earlier that morning. She did! I asked for a food delivery around Noon of warm soup with a slice of buttered toast, and she delivered. I was a Happy Boy! I was eating a couple dates and half a Clif bar each hour too. I asked Jacqui to bring me lunch because I was worried if I paused the ride, Rouvy would automatically end the ride if I took too long, and I wanted to finish it all in one go. In theory you can pause up to 1hr and 59 minutes, but I've had the software glitch on me before, losing the entire ride! Could be the computer going into standby mode too, will check. I won't abuse Jacqui's food service though, so now that I've done it once, i'll risk getting food on my own next time. a 15-20 minute break would be nice tbh.
Btw, Lentil soup is PERFECT when riding. It's hydrating and has nearly all the nutrients (protein, fiber, carbs, vitamins, minerals) you need if you add a slice of bread or some rice. I personally like this recipe, it comes out more soupy than others I've tried, which is great for hydration, https://www.cookingclassy.com/mexican-lentil-soup/ I puree it a lot with an immersion blender. Be warned, it's usually enough for Jacqui and I to have soup once a day for a week. For dinner I often saute a large pan's worth of raw sliced mushrooms and heat up 2 ladles worth of soup in a separate small pot. Probably less calories than salad with too much dressing (which i think has been my weight loss struggle this past week)
No comments:
Post a Comment