That’s where the Kurt Kinetic Road Machine comes into play. On the recommendation of Simon, I sought out this wonderful device, and purchased it for winter use. Sure, I could go to more spinning classes (read: go back to spinning classes), but I find that I’d rather do more physical activity at home, listening to the music that I like, and not have to spend $20 per class, and also ride the TTC home afterwards being all sweaty and looking wiped out.

One thing though: my bike has off-road tires. They’ve come in handy over the few years I’ve had this bike, as I’ve never had to worry about sticking to the road when riding on the unbeaten path would be faster, yet the treads make a HELL of a racket on the Road Machine, so I decided to switch to the Tioga City Slicker tires I bought last April and never got around to putting them on.

And that is where the fun began.

In the entire time I’ve ever owned a bike, I’ve never had to change a tire. I count myself as lucky in this regard, yet it left me completely clueless as to what I had to do should I ever need to replace a flat tire. No idea where to start. I should have been able to figure it out, but didn’t feel up to some trial and error, and thankfully I had my Macbook nearby and found a video showing how to do it. Ahhhh, the power of the internet.

So, with all that out of the way, and the new City Slicker tire on the rear, and now connected to the Road Machine, I now have yet another exercise device in out apartment. Which I can ignore and procrastinate using. Money well spent.

I’ll tell you what happened. I got LAZY.

Over the last few months, I have been eating like crap, been lazing about and not doing much in the way of exercise (sure, the CN Tower climb and camping are something, but still), and this needs to change. I rode the bike to work today, and even the 5.4km ride that I used to be able to do in my sleep left me winded. This ain’t cool… especially with the Becel Heart&Stroke Ride for Heart coming up. I’ve been looking forward to doing this for years, and finally got around to signing up, so I refuse to let myself and others down by not being in shape to pull it off!

Beer, I love ya, and we have great times, but I need to reduce the amount of times we hang out. That goes for you too, Chinese food. I’m sorry to say that this also includes you pub food, and also you too, pizza. Don’t worry, we’ll all hang out again soon, but in moderation for sure. Too much of a good thing can be bad for you, and in my case, I’ve got the gut to prove it. Oh yeah, freezies and popsicles, you’re on that list too.

My question is this:

Why does almost everything that tastes good have to be so bad for you?

Frak.

Side Bridge

Lie on your side with your forearm on the floor under your shoulder to prop you up, and your feet stacked. Contract your core and press your forearm against the floor to raise your hips until your body is straight from ankles to shoulders. Hold for 15 to 45 seconds, then repeat on the other side. Contract your abs and butt muscles forcefully to keep your body straight.

Plank with Diagonal Arm Lift

Assume a modified pushup position with your feet shoulder-width apart, forearms on the floor. Keeping your torso steady, raise your right arm for-ward and to the right, so that it points to 2 o’clock. Hold for 2 seconds, then lower and repeat with your left arm, raising it to 10 o’clock. That’s one rep. Your elbows should be bent 90 degrees and directly under your shoulders.

Single-Leg Lowering

Lie on your back with your legs extended straight up. Keeping your legs straight, lower your left leg until your foot is 2 to 3 inches off the floor. Return to the starting position, then repeat with your right leg; that’s one repetition. Think about pushing the bottom of your heel away from your hip as you lower your leg. Don’t point your toes; keep your foot flexed toward you. Lead with your heel.

- source -

Personally, I find the “Plank with Diagonal Arm Lift” exercise to be the most difficult and most rewarding. Doing 10 reps at this point is pretty much good for me, but it’ll increase as time goes on, I’m sure.

Check out the rest of the exercises on their site. The “Swiss-Ball Knee Tuck” uses a Swiss ball, but I can’t have one of those as the cats will slash it, and the “Cable Kneeling Chop” uses a machine, which I don’t have access to. I haven’t gotten around to adding the “Glute-Bridge March” yet, but we’ll see; as it is right now, I’m usually pretty tired after going through my routine, and don’t really have a desire to hurt myself… too much. 

It’s been four and a half months, and since I started at 199.8lbs, through exercise and a change of my eating habits, I’ve managed to lose 30lbs. I recently picked up two of my 15lb weights to see what that felt like… and wow. That much less for my poor ankles to support.  

This is the first time I’ve hit 169lbs, so I’m sure to go up, but just looking at my graph is inspiration enough to keep this going. Just as the 189-180lbs range became common for me, and recently the 179-170lbs range as well, I hope that I’ll be able to keep things within the 169-160lbs range. If I go below 160lbs, I’m sure I’ll look like a toothpick, so I think I’ll stop the weight loss at that point and start building on top of it.

Thanks again for all your kind comments, encouragement, and support. Couldn’t have done this without you, my friends.

But then I decided to look up what my healthy weight should be based on my height. I am 5′7″, and while there really isn’t a “normal” that I should go for, most sites provided the same average weight range. This was one of the better charts:

So, according to the above, with a medium to large frame (hey, I have broad shoulders!), I should be weighing a maximum of 168lbs. Going further, and finding the actual number, I’d take the highest number of the two ranges, add them together, and divide by two:

154lbs + 168lbs = 322lbs ÷ 2 = 161lbs

Looking at that number, I recalled that I used to weigh around 160lbs when I worked at Interlog. Back then, I was younger, and got a LOT of cardio due to the fact that I used to… uh… “rave”. Can’t do that anymore, but getting back down to that weight is my new goal. 161lbs is close to 160lbs, so why not round that down?

…and so I have. I’m approaching 170lbs, and so I figured I’d stick with it. We’ll see how long this takes.

I pretty much chalk this up to the 17.7km bike ride I made after work all the way up to Don Mills to install a new drive in my server. I’d never ridden that far before, and considering as how I’d like to do it again to save some cash I’d normally spend on the TTC… oh, and considering how I’d like to get more exercise… I wanted to see if I could do it. Going up Mt. Pleasant was a bitch, as it is just one long sustained hill. I guess that’s why it is a “Mt.”. The rest of the ride was pretty smooth going, and I especially enjoyed the HUGE hill doing down Eglinton towards Leslie. I took the bike path through Wilket Creek Park (which sadly has run to ruin in some places due to river overflow), and rode up to the exit near Overland and Leslie. As a kid, I recalled my Father riding up this steep incline while my brother and I had to walk our bikes up, so I was determined to do this. While steeper than the hill at the foot of High Park, it turned out to be not that bad at all. However, had I tried that a few months ago, I surely wouldn’t have made it.  

Getting the drive installed took longer than expected, as I wanted to make sure everything worked properly, and by the time I left, it was pretty dark out. I had stopped off at Canadian Tire to pick up head and tail lights for my bike, and had installed them at the house, but as I was leaving, the headlight went out. The packaging said that the headlight took four AAA batteries, but I could see inside the thing that clearly that was a typo, and they meant four AA batteries. The AAA batteries rattled around inside the headlight, and even the slightest bump would knock them out of place. I rode carefully towards Yonge on Lawrence, as I could see some pretty crazy potholes, and endured the long incline between Bayview and Mt. Pleasant along Lawrence. Once at Yonge, I went North a bit and bought four AA batteries at the Dominion there. Unfortunately, they didn’t help at all, as the headlight refused to even turn on; while banging it trying to get it to work, I must’ve broken it. Piece of shit. At least the tail light worked properly, but I didn’t feel safe riding my bike home without a headlight, so I took the subway and met up with Molly on our way home.

All in all, a very good bike ride, and I think I’ll do that again sometime in the near future. It was a lot of fun, more than I expected, so I guess it’s time to check out some of the bike paths throughout Toronto!

http://www.evanroberts.com/2008/07/02/185

Part of my fatigue is due to the Quad session, and how I started to be a smartass. For one of the songs, for each “tap up” of a quarter turn of resistance that Quentin told I to do, I instead did a half turn. Near the end of the song, I was dying, and it required me to put my weight into peddling, and I just couldn’t get them to rotate. I was counting on Quentin to tell us to take all the resistance off at the end of the song, but that didn’t happen. As soon as he said “Don’t touch that dial!”, I groaned inwardly.

There was NO WAY I could continue at that resistance level and continue to add more during the next song, so I will fully admit, here and now, that I took a full turn of resistance off. I’m not ashamed to admit it. It was too much, and I didn’t want to hurt myself. In the end, it didn’t matter, as we were already back at that resistance level half way through the song, but it could have been MUCH worse.

Anyway, can’t wait to see what my weight is tomorrow. I think I’ve up’ed the bar a little.

Riding the bike to work has become a routine thing, and spinning classes are quite frequent. Ultimate Frisbee was a write off after twisting my ankle, and we’re going to hold off on the sport until the Fall; I’m not a fan of the heat and humidity of the summers here in Toronto, and the one year we played during the summer was damn near torture. I’ll make up for the lack of Ultimate with more biking and extra working out, which is also starting to become a routine thing. Sticking with the healthy foods is second nature now, as I allow the odd “cheat night”, which you need to have otherwise you risk insanity.

All in all, I’m quite happy with the fact that I finally got below 180, and while I’ve gone up and down over the course of the month, I’ve hit 179lbs or lower a bunch of times. Now the trick is to ensure that I STAY below 179lbs, and hit my goal of 170lbs in the next month. It’ll be tricky, especially since I’m adding muscle as I lose weight, but I’m sure I’ll be able to find the balance.

As per usual, thanks for all your kind words and support. I can’t believe that its been three months already Goodness.

I think not.

Being my first upper body workout in quite some time, my muscles were more than likely screaming “WTF!?!?”, followed by threats of “YOU SHALL PAY TOMORROW!!!”. As expected, they came through with their threats. But, this shall not deter me. For far too long I have not worked out when I had the chance, and then hated myself for it. Even last year, I set a goal with myself that I would weigh a certain weight by last August, or I would buy Windows Vista. As it turned out, I found a loophole in my goal, as Windows Vista was included with the Dell I bought at the time.

I ended up looking for a way to cheat myself out of my goal.

That’s sad.

Not any more. The pain, while… uh… painful… is a surprising motivation to continue. Eating right, I’m doing that. Riding the bike, love it. Going to Spinning classes, hell yeah. Playing Ultimate Frisbee, as soon as my ankle is no longer an issue. What’s missing? Good old fashioned working out. Time to bring that back into the mix. The only thing that is a pain in the ass is knowing what the exercises I’m performing are called, so I can then note them down. But, that’s a small bump in the road.

They say “No pain, no gain”. Well, I’m feeling the pain right now. Let’s continue so I can see some gain.

Two and a half months of eating right (for the most part), being more active (biking, Ultimate, Spinning, etc), and drinking less. 20 pounds. I picked up one of the 20 pound weights I have, and was somewhat taken aback… this is what I am no longer carrying? Good lord.

So, as my target weight was 175 pounds, and I am almost there, I started thinking: If 20, why not 30…? I’m not starving myself; I’m working hard, and eating right (again, for the most part), so 170 pounds shouldn’t be too hard to achieve. As such, I have updated my target weight: 170 pounds. Hopefully, the extra 10 pounds is all contained within my gut.

If I can do all this in two and a half months, I’m sure I can do a bit more before the summer is over. I’m not at the point where I am considering signing up for a year membership with Quad just yet, but once it gets too cold to ride my bike to and from work, I’ll seriously think about it. I’m really liking the extra energy I have these days, and also liking the fact that I’m not as chubby in the face!!

I wonder how long it’ll take to hit 170…