Tag: bike rides

My Weight Loss Journey – Week 2

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Diet, Exercise, Health, Products I Like, WeightLeave a comment

On January 5th, 2013, I was looking through the Google Play app store on my Android phone for an app to help me lose weight.  I had downloaded a few apps that would help record my walking and bike rides with GPS and would tell me everything my bicycle computer tells me and more, but they didn’t help me record my eating habits or tell me what to eat.  The front page of the app store had a featured app called Noom Coach.  I downloaded it and checked it out and it was way more than I was expecting in an app.  I had the free version with limitations and after only a few days decided that I had to purchase the pro version.  Yes, I was that confident in this app after only a few days.

I am only in my 2nd week with this app and I have already lost 8.4lbs.  I only expected to lose 2lbs a week, so this is quite surprising that I have lost more than double my goal each week.  Then again the first week or two are the easiest, I won’t count my chickens until the 3rd or 4th week.

week 2-1week 2-2

I am over 100lbs overweight and my goal is to just get down to 200lbs which means losing 63lbs.  I have tried to set goals to lose all of the weight before and becoming disappointed when it failed because my goal was set too high.  I have been told to set smaller goals because you reach smaller goals faster.  When the small goal is finished, then I can set another small goal.  Although, setting my goal for more than half of what I need to lose is not quite a small goal, I think that I can reach it because this app is motivating me to.  If it doesn’t then I will adjust my goal to make it easier.

We haven’t been exercising as much as we should.  I could give 2 excuses as to why, but what’s the point?  I mean, I hate to make excuses for why I can’t do something because excuses are why I fail.  These are good ones though.  It’s cold outside and we both have bad backs and it hurts to walk.  There, I said it.  The cold part is a BS excuse, but the back pain is legitimate.  With that said, we have been walking 2 or 3 days a week for maybe 1 mile or more each time.

Arctic Cooling P311 Bluetooth Sports Headset I have way more weight to lose than my partner does.  I was at 263lbs and he was around 200, so I have to do double the work which is why I bought myself a new pair of Arctic Cooling P311 Bluetooth Headset for Sports from Amazon for my HTC One V android phone so that I can ride my bicycle when it starts to get warm outside.  I can keep my phone in my camelbak which will have the Noom app recording my exercise while letting me listen to my music, and the bluetooth will allow me to accept phone calls at the push of a button on the headphones.  Although I’m not sure if it will accept the call automatically or if I have to push the button, I will find out soon enough.  I thought I read in a review that it automatically shuts off the music when a call comes in and resumes when you hang up.

The headphones that I bought aren’t the best, I mean, they didn’t get the best reviews, but they were $30 which is way more than I could afford.  The headphones that are in the $60’s-$100’s range are the best, so I am getting what I paid for.  I saw in one video review that the mic sucks for taking calls while you are on your bike or walking, but are amazing indoors.  I don’t really have much of a choice in the matter, so it’s the best I can do with what money I have available to me.  But it has been my experience that people who do reviews are spoiled with the more expensive products they test, so to them it might be a horrible pair of headphones, but perhaps it will be fine for me.  I can say that because my phone got horrible reviews and it’s way better than they gave it credit for.

Cycling seems to be the best exercise for me because I am sitting which doesn’t hurt my back.  Walking is fine if I walk 1 or 2 miles, but I can ride 23 miles a day on my bicycle which means I can burn more than a quarter of my days meals on the bicycle which will help me lose more weight and will get me to my goal faster.  Not that I want or need to rush anything, but it will help.  It’s too cold now, so I will get to it when it starts warming up in the Spring.  I bought the headphones now so that I could afford to fix my bike next month.  I can’t afford to do both in the same month.  I would also like to buy some bicycle shorts and a bicycle shirt to make riding more comfortable.

I am finally eating healthy and enjoying it.  We have been buying the Weight Watchers frozen dinners at Food Maxx for $1.88 each with a $2 coupon for 10, so we’re saving money on that.  We’re also eating more fruits and vegetables than before, which is a very good thing.  I don’t drink soda (diet or otherwise) very often, so that’s not an issue.  The fruit seems to satisfy my sweet tooth, for now.  I have been looking up recipes for cookies that use bananas and apples so that I can make a very low calorie sweet treat without compromising our diet.  I found a good banana oatmeal cookie recipe that uses applesauce in place of sugar, they even tell you how to make it with real apples.  I think I might try to make those today for our late night snack.  I also bought some bottles of Slim Fast specifically for when we have a chocolate craving, but I have a feeling those won’t last the week.

I know that 8.4lbs isn’t a lot to be blogging about so soon, but it’s a good start and I feel confident that I will keep it up this time.  I will keep this blog updated on my progress every week when I do my weigh-ins too.  Not that anyone really cares, but it will help me to talk about it, even if I am just talking to myself.

My Faster Bike Rides and New Goals

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, Cycling, Exercise6 Comments

I was riding my bicycle this morning and was paying close attention to my average speed.  Lately it has been 11.5 mph give or take.  Today it was 12.5 mph.  That meant that I got home 30 minutes earlier than I usually do.  Riding faster doesn’t just mean that I will exercise faster, it also means I will burn more calories every time I ride.

I have these index cards which I used to use to keep track of my bike riding.  I would write it out so I had a hard copy because digital seems to get deleted a lot.  I first started writing it down on November 3rd 2008.  My average speed was 10 mph and I only rode for 38 minutes burning 345 calories.  Gradually over time I can see that my speed goes up to 10.7, 10.9, 11.1 etc.

My last entry was when I hurt my shoulder and I stopped riding, that was July 20th 2009.  My average speed was 14.0 mph.  That of course was doing 23 miles in 1 hour and 38 minutes.  Of course I was probably gone from the house for 2 hours with breaks but I don’t seem to recall.  I also see that I started riding in October 2009, I only got 3 bike rides logged then stopped, my shoulder was still in a lot of pain but I wanted to get exercise.  Then my shoulder got better and I started riding again and had 2 entries in July 2010 for 23 miles each but the next day after my 2nd bike ride my back wheel broke and the log entries end right there.  Of course I wasn’t used to riding anymore so my average speed was only 11.9 and 11.0.

I will add all of those old logs to my Bike page soon.

Today my average speed was 12.5 mph which has gone up from 11.2 since July 6th, 2 weeks ago when I started logging my cycling times again.  I had been riding since early June but couldn’t get my bicycle computer to work since I put the tire on backwards which meant the magnet was on the wrong side.  Oopsie.

I think that I am progressing very well and I’m sure that it won’t be too far off when I’m going 14 mph again, or even 15 mph.  The riding times will get shorter even though I will still be doing the same 23 mile route.  If that becomes the case then I will step it up and continue on to Hart Park.  That will add 10 miles to my route, 5 miles each way.  I have mapped it out:

That start point (A) is my halfway point where I stop riding and rest for a few minutes so this still might be a resting point before I continue on to Hart Park.  Once I get used to the ride then I will probably just continue on until I get to Hart Park and rest there.

Of course I’m probably talking many months before I’m in enough shape to do it but I will eventually do it.  When my average speed gets up to 15 or 16 mph then I will definitely do it.  In fact, I was ready to start doing it just before I had to stop riding because of my shoulder in July 2009.  I made a video and put it on YouTube that showed my bike ride from where I get on the bike path over on Truxton all the way to Manor St. and made a sequel from Manor all the way to China Grade Loop.  I wanted to do a 3rd video from China Grade Loop to Hart Park but… my shoulder and all.  So that never happened.

My goal now is to continue as I am now (training) until I am not in as much pain from the bike ride so that I may ride to Hart Park.  The day that I plan on that is the day I will bring my video camera with me to film it.  I know it’s boring to most people but it is an achievement to me and I’m sure to others.

I can’t wait to see how many calories I will burn from riding 33 miles every day.  The fat will just melt off, I hope lol.

Bike Ride

On By Michel McDonaldIn Cycling, Daily BlogLeave a comment

I just came home from my bike ride and I did almost the same distance that I used to do on my regular bike rides before the accident.  Which means my body was already prepared and ready to go.  I fell 2 miles short of my past typical bike rides were which was fine.

Before my typical average miles were 11 1/2 miles going at an average speed of 11.9+/- miles per hour riding for typically 1 hour burning 550+/- calories and 64+/- fat calories.

So, I just need to get back to that point where I can do that and then some starting today.  Today by the way was 9.273 miles, average speed of 10.6 mph, time was 52 1/2 minutes, calories were 439.2 and fat calories were 43.7.  That’s pretty good, it’s getting close to what I was doing before, almost.

Oh and the camelbak was great.  I had 70oz of iced water in it and when I came home I poured the rest in a big blue cup and it filled it up and those cups are 32oz.  So I drank a little more than half of the water.  When I took it off I noticed that the only places on my shirt that were wet were where the camelbak was like the shoulder straps and my back was wet in the shape of the bag lol.  It looks funny.

And the skull cap was also great.  It kept my face dry and sweat out of my eyes and off of my sunglasses and it kept my helmet strap dry until I got home and by then it was just so soaked that the helmet strap was getting wet.  But that’s fine because my eyes and glasses were dry.