Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Gotta go negative

Labor day weekend, Saturday September 4th, 7 AM. Only 157 days until this:



Which means that if I want to finish this in the time I have in mind:

Then I need to lose some pounds between now and then. My goal is to get down to 168 and as of today, I'm 184, so you can do the math: 16 pounds needs to go. I'm not sure why I picked 168. Why not 165 or 167? I don't know. 168 just sounds like an obtainable yet challenging goal, that if met, will make a significant difference climbing the 14K vertical feet come September 4th.

With that goal in mind, I'm planning to ride the bike lots and watch my nutrition closely. Nutrition is where there's a fair amount of room for improvement. I've found that tracking my diet on a spreadsheet each day works as well as anything for me. Maybe it's because I'm a bean counter by profession and dealing with numbers make sense to me. I'll admit it's tedious and takes some extra discipline, but it forces me to focus on not only the quantity of calories but also the quality. And I can easily see the days that went well and those that didn't.

Today I got off to a good start. Breakfast was whole grain oatmeal*, plain yogurt and a banana**. Lunch was sardines, a pear** and a glass of skim milk**. Then I had an apple** and some dark chocolate** for a snack. Dinner was broiled asparagus and chicken from Costco's rotisserie chicken plus a boiled egg for a snack. Subtract off the calories I burned from riding the bike and I'm definitely in the negative today.

*Oatmeal is great. I eat it most every morning. I buy the big box at Costco for like $6 and it lasts me easily 6 months.

**All of these items are provided for free by my employer. I like free food.

Anyhow, we'll see how it turns out. Stay tuned. If I don't post anything about my progress, you'll know it's not going as planned.

Lunch Ride Report - Timp Foothills

Yesterday many of the usual lunch crowd showed up for an hour of pain and suffering. It really ends up being a race as we all ride at our limit up the climbs and try to keep pace with whomever is at the front, trying frantically not to get dropped. On this day, Rick S. led out, so I knew right away that the pace would be brutal. Fun times.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sardines for lunch???

bjchild said...

J. Thomas -

Thanks for the comment and it was nice to meet you on the lunch ride yesterday.

Yeah, eating sardines for lunch is sorta strange, but it's good stuff. I like the taste of them and they are nutritious, but they sure don't look very appetizing and they smell up the office. I try to down them quickly so as to minimize the smell and funny looks from coworkers.

Anonymous said...

Nice meeting you too.. I am moving to you neck of the woods in a week or so. We will have to get together and hit the trails near by sometime...