Tuesday Morning Weight Loss Check In

Did I blow your mind there? Tuesday?

After using the flu diet for a few days, and trying to cough my lungs out for a week afterwards, I will freely admit that I have been very passively dieting and exercising. I figure my "bod" needs to get well before I start beating up on it again, so there really isn't much to report. I'm still down (198.2) and am keeping an eye on my food intake, but not watching calories as much as I was.

What hideous feet. 

While I have not been working out, I have been stretching like crazy. My trainer recommended I buy a styrofoam roller and use it to stretch - man, what I have been missing! My favorite stretch is to roll my back up and down the roller, pausing where I find it tight. It is incredible, and I feel great when I am done. I also roll the outside of my thighs down the roller the same way, and it is great. Mrs. The Plano Cyclist is a great yogi, and has always stressed the value of a good stretch. I will freely admit that I haven't really stretched since I was in 9th grade P.E. and Coach Washington made us. Even then, I only did it in an effort to see up the girls shorts (and was quite limber for all of the effort I put in. Thanks coach!) During my cycling resurgence, even when I was really riding hardish, I never stretched. Now, on the other hand, I have really embraced the stretch. Even of I haven't exercised, I will still take a few minutes and do some stretching, just to loosen up. A foam roller is about $20 at Academy or Dick's, or Oshmann's, and is a worthwhile purchase of home gym equipment.

Not as ominous as this picture makes it look. 

 I generally don't encourage buying home gym stuff, because it never gets used by the average person. In this case, I make an exception, because you really should be using a foam roller to knead your muscles. In a pinch, you can use it for a coffee table as well.

How very modern. 

So what else do you have to look forward to from me this week? I plan to write up the Bikecharge system, and hope to put together a Linkdump for Friday as well. However, I have some professional licensing stuff that I need to attend to, so you may get only one or the other. I'll do my best to get you both articles, but unless you guys start clicking those ads like crazy and telling your friends to read and do the same, I can't count on this work to keep a roof over my head. I have been trying to get someone to give me a house to review, but no such luck yet.

Speaking of reviews, not too long ago, I got an email from Paul F. Pinsky, an author, asking if I would like a copy of his book, "Biking Through The Hoods" to read and personally enjoy. Since I love free stuff, and the title and premise of his book were intriguing to me, I took him up on the offer. "My audience doesn't really care for books", I told him, "no one has yet claimed the free Zen book I'm giving away, so I doubt they themselves read." I told him I would read his book nonetheless and tell my readers about it. I have cracked it open and read a few pages, and it seems well written and interesting. I will review it in toto when I finish it, but am not reading a ton right now - that licensing stuff I was talking about.

Weekly Weight Loss Check In and Progress Report.

Here we are at another Monday, and here I go again, checking in. People do read these, even if you are rolling your eyes right now, regular reader.

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I have been counting my calories this week, and exercising, but have not really made any weight lowering type progress. I'm going to assume that is because I am building muscle and burning fat, and just chalk the weight stasis up to that.

I need a pedicure. 

I'm chalking it up to muscle building, because I have actually been working my muscles. The good folks at TRX, in conjunction with A-W fitness have sent me one of their "Pro" suspension systems to help me build up my core and branches. I have used it once already, and think it's a really neat system. Josh at A-W thinks that we should do a before AND after video, so look for two; one with me crying and saying "no, please, I want to die.." and one where I can pull a semi-trailer with my massive lats (and probably eyes) bulging.

"Abby someone..."

Not much to report otherwise on this beautiful Monday, other than to let you know I have actually written a few articles for this week already so you can look forward to some new reviews going up. I have installed the "BikeCharge", and it is fantastic. I have also written my initial review of the 1UPUSA trainer that I have been using. so you can learn more about that this week. 

I'm going to post the link to the donation form for the young lady who had the bad bicycle accident and has no insurance. Please, if you can, donate HERE and help her on her way to recovery. If you are local, please consider coming to the fundraising party as well; there are a ton of great prizes for you to win, and the list keeps growing. 

Details on that party are HERE. I hope to see you there. 

Monday Check in, Mea Culpa, and a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT

First, the weight "loss" check in.

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I am still lower than I started (even though it's not reflected above), but I have stalled out a little. This is no one's fault but my own; I have not tracked my calories the way I should have, and I did not exercise at all last week, with the exception of a few halfhearted spins around the neighborhood.

This is the result of all of my hard work. 

I haven't fallen off of the wagon, but I was set back by rain and an intense work week. You will see lower numbers next week, because I did ride today (and plan to ride all the way home) and am counting what I eat very carefully. Mostly. And I am out of beer.
In addition, I am going to be working with Josh over at A&W Fitness to keep me honest and to take what I am doing to the "next level". Soon I will be slow AND have very little muscle definition. This agreement with Josh comes with another review opportunity. Josh and Paul are big believers in the TRX system, and have convinced them to send me a Rip trainer to use at home to increase my core strength. (I'm pretty sure my core is hollow like a rotten tree at this point). I will be talking about the TRX a couple of times, and will even do a video. I'm thinking something with soft focus, mostly nude, but artistic for sure. Keep your eyes out for that (or poke them out, whichever you prefer).

So that's my weight loss check in for the week. I guess I should address my lack of posts last week, but I've got nothing to say other than "sorry". I have been working hard at my real job, and as such just haven't had time to write enough posts for here to get ahead. If you want to read new words from me, go here. While I can generally knock these bicycle posts out fairly quickly, the insurance ones take considerably longer to research and make compelling. (If I have even succeeded at that.) There will be more posts here this week, though it may only be a three day schedule - unless I can squeeze more in. I'll try, but I do have to make some dough to pay for this dumb hobby.

Now for the big announcement.

You need to make the effort to get out to this benefit on the 29th of this month. Once again, the story is here. I am not going to go over it all here (because you can read) but in a nutshell, a girl who has a way cooler nickname than I do crashed her bike and she has no money to pay for hospital bills. While this sucks for her, certainly, some of her friends have put together a benefit at a gorgeous loft. This benefit includes free beer, live music, and one of the longest raffle prize lists I have seen. Since no one has put it out officially, as of today this is the list of prizes being raffled off at the benefit,

1. 4 Sessions with a personal trainer at A-W Fitness
2. A Chrome bag
3. A pair of Chrome shoes
4. A Custom Hula Hoop.
5. A gift certificate to Nova Gastropub
6. 1 night stay at the Belmont
7. A gift certificate to The Libertine
8. VIP treatment at Absinthe
9. A gift certificate from Red Hot + Blue
10. A professional photography package from Can Turkyilmaz
11. A custom leather from Chateau Nifty Pop
12. Scuba Classes from Blue Sea Adventures
13. A pin up photography package from Twisted Tiffany
14. $100 gift certificate from Richardson Bikemart
15. A family pack from Dallas Diamonds Football
16. Gift certificates from Boyd Massage
17. Private circus lessons from Circus Freaks
18  Art from Stephen Snow

I'm sure that there are more prizes as well - this is just the list I was able to glean from the Facebook page for the party. The beer will be provided by Franconia, and there will be live music by the The Bhakti House Band.

This is going to be "off the chain", like the kids say. Keep an eye on the Facebook page for more details, but you need to come. If you are local, come and help someone avoid years of crushing medical bills.

If you aren't local, you can still help; donate a couple of bucks here. I encourage you to do so.

I really do hope to see you there. I feel bad for Liberty Kat, but I'm glad to go partay my face off to raise money for her. I assume she would party for me if I needed it.

Though I assume I'll have to put in extra workout time to burn off the Franconia.

Weekly weight loss check in and progress report.

Like all of you, I am still on New Years resolution track. Unlike most of you (I assume) I am going to hold myself accountable to a bunch of people I have never met.

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So there it is. I still have a way to go, but I am showing forward progress. What did I do last week to achieve such incredible results? I rode my bicycle to work three days and spent my first hour on the trainer, for starters. To be honest, I am not riding the entire route in to the office, instead I am taking the train the entire way in the morning and most of the way home in the evening. I say most of the way in the evening, but I do get off early and ride about 7 miles of the route home. The Bloggipede is a super fun bike for bombing around on, especially for a few path miles in the evening.

On the training front, I have downloaded a training video from epicPLANET and watched a big part of it, but not on the trainer. The video is an hour and a half long, and man, that is a LOT of trainer time. I will do it, but I am working up to it. So far I have managed to watch Rain of Madness (highly recommended) for one session and two episodes of Pawn Stars for the other session. My plan was to maintain an average speed of 16mph and an average cadence of 85 during my session. I just about managed it too.

Livestrong screenshot. 

On the food front, I am using the Livestrong app on my iPhone to track my calories. I am allowed a little over 1700 calories a day in order to lose 2lbs a month. I stayed under my total every day, and it's actually kind of fun to track once I get in the groove. I have used calorie counting for weight loss for a long time, and I certainly expect to be successful.

I have also added vitamins into the regimen, taking a bunch of pills (like Judy!) to make the weight loss process go quicker. Theoretically. I am not using any diet pills, only vitamin (and one fiber) supplements.

The first time I took one of these pictures of the scale, I held the phone too high. Hawt. 

So far my weight loss has been going well altogether. I am feeling pretty good, and am on track to be really thin AND fit for the first time in quite a while. I expect things to pick up (or drop off) a little more quickly as the month goes on - I tend to pick up steam as I go along.

In the "coming soon" category for the blog, I will be doing a Plano article this week, as well as a couple of review articles - both USA made items again.

On one final note, if you are interested in checking out some of the Moto-optix lenses I wrote about last week, Shawn has sent me an email letting me know that they are offering free shipping through this weekend - I am a guy that loves "free", so I highly endorse this deal. $39.95 flat puts a set of these on your helmet. Very worthwhile, in my opinion. Be sure and use the code austinblog to get your free shipping.