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<p>If you think you can, you can. If you think you can, YOU CAN! And we all know you’ll dominate them…</p>
<p>Conratulations on you weight loss, everyone! No wonder I could not find a single size 2 or 4 pencil skirt at Macy’s today! 
My shameless bragging of the day - the skin flap around my waist is gone!!! Good-bye, muffin top! It is amazing what a few minutes of free weights and planks a day could do.</p>
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<p>MOfWC - if the dogs obeyed her at the first sight of that BB gun, it means… they know what the BB gun can do :eek:</p>
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<p>I swear, I left some on the rack!</p>
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<p>It wasn’t me: I’m currently <em>just</em> in a size 10. And VERY happy to be there, I might add! </p>
<p>Definitely, the lower abdominal fat is my major remaining enemy. :D</p>
<p>Ahhh Consolation…my enemy too! I am “almost” to a 10 in pants. The top is another matter! ;)</p>
<p>Same old routine today except started on vitamins. Want to see if I get more energy.</p>
<p>Consolation and NM, you will defeat it! It took me almost a year, but those little pushups and planks do work!</p>
<p>Congratulations for sticking with the cycling even when it gets tough, MoWC.</p>
<p>About cycling for fun and exercise: MoWC rides the same way she does her other exercise, competitively and all-out. This is the way that works for MoWC, but other riders can approach their riding in a more low-key way. You don’t have to have a super-light competition bike to ride hills. You can ride hills on a heavier bike-- you just go slower! </p>
<p>I recently finished up a tour in the Sierra, where bike + panniers weighed, probably, about 90 pounds. I climbed mountains every day. I’m not superstrong (even on a light bike, I could never climb with MoWC, though I’d drop her like a bad habit on the downhills) – I just use low gears, take my time, and enjoy the beautiful scenery. </p>
<p>You, too, can take a long, relaxed bike ride. Just make sure your current bike has safe brakes, oil the chain, pump up the tires, put on a helmet and go. A long ride (say, over two hours) at a moderate pace will burn fat.</p>
<p>I end up eating frequently when riding. Now that I think of it, some of MoWC’s stories sound like low blood sugar could be an issue. MoWC, are you eating every hour?</p>
<p>On the supported rides I know I get enough nutrition since I stop at all the rest stops. This past Saturday I would have eaten more before we left (just had a peach) if I had known the breakfast stop was 31 miles instead of 26. I really think a lot of the problem has been the heat. The day I did fine (the 62 two weeks ago) it was cooler. Even with the wind, I was fine. Last week (75) was just brutal. I’m sure I dehydrated, even though I took in plenty of fluids. Saturday I was OK for about 4o miles, but then it just got to me- the heat, hills etc.</p>
<p>It is correct that I approach cycling as a training activity rather than touring. I HAVE done tours years ago and enjoyed it. The people I ride with here (including my husband) don’t race, but they like the challenge of improving their speed and distance. They do NOT race and none of this (thank goodness) even approaches the obsessiveness of my running group! I get a kick out of (and enjoy) the way most of the cyclists settle in at the rest stops and leisurely eat a PB&J, stand in the portolet line etc. In a running race you grab a paper cup off of a table and keep running. I won’t even get into the bathroom issues… I just want to feel competent at it. H says I am. I like my bike outfit, too. :)</p>
<p>You should not expect to be able to ride 26 tough miles on a peach, let alone 31. You’ll feel better if you get more nutrition than that.</p>
<p>If your riding buddies are like the people I ride with, they have energy bars in their jersey pockets, energy drinks in their water bottles, or goo packets somewhere handy. I normally prefer actual food, so I bring along cookies and/or sandwiches, though I also use Hammer Gel from a flask sometimes. Experienced cyclists get calories somehow while riding and don’t start on an empty stomach.</p>
<p>I have energy drink in my bottles and Clif Blocks and/or HammerGel in my pocket. I was fine at 31. I normally eat more than a peach, but I knew we were stopping for breakfast. I am fine for 60-90 minutes, but this first leg took a little longer (especially with my fall). I am also not very good at drinking while riding, so I like to stop for my drinks. Usually I have that opportunity. I am used to running on an empty stomach (except for 2 hours or more when I’ll do some sports drinks or maybe gels) because running puts a lot more stress on your digestive system than cycling does and I like to be on the road instead of in the bushes. I had plenty to eat at the 31 mile point, so I don’t think nutrition was the problem. It got up to over 100 degrees on the pavement during the 73 miler. That’s just too damn hot. Saturday it got up to about 90 before we finished. I handle heat pretty well, but not on those two days. I watched many, many runners drop out, walk or wind up in the medical tent.</p>
<p>Heh, heh, heh. I’m burning fat on a measly 9 mile bike ride. It’s actually a very nice little high-intensity interval training workout for me according to the old heart rate monitor.</p>
<p>I have multiple setups for the front and rear gears. I can use two or three chainwheels on the front and I think that I have five and six gear clusters on the back. One of them is a close-ratio while the other is a planetary. It’s a bit messy changing this stuff of course and adjustments have to be made to the derailleurs for the stop points.</p>
<p>Wow. I think I’m gonna be sore tomorrow. I took my first shot at the Spartacus workout this evening:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/high-intensity-circuit-routine/printer.php[/url]”>http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/high-intensity-circuit-routine/printer.php</a></p>
<p>I certainly didn’t get 60 seconds of every exercise and some of them looked like an elephant trying to do ballet steps, but I did all ten exercises, as many reps as I could do – two full sets. Then, I finished it off with six “Mike Boyle” intervals on the Airdyne: 15 seconds as hard as I could pedal (95+ rpm) and then as long to recover as it took to get my heart rate back down to 75% of max.</p>
<p>This Spartacus workout is fantastic. The biggest challenge for me is all the squats and lunges. I can’t get anywhere near as low as the show in the photos. I’m just an old stiff guy, but doing a steady diet of this many lunges should change that. The scissors kick from a left front forward lunge to a right front forward lunge is a riot. It’s like trying to jump up and down on surfboard for me! Swinging the dumbell from between the legs up to shoulder height is a barrel of fun. I know the iPod nazi has that one in his arsenal, too.</p>
<p>You can print a PDF version of the workout here:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/high-intensity-circuit-routine/printer.php[/url]”>http://www.menshealth.com/mhlists/high-intensity-circuit-routine/printer.php</a></p>
<p>Fantastic stuff. I’ll let ya know how my back likes it tomorrow. Oh, 72 minutes, including warmup and cool down. Average heart rate 75%. Max heart rate 94%. Pretty nice workout.</p>
<p>It sounds impossible! Good job!</p>
<p>6 miles, down two pounds from last weigh-in about 10 days ago to 204. It doesn’t look like I’m going to make it to 200 by the end of September. I don’t remember what my goal was offhand but I think that it was 190 by the end of the year (20 pounds in four months).</p>
<p>Run felt pretty easy - I had a peanut butter sandwich about two hours before the run. I’ve only had a total of 1,000 calories today. Doing some work and will pick up a snack on the way home or do some late cooking.</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t sell your chances short. I find that the scale kind of coasts along for a few days or a week and then – bam – heads downhill fast for a few days. There’s a theory out there that when fat cells burn off fat, they replace it with water as a placeholder in the cell to temporarily maintain the old number of fat cells. Eventually, the cells release the water and go to old fat cell heaven and those pounds come off.</p>
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<p>I’m already feeling Spartacus in my legs and butt… er… I mean, my “gluts”.</p>
<p>Well, I set easy goals so that they are easy to hit. A couple of weeks doesn’t matter. I have a fair amount of stress this week and next week so some calories might be coming my way if I’m not careful. It took a long time to put on. It’s taking far less time to come off but it’s still relatively glacial.</p>
<p>Speaking of “putting it on”, I was trying on some 36 inch pants today and, just for kicks, put on my biggest fatty jeans that I have saved for the memories – some 44 inchers. Oh my god. They look like a Jared commercial. Crazy.</p>
<p>I’m so happy with where I’m at with this eat less, move more thing that I’ve gotten really patient with the continuing weight loss. It’s not just the pounds. Combine the weight loss with the workouts and inches come off.</p>
<p>Is there really a fat cell heaven? I thought I once read that once you got your fat cells, they were here to stay. You can shrink them but not destroy them. I like the idea of fat cell heaven (or hell) better.</p>
<p>IDAD…I have “fat” pants too although they’re not Jared level. I look at them though and can’t believe how “wide” I was. But I won’t be looking at size 2 or 4 in my lifetime, - at my height the lowest I ever got was a 7/8 and that’s when I was skin and bones!</p>
<p>Anyway, MOWC, thinking of you today as I read a front page article in the WSJ about men crashing women’s running events (these guys like to win I guess). Funny story about the kinds of gifts they’re coming up with to discourage men from joining. Feather Boas and tiaras handed out to the winners by shirtless volunteer fireman. LOL.</p>