ravenmore

Writing to you guys from my vacation. Just took a week off to ride my bike and celebrate my 39th b-day tomorrow. So far I have to admit its pretty kewl to get up and just go ride. I envy the pro's in that so far.

Anyway yesterday returning from my ride, I stop at a little upscale grocery store/wine bar/italian restaurant (yes, I know that sounds weird) thats on the way home. The girl at the counter asks me if I have a $1500 bike? I say mine's more like $2000, why? She shakes her head at the dollar figure - can't believe we spend that much money on a bike- as says a guy comes in with shoes like mine and his bike is about $1500. Then she says, get this, he's "skinny like me".... I just kinda do a double take and blink a couple times. I haven't been called skinny since my freshman year of high school. I'm a former gym rat that was also probably packing too much body fat.... Was up around 235 to 240 at one point. Lol - never thought I'd think being called skinny would be kewl. Aight - gotta go. I'm off to find a scale.

LowCel 

Congrats there skinny. You are a lucky man, you share a birthday with one of my favorite cyclists of all time.

ravenmore

Really? Who's that? I know Madonna and both Frank and Kathy Lee Gifford share my b-day (the latter is really weird and a little scary for some reason ), but I wasn't aware of any pro's that did as well.

edit: Elvis also died on my b-day. The S.O.B. ruined my 10th birthday. We were all set for the party at my grandparents and then "breaking news...."

BoSoxYacht

Welcome to the Club , Skinny. Just once I would love to hear somebody describe my body as something other than skinny. Having my physique compared to that of a Preying Mantis' is getting old.

DataJunkie

Cool.

People have started calling me skinny. Last year about 14 months ago I was 5' 9" and weighed 202lbs. Now I am still 5'9" (duh!) and weigh 160 lbs. Of course, I've already moved on to my next goals and am focused on what annoys me rather than what I have achieved.
Still, it's cool to be called skinny.

LowCel 

ME!!!!!!!!!

Lucky07

/shopgirl working out the logic "You have to buy a $1500+ bike to get skinny.... hmmm...."

Seriously, congrats. Nothing like the added benefit of dropping extra weight...

ravenmore

LowCel - lol, happy birthday to us, right?

Thanks for all the congrats - it was just really weird to get called skinny....

billallbritten

It's funny, dropped from 230+ to 165 since last Labor Day, folks I've seen infrequently during the period react like "I hear Bill's voice, where's Bill?"

Downside - two rounds (once at 200, another at 170)of trouser alterations - quite a bit of bread to the seamstress. I looked at my old Army induction physical report when I went on active duty in 1972, 170lbs. Oddest thing is that my physical and other documents from the era put me at 72". When I got fitted for the Veloce (and for a Trek I didn't end up getting), I'm 70". Must have had fat feet.

Other changes - waist sized dropped from 39 to 32-33. Cycling shorts from XL to medium (anybody want some used XL baggies? :-) ). Glove size dropped from L to M. Feet are back to A/very narrow from B/C width (not so good, I'm eyeing some Rocket7 shoes, around $400.00 a pair to get that width). And the oddest? I have my large Giro all the way in on the adjustment for head size and it still bounces around, it was a good fit. M for a new helmet, I think.

All in all, the effort is worth it. I was one checkup away from blood pressure medication (140+/95+) and am now 120/70 ish.

I had no idea that the effort would pay off this quickly, I don't diet other than cut out between meal and evening munching.

Next goals are to build some speed (20-22+ sustained from current 18-19 sustained) and endurance at that speed. I'll never race but it's more fun to go fast than slow, in most cases.

Sincerely,

Bill

briscoelab

It's weird to hear someone say that isn't it! Same thing happened to me earlier this summer. I started cycling last july (05) and weighed in at 225 (6' 1.5" tall).... down to 175 now. I hardly consider myself skinny even now... but it sure caught me off guard when someone said that (and made me feel pretty decent too )

Anyhow, happy b-day and congrats on the comment!

ElJamoquio

My girlfriend said I looked like I was seriously ill.

I think that means she likes skinny men.

substructure

My wife told me last summer that it felt like she was hugging a little girl when she put her arms around my waist. Yikes!
Yesterday my friends made fun of me for eating considerably less than them during lunch.
No one will make fun of me when I'm kicking arz up the hills pretty soon.

Take the good with the bad.

Doggus

Bill those stats are awesome. Your last name wouldn't happen to be Rhodes? I don't think so given your location. We know a Bill who has lost a hell of a lot of weight and he's a totally different person now (on the exterior).

WheresWaldo

Congratulations on the compliment. It is always good when someone recognises that you are doing something healthy and that the results show it.

Bill I get the same reaction. I am down from 346 in December 2005 to 235 just this past Sunday. I even have some idoit say I was getting too thin.

Same problem here, but I could not alter the pants so off to Goodwill they had to go. I dropped from a 50" waist to now currently at a 40". All my shirts went from 3XL to XL, except of course cycling jerseys that tend to run smaller. I am hoping to drop the other 35 by the end of the year.

Good luck to the both of you ravenmore and billallbritten, keep up the progress, you are encouraging me to keep on my goal.

DataJunkie

As an aside:
My mother in-law had the audacity to tell my wife I was getting "too" skinny. Um?
Are we so sedentary and fat in the US that no one recognizes a healthy weight?
Incidentally, my wife's family are all quite large in girth.
I wonder what they will think when I have achieved my remaining goals.... or maybe I do not care.

H20.1

5'9" and 160 lbs. is hardly "too" skinny. In fact, I wouldn't even call you skinny.

Most people who label other people as "too skinny" in this country are, in fact, fat.

DataJunkie

I agree. Skinny for me was always aroung 150 lbs. I'm smack dab in the middle of a normal weight range according to my dr. Now if I can just swap a bit more fat for muscle.

Mike_Morrow

Happy Birthday and Congrats on the compliment. Body image is a difficult thing to come to grips with. We can lose weight much faster than we can change our own perception of who we are.

February of 2004 I weighed 400 pounds over 17 months I dropped to 160 pounds. To get the mental image of myself as "fat" to disappear took longer than it did to lose the weight.



With so much of society overweight take "skinny" as high praise indeed.

Again Happy Birthday

SimiCyclist

Me Too!

H20.1

Well, you certainly aren't fat anymore. Nice work, really.

DataJunkie

Egads! Very impressive. Me complaining about my 200lbs makes me sound like a whiney snively so and so

LowCel 

Seems to be a pretty popular day to be born. Seems like at least one out of every 365 people I talk to have the same birthday. Sorta weird huh.

(Not counting leap year)

HWS

Dang

You look like John Lovitz on the left and Agent Smith from the Matrix on the right.

Great job.

ravenmore

Mike_Morrow - d@mn! Good job man! Oh, I'm sure I'm not skinny by cyclist standards yet. I want to get down to about 175'ish. I bet I'm about 195 now (still no scale). Whoever said it about our perception of a healthy body weight being skewed, I bet you're exactly right.

Happened again today, my mechanic and bud at the bike shop looked at me and said "d@mn Mike, you're losing some weight!". Guess it must be showing lately....

SimiCyclist

This may be a bit off topic but, statisically speaking, you only need a group of 25 people to bring the probability of two people having the same birthday to 50%.