Mikabike

Thanks for the encouragment guys. It's raining today so I probably won't ride when I get off work. I parked the next building over and took a good walk to my desk so I got a little in. One thing that surprised me is that I walked the entire distance without my back muscles spasming or going numb, something that has kept me from walking a lot the last several years. It's the farthest I've walked without a break in several months and I kept expecting the pain and numbness to come but it didn't. My ankles hurt a little and my legs were getting a good workout but my old nemesis was nowhere to be seen.

This is a considerable improvement for me. I thought I would have to take off much more weight before I could start walking that far again. It was my 'wow' moment for the week. Before Xmas I wouldn't have been able to walk 1/4 of that distance without nearly dying. I didn't even get out of breath this morning. !!!


I don't plan on being obsessive about riding every day like that one guy who wrote the book. But I have to keep in mind that for me, one of my weaknesses is if I don't ride one day I am much less likely to ride the day after, and if I don't ride the day after, I'm very likely to not ride for several days. I get stuck in habits like that so I have to save myself from myself.

I'm already getting benefits from both riding and from dieting. The pain in yesterdays ride was much less, and I had the fortitude to keep pedalling more and coasting less, and to keep the pace up even after the incline. The pain on that first ride was unbearable. IT was on par with slamming your finger in a cardoor and not being able to extract it. I wanted to get off that bike so bad, but I just accepted that it hurt and accepted that I was not getting off that bike so that forced me to deal with it. I was back on the next day and although it hurt like hell, it was more bearable and at least it wasn't any worse from an already sore butt.

jennings780

Good for you!!!!
A thousand mile journey begins with a single step.

On diet advice, I would highly recommend "Eat to Live" by Dr. Joel Fuhrman. You may also consider seeing him as a patient. I think he is in NJ near NYC. He's an MD that specializes in weight loss and nutrition.

EricT

Hey Mike, the nickname you gave to your bike is priceless. I'm still chuckling. Your sense of humor is going to serve you well on your journey

I just wanted to congratulate you and tell you not to get discouraged. I just started cycling about a month ago. I bought my bike as a way to get exercise. I've been sedentary for several years, and smoking and drinking the whole time. It was really catching up to me. Now I've been smoke-free for several months, restricted my beer consumption to the weekends, and am eating better. I didn't really have a weight problem, but I was way out of shape. My first ride was similar to yours, pretty short and totally exhausting. Now barely a month later I just completed a 30-mile ride. I have people telling me I look like I've lost weight, even though I haven't. I know it's because I'm losing fat and adding muscle, so I look skinnier even though my weight is the same. My pants are fitting a bit looser. In a couple more months I'll have to get a smaller pair of cycling shorts.

The great thing about beginning this sport is that the improvements are huge and come so quickly. You'll see that as you progress. You might want to abandon the 10% rule until you get stabilized, because 0.4 miles + 10% is 0.44 miles. You'll probably be capable of much bigger increases at first without killing yourself.

Like others have said, you definitely should stay focused on working out, but make sure you give yourself enough chances to rest too. I would like to ride every day, but I know I would burn myself out pretty quick if I did that (mentally and physically). 4 days a week is working pretty well for me right now, and I'll probably ride a 5th day once my fitness improves.

I think your improvements will come exponentially, Mike. As you ride more, you'll get fitter, which will allow you to ride longer and faster. You'll start to lose pounds which will make you lighter. Being lighter will make you more comfortable on the bike, and able to go longer and faster... One improvement will feed another and next thing you know you'll be doing 50 mile rides on the weekend and come home feeling like a million bucks.

Looking forward to your next update!

thad

Keep it up! This is truly inspiring!

Roody

Mike--You're working hard and reaping the benefits. Thanks for sharing your experiences here!

I agree that you should get in a routine and stick with it every day. That doesn't necessarily mean ride every day. Walking is also excellent exercize for fitness and weight loss. It trains a different set of muscles--more back of the leg than front. Because it is weight-bearing, walking is good for the bones too. Finally, walking is something you must do in your daily life, so you might as well be good at it.

I am certainly not putting down cycling! I think it will always be my favorite activity as well as my main mode of transportation. I bike six days a week, walk one day, and one day do both. (I guess I follow an eight day week.) There are other things I am relearning to do--rowing, swimming, frisbee, etc. I know you'll start having fun soon, if you haven't already.

Big Lug

fing awesome man awesome!!! I have lost 91lb since february 1st from cycling i love it i was at 450 and have never looked back you CAN and will do it all you have to do is stick to it!! If you ever need a pick me up or a word of advice or anything my aim name and email are in my profile feel free!! I love the progress i have made and cycling has done it for me you would be amazed at the things in life that change it is incredible. You have motivated me even more you make me want to quit work and go ride now!!

jakemoffatt

Good job, Mike. Keep it up!

Mikabike

Why I weigh myself several times a week.

De-hydration is the main reason. If the weight diff from day to day is too much I know I need to be drinking more water. It's pretty easy to drop a lot of weight at the begining of a diet or exercise regiment from water loss, which means your not really loosing fat, just dehydrating yourself. And if I get dehydrated I might not always realize it until the headaches start.

My scale is one of those digital ones used for shipping. It is accurate to quarters of a lb and goes up to 1000lbs. So it is very sensitive to changes in weight. I also use body tape to measure for reduction of body fat. For instance I've only lost 40lbs in 4 1/2 months but I lost 4" off my waist. That tells me that I gained about 6-10lbs of muscle and lost closer to 50lbs of fat.

I don't obsess over the scale. I like numbers though and it helps me track myself in a way that is impartial.

Santaria

Mike, your doing great man. I'm in Temple myself. Anyhow, a couple things I found out when I started:

Soda, in any form, screws you. It really does man. Even 'diet' sodas contain enough sodium to screw with your hydration values. Giving them up permanently, in all forms, will help you lose an additional 20-40lbs. (dead serious - I'm working on a story for the newspaper I work for on bicycling and fitness - and most of the experts I've spoken with have confirmed this).

Its sad, and I don't normally endorse books or their theories, but fast food kills, period.

Try this:

Set a goal not to eat fast food period for 1 month. During that month, eat smaller, healthier meals.

I LOVE - LOVE - LOVE cheeseburgers. They were part of my downfall combined with mountain dew. I realized it sucked, but I had to cut them out of my diet entirely initially.

I went and bought chicken patties and have found that I actually like them just as much in substitution of hamburger meat.

Veggies and fruit (as you said) are your friend. I can eat 3-5 pieces of fruit a day when I'm snacking, and not be so concerned about what they're doing to my body.

Personally, I set my own diet, consisting of boneless, skinless chicken (99% fat free). I've figured out about 15 good, healthy and yet still delicious ways to cook it.

Jalapenos. I've added them to anything and everything. They're a good veggie and they add flavor. Plus, their spicy, which slows ya down (I was in the Navy and learned to speed eat). This helps digest food better and gives your body time to say "I'm no hungry no more senor, please stop."

Water. Water. Water. I drink roughly a gallon a day (over a 24 hour period) but in small doses. If I get tired of the taste - gatorade, sobe lean, sobe and powerade are great substitutes, especially if your active.


As far as riding. One of the things I did initially that's ingrained itself in my mind is this:

No matter what, I set a destination. I started close. First it was the 2 miles to my in-laws. I had to have my wife drive over and we drove back. The time frame isn't relative. My next step was something a bit more ambitious. I worked 13 miles away.

Set a destination. No time limits, no expectations other than reaching THAT destination.

The other trick I learned was one I read somewhere. When it gets tough, I start to count my left cadance. I just sorta fall into that zen state. Doesn't matter the gear I'm in. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 - then drop a gear. Even if it means you have to drop down to your lowest gear and just 1MPH, your still pushing yourself. This works really good on inclines when it gets tough.

Anyhow, keep up the good work, don't give up and keep posting. I'm waiting for the day you break the 200 lb. mark and are raising in centuries or charity rides.

Mikabike

I've heard all the "Sodium is bad" stuff before. I'm going to keep drinking diet sodas though because I like to and last I heard from my Doc, I didn't have any sodium problems. A diet pepsi (my fav drink next to iced tea) has 35mg of sodium which is 1% of the USDA. Gatorade, powerade, etc have sodium as well because it is one of the electrolytes that makes it a sports drink. We loose salt through our skin and it needs to be replaced so I think I'm doing fine with the soda.

I eat fast food every day and I'm not going to stop that. I eat the healthy stuff though, salads with very little or no dressing (tabasco sauce works great and tastes good), wendy's fruit bowls are only 220 calories. Lets face it, fast doesnt have to mean fat, it's all about what you order.

If I tried to batton down the hatches that far and did no sodas, no fast food I can tell you what would happen. I would quickly get bored eating the same stuff everyday. I wouldn't have the time to prepare meals and would end up eating boca burgers on a plate with no bread and canned carrots, and I would waste money on produce going bad in my fridge before I could use it in a meal. Then I would stop dieting and fail. I know because it's happened before.

I am taking the diet stuff very slowly and I am not making it overly restrictive. I want plenty of time getting used to it so I don't feel deprived. So far it's working better than anything I ever tried before. I'm loosing weight, feeling good, getting my vitamins, and it's just as easy to eat healthy as it is to eat un-healthy. For me the convenience is utmost and I would rather get a diet soda from a machine and pick up a fruit bowl on my way to work than fill my fridge with stuff that is going to go bad and carry bottled water around with me everywhere I go.

I appreciate your advice and I think it's funny that you use jalapenos the same way I use tabasco.

Cadence doesn't work for me right now unfortunately. I have a rythym that is efficient and I hold that rythym unless I'm coasting. I switch gears up and down to maintain the same temp. If I pedal faster there is hardly any increase in speed but the effort to maintain it goes way high and I end up winding myself. If I go slower I find myself pulling on the handlebars and bobbing up and down trying to keep the pedals moving. My cadence when I was 450lbs was about 60 to keep me in my training range. According to the schwyn I've got upstairs its now more like 50.

That schwynn has a HUGE old lady seat on it and while it hurts my butt less it hurts me more in other ways...numbing ways....screaming and trying not to let cloth touch as things wake up kind of ways. So I'll take butt pain over wang abuse any old day of the week.

How do you monitor your weight? I can tell everybody right now why so many large people don't know their actual weight. Most scales don't go higher than 300-350. Not even at the doctors office!!!!! So once you get above that weight, unless you pay a lot of money for a shipping scale (like I did) you have no accurate way to measure your weight which means you often are the last to realize it when your putting on even more lbs.

elcabron

Mike,
I just about pissed myself when I read your bike's name.

you've got a great sense of humor, which will serve you well when the chicks start coming around to checkout the "hot cyclist dude"...

Best,
El Cabron

Mikabike

Distance .5 miles
AMPH 6MPH
MHR 151

I just got back from my first ride since Sunday. I decided I dont like riding wearing jeans and a polo shirt. The jeans make it much harder to pedal and the seat **** hurts more.

I got my heart rate up to 148 and it was back at 108 between getting off the bike and walking through my living room to check at my desk. I have a polaris but I don't bother wearing it since my rides are so short at this point.

Slight wheezing after and it's HOT outside. Total distance .5 miles (I take the same route every time but it varies by up to .2 depending on how straight I ride, going around obsticles etc). I could ride longer if it wasn't for the seat. On the last leg leading back to my apartment is where it hits me the worst because I'm pedaling hard and my weight is fully on that seat. I got some sharp pains in the groin area that worried me. I wouldn't want to do that too long.

I am going to look into better seats. Pain I can handle, but not nerve damage.

Consequently I really had to push myself to ride. I took a break Monday, couldn't Tuesday, today I am not feeling well due to lack of water, and a dental visit involving 5 shots of novocaine. I can barely open my mouth making it hard to breath when I'm pedalling hard. But I did it anyway.

alison_in_oh

Anything's better than jeans. That seam is NOT in a pleasant place.

You rock. This is what it comes down to: sheer stubbornness.

Whoo!

EricT

Hey Mike, just wondering if you actually got measured for a saddle when you got your bike? When I got my Specialized, they had a piece of memory foam that they had me sit on, then they measured the distance between my sit bones by looking at the indentations. I am fairly wide, so we had to change out to a wider saddle. Now when I am on the seat, my weight is supported by the sit bones, and not my crotch. Sounds like your seat may be too narrow. With the weight you're at right now, I think it is going to hurt regardless, but if you can rest on some bone and not just "soft tissue", you might be able to rename your bike!

Congrats on your half mile today, looks like you're going farther and farther. And a 151 heart rate is not super-high, so that's good too. Keep it up!

bugsyonebike

I weigh about 250, down about 7 lbs in the last month and a half. Mike, you are an inspiration to us all, I think. Have any of you guys read Mike Magnuson's book "Heft on Wheels"? I found it to be a great story, and good motivation. Even though my weight is coming off slow, I feel better than I have in a long time. Mike, Keep up the great work !!

Mikabike

No I didn't. It's the stock seat for that bike which is supposed to be a decent seat. I might try ripping the granny seat off my exercise bike and giving that a shot. It would make it harder to pedal but I might be able to stay on the bike longer.

I started a new thread asking for saddle advice. I'm hoping there is another large rider out there who found something that worked for them.

These things look funky as hell, I'm wondering if anybody here has used em. I can't help but thinking of those donut cushions people with prostate problems use

https://www.abs-sports.com/

Mikabike

I'm saved! My butt is saved!

I got a new seat today. It's a Selle Royal Shock Gel saddle in the beach cruiser size.

Oh my god peeps. I just got back from my usual .4 mile ride and I am frankly amazed. The difference to you would be riding without any seat on the bike for a week, and then putting a gel seat on. No numbness, no wang pain, no electrical shocks telling me my erectile days are numbered. Just a soft, squishy, entirely enjoyable ride on my bike. The conditions weren't even ideal. It's in the 90's here today, I did it in my work clothes after eating dinner. Basicly the worst conditions imagineable for someone to ride in.

Unfortunately I forgot to hook up my bike computer so I don't have any numbers on my speed. I can tell you that my 2 minutes of hell on the back leg were completely gone. Not even a trace. I kept right on pedaling, made it home, and I my legs felt stronger, and I felt like I'd just enjoyed a pleasant stroll, instead of getting a colonoscopy.

Not only do I know I can do it with this seat, I know I can do it well.

I have some adjustments to make, it was tilted to far forward forcing me to put a lot of pressure on my hands to keep from sliding off. Mounting is a little weird as you have to let the gel 'adjust' before you put your full weight on it. That botranger seat is going in the closet, and I might have to rename my bike now.

Anyways my heart rate got up to 148 (I measured as I was coming right in and sitting down, not actually riding), and I barely broke a sweat this time. Of course I'm cramping since my stomach was full but oh well.

You can expect me to ride every day now and I see myself doing 2 laps instead of one this weekend once I sort the adjustments.

Guys I can't describe how ecstatic I am right now. I feel like I could throw a lasso around a mountain and pull it behind me.

Here is a shot of the old saddle on top of the new. And the old one was rock hard.

alison_in_oh

HOOOORRAAYYY!!!!

I have an EXCELLENT idea of how you feel, because only a couple of weeks ago I too discovered the IMMENSE JOY that a ride free of saddle-pain can bring!

*doin' a little dance for you*

Let's hear it for two, pain-free, laps this weekend! WHOO!

EricT

Great news, Mike! (Hang on to that old seat, you might want to use it again when you get smaller, lighter, and faster...)

Looking forward to hearing how your rides improve this weekend.

Mikabike

Or if I meet somebody I 'really' dislike and want to dispatch in a diabolicaly slow, tortuous way.

The museum that houses the Marquee De Sade's collection has expressed interest. Hehe

Mikabike

My first 2 lap ride today!!!!!!!! A 106% improvement in distance and higher average mph!!!!

I can barely type my right hand is so cramped up. I really need to have those handlebars raised and have someone help me with the seat. I angled it up but was still very weight forward and leaning on the handlebars. I even lowered the seat a bit. Most of it was concentrated at my right hand where my thumb wraps around the rear of the grip. It's cramped up right now.

This was my first ride wearing the heart rate monitor. God I hope nobody saw the strap and thought it was a bra! The things us fellas have to go through.

Ok I was surprised. My heart rate only got up to 155 even during the uphill, and it quickly returned to 144 during most of the rest of the ride. My legs on the other hand were limiting me a little. I ran out of strength before I ran out of air. I hope that will fade as I rebuild the atrophied muscles in my legs.

Ok, on to the nitty gritty. I 'had' planned to do 'at least' three laps but I couldn't hold onto the handlebars much longer after the 2nd lap.

Distance .86 miles
Avg MPH 7.6
Max MPH 14.1
time 6:45

This is a 106% improvement over my previous .4 runs. I basicly went a little over twice my previous distance. I had never done more than one lap and this morning I did 2 laps without a break. My times would have been better but some lady pulled out in front of me on the downhill leg forcing me to loose all my momentum.

So I will probably bring the bike back into the shop and get some more adjustments made. It doesn't look like the handlebars use a butterfly clamp like I'm used to. It uses spacers and I don't wantto void my warranty or do it wrong rendering it unsafe. I also may have to move the seat forward or backwards as well.

See people, after 1 week of riding I'm up 106% over my first ride. Time to break out the James Brown "I feel good"

thad

Awesome!

Crashtest

Nice going Mike. About the bike adjustments: it's important to get the saddle height, forward/backward position, and the handlebar position set correctly. When everthing is set up right, your weight will be distributed between your feet, butt, and hands. It really helps a lot to get the weight balanced out between the 3 contact points so that no one single area takes too much of a beating. This applies to riders of every size.

Good luck, and keep going.

Mikabike

I put my seat as far backwards as it would go, angled the horn up a little, lowered the seat and took it out for another lap. It was a little easier on my hands this time but the horn was noticibly putting pressure on the vascular area where the sun don't shine.

Bruce at XL Cycles suggested a handlebar riser that could raise the bars another 3" or so. I might have to check that out.

Distance .43 miles
Avg MPH 7.7 (included from last ride as well)
Max MPH 14.6
MHR not sure but I never ran out of breath

That's another .43 today putting my total distance at 1.29 miles for the day!!! First time I've rode twice in one day, my butt's a little sore.

nesdog

Keep up the great work and thanks for sharing your story with us. You are inspiring riders everywhere. Everytime I log onto BF, I'm looking for your daily report first!


Sheldon