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Old 07-22-10, 08:31 AM
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Shepp30 
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Join Date: Jan 2010
Location: North Central Ohio
Posts: 190

Bikes: 2012 Jamis Satellite Comp, '98 Schwinn Searcher GSX, '90 Schwinn Traveler, '87 Miyata 312, '87 Schwinn World Sport,

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Thanks all, I am flattered and am blushing. I'll try to get some pics posted when I get home from work or at some point this weekend. I don't typically push folks to try what worked for me but since you’re asking, if I can help someone else, great. I’ll take a chance on getting lectured, the word “flamed” annoys me. I don’t think that my diet plan was a politically correct one for the simple fact that my success was dependent on consistent and persistent results lol. I approached this little journey with much the same attitude, that who is it on here, maybe CPFITNESS, uses in his coaching and critiques (no offense what so ever intended) of nutrition and health - drill sergeant like – again it worked for me.

First of all if I ride and eat whatever I want or don’t pay attention to what I eat, I tend to put on weight, always have - so do most of my riding friends. You all know that feeling that you get an hour or two after getting off the bike, yeah that one. That feeling is the toughest thing to overcome when you ride to subsidize weight loss. Maybe it is the same for runners and the like too; can’t say, I have never been a runner.

Here we go, my motto - weight loss won’t happen by chance or accident. I tracked everything, calories per day, weight loss per week, mileage, work out hours, etc I was able to see the trends and what was working and what wasn’t. I adjusted things in the regime if necessary, whether it was calories, miles, hours etc. I used Excel. It was kind of weird, or was it, I never failed to lose some weight every week and I think that is why I never lost focus.

I just looked back at my mileage chart; it looks like I have been averaging roughly 8 hours of riding weekly and have been since May or late April. Not a lot, but 8 hours more then last year lol. Other then riding, I dieted and made changes to my diet that will again, be changes that will remain in effect for the rest of my life and for that matter my families lives.

As important as the data, I weighed myself EVERY morning after I got out of the shower and intend to do so everyday for the rest of my life. It is a consistent weight…the naked weight that is…and it is as light as your ever going to be lol. How else will you know?? I suspect if I gain a couple of pounds back, which isn’t going to happen, it would be much easier to lose a couple then to have to lose 71 pounds again. There is an awful lot of “don’t get on the scale” advice out there but that doesn’t work for me. How else will you know if what you’re doing is working? Also I am the most impatient person that I know, if I don’t see consistent results, I don’t see any point in continuing, change something. Literally, if it came down to the end of the week and I hadn’t lost any weight I cut my intake until I lost a pound.

I started with a strict calorie counting plan only – other then we are and were eating healthy foods mostly – I did not care about carbs, fat, high fructose corn syrup and all the other stuff that is counted or monitored. I used the calorie count web site along with others, to identify calories in foods that weren’t labeled (which are all the healthy ones).

I cut my calorie intake to (don’t lecture me lol ) 1000 calories per day for the first two weeks – I lost 13 pounds in those two weeks – kind of a cleansing of sorts, I reckoned. Did I mention that I am impatient? If I exceeded my calories for a day...say by lunch, I was done eating for the day. I went to bed early most nights in the early stages of this plan. But I quickly learned how to not exceed the calories by eating more salads, fruits and generally more healthy stuff.

Every week after those first two, I at minimum, maintained the weight from the previous week for 5 days…by eating (for me) around 1500 to 2000 calories (it varied as I lost weight and rode more). The following two days I cut back to 1000 calories per day. So basically I dieted two days per week if you want to call it that. Early on I lost 3 pounds per week, then 2 pounds per week every week up until June 4th. Continuing this regime, I have lost 1 pound per week since the week of June 4th and continue to do so. I’d venture to say, that 2000 calories in two days will cause weight loss, for most of us no matter the fitness level. It might not be the healthiest thing in the world to do but neither is walking around at 5’11” and 270 pounds with a high BP.

I improved the quality of my calories as well. My wife has always fed me a fairly healthy diet but in January we decided to no longer have chips, cookies, ice cream, hotdogs, Coke and the like in the house – on a regular basis. Instead, we have all variations of fruits, veggies and nuts for snacks these days. We eat more fish and chicken then red meat and we now eat whole grain everything…pasta’s (when we have it) and breads, pizza crust etc. All variations of steamed veggies are really delicious and we have them most nights. If you don’t like the taste of these things initially, you’ll eventually find a brand or several that are far tastier then others – or I did.

That said, I now weigh 199 pounds if I want pizza or ice-cream I am going to have it – and always did – even during the early diet phase. I simply eat smaller portions and I ride it off that evening or the next day. These things are simply things that I enjoy far less frequently then before. LOL, I had two white chocolate Reese’s cups on my 70 mile ride two Saturdays ago :>) that’s justified and permitted on my plan lol.

My advice, to those trying to eliminate something that you love (PEPSI) completely from your diet, is don’t. Have it on occasion it’ll make your journey less of a nightmare. I’ll have a coke on pizza night; I simply don’t have 4 or 5 a day like before.

I also needed help and support (and so will you) to pull this off and I got it from my family, co-workers and friends, so will you. As I have said, this web site was instrumental as well. Good stuff and advice in all the forums, I used the Clyde, Nutrition and Mechanics forum quite extensively.

I think I covered all of the high-points and sorry about the book, but you all asked.

Last edited by Shepp30; 07-22-10 at 08:36 AM.
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