RBL - Mid-Assessment review

Today was my Mid-Assessment review with my Wellness Works coach as a part of Rob's Big Losers. I went into today confident that I was really improving, but I was glad to have the numbers (everyone remembers that I am a numbers person, right?) to really quantify it. Some of the numbers really shocked me in what I was able to accomplish in just 6 weeks.

For starters, what I knew. I dropped close to 20 lbs so far. I've been really pushing on watching my food intake, and making sure that I eat the right kinds and amounts of foods in the last 6 weeks. What I've learned from this is that making good food choices is a daily requirement. I refuse to call it a struggle, as life should be about experiences and not struggles. Good nutrition is about a new lifestyle and a whole new ballgame, not just shoehorning food into your existing lifestyle. I've been purposefully bringing my lunch, and eating out as a family is now a special treat instead of a "we need to eat because our schedule is so crazy". Dinner time has become more enjoyable overall, and I feel like everyone in the family has more energy.

The blood pressure and heart rate tests were what I expected, and were a nice surprise. While the official paperwork states that my blood pressure is WAY down, the kickoff meeting was probably not the best time to gather that particular statistic, as I was extremely stressed out going through the battery of tests. That said, it was nice to re-affirm that my blood pressure is lower than it's typically been, and I attribute this to the workout schedule that I've been keeping. The amount of endurance workouts that I employ help me to manage my stress a lot better, and has helped out my resting heart rate as well.

What I didn't expect was the body fat % change. I reduced my body fat percentage from approximately 32% down to under 25% in just 6 weeks! That is a pretty major body composition shift, one that I haven't personally reconciled yet. While I fully recognize that my body composition is changing, since I refuse to wear my "fat" jeans anymore because they feel so terrible on me, when I look in the mirror I really don't see the drastic change these numbers imply. This is where prayer and conquering my own self image will be key. For me to see the changes in myself I know will take a lot longer than the changes that are happening (since I see myself every day).

The rest are exercise related changes. The first was a step test, which was testing my HR recovery. It was in line with the other tests and expected.

The second was a core test, doing half situps. First, I will go on record to state that I enjoyed these excessively more than doing the full situps that we did the night of the Kickoff. I didn't exhaust myself and start attempting to use my back to force myself up as much, and I felt I did better. The official numbers seem to corroborate this, and my core improved from a 19 to 29 in the past 6 weeks. My upper body tests showed a similar improvement from 6 to 9 reps before exhaustion.

The last was my flexibility, and this really is my Achilles' heel (pardon the pun). Flexibility is not my strong suit, and I know it. Even at my most fit playing baseball I wasn't flexible, even with all the stretching we used to do. It's something I really need to work on in the coming weeks and months as I continue my journey. That said, I improved from a score of 5.5 to a score of 10 during the 6 week period.

In recap, the 6 week review indicated the following:

7% reduction in body fat (23lbs of body fast lost)
19.4 lbs overall (thus gained 3.6lbs of muscle)
8 bpm reduction in RHR
3 point reduction in BMI (35 to 32)
almost doubled Core Endurance (19/29) and Flexibility (5.5/10)
drastically increased Upper Body Endurance (6/9)


To me, this is just incredible.  I have been working hard, and really watching how and what I eat.  I've been making sure to get in exercise as much as I can.  I've been spending the time to understand how wonderfully created my body is, and how much God loves us by the bodies that he crafted for us.  I am respecting myself more by how I treat myself, and how I think of myself.  I'm glad that my body is responding so positively to the challenges.  I cannot imagine that the next 6 weeks will bring similar changes, but rather a smoothing out of the rough spots for me.  I know that I need to work harder at core and upper body strength, and that my flexibility needs to be a goal.  The deal is that my goals after the 12 week program are strong at this point, and balancing my personal goals with a good overall fitness routine will be one of the biggest challenges I face in the next 6 weeks.

note: HUGE SUCCESS

Today was my last planned ride for the month, and I had about 21 miles left to reach a personal milestone of 200 miles in a month.  It seems like every time I get close, I either do a very challenging event or weather gets the best of me, or I just seem to fall a little short.  Last month I came within a few miles and just missed the mark.  This month I ended up needing 1 good ride to finish up what should be a spectacular month for me.

That said, today was a planned ride with a few of the guys from work to go over Paris Mountain.  This makes 3 rides in the past month to tame the beast, which almost seems unimaginable to me.  The route took us up the Swamp Rabbit past Furman, and then up the steep side of Paris Mountain and over the top.  This would also be the first time planned where I didn't go back down the same side I went up on Paris Mountain, which would be a new experience for me.  With a fantastic day ahead of us, we took off on the route.



It's still amazing to me that riding up the Swamp Rabbit is a relaxing ride, even at a 16 mph pace.  We didn't rush up to Furman, but we didn't dilly dally at all.  We made our way up to Altamont road, and started the accent up Paris Mountain.  The first half mile or so I felt really strong, but I could tell that my legs were tired from the Boot Camp and the Sunday Brookwood ride.  By the time I reached the water tower, I had some doubts on if I'd have enough legs to make it all the way up to the top.  That said, I was still determined to NOT let the mountain beat me.  I had to struggle more this time than my previous attempts to keep my heart rate in an acceptable zone while climbing.  I had to find ways to recover whenever possible.  I kept my wits about me, and took the chances I had to recover instead of attacking when I really thought I should be.  I made it to the top, and checked my time.  Not a lot faster than last week, but still faster.  Not what I was expecting, nor what I was attempting to do with the run.  We got back downtown, and I needed just a mile to complete my goal of 200 miles.  Thus I took a longer way back to the car, and got a fantastic ride in.

Progress on the Bike

Last week when I went up Paris Mountain I was realizing that I was getting through to a new level on my cycling, and that just getting up the mountain wasn't enough to make it feel like a long enough ride. Because of the weather last weekend, I didn't go out on the Brookwood ride. The ride is most Sunday afternoons, and is a gorgeous trek through the countryside near Simpsonville, SC. It's typically around 25 miles, and has classically been a sufferfest for me as I attempt to keep up. Today we had a smaller turn out than I expected, since the weather was in the mid-50's when we started out.



About 5 miles into the ride, we realized that one of the new folks was very new to riding, and really shouldn't be attempting a 20 mile ride just yet. So AJ went with Jennifer back to the start, and we split up the original group some. At this point we really picked up the pace, but even then it was a lot easier overall of a ride than what I've been used to. I found my cadence to be much higher (sometimes topping over 100!), and my legs did feel stronger overall. I think one of the big reasons for this was my new attention to attacking hills, although I think the spin classes have helped build the capillaries in my legs a lot to drive more endurance. Hills have been a constant struggle for me. I grew up in coastal Florida - hills were what the ants pushed up before we killed 'em. An incline was the bridge we used to get off the barrier island during Hurricane evacuations. Hills weren't something I grew up around. That said, I absolutely love them, but biking on them has been a challenge for me. My bike before I moved to the upstate was a 1 speed cruiser, and it did what I needed. Now I have all these gears that I have to make use, and figuring out which one, and what level of effort for a given climb, takes a LOT of practice. Not climbing Holland road at the end of this ride for 2 weeks was an eye opener, though. When I climbed it today, and didn't really have an issue until we were almost to the turn off going back to Brookwood, I was amazed at myself. This puts me at an ever increasing milestone for the month, though. Right now I'm at 179mi for the month of February, not counting perceived miles on the spin cycles. I have a planned ride to go over Paris Mountain tomorrow, which should put my total for the month at just over 200. This will be the first month that I have gone over 200 miles since I started 5 months ago. Hopefully I can continue to increase that mileage as the year goes on, especially over the summer.

Shipped off to Boot Camp!

Okay, full disclosure:  I went Rob's Big Losers Boot Camp, not an actual military establishment.  Today marked the end of Week 5 of our 12 week Challenge with Rob Dempsey's "Big Losers", and this week's agenda was to attend the boot camp.  So the pack of us all assembled at the East Side YMCA in Taylor's SC and went through the paces.  A good majority of the "Losers" showed up for the workout, although a few had to miss it for family reasons.

Gonna make you Sweat!

We started out with a warm up that consisted of walking and running some laps.  I haven't spent a lot of time running since I had the issues with my feet a few weeks ago (and that was the beginning of Week 2!), so it was a good test of how I'd do.  I was happy that I was able to "bring it" through the warm up, and get plenty of time at an accelerated pace.  I need to schedule with myself some time to actually run a few miles to see how my feet will handle the 5k in 7 weeks.

After the warm up, we did a cross training routine that included 8 stations.  We were set into groups, and went through the routines.  We started on push ups, and continued through a kickboxing station, rowing, jump rope, stepping, more kickboxing, squats and jumping jacks.  Every 40 seconds (times varied, but not as much as the 1 song challenges during Friend Raiser!) we changed stations.  I think the only stations that didn't challenge me during the sequence were the step station and the kick boxing, although I definitely felt a workout during those. I wish I had brought my lumbar belt for my water bottle, so I could get more hydration as we went along, though.

After we finished several rotations (I'm not sure if we started or complete 4 full sets), we had a cool down period for a few minutes while we moved into the group workout room, which was set up with floor mats.  Here we went through an abs routine (youch it was a good workout!) as well as a Yoga class.  Yoga is definitely not on my top 5 things to do, as many of the poses put a lot of strain on my joints.  It also reminds me that I have a lot more work to do in my overall fitness.

At the end we gathered up and had a group photo shoot.  Afterwards I was tired, but it was a great time and I had fun in the larger environment going through the workouts.  We have another Boot Camp closer to the end of March, and I'm looking forward to seeing how I do on that one as well.

Click on the Y to see all the photos!

A Cyclist looks down 20

Today is a "Rest Day" for me, and as it happens it's also my weigh in day.  Since I started tracking my weight back in early January, I'm now down approximately 20lbs, to a hefty number of 235.  I have a ways to go at this point, but it's nice that the numbers moved for me early, as it's given me some motivation to keep working hard.  I need to adjust my schedule some, and be more regimented with "this is a swim day, don't go riding" for a bit to balance out my workouts, and time with the wife at the gym, some.   At the end of the day I feel a lot better, have more energy, and I'm energized to battle the next 10 lbs, which I'm figuring will take a lot longer than the first 20.  The last 10-20 I'm expecting to be the "long haul" of the journey, where I'm expecting that it'll be next cycling season before I'm even close to where I want to be.  But the effort will pay off.

What I also realized while looking back at the last 20lbs is how blessed and fortunate I am.  I've tried to make changes before, and they have gone okay, but I always end up slipping in the end.  I have too many temptations, too many distractions, too much of my old life in the way.  Even up until January this was an issue. I was working out, getting in 2-4 rides a week, working hard.  The weight wasn't coming off and I wasn't really feeling all that much better.   Since starting Rob's Big Losers though, things have been different.  I've already blogged about how much I'm proud of how my family has taken to the challenge along side of me, and I think the prayers that I've had with my friends, my family, and my church has gone a long way to extend that.  Temptations and cravings just don't seem to be there.  I go to Wild Wing Cafe and broccoli is just a natural change for me from fries.  I don't even want them (and I'm a salty carb fiend!).  I find myself wanting to find more ways to add veggies and fruits to meals, not trying to dodge it or forcing myself to eat them.  It's truly a blessing, and I cannot thank God enough for that gift during this journey.  Even when my 12 week journey with Rob's Big Losers is done, I don't think I can return to having fried food 5+ times a week. I just don't crave it, and I the few times that I've had something heavier my body has rejected it pretty strongly.

I started this entry with a more general title, but I think this one fits.  There will be a day this year when I'll have to post up "A Pirate looks at -40" for the parrot-head in me, and this is my reminder that I'll be down 40 soon enough.  I'm not going to rush for it, but I'll be as excited to write that post as I was to write about the first time up Paris Mountain (as read in the entry "Over the Mountain")

More Jelly Arms

After a week of pretty punishing cycling workouts, I really was ready to hit the pool.   Well, kind of ready.  The last few times I've been in I was disappointed because I bonked way too early, and only got in a few laps.  To me, 3 laps just isn't enough to be happy with spending time in the pool.   Tonight I had hoped to get in a few more laps, maybe even double my previous efforts.  What I did this time was set a time limit, I was going to spend at least 30 minutes in the pool, and just do laps as I could.

With this in mind, I got to the pool.  Tonight, for a change, it was a quiet time and the pool was pretty empty.  Getting a lane wasn't an issue, and I hopped in and got adjusted to the water (I mean, there's really only one way to adjust to water temp, and that's feet first!).  Once I got in, I did a little bit of warming up, and took a lap.  What I noticed first is that my form is horrible (something I'm really going to have to work on) and that I was tired after 25m.  After the first full lap I was pretty darned spent.  I was determined to not bomb out after 3 laps this time, so I rested for a little bit, and went out for another lap.  At the halfway point I stopped to catch my breath, and this time instead of just doing freestyle on the way back I did a backstroke.  I was still pretty darned tired by the time I got back, but at least I wasn't doubled over and feeling my heart attempting to leave my chest.  It took a little less time to recover, so I went out again.

I repeated this same cycle for several laps, and realized I had gotten to 8 laps and still had over 5 minutes left to go in my 30 minute time period.  I went out for 2 more laps going freestyle out and backstroke back, and still had just enough time for a last lap.  I decided I'd encap the set with freestyle both ways, since it seemed to be the more exhausting of the moves for me (probably because my form was so bad).  The way back wasn't easy, but I managed to complete the 11th lap.  At the end I was tired, but also I also felt very accomplished.  11 laps is a number that I can be happy with completing, and to me it's a real starting point.  I wasn't quite to "jelly arms" this time, but I think that's because I was working on a recovery strategy the entire time so I could go longer.

My hope is that as I work in more swimming into my routine I can see gains similar to my success in biking in the pool.

Too Much of a Good Thing (sometimes it's still good!)

Today ended up being a "back to back" day for me with challenging climbs.  And when I say "challenging climbs", I actually am refering to climbs that when you get about halfway through them you say "why in the world did I choose this route?!?".  My buddy John couldn't make the trip up Paris Mountain yesterday, so I wanted to come up with a route where he could get some good attacks in and then we'd meet back up.  Overall the plan went well, although my legs were still tired from the effort up PM yesterday.  We did hit a hiccup when while not together the route I had put together called for a turn he wasn't sure on, so we ended up not following quite the same route for a bit.  We also ran a little short on time before nightfall, so instead of taking the hills back to downtown we ended up traveling back on the Swamp Rabbit to downtown.



That said, it was a really good ride. My legs are definitely tired at this point, but because of schedule and weather I don't expect to be doing any hard rides between now and Sunday.  The goal is to get to spin class in the morning for some more training, and then hopefully some time in the pool on Thursday.  I *may* attempt to make a second "omg how early is it?" spin class on Friday morning, but it would be quite a stretch, and it puts a pretty big crimp on the morning routine.