3 1/4 Nicole Ritchies
In the spring of 2005, I had a series of mechanical issues with my bikes and got too busy to ride. I had taken a fairly stressful job that was a decent commute from Fall City and slowly but surely, I began to pack on the pounds. I think the biggest reason I didn't notice was that the waist size of my jeans remained steady from 2001 but as I found out last Tuesday, that's not such a good indicator.
After having more difficulty than I expected on some hills here in Colorado Springs, I decided to get serious about my weight and bought a sc
ale and cleaned out the junk food in my condo. I stepped on the scale and my heart literally missed a beat- 3.24698 Nicole Ritchies! I read in some newspaper that she was down to 83 pounds so you can take those numbers and solve for x.
So starting last Tuesday, I've been busting serious ass. No more soda, no more fast food and a decent breakfast (no more of my beloved Cocoa Pebbles and Apple Jacks). And lots and lots of exercise.
To make sure that I still had my engine, I did a 61 minute test on the tortuous bike trainer (I'd show you but I'm pretty sure just having this thing in my possession violates one of the Geneva Convention articles) to see how many watts I could sustain. Despite appalling lack of fitness, I managed 383 watts which is considerably better than I had hoped for. This is a signal that my engine is still in tact and I just need to lose the mass I have to move to be decent again. I'll definitely need to do that if I want to have any chance of owning Mt. Evans. The trainer sucks hardcore and is uncomfortable but its a great way to see how much power you can sustain for a certain period of time. Still I have months and months of uncomfortable riding ahead of me if I'm going to get down to 2.25 NRs. Stay tuned.
June 6th, 2007 - 09:04
Good luck with the weight thing. I, too, have had some issues in that department, mainly because when I left Dayton, my rock climbing ended and I didn’t have anything to replace it and no time worked out in my schedule to, well, work out. I ended up buying some fitness equipment and have been seeing some improvement in my fitness. Not much movement on the weight front (I didn’t get a scale until last week, but to fit into my favorite black dress, I need to lose at least 7 pounds), but I have hope, still. I haven’t cut back much on the eating, but am burning over 600 calories a day. Seems like that should do something, but perhaps I need to cut back on the bad foods, too. I refuse to buy bigger clothes, which is what caused the drastic actions. That keeps me from getting too out of control, too. When things get too uncomfortable, I kick up the exercise and pay more attention to the diet.
Words of wisdom (???),
Hilary
June 6th, 2007 - 09:26
It only gets WORSE with age – trust me!! I used to think ‘what a lame excuse’!!
njb
June 6th, 2007 - 09:56
383W is a LOT of power. Could you sustain that?
June 6th, 2007 - 10:22
Greg, yeah, I sustained that for 61 minutes- my record is 405 I think. It was incredibly difficult and I had to sit down on the ground for about 10 minutes before I could walk back up to my condo.
I read the other day though that U.S. pro Saul Raisin (http://www.saulraisin.com/sitemain/) averaged 550 for 90 minutes on the same PowerTap meter so I suck.