As the days are growing shorter and the nights getting colder, it becomes more and more difficult to ride the bike.  If I am going to continue my assault on the old me and continue to ride my bicycle then I am going to need to seek out alternative forms of exercise.

Not much can compare to the thrill of speeding down the road at 25 mph in the open air on your bicycle, I love it but when it’s 45 degrees out then suddenly pucker factor comes into play.  I am way too much of a sissy to ride when it’s that damned cold out.  So I am looking for an indoor bike trainer.  I have been doing some research and a number of them seem to be decent alternatives but I am pretty fussy and a little bit of a gear snob.  I despise cycling gear, or really gear of any kind that doesn’t work well so I prefer to buy something better right out of the gate than to tolerate a wheezy pile of junk.

I want a bike trainer that is quick and easy to load, that is quiet and closely emulates road riding.  I’ve been told by a number of riders that rollers are the closest thing to perfection but they don’t load the legs like a resistance trainer can and I think I might fall over a lot which is never a good thing.  Right now the best bike trainers that I have found are the Kurt Kinetic bike trainer, Cycleops Fluid 2 Bike Trainer and possibly a Minoura bike trainer.  I am in the process of doing my research on them and checking out various bike trainer reviews but I will make my purchase soon.

Keep ya posted.

Hey there,

It’s kind of funny how people have such different levels of self awareness and what an impact it has on their success or failure.  I was huffing and puffing away at the gym tonight and had set a goal of 30 minutes on the elliptical stairs.

At about the 15 minute mark my head started playing tricks on me for a few minutes and I had almost convinced myself that I couldn’t keep going.  I had that talk with myself and remembered what Lance always said about his ability to “suffer” being key to his success.

A quick check of my HR showed a steady 150 ish which tells me I was more than capable of continuing…so I did.  I mentally ground it out and after a few minutes got a second wind.  It was kind of neat to win that small battle with myself and it reminds me how much of weight loss is mental.

[ad#ad-1]In fact, the mental aspect plays into almost anything we do.  It can take us to new heights or it can put us down and keep us down, but one thing is clear….it is your choice.  You can choose to be stronger or you can choose to stay on the same self destructive path that you are on today.  If you can master your mind, then you can master your body, your career, your marriage….you name it.

The brain is the number one muscle you should exercise when trying to become a healthier you.  Israel had a post on his FatManUnleashed blog that touched on the subject and you can find a number of different articles about the subject if you google it.

Mental Toughness…….I highly recommend it and it is one of the reasons I like the Nutrisystem program.  It includes a detailed booklet called the Mindset Makeover that retrains your brain how to feel about food and it’s been a big help.

The concept can be applied to anything you do, not just a diet.  I can tell you one thing from years of being a yo-yo dieter that the mental aspect is definitely critical to your long term success.

No Pain…..No Gain.

Hey Piglets,

If you’ve looked around the site at all then you will know that my journey started at a Man Sized…326 pounds!

It hurts to even say that, let alone type it for the entire world to see.

My weight loss is starting to show on my body and more people are commenting on it and asking me how I am losing the weight, so I figured I would write about it and share.

I am still fairly self conscious when discussing my weight in the “real world” but I am getting better about it and probably as I lose more and more weight and don’t feel like the giant fat guy, it will get better and better.

The Secret

So after much consideration I decided to let you in on my secret, because so far it’s been pretty easy.  Are you ready for this?  Are you sitting down?

Ok, my secret is this….”I stopped eating so much and I started moving around a lot more than I used to do.”

Wow…shocking huh.

Bet you never expected that did you?

I say that tongue in cheek but in reality people everywhere are looking for some kind of miracle drug, diet, workout or protein drink that will peel the pounds off but I hate to say they are going to be disappointed.

The secret to losing weight has always been and likely always will be….to eat less calories than you expend.  The cleaner and the better quality the calories are then the better your body will react and feel about the diet.  Exercise is as simple as walking to start.  Go walk a mile each night at first until you build up your speed and endurance and then transition to a better or different exercise as you see fit.

It’s that simple.  Eat Less and Exercise more and you can lose weight fast!

A System

Now, I say that there isn’t any secret to losing weight and I firmly believe that but you do have a lot of resources available to you.  My problem may be the same as yours and that was that I was addicted to fast food and when left having to make a choice between fast food that was fast or trying to find healthy food I would always make the poor choice and eat the garbage.  326lbs later…..

What I wanted out of a diet was something that would remove the options and be quick and simple to prepare, follow and understand.  I started doing some research and then a mutual friend lost about 50 lbs on Nutrisystem.  I didn’t know much about it at the time, but I saw it work for him very well and decided to investigate it.

It seemed to fit exactly what I wanted out of a plan.  The meals are planned out for you for the entire month, the plan has you eat 5-6 times a day and the food is actually very good and tastes great.  It also usually takes about 90 seconds to prepare if you opt for the microwave option.  This matched what I was after perfectly.

I decided to give it a try and I have to say I am pretty in love with this diet.  I get hungry often, which I never used to because I was always eating crap food, but when I do get hungry it’s usually time for either another meal or your morning or afternoon snack.   It almost feels like I am eating MORE food than I was before however that is not true.  I do eat more frequently but much smaller portions and much higher quality food.

As for the exercise portion, we started slowly, as you must when you are a 326lb behemoth but a simple walk each night quickly turned into a longer walk, which turned into a gym membership and I also dug my bike out of the garage and got it back in shape.  I have a Trek 5900SL that is a beauty and I hadn’t ridden it in almost 2 years!!

I was too busy keeping McDonalds in business.

So now I am back on the bike as my preferred choice of exercise, which is a challenge during daylight savings time but we are doing the best we can.  I will share more on my exercise plan in the future.

Conclusion

So at the end of the day…that’s my secret.  Eat Less and Exercise more and the weight is falling off.   In about 50 days I have dropped 37 pounds and sticking to the diet has been very easy.  I will share more detailed information about the diet if anyone cares but if you are looking for something similar then you might want to check it out.

9 months until LiveStrong Philadelphia……from giant fat guy to Century Rider for Cancer in 9 months.  This is going to be fun!

Hey fellow piggies….

If you took the time to read my About Me page then you kind of have an idea what my mission is in life, it’s pretty simple really, I want to live an extraordinary one.

As I was reading my about me page, I could see where my dissertation could be misinterpreted by some to think that I might have a bad life or have a rough go of it.  I should clarify that this is definitely not the case.  I have a great life, I am happily married, own a house, two Harley Davidson motorcycles, a boat and live a pretty comfortable life.  We go to the beach on vacation and are living your ordinary American Middle Class lifestyle.

Not exactly terrible.

The keyword there is ordinary.  Ordinary was good enough for me a year ago, but ordinary isn’t going to cut it for me in the future.  I want to live an EXTRAORDINARY life!!

I won’t rehash my About page again as it might be classified as a cure for insomnia, and that would just hurt my feelings but I am sure you probably can relate a bit.

The Foundation

I have a theory that before you can build anything, you need to make sure the foundation is strong and for me, a strong foundation is going to start with getting healthy.  I am 289 pounds as I write this and my goal is to get down to about 170-180 before I am done.

Another of my long term goals is to ride a “century”….which for any non-cyclists is a 100 mile bike ride.  The century is considered a milestone type of ride in the cycling world and if you can ride it in 6 hours or less then you are doing pretty well.

And yet another one of my goals is to become a better person, which could involve a LOT of different activities but one of the most important things to me personally is to being the kind of person that spends their time on activities that are selfless.  Activities that help OTHER people rather than just yourself.

I know I am throwing out a lot of goals here….so the question is what am I going to do about it?  Well being the smart piggy that I am….I am going to start with an activity that can involve all 3 of those goals.

My First Step

The first step I am going to take is going to involve my goal to ride a century, my desire to help others and the opportunity to pay some kind of tribute to both my own mother, and others that are afflicted with the same horrible disease.  Cancer.

Any cyclist (or even wannabe cyclist) knows that if you want to be involved with a foundation that fights for a cure for cancer and is cycling related then you only have to turn to “the man” himself….Lance Armstrong!  If you aren’t familiar with Lance Armstrong then you could be in trouble….he’s an American icon and the winner of a record SEVEN Tour De France bike races.

Lance is an amazing guy and if you haven’t read his books, and  you need some inspiration, then I highly recommend them.  Incredibly uplifting and a great story and I just realized I sound like a Lance groupie…which I am not but I do hope that someday he will remove that restraining order against me.

The LiveStrong Challenge is a charity event held every year in multiple cities around the country that involves either a walk, run or cycling event.  I have signed up for the century ride and will ride the 100 mile course in Philadelphia on August 23, 2009.

I am setting up a team and will be recruiting fellow cyclists, friends and family to join me at this event and raise money to fight a horrible disease that affects so many people.  You can click on the icon below to join Team Cycle Pig at the Philadelphia Challenge.

If you can’t be there then you can still join the team as a virtual member and raise money for cancer via your own page and help our Team as well.   Hope to see you there!

Hey all…this is my first post on the blog and I am using it as nothing more than a place marker and to say hello.  That is me and my wife Petra last year around X-Mas time.

I am excited to share my thoughts and journey with the world and I hope I can meet a lot of like minded people who are looking to accomplish the same things that we are trying to accomplish.

I am a firm believer in setting goals and making them public as I think that will keep you more honest than those silent goals that nobody else knows about.  Somehow they always seem to have more flexibility to them.

Here’s a FEW of my goals that range from the short term to the long term.  I may add to these over the next few months as I develop a more complete picture of where and how I want to go.

My Goals:

My primary goal is to lose weight.  As rapidly as I can and still remain healthy.  I weigh in at 289 lbs as I write this which means I have lost about 37 lbs so far, a good start but not even close to what I have planned. Too much southern cooking combined with lethargy has made me fat, but I am fixing that.  Here are some of my short term goals:

• Weigh 250lbs by March 15th, 2009.  Aggressive but achievable.
• Weigh 200 lbs by June 15th, 2009.  Again aggressive….but so am I.
• Ride a 30 mile group ride without being “dropped” by April 15th, 2009.  I can finish 30 now but not without being dropped like a hot potato.
• Complete at least one “century” ride (100 miles) by end of July 2009.

As I said, far more to come but these are goals that I had already set for myself.  I am eyeballing a triathlon in there somewhere next summer but right now I simply cannot run without crushing my knees and ankles into powder so that goal will have to wait a bit.

These are my goals….how about yours?  You do set them right?