Still going strong

This whole week I've been on a high. I finally had a good race this weekend at the Santa Fe Triathlon. I averaged over 20 miles an hour on the bike & had one of my top 3 swims ever. I'm sure a lot of my performance had to do with me finally completing all of my scheduled workouts. I was swamped with family obligations this summer and missed a bunch of workouts, but even when I did have the time to train I missed more than my fair share. A lot of that had to do with burnout from training for Ironman Arizona last year. I believe I'm back in full swing now!

I believe the other aspect of my increased speed is my diet. Before I was following Weight Watchers, which I don't believe is a great diet for endurance athletes. Most of the week I burn well over 1000 calories a day working out. On WW I only replaced half of what I burned, which left me at a huge deficit, which not only prevented me from getting the nutrients & calories needed to recover, but also left me furiously hungry all the time. Coniquently I was constantly falling off the diet wagon. All that yo-yo dieting was frustrating to me.

On my new diet regimen I'm rarely ever hungry. When I am hungry I do a quick swim, bike, or run at an easy pace to earn some extra calories. Since I get to eat %100 of the calories I burn it's very easy & worth while to do extra exercising.

Because it's so rewarding to workout extra, I've been doing a lot of zone 1 training on my indoor trainer while watching the Tour De France. It's very easy for me to lose track of time watching the Tour. Normally an hour on the trainer a couple times a week is all I can tolerate. While watching this epic bike race I'm putting in an hour and a half to two hours a day at least four times a week on top of my scheduled workouts. So far this month I've racked up 470 cycling miles. I'm hoping to hit my first 600 mile month without missing any of my scheduled running or swimming. I'll need to average a bit over 17 miles a day the rest of the month, but since this entire week is a recovery week I may miss my goal by just a bit.

My weight this morning was 213.6. I l'm down another 2 pounds this week, 14 pounds lost total while using dietpower. 28 pounds to go.

Thanks for tuning in!

Continued weight loss!

A friend of mine named Sandra is an endurance athlete very similar to me- only she's a faster cyclist. She too struggles with her weight. it sucks having to struggle with weight when your an endurance athlete because low body weight is so very important to our speed and endurance. It has to do with our power to weight ratio on the bike & the height to power ratio on the run.

Sandra showed me a computer program called dietpower. It's AMAZING! I've been making great gains for the 2.5 weeks I've been on it & haven't fallen off the wagon once since starting the program. I was until recently doing weight watchers online. I found out that on WW I was hungry all the time. Like I've said a 100 times I'm an all or nothing kind of a guy. Once I fall off the wagon for one meal I may not gain control for days or even weeks. I believe the reason I was so hungry on WW was that I was only able to eat half the calories I earned from my workout. Being a long distance triathlete, it's fairly common for me to burn 4500 calories on a long day of training. Out of the 4500 I burned I'd only be able to eat 2250. In my opinion that left me at such a large deficit that not only was I STARVING, but even worse was that I wasn't getting enough calories or nutrients to recover from a hard days training.

Another thing than Sandra & I have in common is we've both turned to blogging to stay motivated, show our recent weight & athletic gains & losses, to share our battle, & perhaps to even help others who also have our issues with the battle of the bulge. Her blog isn't public or I'd share the sight with my peeps, but I'm very excited to watch her adventure.

I weighed in @ 218 this morning, down from 225 a little less than 3 weeks ago. I'm hoping to be approximately 205 by the Halfmax National Championships race on Sept 19th. I'm a fast triathlete at that weight. My long term goal is to be @ 185 pounds by Nov 10th. The lightest I've been since mid school was 188 pounds in May of last year. I think I'll be able to get to that weight using my new Diet Power. But more importantly I think I'll be able to maintain that weight this time.

On to the Tour De France!!! I'm a bit behind, stage 5 was today yet I just finished watching stage 4 on TiVo. Stage 4 was the team time trial. Stage 4 was the most exciting stage I've ever seen!!!!! & this Tour is turning out to be the most exciting Tour I've ever watched. I'm going to try to watch all of stage 5 today before I go into work. For those not watching YOU ARE MISSING OUT BIG TIME!

Peace peeps!

Dare I say "moderation"?

After my post "the big 3 paranoia" a couple weeks ago that was full of motivation & expecting great things....things simply fell apart. I missed 4 workouts one week, then I didn't work out once the entire next week. Ouch indeed!

Normally I'd beat myself up about something like this. I'm realizing I completed a late season Ironman & didn't take enough time off, plus my focus has been on my 2 children, my wife, & my new baby on the way. I'm going to do my best to rededicate myself, but I'm not going to beat myself up if I'm unable to get back into the swing of hard core training like I'm used to. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed. This was supposed to be my season to shine, since I'm now training specifically for sprints & that distance is the one I've always done best at. But, this is a life long sport, it's like my coach Pete Alfino says, I don't do this for a living, it's for fun. So let's make the best of it.

Oh, & if Jason McClure is reading this, thanks for the words of encouragement. For you to encourage someone who is one of your rival competitors in your division, says a lot about the kind of person you are.

The first time I had tried weight watchers online I lost a ton of weight. Hindsight I believe I lost to much way to quickly. I was averaging just under 4 pounds of loss every week. I kept that up from Nov 07 until May 08. I dropped from 256 to an all time low of 188. I remember being ravenously hungry all the time.

I'm hovering around 230 now & I've been attempting weight watchers online again. I'm not dealing with the hunger well at all. I'll get a week into the diet & the hunger gets to me and I fall off the diet wagon again.

Albert Einstein said "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over again & expecting a different outcome." I might be a very, very, very slow learner, but by golly I think I'm on to something. If I lost to much weight to quickly before & was hungry to the point of torture, & now I'm so hungry all the time that I fail to stay consistent, then obviously I'm not getting enough calories on WW online!

So now what I shall try is to eat double the activity points I'm allocated on WW. I believe this will help for multiple reasons.
-I'll be getting more calories on the days I'm working out which is when I need the extra nutrients & calories to recover.
-I'll be getting more calories so I won't be so ravenous & end up self destructing.
-I will be losing weight more slowly, which from what I'm told makes a person more apt to not gain the weight back.

Like I said, I don't learn quickly, but at times I am capable of semi-intelligent thought. I'd like to point out I did say semi-intelligent. I don't want people to start expecting a light bulb above this noggin to often or they will be often disappointed:)

A tad bit of info for ya. Mac & Cheese out of a box has a butt lod of calories. Today I had just a tad bit, 1 cup to be exact. That was 9 weight watchers points!!! Darn near gave me a heart attack! Beware the mac & cheese out of the box!

Mile stones coming out the ying yang!

I weighed in today at 207 pounds. 3 lbs away from being the lightest I've ever been as an adult. 2 lbs away from losing 50 lbs on Weight Watchers. 8 lbs away from breaking 200. 12 lbs away from my ultimate goal of 195 (although I'm beginning to rethink my goal weight). & 16 lbs away from having lost 100 lbs by triathloning!!!!!!!

Weight watchers first week

I joined weight Wathchers online Tue 11-13 to start my weight loss & Iron goals. I'm really enjoying the way weight watchers online works. I'm given a certain amount of points that I can eat each day. I'm finding there are allot of ways I can fulfill cravings & hunger by eating snacks that have very low "points". My favorite so far is red & yellow peppers w/ salsa. I use the strips of peppers like a potato chip. I ate 2 cups of spinach yesterday w/ dinner & it was 0 points. I think the foods I'm finding that are low points are also nutrient dense.

I can earn more points in a day by exercising. 2 days ago I got really hungry midday but had used up allot of points early & didn't want to go hungry during dinner. So I decided to go for a 1 hr 40 min bike. I got back & typed in my workout, viola, I had earned enough Activity Points to eat an entire extra meal! Hopefully I'll be able to succeed on this weight loss plan. I have a good feeling about this plan so far.

Monday I leave for my 3 day 350 mile bike ride to Hobbs. In my best calculation I'm going to earn 45 activity points each day I ride. To put that in perspective I am limited to 38 points each day without earning any extra activity points. I'll be FEASTING each day of my bike trip. I also plan on running all the stairs of the Hobbs High school football stadium on Thanksgiving so I'll be able to eat well on Thanksgiving day.

My first day joining WW I weighed in at 256. I weighed in this evening at 244. Keep in mind I didn't weigh in in the morning when I'd be lightest. Good news overall.