June was a disaster - I gained 1.4 pounds. I finished the month weighing 168.6 lbs. Oops!

With that said, I’m not overly concerned or surprised. I’m not concerned because this is just a blip on my weight loss effort which is simply part of the rest of my life. I’m also not surprised since my behavior was not helpful in the weight loss department.

Remember my thirty day goal of lifting weights twice a week for thirty minutes. That didn’t last long. It just didn’t reach out and grab me; sorry, not exciting enough for me.

Plus, we went on vacation for the last week of June. And you know what happens on vacation. That’s right, the diet gets thrown out the window. We visited my brother in White Salmon Washington (across from Hood River - or as I like to say “Bingen Heights” - inside joke). We then traveled over to the coast for five days at two different campgrounds - Cape Lookout and Beachside. Great weather for two of the three days at Cape Lookout. Crappy, rainy weather for most of the time at Beachside. In the eating department, we lit up a campfire each night and roasted marshmellows. You should also know that we bought my wife a Weber portable barbeque grill for Mother’s day that she absolutely used. We put that to good use by baking cookies just about every night. We all know how good that it for the weight loss effort.

It was worth it - we had a great time as a family spending all of the time together that we did - hiking, playing on the beach, driving time (tip: books on tape are great), camping at Crater Lake.

Crater Lake Boat Launch

Since we are starting a new month, I have renewed my vows - that sounds a little too religious for my liking - lets just say that I have renewed my weight loss effort. Remember, my new goal is to weigh 155 lbs by the end of December 2007.

I visited the local YMCA for a torture session on the good old ergometer for 15,000 meters. And like a true stat geek, here is my total time and split times.

Completed the 15km in 1:03:26.7 averaging 2:06.9 per 500 meters at 25 strokes per minute. Did the first 5km in 21:12, the next 5km in 21:06 and the last 5km in 21:09.

8:25.6 2:06.4 25 2000m
8:29.5 2:07.3 25 4000m
8:27.8 2:06.9 25 6000m
8:28.5 2:07.1 25 8000m
8:26.8 2:06.7 25 10000m
8:32.5 2:08.1 26 12000m
8:31.9 2:07.9 26 14000m
4:03.9 2:01.9 27 15000m

I’m back in the grove for July. My July plan is to row 100000 meters in 8 days at the beginning of the month (15km per day for seven of eight days) and then again the same thing towards the end of the month.

Technorati Tags: ergometer, camping, crater lake

If you're new here and plan on visiting again, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Other posts related to "My Weight Loss Failure"

Trick Yourself Into Losing Weight

Let me see if I can explain this.  I’m going to tell you about my morning weigh-ins for the last few days and my eating and exercising routine so you can understand my thinking.

This past Thursday, I weighed in at 167.6 pounds.  During the day, I drank at least 100 ounces of water.  That evening I went on an “epic” mountain bike ride.  When I say epic I mean it was a challenging ride.  I was the slowest in the group - and I am no slouch when it comes to mountain bike riding.  We did a ride in the Boise foothills that included ~4000 feet of climbing.  The total ride time was close to three hours for 21 miles of biking.  I was exhausted when I returned home.

You should also know that for dinner prior to riding I had a bowl of Cherrios.  Yes, that’s right, a bowl of Cheerios and nothing else.  I wasn’t working with much fuel on the ride.

So what did I do when I returned home from the ride-to-end-all-rides?  The better question to ask is what didn’t I do.  I didn’t eat anything. One of my weight loss secrets has been to NOT eat after dinner.  Technically, I ate dinner and it was after dinner.  That was mistake number one.

Just out of curiosity, I decided to weigh myself before going to bed.  That’s not something I typically do as I assume that I am not at my lighest in the evening.  I weighed in at 166.4 pounds - that’s 1.2 lbs lighter than when I woke up in the morning.

I went to bed and … just laid there.  I couldn’t fall asleep, much too restless.  My body was not settled down.  Finally, after midnight, I went downstairs to the kitchen and ate some apple sauce.  I think that helped. I was able to fall asleep after that.  Lesson = I should have eaten something after the exercise effort to help my body recover.

Woke up the next morning, stood on the scale and … drumroll, please … 164.4 pounds.  Yes!!!!  I lost three plus pounds in one day.  Hello 155 pounds, here I come.  The night before, I figured that if I didn’t eat after exercising, I was sure to weigh less the next morning.  And here was the proof.  I was feeling pretty good about NOT eating the night before - with the exception of the midnight snack.

Friday was uneventful.  That is until I got home later that day.  Not that I was hungry, but for whatever reason, I basically gorged myself on whatever I could get my hands on.  Cashews, cottage cheese, apple sauce, chips and salsa - I just had to eat.  And this was just before dinner.  I ate so much before dinner that I couldn’t even finish the one burrito that was for dinner.  Oh well, my body needed it.  Let’s just call this mistake number two.

Saturday morning’s weigh in … hold on to your hat for this, 168.8 pounds.  Yes, you read that right (I checked twice).  I weighed 4.4 pounds more than I did on Friday morning because of the Friday afternoon gorge fest.

The lesson I took from this is to keep the effort steady.  Extreme efforts to lose weight - even though my mountain bike ride was not intended as a weight loss session - can be quickly followed by actions that undo weight loss and even add weight.

In the future, you will find that if I do an extreme mountain bike ride like that one I did last week, that I will follow it with a sensible meal to replace some of the fuel that I burned through.

See, I’m learning.

Technorati Tags: mountain biking, exercise, Boise foothills, crash diet

Other posts related to "I Think I Know Why Crash Diets Don't Work"

Mountain Biking In McCall

Weight Loss 2007

Back On The Rowing Machine

Time For Another Weight Loss Change

I did my weights last night.  I also tacked on some rowing on the ergometer before and after for good measure with the following results for 1000 meters and 2000 meters, respectively.

3:38.3  1:49.1  26
:54.6  1:49.2  26
:55.2  1:50.4  26
:55.0  1:50.0  26
:53.6  1:47.2  28

8:18.2  2:04.6  24
2:05.9  2:05.9  25
2:05.0  2:05.0  24
2:04.0  2:04.0  25
2:03.7  2:03.7  24

Yes, the second rowing effort was much slower than the first.  I did double the distance and my muscles just weren’t into rowing after lifting weights.

About lifting weights … I’m not sure how it is supposed to feel, but it doesn’t seem to hurt.  Shouldn’t I be sore or something?  I’m loosely, and I mean very loosely, following Tim Ferriss’ routine (just the weights, not the eating) for weight lifting.  This month I am doing two thirty minute workouts in the gym.  My lifting consists of low repetition, high weight efforts broken up by long breaks - two to three minutes between each set.  While I am not hurting after these workouts, I am finding that I can barely complete some of the repetitions.  For instance, I did some pull downs.  Set the weight and could barely pull it down, repeated this two more times for this set trying to keep a slow, even tempo on the up and down.  So, why am I not sore today OR should I be sore - I feel like I am missing something here.

Technorati Tags: ergometer, weight lifting, Timothy Ferriss

Other posts related to "Weight Lifting For Weight Loss"

I Hit My Weight Loss Goal And Why It Wasn’t Worth It

Trick Yourself Into Losing Weight

Weight Loss 2007

My Weight Loss Failure

I’m back.  Did something tonight that I haven’t done in at least two months since I have been training for the Robie Creek half marathon.  Rowed for 10,000 meters on the ergometer - and did it in record time.

Total time 40:58.3, average 2:02.9 per 500 meters, 25 strokes per minute.  Here’s the breakdown for each 2,000 meters.

7:58.0  1:59.5  25
8:07.9  2:01.9  25
8:18.1  2:04.5  25
8:22.6  2:05.6  25
8:11.6  2:02.9  25

As you can tell, I started too fast and couldn’t keep the pace up.  Ideally, I would like to start off strong, have the middle 2km be the slowest and speed up from there. Still, a great workout for a Thurday evening.

Technorati Tags: ergometer, workout, robie creek

Other posts related to "10km On The Erg For Weight Loss"

Daily Exercise Again

Back On The Rowing Machine

Another 15km On The Rowing Machine

Last Day Of Rowing For Awhile

Thought is would be worthwhile to mention that I did my weekly long run for Robie Creek half marathon training.  As usual, I followed the Boise River along the greenbelt.  I am tapering off on the distance now.  Last week was a 2:30 run while yesterday’s was a shorter 1:45 run.

What else is different is that at the half way point, I then turned up the speed for the next 3 miles, clocking in at 7:36, 7:24, and 6:58 for those three miles.  Yes, I was tired after this run, but not nearly as much as the previous long distance runs that I have done on prior weeks.  My training efforts have been limited to three runs a week for the last three weeks; one week day run and then two runs on the weekend.  We are in the middle of painting the inside of our home with the intention of putting it on the market for sale soon.

Also should mention that the latest thirty day challenge is going to be a tough one - 50 push ups per day.  April 1st’s push ups weren’t too bad.  I did five sets of ten push ups.  This morning I could only do five sets of 4 push ups, my muscles are sore today.  I’m going to have to put in the remaining push ups later tonight.

Technorati Tags: 30 day challenge

Other posts related to "Weekly Long Distance Run Getting Easier"

Daily Exercise Again

Robie Creek Training Again

Time For Another Weight Loss Change

Robie Creek Training 2008