Ride the Rockies Training Schedule

Here is a training schedule to prepare for a week-long bike tour held in Colorado every June called Ride the Rockies. Sometimes they take this page down, especially in the off-season, so I wanted to copy it here for reference.

This is what I generally use to increase my bike mileage gradually. I've never actually completed this entire schedule nor have I ever participated in Ride the Rockies, although I strive to do both. I think the farthest I've gotten is Week 5 or 6 before I start lounging, lose all my fitness, and have to start over.

When I do stick with it, I notice a HUGE increase in my speed. I also tend to incorporate sprints into the earlier rides (sprint every other telephone pole, or a long farm block) and in the spring I did a monstrous hill once or twice a week. So all that helped significantly.

I don't think I have time to add the hills right now because I've started running again twice a week, but we'll see. Also, with vacations, holidays, and winter weather approaching, I have no idea how far I'll get this time around.

All credit goes to the Ride the Rockies folks.

Diversifying my diet

I don't usually subscribe to articles/pieces that talk about "X foods that will help you lose weight fast!" But this article interested me because I've been looking for healthy foods to add to my diet, and this seemed more of a guide on how to be healthy than how to lose weight (in my mind, at least).

I'm using it as a way to diversify my diet in a healthy way, instead of focusing on the extra 300 calories burned that are advertised. It's pretty simple: eat more beans, yogurt, and salmon.

Here is the article that I found on CNN titled "7 foods that fight fat":

(Health.com) -- Get excited: You can burn calories and combat fat by eating yummy food.

"If you choose the right picks, studies show you can torch up to 300 extra calories a day," says Dr. Pamela Peeke, author of "The Hunger Fix."

Whole, unrefined foods are your heroes. Your metabolism has to work harder to break them down than processed ones, so you're zapping more calories — and storing less as fat. These recipes double up (even triple up) on foods with serious metabolism-boosting power. Take that, dastardly fat!

Salmon

What a catch! Research suggests the omega-3s in salmon and other fatty fish help build muscle — and the more muscle you have, the more calories you burn. Omega-3s may also help reduce fat storage by lowering cortisol levels (scientists have yet to confirm how).

Go for: Two 3-oz servings of fatty fish per week.

Yogurt

Calcium-rich foods have slimming superpowers. Get too little of this mineral and your body's more likely to pack away calories as fat, according to a review of studies.

With up to 50% more calcium per ounce than milk, yogurt is a potent source. Better yet, its probiotics may help keep belly fat under control.

Go for: At least two servings a day.

Avocado

For a speedy metabolism, you need to keep inflammation in check and blood vessels clear and supple. Avocado's unique combo of essential fatty acids, monounsaturated fats, and antioxidants helps you do just that. Plus, one avocado's 14 grams of fiber kicks up your calorie burn.

Go for: One to two daily servings of foods high in healthy fats.

Beans

High in resistant starch and fiber, beans force your system to use extra energy (as in calories) to break them down.

Research from the University of Colorado suggests that if you choose foods high in resistant starch — it's also found in whole grains and not-quite-ripe bananas — you can increase your calorie-burning power by up to 24% over the course of the day.

Go for: One serving of a resistant-starch food per meal.

Chili peppers

Feel the burn? It's more than mere sensation: chilies' heat signals the presence of capsaicin, a compound that, along with capsiate, can propel the body to scorch an extra 50 to 100 calories following a spicy meal.

Go for: Chilies as hot as you can stand. (But watch out! The hottest ones — habanero, Scotch bonnet, and Thai or Indian peppers — are too fiery for many people.)

 Green tea

This packs caffeine and antioxidants called catechins, a dynamic duo believed to stimulate your nervous system and increase fat-burning. Studies suggest that drinking green tea can help you drop pounds and trim your waist.

Go for: Several cups a day (keeping in mind how caffeine affects you).

Coffee

You use it to wake up — and your metabolism will, too.

The caffeine in one cup of joe temporarily perks up your metabolism by as much as 15 percent. Caffeine also helps mobilize the forces that burn stored fat.

Go for: One to two cups a day, especially before exercise.

Now the next question is how to incorporate beans without buying a whole bunch of cans, because canned beans are full of sodium. But that's a dilemma for another day.

An update

It's been a very long while since I've written anything here and that's kind of been on purpose. I haven't forgotten about this blog at all. In fact, I come here every day to check out my blog roll and read what others have posted. I'm backwards in that I don't like following or subscribing to blogs. I just visit when a new post has been written.

Anywhos, here is a catch-up of what has been going on in my life the last five months (I can't believe it's been so long!):

• I went on a medical mission trip to Southeast Asia where I was flown in by helicopter to spend a week in the Indonesian jungle.
• I lived on a U.S. Navy hospital ship for a month, from which said helicopter departed.
• I spent three weeks with my folks in California and decompressed from the last two years of life.
• I submitted my medical school applications, increased my hours at work, and have watched an unhealthy amount of television due to the abundance of time on my hands.

None of this is weight-loss related. So here is the weight-loss update:

• I started going to the gym with my roommate to get my upper arms and core a little less flabby.
• I switched from playing rugby to refereeing rugby so now it's very obvious when I'm not fit enough to be where I need to be.
• As a result of the previous point, I began regularly running The Hill of Death. I honestly hate every minute of it but apparently it makes a difference in my conditioning so I suffer through it every Tuesday.
• I have made sure I only drink beer once a week, although I'm still working on limiting the intake to three beers each evening. That's the next step.
• I have cooked approximately five meals since I came back to the United States in July. No bueno.

I think that's about it for now. Because I have so much free time on my hands, I've committed to making a huge effort to eat healthier and exercise more regularly. I now can look up recipes and plan my meals, as well as obsess over calorie count everything I put into my mouth. I have yet to implement this plan, but it's slated to begin this week. I'll let you know how it goes.

I also signed up for another Tough Mudder event for April and this time I actually want to be fit enough to run the majority of the 10-mile course. That, and it's cooling down, which to me means it's approaching running weather. I absolutely LOVE being outside in the cold and since biking is just too unpleasant for these kinds of temperatures, running it is.

Totally got called out

I've been having knee problems for a while now, and they seem to be never-ending. I ended up having surgery on it in December, got a steroid shot last month, and am still having some grinding/diffuse pain issues even though the steroid helped immensely with the worst of the pain.

Anywhos, I went to my orthopedic doctor today and I felt like the office had become a bit too familiar. The front-desk lady pulled out my chart as soon as she saw me come in and the PA actually pronounced my nickname correctly (that's how I usually know people remember meeting me). I clearly have been coming in too much.

Why all this detail? Well, it's mostly because I like to ramble. But my main point is that the doc and his PA both said that I need to work more on strengthening the knee, by doing core, hip, and quad workouts. Yeah, I've been slacking on those like crazy and they totally called me out on it.

I mean, I'll go on really hard bike rides several times a week but I honestly can't remember the last time I did a side plank. And my left quad is still significantly smaller than my right one. (I have no idea how they can tell that just by poking around my kneecap, but I'll take it.)

So that is something I'm going to have to work on now to make this knee thing go away. But I'm really glad they don't think I'd torn my meniscus, again. I don't have time or energy to deal with all that that entails.

And on another positive front, I'm down to 213.5 lbs today, which is pretty awesome considering my 3 x per week of exercise max and eating out habits. Since I started this shindig at the end of February, I've somewhat consistently been losing 1 lb per week, which has been the plan. Awesome!

My clothes don't fit any better, so I've been worrying that my muscles have been atrophying due to my schedule of insane studying and not much else. But my fat % has also been creeping down so maybe that's an unfounded concern. The biggest challenge will be finding motivation to exercise during the next two months while I'm on a boat (in my flippy floppies).

Regardless, today has been a pretty good day.

Photos on Facebook

One of the main reasons I began to take weight-loss seriously this time around is due to my sudden aversion at looking in the mirror or at pictures of myself. My fat rolls are becoming a bit excessive and it shows. A lot.

With this new disgust of my body, I've started debating whether I should un-tag all the not-so-flattering photos of myself on Facebook. So far, the conclusion I've come to is that I should keep them because, 1) I would no longer have any pseudo-recent photos of myself, and 2) it's an accurate representation of how I look right now so I'm not really hiding anything by taking them off the interwebz. But at the same time, the people with whom I don't interact on a daily basis (90% of my FB friends) don't need to see how I've let myself go. So I still don't know.

Here is some of the evidence:

Last night at the bar. This one isn't too bad actually.

August 2011. I'm in the Wonder Woman bathing suit.

August 2011. I can't believe I walked around all week with my back fat hanging out like that.

New Years' 2011. Yeah, no bueno.

What do you think? Should I un-tag these, or keep them?

My version of calorie counting

I cannot calorie count. I've tried and failed multiple times, so eventually I just gave it up. It works for about three weeks and then I go nuts from the stress and end up going back to my diet of pizza and beer.

Since I gave up calorie counting, I've had trouble controlling my caloric intake to best maximize my weight-loss. As a result, I've largely given up on losing weight through managing my food and have focused on exercise as my main source of calorie deficits, which most people say is not the way to go. Usually, exercise has worked for me in weight-loss but lately the weather has not cooperated with bike riding and I've been fairly lazy. And with that, I thought my weight-loss would completely stall.

BUT, I've still been losing weight. I'm down to 214.5 today! How is that possible?

Well, in the past few weeks, I've stayed away from eating out and have cooked relatively nutrient-dense and low-calorie meals. My snacks no longer consist of candy and chips, but instead I've focused on eating all the fruit and veggies I have in my house.

So without consciously calorie counting, I've kind of been controlling my caloric intake by eating lower calorie meals and cutting down on the junk I ingest when I'm bored. I mean, I still eat too much ice cream and have a few beers a week, but it's definitely a lot less than I used to, which is why the scale is slowly but surely going down.

I generally know how many calories are in each of my meals/foods so I try to limit my meals to 500 calories and snacks to 100 calories. But if it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out. I don't stress about being a couple hundred over or under. I'd rather lose slower than be wound up like a ball of stress all the time.

In short, I'm more aware of what I'm putting in my mouth without obsessing over it. And so far this "diet" has lasted longer than any other thing I've tried in the last 5 years. So I'm going to stick with it until it stops working. And then I'll amend.

Good Habits From Home Project

I just got back from a week at home with my parents in California, and as usual when I return from their house, I want to incorporate some of my mom's awesome food habits into my diet. She always sends me back with a suitcase full of home-cooked meals so I don't have to cook for myself for at least a week. But after that, I usually go back to my lazy ways of take-out and junk food.

This time, I've resolved that things will be different. I've had my nose stuck in a book for the past three months studying for the MCAT. And with that, I've been snacking on delicious yet totally not nutritious things. When I study at home in California, my mom is constantly bringing me platters of fruit and veggies, so I've decided that that is where I'm going to begin the Good Habits From Home Project (GHFH Project).

So today, I banned the Gummy Tummies from my desk and replaced them with a plate of sliced apples and bananas. I've noticed that I'm more likely to eat an apple or an orange or a carrot when it's sliced into bite-size pieces and I can reach for it whenever I get bored. So I'm taking a cue from my mom (that's how she eats her food, and I always find myself eating off her plate) and taking the 30 seconds to slice my snacks in order to increase the probability of eating healthier.

My two study snack choices, both equally delicious.
Actually, I think the fruit wins this battle.

Switching gears a bit to the exercise front, prior to my one-week vacation and isolation (I left the house two times the whole time I was home...awesome!), I was biking three to four times a week. Although the scale hasn't budged much and I may not actually be losing any inches either (my measurements are so inconsistent that I won't believe I've lost much until whole inches come off), I have most definitely gotten much much faster.

At first, I had started dreading going on the bike because it was so hard to keep a 15.5 mph average and I worried that even biking was going to become a weight-loss chore. But now that I've noticed a massive improvement in my speed, the discomfort on the bike is fun again and I look forward to every ride. Even the women in my weekly biking group say I'm really speedy and I'm pretty sure they mean it, which is awesome to hear mostly because I'm the biggest girl out of them all by far (by like, 50 pounds I estimate).

Anywhos, the only bad part about going home was that I would have to "quit" biking for the week, and at first I started to feel nervous about that. I didn't want to lose all the fitness I had spent the last month building and I had even gotten a bit addicted to being on the bike, as evidenced by my need to bike every other day. But the guilt of sitting on my butt evaporated and the lazy part of me returned by the third day of being home. And that's scary, because it took me a good three weeks to crave exercise and only two to three days to go back to my lazy ways. Yikes!

Now that I'm back in Colorado, it's 35 degrees and snowing, when it had been 75 and sunny for the past three weeks. In true Colorado style, though, Wednesday and thereafter promise to bring more sunshine and warmth. So my return to biking will have to wait til then. I'm still a fair weather biker, after-all.

It's the little things

I weighed myself this morning and I'm down to 220.0, which is 4 pounds lost since 10 days ago and 2 pounds since yesterday. I definitely did a little fist-pump this morning, because I'm pretty sure this is actual weight-loss and not just fluctuations. I've bounced between 223.0 and 221.0 for the past week, but this 220.0 is for real. I never thought I'd be so happy about a pound or two!

The proof that there's a downward trend. It's not just in my head after-all!

That loss may be due to me biking the last two days, and also giving up booze for Lent. I'm still rehabbing my knee from surgery in December and am only supposed to increase my time on the bike by 10% with each outing. So yesterday I did 30 minutes and today was supposed to be 33, which didn't exactly happen. 33 minutes turned into 40 because my math was wrong and I took a scenic detour at the turn-around point. But I don't think it's a big deal because I most definitely spent a good 3 - 4 minutes cruising on the downhills without using my legs at all.

The days have been so nice that it's really hard not to be outside, which makes getting on the bike not all that difficult. Actually, that's a lie. Today was (and still is) equally as gorgeous as yesterday but I was most definitely going to bail because I just didn't feel like going. Then I checked the weather and it's supposed to be cold and snowy the next couple of days, so that was enough to knock the "Oh, I'll just go tomorrow" thoughts out of my head. Luckily, it's supposed to return to mid- to high-60s by the weekend. I'm stoked!

Now I just need to get my eating in order and this weight-loss thing will be a piece of cake.

The sedentary life

We finally replaced the battery in our bathroom scale that measures body fat % as well as weight. I stepped on it today and the numbers were shocking. Here is a comparison over the years, since I like to have some perspective.

	2/12/10	2/28/11	2/28/12
Weight	212.8	204.2	220.0
%Fat	53.5	50.0	57.2
Pounds of Fat	113.8	102.1	127.0
Lean Mass	99.0	102.1	95.0

Wow, I've lost a lot of muscle and gained a lot of fat in the past year, most of it since last July. Yikes!

Finally biking outside

I recently got back into biking, first on the treadmill at the gym as part of rehab after my knee surgery and have now headed onto the roads. Today I did my favorite 10-mile loop to get back into the swing of things, and man, am I out of shape!

Usually it's my lungs that burn after a hard push, but today my legs gave out well before I got even close to being winded. And that means that I am tremendously out of shape. Oops. Good thing it's getting consistently warm enough to head outside, because I am so over sitting on the couch.

And a little inspiration: