Weigh in day today, 189. Even this week and down 26 overall, 35 weeks.


I set out to have a success and ended up with another failure. I tried to ride the Crazy Kicker century in Mineral Wells, TX last Saturday. I sagged at the 86 mile mark. I believe I could have struggled on to the end and finished but it would have taken me 90 to 120 minutes to go the 15 miles to the finish, the way I felt. Pretty frustrating, I expected a better result. I tried eating more pre ride, and during the ride. Pretty sure it was not a nutrition issue.
I was comparing these two rides:
Crazy Kicker
and
Blazin Saddles 75

Obviously the second ride is a little shorter, but it was hotter and just as hilly for that ride and I was able to put out more power and speed. I've cut back a little on my riding, but not so much that I expected such a big drop in my output.

I will say this, the roads on the Crazy Kicker were pretty bad. Probably 70 of my 86 miles were the worst chip seal I've ridden on, really rough. Perhaps that made it harder without being reflected in the power readings, not sure. I know it felt like riding in mud most of the day.

ignore the power readings, they are useless (of course unless you have a powermeter on your bike).
the strava elevation calculations are also quite ****ty (at least in switzerland, but i assume it's the same world wide). it really overcalculates elevation changes on flattish roads. i can ride around the lake here and it gives me 250m of elevation gain, while true elevation gain (measured by barometric altimeter) is maybe 40-50m. in general, on flattish rides, it overestimates elevation gains easily by up to 100% in my experience. if you have more real climbs in your ride, the shown value is closer to the true value.
therefore, just based on the strava elevation profile, i guesstimate that the crazy kicker ride had around double the true elevation gain of the blazin saddles ride (it has real climbs and not only "fake flats"), so i'm not surprised your average speed was slower there. (i have no idea about your form; just saying that the crazy kicker ride looks by far tougher, even tough the elevation numbers may seem similar). and yes, bad road surface plays a HUGE role.

man, i just wanted to recommend you to pick a good strava climbing segment and ride this regularly to see if you're improving. but then i realised that there are nearly no climbs in your area. seems crazy flat to me (as a guy that lives 50km from the alps, hehe).

He has a power meter and an altimeter

Yes, I have money and decent equipment.
Can't buy a better aerobic system and legs, unfortunately.

And yeah Dallas is flat as hell.

Do you ever look at your fitness vs freshness graph? Try this: go to it, choose "heart rate and power meter" and "last 6 months". Report the values for the day before the rides above. I'm curious if you were more fatigued going into the more recent ride or not. Your "form" is fitness - freshness and you usually want:
a high fitness number
a form number > 0

Interesting thought, it isn't something I look at much on Strava, but I had been looking at a similar measure on the Training Peaks software prior to the ECC.

The reading on the day prior to each of my big rides this year:
Blazin Saddles 39 - 23 (I spent the Monday through Thursday of that week in Vegas. Did a lot of walking and no bike riding)
ECC 49 - 36 ( higher form number, but a smaller difference?)
CK 45 - 34 (I've been doing fewer rides but my Saturday ride had been 65 miles the last couple of weeks.)

I am going to do a couple of things. I'm going to get a physical and talk to the DR about the heart rate spikes I get sometimes. That's been in the back of my mind for sometime and I just need to find out if it is anything to be concerned about.
I'm going to see about getting a bigger cog on my rear cassette. As has been noted, I don't need it around here but I could have used it in New Mexico and I will certainly need it in Colorado.
I am going to keep working on my overall fitness. It's obviously still lacking. I'm not sure how "good" of a rider I'll ever be. Obviously I'm not trying to win races, but I hate being in the bottom 10% of the people who attempt to do the rides I do. I think that I should be able to be in the 30th percentile and I thought I was doing the work to get me there. Obviously not.

As I was doing the ride, it seemed to me that my heart rate was higher than it should have been for the power I was seeing. My NP was right where I thought it needed to be(~125) for most of the ride but it seemed to be harder than I thought it would be. I have no idea was this was so. I slept ok, I ate ok.

Weigh in day today, 189. Even this week and down 26 overall, 36 weeks.

My mother-in-law keeps telling me I'm getting "too thin". Funny how people try to discourage change, even positive change. At 5'11 190 I'm far from a bean pole, lol. I still have way too much belly fat, and I've never carried a lot of muscle.

Found a Groupon coupon for a $79 Dexa scan, so I got one on Friday. At 189.6 pounds I am 29% fat. I'm not totally shocked, I knew I had a ways to go but it is still somewhat depressing. IF I can maintain LBM(126 pound muscle, 7 pounds bone), I would have to get to 155 to be 15% BF. When I got married at the age of 27 I weighed 155 pounds. I've never been that light since. For a large portion of my 30's I was in the 165 - 170 range. That might be achievable. I set my goal of 180 at the beginning of this thread, and haven't achieved it yet. That would at least put me at the upper end of normal for my age group. Once I get there I'm going to have to try for 170, which I think will be really tough for me.

Fat Weight	Total Weight	BF %
81	215	38%
56	189	29%
46	179	25.6%
36	169	21%
26	159	16%

I would like to think I could add some LBM but I'm not sure how realistic that is for me. Adding upper body muscle isn't really going to help me with my cycling goal. I will continue to do the full body workout classes, hopefully that will help.

How tall are you again? I just searched. 5'11 and 155 sounds pretty dang skinny.

I have gotten down from 215ish+ when hydrated and dressed to morning bday suit weigh in today of 153.5 at 5' 7" (I have been writing on things like drivers licenses I was 5'9 for decades, measured myself the other day and LOL'd) with some work. I am hoping to get my mid-day hydrated weigh ins down to around 150 or below by next spring/summer which would mean morning weigh ins need to be 145 or less.

Good luck with your goals, it can be done with a strict calorie deficit goal I think.

I was pretty skinny. I think I was skinny fat, even at 155, though I hadn't heard that phrase back then. I'll see if I can dig up a postable picture just for grins.
Does everyone just naturally carry the amount of muscle they use(need), or do some guys just naturally or genetically carry more than they routinely use?

I would like to think it is the latter, because I've never carried a lot of muscle. Maybe it's just because I've always had a sedentary desk job and though I worked out sporadically in my younger years it wasn't a routine.

I'm not setting 155 as a realistic goal. I want to get to 180 and then try for 170.

Good job on your weight loss. Do you have fitness goals besides weighing less? Running, biking, rock climbing? I don't think I would be nearly as motivated to lose weight if I wasn't trying to do something. It's been hard enough even with that, lol.

No, just lose weight, rehab my separated ac joint (from mtn bike accident on the streets/sidewalks) and tone up my core are my short term goals now that I lost the weight. I am mid 40's now so not looking to hit the weights to impress girls, just trying to be healthy finally.

Yeah, that is my other motivation. Having parents and in-laws who were and are not overly healthy has been a big eye opener.

Yeah, like a decade ago I realized every single adult over 40 on my mother's side had type 2 diabetes (and was significantly overweight, of course) and realized that was essentially where I was headed. I'd just had a kid, too, and thought that I'd like to be a healthy person throughout his youth if possible.

cliffs, tldr, heart good, age sucks, keep doing what I'm doing, only better / more.

Weigh in day today, 189. Even this week and down 26 overall, 38 weeks.

I hated having to post that again, lol. I really am trying, but its at the point where the small things are the difference between losing a little or staying the same. Obviously I'm a failure on the small things right now.

So, I did my cardiac stress test today. My primary doctor sent me to a cardiologist who bicycles, which was nice. He is also my age or a little older, so he sort of understood where I was coming from. He said my heart is in good shape, so I don't have to worry about the spikes. He believes they could be artifacts with the HRM. As long as there is no pain or dizziness associated with them he felt like they are not an issue.
He basically told me a lot of things I sort of half assed knew from reading books, like how we start losing aerobic capacity after the age of 30. He also talked about pacing and nutrition.

Anyway, my take away was I've been overly ambitious to think I could do a NP ride of 125 to 130 watts for 100 miles. I guess I should be closer to 100 watts NP for that distance. That probably translates to about 12 MPH avg.

Also, thinking about my struggles with the longer distances this year, pacing was an issue, but I think I also needed more long training rides. I followed the time crunched cyclist plan which presumes that you are time crunched (duh). I definitely gained power for the shorter rides, but it was just hard to maintain it for as long as I wanted.

why not log your food daily in here for a few weeks? i think that should help you get over the plateau.

tldr - fat people eat a lot of crap

I log everything at my fitness pal, when I log. I've been logging faithfully the last week and will continue to do so.
I can see very clearly where the problems are. We have met the enemy, and he is us, lol.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_(comic_strip)

Snacks are still my biggest problem. I'm not sure if it is habit, addiction, or what, but I feel like I have to be eating something while watching tv in the evening, after supper. I think that habit replaced smoking, when I quit smoking, and has been going on so long now it's tough to quit. I just get these weird hunger pains even though I've eaten a decent dinner. I feel compelled to get up and get a handful of chex mix or nuts or whatever, mainly salty stuff. The problem is that goes on for 3 or 4 trips to the pantry, per night. I've tried replacing some of that stuff with healthier alternatives, and that worked to get me where I am now, but now to go further I have to do even better, which is what I meant when I said the small things are getting me.

If I lived alone it would be easier to control, I just would try not to bring that stuff in the house, but there are other family members in my house and they don't have the same control issues, lol. So my wife buys some nuts and eats one handful and I eat the rest of the container, albeit over a period of 3 or 4 days.
For yesterday, I had actually a pretty good day:
Breakfast 170 cals
Lunch 338 cals
Dinner 600 cals
Snacks 690 cals (I eat a mid morning protein bar(180 cals and something mid afternoon, fruit usually (80 cals), the rest is after dinner.
1798 cals total, which is decent. A little too much fat and could do with more carbs, protein was good. 178 carbs, 73 fat, 118 protein)
The day before was not so good:
B 170
L 323
D 940
S 841
Total 2274 (goal is 1900) 217 carbs, 100 fat, 134 protein

I did a one hour workout class, I gave myself credit for ~350 cals burned. I didn't really intend to "eat up" the 350 cals, but did.

One change I've been thinking about is eating a few more calories for breakfast. I'm basically doing a cup of cereal and 4 ounces 2% milk. Maybe that will help curb my cravings later in the day, not sure.

I don't always follow this advice myself but I have been trying to be more consistent with it:

Simply google 'Eat breakfast like a king' if you want links with more details.

I've seen that advice before, I've never tried it. I guess I've always feared if I start the day with that many calories and then still have my evening weakness I'll go way over my calorie count. Maybe it then becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.
Also, once again having other family members that expect a substantial supper becomes a bit of a problem. Obviously can do some portion control, but 300 calories dinner choices are tough to find.
I'm going to check into some breakfast foods that would be decent choices and maybe try upping the morning calorie count. I'm not sure about 50 or 60% (950 to 1140!), but maybe I'll try something around 30% (~600) and see what happens.

Yes, I can't really do that high of a percentage either myself but I try to make my breakfast in the 30 - 40% of my daily cal cut goal then taper off and try to come in under my cut goal even further if possible.

no breakfast 4 lyfe

eat whenever you want as long as it works for you 4 lyfe

I never ate breakfast until I hit about 40. I always ate an early fairly large lunch. I was never skinny but not too fat, until I tried to quit smoking. 20 pounds each try, 3 tries...

Just read most of the blog, gl with your goals.

Thanks, appreciate it. I weighed in today at 188. Down 1 this weigh in and down 27 overall, 41 weeks.

I've been around 190 so long I'm tempted to call it my new starting weight and just gauge from there, ie 188, down 2 this week and down 2 overall, 1 week. It doesn't really matter I guess.

I weighed in this morning @ 183. Not for a good reason though, damn stomach bug.