Good Weekend.

Couldn't wait to weigh in this morning.  Stuck to my diet very well this weekend as well as riding the trainer both days for 45 minutes each.  It was great to see that I'm down to 169.  That's 4.5 lbs lost so far. 

Not sure if you've checked the standings yet, but Idaho Spud Muffin is just kicking some major bootie.  The question will be, can he keep it off till April?  He's a sucker for Donuts so we'll just have to see if he can stay committed. 

If you haven't sent in an update as of yet, go get your butt on your scale and let me know.  It looks like a lot of people are doing really well so far.  I'm getting some pretty impressive numbers emailed to me.  Great Job!!!

If I've learned anything this past week, it's that you really have to find a balance between exercise and the food you eat.  I can't say that my method of losing weight so far is very fun.  Breakfast on Saturday consisted of 2 small pancakes, lunch was 1/2 cup of rice, and dinner was 1/2 cup of bow tie pasta.  Throughout the day, I snacked on grapes and couple of bananas.   My lovely mother brought over an entire box of See's Suckers.  I love these things and yes I had a few.  For some reason there is less guilt slowly ingesting a sucker vs eating a candy bar or cookie.   Sunday was pretty much the same.  A banana for breakfast, rice for lunch, and some round steak and yams for dinner.   I can't even count the cups of tea I had.   

So looking at this, I shouldn't be surprised that I lost weight.  The workouts helped a lot.  I know I won't be able to keep eating like this so I plan on increasing the intensity of the workouts.  

When you take a look at your daily routine, how many times do you keep your heart rate elevated for at least 30 minutes at a time.  And by elevated I mean take  220 minus your age then multiply it by .75.  This would be a rough estimate of 75% of your maximum workout heart rate.    This will keep you burning fat instead of sugar. 

 One more thing I learned from a cycling coach a few years ago.  You don't want to go up to 85-90% effort for very long when your trying to burn fat.   You want to stay aerobic during your workouts.  This allows you to burn fat vs burning sugar.  I'll try and expand more on this in another blog.  So your goal should be 70-75% of your max for at least 30 minutes. 

I hope you all have a super week.   Stay on track and do whatever it takes to stay motivated.