Ramping up!

Yesterday I was surprised how well the morning ride went, I had expected it to be a bit of hard work to get ‘on it’, but it went really well and felt I could have easily gone another 20 mins…if it wasn’t for my numb meat n two veg and a painful bum!
The evening session was equally good, so much so that half way through the 40 minute session i ramped up the resistance to level 6 which at 90rpm I was producing about 200watts.
1100callories burnt each day I’m exercising, I feel better already… after just two weeks regular exercise! 80-90rpm feels natural now which is good, I never thought I’d be able to get up to those kinds of speeds.

Thought I’d pop something in here about why I think Ended up fat. When I was very young I was often quite ill, usually tonsillitis and would not eat. Doctors at my local practice didn’t want to send me for a tonsillectomy, so I regularly wouldn’t eat and was painfully thin. My father thought I was going to die sometimes due to being so ill and not eating. eventually I was sent for a tonsillectomy but to took a change of doctor to make the decision.
Finally, I could eat and it didn’t hurt! So eat I did, and my parents always encouraged me to clear my plate, so I obliged! As I got into my teens, I was able to make my own decisions and with my school dinner money, would often go to the chippy for lunch rather than spend it in the school canteen. Also on the way home from school on my pushbike I’d often stop off at the chippy for a scallop(a large potato slice, battered and fried), before going home for dinner. My mom could see I was putting on weight so used to give me smaller meals at home, but then I’d just be hungry and go to the chippy when I went out to play!
Then, I left school and started on a YTS scheme job..finally I had some money of my own! (all £28 a week of it grr!). I had chips for lunch often with a pie, and then, when heading home on my motorbike (a Suzuki A100), i’d stop off at the chippy on route and have another bag of chips and a saveloy!! Before then eating me dinner with me mom and dad! I just couldn’t pass up any opportunity to eat food! Pizza sandwiches, pie in a bun, chip butties, chocolate chip cookies…anything! So herein started my life of over eating and weight gain:-(

In a nutshell I put my fatness down to the psychological effect that being so ill and hungry and then being suddenly free to eat as much as I wanted, had on me. I suspect, my brain had become rewired at during the time before my tonsilectomy and after it, to make sure I never again ended up so starved of food, and that gave me this compulsion to eat. It’s not an excuse. It maybe the reason. But i’m open minded, it could be just because I’m so hungry!

Rest day?

Bit of an update. For the last two days i have been doing a full 40 minute session twice a day, yesterday’s morning session I got carried away and kept going a at full tilt for another 5 minutes and ramped up the resistance! I did feel it on the later session though- I had to cut short my 5 minute cool down because I just ran out of steam.

Today is a day of rest and cake(yes I know I shouldn’t but Allies made a ‘test’ cake before Henri’s real birthday cake!) only two slices though…..!

My neighbour Simon rode up the hill to my place today, to show me his old Peugeot race bike, about 10 kg with the gear changes on the down tube! Bikes have come on a long way since that had it’s day. I took it for 100 m down the road, but seat height was too high, and the frame barely let me get my leg over, so I walked it back to him. Just shows how important it is to size your bike to your dimensions. The breaks were very inefficient too, but it had spent the last 14 years or so stuck in the loft…. I do hope my bike (when it comes) fits me better than that did! It was surprisingly twitchy to steer too, I’d have hated to have had to take my hands off the bars to change gear.

Feeling guilty having a day off….

Stiffness

Best laid plans…just never work out do they! Well for me they don’t, I had completely forgot that I was fetching 8stere of wood burner logs yesterday, so spent most of the day doing that and stacking it ready for the winter instead of riding the exercise machine. But I did manage to get 20 minutes on it before tea(dinner/evening meal depending where your from), and I tamped up the resistance after the first 5 mins or so by a notch every couple of minutes. I am really please that I managed to keep up my rpm even when was peddling with twice the usual resistance.
At the start of this cycling lark 10 days ago I weighed 18stone 9pound, now I weigh 18 stone 5 pound! So 4 pound down already! I’m not really dieting, I’m still having a couple of pints of beer in the evening too. But it really is encouraging to see the calories burned on the machine, I’m burning about 900 calories extra each day, so if I remember correctly, there are 2000 calories per pound of fat, so my weight loss is mostly due to the cycling. Also have to keep in mind the muscle build up in my legs, that’s gonna weigh a fair bit too I recon!

This morning I am a touch stiff, not much but that extra resistance has definitely made itself felt eventually.

Had a shock yesterday, a big DHL van turned round on our forecourt, for a moment I thoought it might have been my Rose Pro SL 2200 bike being delivered…but alas no;-(

7-8 weeks to go? My legs are gonna be tree stumps by then!

16 miles..

Ok, virtual miles on the exercise bike!  This was yesterday.  I did a session of 40 minutes(max length of session on the bike, that is until i can figure out how to change those settings!) with a 5 minute cool down.  During the cooling down period, i slowly reduce the resistance and let off a tad on the RPM (cadence) of my peddles, the main part of the session i am set at resistance level 5, which is a quarter of maximum resistance.  I’m hoping that this simulates riding on the flat, or maybe on a slight incline?  The machine tells me i am doing about 15mph and producing about 140-170watts, i cant find much help on the net to see if these are typical, so if anyone knows better, please advise me!

Anyway, feeling good afterwards i did a 5 minute hill climb, still hard work but at least i could keep up the 80rpm right the way through which i couldn’t do when i started this lark 9 days ago, so Yahoo!  Progress!

Had a 20mintue session in the evening and felt really good, ready for me Chicken Tikka and Jerra Rice! (anyone fancy a good recipe? very little fat, loads of carbs and proteins!)

I think i will stick with the 40 minute sessions for a few days to consolidate and allow my body to acclimatise to the demands being made on it before increasing the resistance or number of sessions.

Am I an iPad Addict?

Just reading a copy of Cycling Weekly Magazine (as you do…) and briefly stroked an artical on the page in an upward direction….!  (for those unfortuantes sans iPad, you stroke the screen to move the page up!)

Just done 35 minutes at setting 5 on the Precor C846 (at 80rpm i am apparently producing 140-170watts or power).  A little wobbly on me pins, but quite pleased.  I tried to make sure i got on the bike early so i have less on an excuse to say i count fit in 3 sessions a day!  Hope the ret of the day goes to plan…i am wondering if i should do a 5 minute hill climb daily…there are hills round here…..?!

 

How much is too much?

Went straight for a 30 minute session at level5(out of 20), no problems at all. I am being good and doing a few minutes warm up before and a 5 minute cool down each session. This afternoon, rather than doing a 30 minutes session, I did a 5 minute hill climb session, just to see if I had improved in fitness since I started on the bike….I know….I’m being a bit impatient!

Anyway, I think i actually have improved! I felt I coped much better on the hill and kept up a decent cadence!(thats RPM of your peddles for newbies to cycling). So i’m chuffed that I am make some progress! Skipped another session today so not to push myself too much….!

Cadence, music, sweat

Did two sessions today, a 20 minute and a 30 minute. No ill effects, so I assume all is well and my body is coping with this level of activity. Pleased! Tomorrow I will ramp up to 3 half hour sessions, back where I was before the heavy legs problems….let’s hope I don’t get that reoccurring.

Downloaded an app called Cadence today on to the iPhone, it scans all your songs and categorises them in order of beats per minute. You can select your favoured cadence and it will play songs with a beat in time with your peddling! It works great! When your stuck sat on an exercise machine you need something to take your mind off watching the clock and this is really helping me out….that along with using the iPad to do ‘research’ 😉

Back on it!

Thank god my legs still work! After the last few days I was starting to wonder if I’d just blown a grand on cycling in the hope that it could be my way to get fit, but my legs and knees are not up to it, I was feeling a bit depressed about it to be honest. But a few days rest and my legs coped ok today on the exercise bike. No pain except a touch in my left knee. I did 10 mins this morning, 15 mins this afternoon and 20 mins this evening, and I felt each time that I could have done much more….but am gonna go easy on my body this time!

I am so looking forward to getting the bike, sitting on a machine is just no fun…but I am finding it exilerating. Nine to five weeks left to go!

Looser!

Ok, did 5 mins this morning on the exercise bike, at varying resistance levels. It felt better, and I even played with the resistance settings to see what it goes up to…it goes up to 20, so 5 is 25% of maximum. 20 wasn’t ‘stand on the peddles’ hard though, so it hardly reflects the resistance I will encounter when my bike finally arrives in the post….I recon it’s gonna be a shock!

Went out this afternoon to Decathlon in Angouleme for some road cycling shoes and a tyre pump! Picked up some Shimano R087s, very nice fit, and a Clever 7000 garage pump. So at least I have the minimum amount of gear I need to actualy ride the thing when it arrives!

I plan on doing a 15 minute session shortly……then hope to be nearly back to 3x30minute rides tommorrow!

Been watching my calories today, I have not been restricting myself over this first week of exercise food wise nor drink wise, but have been reasonably sensible. Today I ate an oat so simple with 4 sugar cubes for breakfast, and a Big Mac and about 10 fries for lunch so far. Four mugs of tea with 3 sugar cubes and a latte at maccy dees with 2 cubes of sugar.

Still tight

After this mornings 5 minute session the feelings of heaviness came back but only in my left leg. This is the leg that has more muscle mass than the other leg because in march this year, whilst in France, I ‘locked’ my right knee and had to have an operation. It turned out to be a meniscus tear, the surgeon had to remove the floating strip of cartilage that had wedged in my knee knuckle and that what was throwing my legs balance of centre and causing me pain, basically because my knee ligaments were being stretched abnormally.

Ok, also skipped the rest of the days exercise, mostly to rest my legs, but also had a busy day;-)