May Update

Well another month has passed and its now been 152 days since I committed to the primal lifestyle. To say that it required a rethinking of what I do and how I eat is an understatement. When I started back in trying to lose the 30ish pounds I had gained I didn't realise the improvements I would make and where I would be now.

When I started I had crept back up to 268lbs (my pregnancy weight LOL) from 232. Now as most know 232 is not where I want to be that is another 30-50 pound lower so that being said it meant I was 70-90 from my goal but still a good 50 lbs less than I was. Even with that good news (what good news) I was not happy being heavier again. 152 days later I can happily report that I am now down to 229 lbs that is the 36lbs I gained plus 3 *grin*. For the month that means I lost 7lbs for the month.

Its not just the weight that has changed thankfully. I am seeing it in other areas also. For the first time in ohhh 20ish years I am in a size 36 Jeans. I will admit its a loose size 36 but hey its 36.  I am also working out more than I used too. Not as much as I should really be doing but I am trying to rectify that. In the 2-3 months I have had gym membership at NFC I have visited it more than the last one (3 times in a year erk). Most times it is to work with weights with Jen but on those times she is with her PT I instead do cardio. Cardio for me is still the bike and if I can get 30 mins on even a stationary bike it means I still get 30 mins.

On the food front I have been fine tweaking what I eat, a good example being that at the start of the year i was eating way to much red meat, and have been trying to vary the primal foods that I can have. We purchased coconut and almond flour to assist us and these have resulted in "alternate" cooked foods that are primal. Over the last few months coconut flour pancakes have become a regular breakfast food at the weekend (more for ember as she LOVES them LOL) but my most recent discovery was primal banana nut bread which I baked a couple of days ago and it has been a huge hit (just need to reduce the amount of salt in it though) and use the almond flour. Given time I am also looking at trying some of the almond flour breads just to see how they work. For those interested the nutrition info for the pancakes and banana nut bread are as follows

	Cals.	Fat	Sodium	Carbs.	D.F.	Sugar	Protein
Pancakes per pancake (14 per batch) we include a banana	92	5g	39mg	8g	3.5g	3g	4g
B.N. Bread per slice (assuming 20 per batch)	142	11.5g	135mg	6g	2g	3g	5g

Laters peeps
S.

Getting back

I have not posted quite as much as I wanted this month, guess life took precedence *LOL*. Its another 30 day block over and done with and the one stat that we check at the end of each block i that of weight. Yeah I know its not a true indicator of how well things are going but when you are obese its something you can look at and see that some ground is being made.

Weighed in on Saturday and the scale reported 240 lbs so that's a loss of 9 lbs for the month. I am again happy with this as it is not too drastic of a weight loss for the period (only 1-2 lbs a week). I am hoping that I can continue to go to the gym and continue to eat as primally as I do. I will say that the eating part has not been bad and the working out has actually been fun although I missed most of last week due to "stuff".

I still think I have problems with my eating though as I think I am still not eating enough or drinking enough water. To top this off I got my vitals checked and while BP was a LOT better than it has been in a long time (it was 126 / 90 WOOT) and my triglycerides were way down I have elevated LDL and cholesterol. For now I am having to make some changes to my red meat consumption (reduce it and meat more fish and chicken) but I have elected to avoid all drug use to combat it until I can let the primal lifestyle do its work and hopefully equalize my stats. My hope is that one year from now I will be able to report lower weight and better all round stats.

Enough for now. Laters S.

Weigh in for February

I made a mistake in my last post. Weigh in was today the 1st and not yesterday. Sorry my bad. I went into this weigh in thinking I had not lost anything as I felt I hadn't made any gains this month. I was wrong thankfully *LOL*. Current weight as of 6am this morning is 249 lbs which is a loss of 6lbs for the month and 19lbs since Jan 1.

Goals for the month of march.

1. Deal with college. Seriously deal with it I mean.
2. Keep my carb intake at about 50 carbs a day.
3. work out at a minimum 2 -3 times a week.
4. Find somewhere in this month to have fun *LOL*

Oh yeah, suckage for the week is I can' get to Gym tonight. Life is interceding and I need to get last of sub floor layer up in kitchen for the weekends festivities (read flooring project). Talked it over with Jen and we will get there Monday for Definite.

Have a great day. S.

And the result is.....

Well This is Day 30 and we weighed in this morning. After 30 days of being primal and enjoying lots of yummy steak and similar I am happy to report I have dropped 13lbs. That takes me from the 268lbs on January 1st to 255 lbs that I weighed in at.

As is normal this is a work in progress and the primal lifestyle is not a diet but me making a life change but I am happy that it show both me looking and scales showing. I don't know why I couldn't maintain the motivation before but its here now and it is not leaving.

Ok gone for now talk to you soon.

Steve

Weight update

No rides this weekend due to other forces (read Jen sold her Novara Friday *LOL*) but when I weighed in (yesterday about 4pm) I was really surprised to find I was down to 263lbs, it might have been 262 but I am erring on the side of caution *LOL*. Thankfully this is just a temporary respite as Her new bike (bought 1 hr after the old sold) is done and the SRAM Rival groupset is installed (Big Shout out to Stewie at Bike Pedlar). Hopefully this will mean if the mean weather does not appear this weekend we will try go for a ride down in Nashhy-Ville.

Talk to yah laters.

Steve

Memorial Day Riding

Well hopefully my bike funk is gone and I am getting my ass back in shape. I weighed in this weekend and while it fluctuated I will say the official weigh in is 268 lbs hopefully I will have a loss to report next week (on my trip back down to 232 and beyond).

There were 2 rides this weekend.

On Saturday we waited till later in the day and rode the 20 mile kirkwood route. Wow its been a while, lets say it was harder than it has been for a long time. Just need to keep it up and the legs will return.

Linky to Gmaps

Sundays ride was a little less to allow our legs a chance to recover. Really need to get the legs working as Mike who now rides with us is constantly dropping us (damned weight weenie LOL).

linky to gmaps

ok done for now. Laters S.

Sunday Update

Well first lets get weight out the way. Unfortunately I gained a pound for the week so I'm at 235lbs for the week. This is me back on the weekly update so we will see how it goes.

Today I had to get some college work done. I think Jen got bored so first mowed a bit then headed out for Jenny time. Upon finishing the college work I also decided to have Stevie time so headed out myself, just that I headed out on the bike *grin*. I did the 20 mile Ft Campbell route and will give details of the stats and rout in a min. First I wanted to give you a rundown of my thinking during the ride. Please note this is like my 6th ride of the year and the last four have been over the last month. It was also my second longest at just under 20 miles (only the sunrise century half metric was more).

Mile 0 :- sweeeeeet, I'm on the bike .
Mile 1 :- (first little hill) hell yeah I'm feeling good. I'm gonna push it a bit harder
Mile 5 :- 10 mile or 20 miles. I can do it, I'm going for it. I'm also gonna push it.
Mile 7 :- I'm having fun... should I turn back, it would be about 15 miles.... nah go for it 2 more miles and I'm at the point of no return. I think ill push it again.
Mile 10 :- Point of no return, think I will push it.....hmmmm the brain says yes the legs are saying WTF dude!!!!
Mile 14:- (374 ramp - uphill) - OMFG the legs are not happy with me..puuuuuushhhh ....owwwww nope....spiiiiiiin
Mile 17:- soooo close.....sooooooooo close
Mile 19:- (uphill to subdivision) Last push lets go for it.. PUUUUSHHHHHHH
Mile 19.2:- whimper..... I just wanna make it without falling over
Mile 19.77 :- (home) water.....I need.....water... why are keys not working...dammit let me in technology give me WATER.

Also I would like to point out that I did the full 20 miles without stopping. One of my goals is to ride a century and if I stop ever 5 miles I will never get it done so I wanted to make sure I could sustain riding for 20 miles without stopping (of course maybe I should have rode more before trying). After effect of doing this..... Anyone catch the number of the bus that hit me.

Link to Gmaps

Stats for the Ride
Trip Distance :- 19.77 miles
Trip Time :- 1hr 18mins 37 secs
Ave Speed :- 15.09 mph
Ave Cadence :- 67 rpm
Max Speed :- 28.75mph

That's me for now. Have a good one.
S.

Weight update.

Well I finally fell back on the primal band wagon and this is day 3. So far its not been too bad and I had a yummy filling breakfast. The thing that steeled me to get back on it was the fact that I had got myself down to 232 and was looking at 230 and below. I have had the last few weekends where we were away and when I weighed myself Monday I was 243ish. Talk about annoyed.

Well its Thursday and I have cut out diet sodas, I have been keeping on the primal diet and I weighed myself this morning. Back to 234...WOOT. I think I finally got the hit that I needed to get refocused, for now I just want to see how I survive the weekend. *LOL*

So weigh in at 6am :- 234lbs

S

Post for today.

Well I havent posted my weight in a bit, it is sitting sorta stable at the 235lb mark. I cant really complain about it but I really need to get motivated to take it lower. I am hoping my announcement (hopefully next week around Friday) will be the motivation I need to lose the rest of the weight I want to lose.

On a side note I think FEMA sucks, and specifically I think the inspector who did our inspection should find a new Job. They seem to think that 10% of what we had to pay is acceptable and every time I have to appeal they sit on it for 2 months. I am really getting to the point that I think they learned NOTHING from Katrina.

Talk to Y'all soon

Steve

Weigh in

Well weigh in for the week was a little late (this morning) due to having to work Saturday (12 hrs in a server room moving lots of hardware) and getting to the scale.

Couple of pound weight loss which I'm happy with as food intake was bad this weekend (and I'm sure the donut for breakfast will not help, thanks Colton ..... actually its all I will have for breakfast so as long as I eat the way I plan to the rest of the day there is zero damage).

Weigh in at 6am - 248.5lbs

Still having motivational issues with getting on bike and going to Gym. Its still being worked on but I am seeing it as a multi step process where I seem to have the eating almost in check and I can partially blame the lack of riding on the crappy weather the last week (cant blame no Gym on it though).

Goal for this week is at least 1-2lb of weight loss, we shall see and if I can I want at least a bike ride in.

See yah soonly.

S.

Flooding brings first Ride of season

So as everyone probably knows Mid TN got hit by a LOT of rain which has caused major flooding. At this time it is difficult to get into Nashville from Clarksville and parts of Clarksville (as is Nashville) are still under water. Last night Clarksville had a curfew in effect from 8pm till 4am and there is talk of it happening again tonight (WTH). Our house came through ok-ish. The room that was originally a garage but then converted during building got flooded a little and by the time the wet/steam vac was finished I had picked up 15 gallons of water from the carpet although there was more on the floor and 2 days later it is still drying. We had water rush down from the storm drain and washed away our onion patch plus I believe got under the house a little so we are allowing that to air out and will check to make sure all duct work is good in a few days.

I tried to get to work yesterday but failed. Got as far as Briley Pkwy and had to turn back. 55 miles in a 60 mile trip, it sucked. Because I was then off on vacation I tried to make thew most of the day and when Jen suggested a bike ride I took her up on the chance. Stats are below but lets say I was surprised how well I felt after a 20 mile ride. I was hoping to have the stats pulled from my IPhone also as I have an app to track but I had it in direct sunlight which the phone did not like (it overheated and rebooted *LOL*). Perhaps next time we will get some results.

Here is route we took. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=3698783



Stats of the Ride (which I hope are first of many)
Distance:- 19.41 miles
Time:- 1hr 25mins 51secs
Ave Speed: 13.57mph
Ave Cadence:- 61rpm
Max Speed:- 25.42mph

As a side note I am trying hard to get my food back on track while I did have a 2400 calorie day yesterday if I go by spark people and factor in my mowing also I burned 2200 calories... go figure. Now if it just reflects in a loss on Sunday (Oh yeah weighed myself last Sunday and I had hit 257lbs..BAD but it is the line in the sand... this week WILL be down)

Steve

Weight

So I weighed Mmyself last week and I had went up to 250 WTH. I think college has me not caring about my weight and that's bad m'kay. This last week however I worked harder at watching what I eat and I weighed in at 246lbs. Its a step in the right direction but the damned 230s remain ever so elusive.

Official weigh in way at 8.30am and was 246lbs

Thoughts and updates

Ok I have had a bad month or more where I have not been focused at all on my weight and continuing my journey. I dunno why just haven't wanted to for some reason. I realised last night I have to give a damn. I WANT to get down more.

Weighed in this morning - 247lbs

Thankfully not to much damage but I need to focus. As part of my re focusing I have put all my foods in for the day (except dinner) at sparkpeople. This way I know what I am eating. Its also not easy just now in work. So far I have passed about 6 piles of help yourself candy and a tray of help yourself cupcakes. I have walked away from all. I hope to report next Monday a drop and that I am not just deluding myself again.

Peace out

Steve

Weight Update & Images of our bikes

Ok first off, it has been a rough 2-3 weeks for me in the weight department. I gained from 242 up to 245, then I gained from 245 up to 252 lbs. Last week I gained some of my focus (mojo) back and I weighed in Monday morning at 246 lbs. I am trying to get myself back to 242lbs this week and push to the 230's. Wish me luck.

On an update to our new mountain bikes. I have pulled images from the cannondale website for our 2 bikes. Please note that these images are the copyright of Cannondale and should not be used without proper credit (which I am doing for them right here). I will be posting more images that we have take but I need better lighting for the shots so will probably wait till the weekend.

Now That I have more details on the bikes I now present to you *drum roll*

Jens 2010 Cannondale F5


My 2009 F7 with CO2 Frame Technology

Chapter 2 begins

Its been busy of recent and I have not been able to get much riding in (we did the rails to trails on Saturday but that is it). It has been so busy I have not even been able to pull out the trainer I bought. I have made it my goal to get this done so I can get my leg muscles back *LOL*.

For the last 5 days Jens cousin Ken and his wife Amy were visiting and Ken and I (more Ken) worked on the eaves problems we have. After the 5 days I am glad to report new wood has been installed and has also been pressure washed. I was going to post pictures but I have decided to wait. At the moment I have the start pictures, the in progress (needs painted but repaired) and as soon as I have it painted and pictures taken I will post the finished result.

Weight has fluctuated due to rich eating. Weigh in on Sunday was 245lbs but I hope to get it back off soon. Goal for end of year has now been set at 220lbs this gives me the ability to lose 2lbs a week with a couple of weeks to fix any gains or plateaus. Official date I am looking at this for is January 3rd (Sunday) To get to my Goal of 200lbs I am calling March 28th the goal date. The problems I foresee for these goals are as follows:-

• Halloween
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas
• Jens Birthday
• New Year
• My Birthday

Basically multiple dates where I may end up eating or drinking badly. Probably should add this weekend also as we have Gabe, Em and Marina coming to visit. Looks like we have Jazz on the lawn and other activities in our future *LOL*. But you know that's why I build in a cushion to my weight loss. It allows me to have the occasional bad day then get back onto my normal eating. Without these occasional days I doubt I would have got to where I am today.

It may have been quiet on my Journey of recent but it is not at an end. I would say that now that I have reset my goals that Chapter two has officially started. I have the tools to continue this journey and its time for me to use them. Don't expect this to be quiet again, this blog gives me an output for my thoughts on my weight, my cycling and anything else I need it to be. It also pushes me to continue if I get lazy. Its out here for anyone to read but its also here for me to read and realise how far I have come.

Talk to Y'all soon.

S,

Part one of Multiple posts

Ok this is just a quick weight update. I have other posts but they include pics which have not been off loaded from the memory card. I have really been slacking of late and hope that that will change for next month (although I did just start classes for my masters *LOL*)

Weigh in last Saturday - 22nd Aug - 244.5 lbs

I had some eating issues *LOL* and I gained a bit back the next two days but on weigh in this Sunday:

Weigh in Sunday 30th at 8am :- 244 lbs

I have officially reached my dragon con goal and passed it 2 weeks early. My immediate goal for next weekend is to try stay as close to maintaining the weight (Its dragon Con home of multiple bad things) and not gain.

New long term goals will be discussed after dragon con.

Me Update

Hi all. Noticed I have not updated in a little bit. Sorry but life has just been way too hectic. I did get a bike ride last Saturday but it was just a relaxed 10 mile ride at the Chickamauga battlefield in Chattanooga, this was part of our general camping trip that went swimmingly although only 4 people in total were there (5 on Saturday when Mike showed up) consisting of Gabe, Em, Jen and I so we made the most of it and had a blast.

I hope to get back to normal sometime soon but work is hectic at the moment due to an illness and it means I am lucky if I get to sit long enough to gather my thoughts. It also means that by the time I get home I am pretty much exhausted.

I neglected to update my weight Monday as I weighed in. Weight at 6am Monday 17th was 250 lbs a loss this week of 5lbs.

ok sleep time laters

Weight and thoughts

As we were out and about this weekend it took till this morning to weigh in. Sadly it was as I thought it would be, a week of weight gain. Weigh in for this week is 255lbs a gain of 6 lbs.

I am not too worried though. I know I can continue my journey and that I need to be a bit more observant over weekends. I know it is weekends that are the problem as I manage my input strictly over the week. It has been difficult over the last few weekends as we have a lot going on and, as is normal, we get together with friends and have yummy rich (calorie high) foods. This is probably what will happen this coming weekend, we have booked a campsite just outside Chattanooga (we thought you had to get there but it was actually bookable *LOL*) for this weekend. While not being nit picky I will try write down (just the food not cals) what I eat so I can put it into spark people after the fact so I can see what I am eating.

We are also taking our bikes with us so hopefully we will get some riding in this weekend also. I think this is the last weekend of events before dragon con so I have 2-3 weeks of really monitoring what I eat and do to try reach my goal. This is not helped by the fact that I cannot have P.T for the next 3 weeks but am going to try do it myself till I can get back. I will work on the yard to get it back to livable and work out / cycle as much as I can and hopefully it will all help my weight.

Steve

Weekends Activities

I have to say that I have had one hell of a weekend. No not bad hell but great hell. I came home with some fresh Veggies and because of the availability of these Veggies Jen and I dived to the store picked up a few things and had a fantastic cookout. The weather was great we grilled some eggplant, squash, brats and even tried some boudain which turns out to be pretty cool and overall had probably one of the best BBQs to date in my opinion. After this we relaxed watched some shows and generally chilled the night away.

On Saturday we rose early and had breakfast at about 7am. We tried to keep it light as we were meeting Shannon and her hubby for breakfast and then were heading to the farmers market. By the time we met up it was brunch and I think both Jen and I were glad of this as we were still kind of full *LOL*. At the farmers market I think the coolest thing we bought was some jalapeno BBQ sauce, I sampled it and it was good, good. good. Splitting ways here we rushed home and grabbed the bikes and gear and headed to Montgomery Bell Park for a 10 mile ride. Compared to the normal flat routes done here It was a lot harder but made me realise we probably need to do it more often to get used to hills, I was chuffed when I got out of the saddle and powered up a smaller hill as this was really the first time I felt confidant to do so. It really showed that we are not used to hills as both Jen and I were done after one circuit *LOL*. I am really surprised that this park is so close to Clarksville, it is AMAZING the roads are well maintained, there is camping and overall it is one of the coolest parks I have visited.

Linky to Gmaps

(check out the elevation - not our usual *LOL*)

Stats for the Ride:-

• Trip Distance : 10.63 Miles
• Trip Time : 1hr 01min 50sec
• Ave Speed : 10.21 mph
• Ave Cadence : 55 rpm
• Max Speed 29.97 mph

On our return we cleaned up and had an excellent night with our friend Liz. We met up at Longhorn and proceeded to be full carnivores *LOL*, after the ride I was hungry and I'm glad I weighed in on Saturday as I threw a few pounds on with this meal (which I will clear out my system over next couple of days). After dinner we headed back to the house and all 3 watched the Spanish move "The Orphanage", definitely a very unusual movie.

For today it has been a home day, not a down day though. Jen and I headed out into the front yard and attacked some of the foliage (read garden). we chopped down the bulk of a tree (it had 2 others inside it growing) along with clearing out the surrounding area and then while Jen mowed the ward I cleaned up other refuse in the surrounding area (from other work not mentioned. By the time we finished it was noon and we had worked about 2 - 2.5 hrs. It felt as if I had worked harder today than I had on the bike yesterday. *LOL*

Final information for this post is weigh in. I am going with Saturdays weigh in as I thought I might be bad yesterday and I was. At the 8am weigh in Saturday my weight was 249lbs. If I keep this form I will reach the dragon con goal a couple of weeks early. I can but hope.

Ok gone for now. Goal for the next few weeks is to get on my bike as much as possible. If its clear and I am not at personal training I'm probably going to be on the bike. People are more than welcome to join *grin* but don't worry if you cant/don't cause its not gonna stop me. As Jen so perfectly put it yesterday when she made me laugh "Vrrrrrrooooooommmmmmm" ok on a bicycle I suppose its more of a "Swwwwwwwiiiiissssssssssshhhhhhhhh"

S

Ahhh Weekends

Well it was a busy week and a busy weekend. I had been dealing with all work stuff as Jeff was out on vacation but cant really complain as I loved every minute of it and feel more focused. When I got home Friday I did the 101st 10 mile cycle, I would have did more but I knew I needed to work on the yard more so I had to compromise. I have been playing the Trek wow sweepstakes and funnily enough I have won 2 tshirts. Sucks though as I was trying for the bikes. I have another competition that the results will be out tomorrow so fingers crossed *LOL*.

The funniest part about the Trek competition is that we had to go to Nashville to get one of the Tshirts (I had only won one at that time *LOL*) and we ended up at the Jolly Cyclist. These people ain't daft, we bought a couple of helmets and a floor pump *LOL*

Stats for the ride (map etc is in previous posts as I am being lazy today *LOL*):

• Trip Distance: 10.85 miles
• Trip Time: 39 mins 57 secs
• Average Speed: 16.31 mph
• Average Cadence: 77 rpm
• Max Speed: 26.94 mph

I weighed in Yesterday Morning : 252lbs.

A loss for the week of 3lbs