Since the Race Across America last summer, I’ve gained over 25 pounds. I’ve always had trouble with my weight and this winter it’s been worse than normal. For one thing I got used to eating a lot when I was training 20-30 hours a week. After RAAM I realized just how much I had put off while training and so I was hardly riding. At the same time, my doctor decided my medication was too high for my thyroid so he reduced it. It turned out that I really need to be in between the dosage I was on and the next lower strength pill. Being on too little thyroid medication makes me gain weight faster. Then to top it off I got injured just after Christmas. I wasn’t getting much exercise before that but at least I was get a longer more than none.
I need something to get me to be careful what I eat and get my weight back down. That’s where the Banjo Brothers’ Big Bad Bulky Biker Bodyfat Challenge (B7 Challenge) comes in. It’s a challenge that The Fat Cyclist is putting on that ends on August 1st. The final score consists of two things. The first one is the percentage of your weight loss goal that you achieve. The second one is how much faster you get for a 3 mile cycling time trial. If I end up with a better score than The Fat Cyclist, I get a free jersey from him. If I lose I have to give him what I wagered.
Last year I did basically the same challenge except that it only went until June 1st and was called the B5 Challenge because it didn’t have a sponsor. I tracked my food intake and my weight very closely with Diet Power and made my weight goal. It was while I was training for RAAM so I was burning plenty of calories. I wrote a post last April about what was working for me that has a screen shot of my weight loss.
Hopefully I will be able to get back on track and lose my goal of 25 pounds. The problem is I’ve actually gained a little weight since the start of the B7 Challenge. although I’ve actually gained a little bit. Since I was injured, I didn’t do my time trial the beginning of January so I did my initial one this last Tuesday. It was the first time in a long time that I’ve actually gone all out. There’s good pain and there’s bad pain and for the time trial I was deep into the bad pain zone. My guts so big it felt like it was keeping my lungs from expanding as far as they should. My HR wasn’t quite as high as I can hold when I’m fit. I still felt like I was going to blow a couple times and I didn’t have anything left at the end. I did it in the Air Force Academy. This is a different course than what I used last year during the B5 Challenge so I can’t compare my time to last year. I certainly felt like I was slow. The Air Force Academy was closed after 9/11 and was only reopened last fall.
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Tags: B7 Challenge, weight loss
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I don’t know if you saw the mailer from Hammer recently, but it had these suggestions:
1) Drink 10 ounces of water 30 minutes before a meal.
2) Chew each individual mouthful until ready to swallow and then chew it 10 more times.
3) Eat protein first and separate from carbs and fats.
4) Swallow one mouthful of water between each bite of food.
5) Repeat 1 – 2 – 3 until appetite is completely satisfied.
6) The longer it takes to consume a meal the more effective will be this Ghrelin-inhibiting appetite suppressing application.
7) Application of 1 – 5 results in 300 – 750 fewer calories consumed per meal.
For breakfast, I eat Kashi Go Lean Crunch, it’s high in protein and really fills you up at breakfast time. I’ve also found that exercising around lunch time suppresses my appetite.
I know what you mean. I can put on a couple of pounds a week if I’m not careful. Good luck with that one!
[…] month has rolled around and that means time to weigh in for the B7 Challenge and also to do the 3 mile time trial again. Actually we were supposed to do the time trial last […]