Clyde/Athena Tri-N-4- Weight Loss Mentor Group -OPEN AGAIN!! (Page 56)

The group run ended up being pretty fun. There were about 30 in the group, of various abilities, and most of the group i rode with all summer were there. 6 miles at 9:55 min/mi in 9°F weather. That marks the longest I've run continuously, ever. Now that I'm confident i can finish the run in an Olympic distance, i gotta work on speed. But first I'm going to try and warm up.

Have a great weekend all!

Sunday.... Confession.

This may end up being kind of long... I have something I need to get off my chest. I may very well sound a bit whiny and complainy (yes, that's a word ), but I need to get it out there and figure out what to do. I have no desire to be back where I was even though I seem to be on that path again.

Weight: 258.5 - I desperately do not want to end up back across the 260 line again...

Swim: I managed to jump in the pool on Wed. Got a decent 500yd swim (bilateral breathing pretty much the whole way, yay!), 4x50yd kick drills and I ran out of time before work.

Bike: I got a good interval session in on Monday night. Yesterdsay morning I was going for distance on the trainer. Unstructured "distance" riding on the trainer is a different beast from a mental standpoint...

Run: My only run this week was the second half of a brick yesterday. I did my c25k session, then pushed the distance out. I'm really liking the idea of the 5K saturday (brick or not) and I hope to keep it up.

I'm assuming y'all were wondering about the "Confession" part of my title. It is a reiteration of what I know to be my biggest hurdle to losing weight: my diet. I've known that I am a stress/comfort eater for a long time, but this week really put things into perspective. It started on Sunday:

I did an oil change on my trusty beater '94 s10, and I got a bit of a wake-up. I slid under the front, and noted that the entire front was coated in oil (none on driveway). Front main seal failure. No biggie, easy fix for me (strike 1). After draining the oil and getting the plug and new filter in, I pop the cap to fill it and... Orange foam... I had thought I dodged that bullet when my heater core went out and I overheated it. Okay, warped heads. Not the end of the world, still something I have fixed many times, and won't be down more than a day or two (strike 2). I spray out my drain pan to clean the oil out.... It looked like I was panning for Yukon Gold... Main bearings... Essentially a full rebuild (Yes, I know just a lower-end rebuild will fix it, but if you're going to do it, do it right) or engine replacement coming in relatively short order (strike 3). So last week I was on a desperate search for another beater to prevent another vehicle note to stress our carefully balanced budget... Well, I found a 2014 Town & Country for a pretty good deal. So now we have another note . To be honest, I'd been looking for a beater minivan simply because if anything happened to the one we had already, we'd be having some serious issues trying to shuffle everyone around in my little standard cab s10, lol! And in the interest of full disclosure, it was nice having a properly working climate control system a radio that worked and a vehicle that doesn't try to randomly change lanes to drive to work this morning... I'm driving the "old" van

As a bonus, I got a call from one of my son's teachers... he's got a 47% in Social Studies... He's an A/B student in all Pre-AP classes. Apparently we're not doing homework because: 1) It's so easy it's just a joke, and 2) We're spending an excessive amount of time playing games. The games is kind of our fault, but at the same time he's been maintaining his grades, so there hasn't been a real issue... until now.

Throw in the stresser of trying to finish my last 2 ASE re-certs by the end of the month (granted they're ones that I worry the least about) in order to maintain my rate of pay. Of course, this became even more important since we obtained another vehicle note yesterday...

Essentially, I need to find a way to roll with my stressers and not shove food down my gullet everytime I hit a little speed bump...

Day 9 of 20/30 in November.
4AP tonight, 18AP for the week, goal of 50AP.
Foundered all weekend, just not wanting to do diddly squat. Finally got off my dead butt a little while ago. Literally vacuumed the accumulated dust off my Concept 2 rowing machine. Then settled for my first time rowing in probably 3 years. Managed to force out 1700 meters in 10 minutes before my hip and my lungs both gave up. Don't have any clue whether that's respectable or not, but at least I got SOMETHING in this weekend.

ETA: It must have been a good workout, it activated my Exercised Induced Asthma

A - I know exactly how you feel. I desperately want to break that blasted 370 mark this week. But apparently, not desperately enough because I didn't do a single workout this weekend until about 30 minutes ago.

B - When you find the way to stop that stress eating, just remember to share it here before you patent it and make your millions.

Swim 32m 46s 1400.00 yards 02m 20s /100 yards

Day 10 of 20/30 in November.
14AP tonight, 32AP for the week, goal is 50AP.
4x50, 3x100, 2x200, 3x100, 4x50 = 1400 yds in 32:46
A couple of days of rest helped my times significantly. More importantly, I split my distance set in half. I am working on "smoothing out" the sides of my wu/cd pyramid, working toward a 4-3-2-D-2-3-4 progression. Eventually there will be 900 yds of wu/cd on each side of a distance set that will reach 2000 yds before my planned Oly in Sept/Oct of '15.

Anybody want to guess what my favorite part of triathlon is?

Back on the wagon. I fell for a couple of weeks. started out with a spoon full of ice cream here and there. Good news is I never fell completely off so getting back on is not hard. Looks like I might only costs me couple of lbs which is not only good but maybe it was a nice break. Now that that holidays are coming I really need to push the diet.

I found a nice salad I can bring to thanksgiving which is very diet friendly. Couple actually. I can not have the potatoes or the bread but turkey is decent. At 314 now and I really want to get to sub 300 lbs by new years.

My gf is threatening me with no more races starting next June because we will have our new baby (our first then). I think I can make it all work. If not I need to atleast get another spring marathon or ultra in.

Web footed freak. Hang in there. I know the feeling I fell off the low carb wagon because I was just so tired. I was not sleeping well and I turn to carbs to keep myself awake.

Atleast you recognize what you are doing. That is the first step in order to change something.

Stress does that to me. And I fell into that "dark place" for 18 months. Glad you got out sooner.

I intend to watch my nutrition better, but I also intend to enjoy ONE DAY of holiday. One day won't hurt. I read somewhere (maybe on here) someone said that they considered nutrition to be the 4th sport. I think that might help me to look at it that way. If I can approach nutrition the same way I approach my swimming I should have some success.

I had hoped for breaking 350 by New Years, but that is unlikely. Still every little bit is that much closer. You'll get there.

Congrats on the baby. I have lived my entire life according to the teachings of my father. And one of those precepts is "If you want it bad enough, you will find a way to make it work." I'm sure the baby won't mean the end of your races, just maybe that you'll have to be a little more choosey.

Swim 39m 15s 1600.00 yards 02m 27s /100 yards

Day 11 of 20/30in November. I can still reach that goal.
17AP for today, 17AP for the week, and STILL a goal of 50AP.
4x50, 3x100, 3x200, 3x100, 4x50 = 1600 yds

Really buggered my L knee up last night on somebody's uneven driveway. Can barely hobble around without a cane. Looks like swimming will be all I do for a little while. Couldn't push off the walls on the turns, couldn't kick (not that I kick much anyway), but still turned in an acceptable time. At my size, I consider anything 2:30/100 or less to be acceptable.

Thanks and shh. my parents do not even know yet.

Check out the Lewisburg Iditarod scheduled for February 28th. The length of the course is 9.1 miles and I am considering trying to ride it on my trail bike.

Crazy? Or should I go fir it?

No worries, unless they frequent this site.

I am honored you told us first. Congratulations.

Swim 45m 12s 1800.00 yards 02m 31s /100 yards

Day 12 of 20/30 in November.
19AP for today, 36AP for the week, and STILL a goal of 50AP.
4x50, 3x100, 4x200, 3x100, 4x50 = 1800 yds
My L knee is still buggered up, but at least I am not on the cane now. Still can't push off the walls on the turns, could kick a little better. Somewhere around the 600 yd mark the muscles between the bottoms of my shoulder blades started to complain, but that went away after another 200 yds or so. Could barely climb the stairs to the locker room. Everything on me felt fantastic, except that knee.

Chi: Congrats! It's a life-changer to be sure! 4 kids later my wfie and I are slightly mad, but we wouldn't change it for the world!

Sunday Update:
257.5 - Can't argue since I've been sidelined since Tuesday, and I really shouldn't have done that... I have a build-up of Uric acid which essentially caused my big toe to completely lock up. Could not bend it up or down, walking was a real treat and to top it off, the knot at the big toe joint on hte instep was very sensitive to ANY contact (including socks). I took a look at the diet triggers, and to be honest, that doesn'[t fit. What does fit is that taking a diuretic (in my case HBP meds) is a trigger... Fun, fun...

Swim: Nope. My foot was so sensitive, I was afraid of kicking and the water pressure forcing my toes up and down.
Bike: 14.5mi on the trainer. I really shouldn't have because getting my bike shoes on and off brought tears to my eyes...
Run: Yeah... right....

I guess that since I am down a pound being unable to train at all isn't an entirely bad thing. I'm responding to the medication, and only have a bit of a limp at this point. We'll see what this week brings in the training arena. I've also made a bit of a diet change. I eat pretty well from a nutrition standpoint. My biggest problem (outside of stress eating) is portion size. I was able to control this last time I went down the scale by eating 5 smaller meals throughout the day. I think it's time to restart what worked before. Funny thing, the nutritional value of what I was eating before was a joke, so I'm hoping to make strides before my first race of the year be it a HM or a sprint.

I am not all that happy right now. I don't need the cane to get around, but the last time I tried to swim it wasn't really worth the pain. Especially walking out afterward. I'm not even going to think about using a treadmill or exercise bike. Walking hurts enough. So I am making a very tough decision and taking the entire week off from working out. I'm hoping RICE will get me loosened up enough to resume December 1st.

Sunday Update:

Hope everyone had a good Thanksgiving. Amy had to work Wed night, so I got the kids up and fed and the van packed to grab her from work @7a on Thurs to make a run from Memphis to Fayetteville, TN. Got there about 12:30, not too shabby for someone who drives like an old man, lol!

Weighed in @ 256 this morning. Quite happy with that since this is a huge eating holiday and everything. Shooting for sub-250 by Jan 1.

Swim: Got a little time in at the pool on Wed before work. Foot didn't give me too much of an issue in the water.
Bike: Jumped on the trainer twice. My bike shoes actually aggravate my foot right now since they're a touch narrow across the ball of my foot... which is normally preferred, but not so much right now.
Run: Nope. Still avoiding pounding on the feet for now.

The pain and swelling are diminishing and flexibility is improving. However, any little bump to the instep of my foot will set me off. Also, I still get the random shooting pain across the joint. My schedule this week will make getting to the pool a touch difficult, but we'll see how things go (Dr appt and refrigerator repair scheduled on Friday, and my Mon/Wed back-up days are iffy due to Amy's work schedule). I'm going to swap out my clipless pedals for platforms on the bike. That'll allow me more saddle time without irritating my foot and while mashing isn't as efficient as clipless, it's a whole lot more better (intentional grammatical homocide ) than nothing at all. I am planning zero runs until I am pain-free, but I may get out to walk. I will have to restart my C25K plan, but I may nix it in favor of a C2HM plan.

bounce ,,,,, bouncE ,,,,, bounCE ,,,,, bouNCE ,,,,, boUNCE ,,,,, bOUNCE ,,,,,BOUNCE!!!!!

That's what the walls sound like in my house right now. It's been 14 days since I sprained my knee, and it's been 12 days since I dared to do any kind of a workout. (That swim was painful!) I am off the cane, out of the neoprene knee brace, and mostly walking without a limp. I am hoping to try to swim Friday and maybe treadmill or stationary bike on Saturday. If those two days go well I will re-set and shoot for a 20/31 goal for December.

Some of you are familiar with the Christmas Count-down thread. I joined it on October 1st weighing in at 379.6. At tonight's weigh-in I was down 1.8 lbs to 368.8, even after Thanksgiving. I won't reach my 350 goal by year end, but as someone over there said, "Every little bit helps." New year end weight goal? 360 or less.

Edited by leatherneckpa 2014-12-03 8:05 PM

Well, I am going to try something different, and quite honestly I think I'm going out on a limb here. I was considering buying one of the BT memberships, I just didn't know which one. So I started a thread. That didn't help me make up my mind any. While I was surfing around the comparison page I tried out the Custom Planner widget. It was intriguing but I couldn't save or upload it to a Planned Workout Calendar... I decided to take at least test the waters. I bought a Bronze membership and then saved the plan to my calendar.

Why do I think I'm going out on a limb? Mainly because the distances and times it is prescribing seem WAY too low right now. They are significantly below the times and distances I was doing before I sprained my knee. But I am going to give it a good faith trial and see how things look come April 1st.. I planned it as a Sprint tri for May 10th, 2015. If it works as advertised I will then create one to go up to August 9th. And if I like those results I will use it to plan for an October Olympic..

Stay tuned.