Losing Weight, and getting back on the bike.

So back at the end of May I decided that I was tired of being fat. At first it was something that my wife suggested as she was tired of her weight as well after having a doctors appointment that didn't turn out the way she wanted on the scale, but as I thought about it I realized everything that was being affected by being fat. I pay more for clothes because everything in 2XL+ gets a $2-4 "fat tax" almost everywhere, I don't look the way I want, I feel uncomfortable taking my shirt off, I can't do what I want to do on my bike, and the list goes on. Then came my turn to get my checkup at the doctor, my blood test showed pre-diabetes and my blood pressure was higher than the doc wanted it to be...not good.

So now I had even more reason to change my diet. We stopped buying boxed foods, stopped eating crappy fast food, switched ground beef for ground turkey, etc. We have also been logging everything we eat, every day, on www.myfitnesspal.com and it has been an amazing eye opener. So fast forward to today and by making those small changes I have lost 34lbs. I still have a ways to go, but those 34lbs have made a big difference already.

I have also made an effort to get back to doing something which I love, riding my bicycle. Before I met my wife, when I had nothing to do, I used to cycle every weekend, and at one point was up to doing 60+ miles on a ride without too much trouble. After life got in the way and I spent large chunks of time off the bike all together my fitness level slipped. When we moved to Oregon back in October of last year I though "cycling mecca, I will definitely get back into it now!", and I had good intentions and joined a cycling group. I went out on one ride with them and it was great! Then of course, as had happened in the past I got lazy, it was so much easier to NOT put on my cycling clothes and go. It requires zero effort to sit in my chair, so I'll go tomorrow...or the next day..or next weekend..you get the idea.

So now we have lived here for almost a year and I am finally making good on my threat of getting back into cycling as a way to not only supplement my eating better and losing weight but also just because I truly enjoy it.

Now that the back story is there I have a bit of a side story...it rains in Oregon, a lot and the only rain vest I had when we moved here was black, much like most of my cycling clothes, and in the rain and gloom that is not the best thing for keeping yourself from getting killed. So one day while looking online we found a bright yellow cycling vest...and it came in a 3XL, perfect! So we ordered it and when it showed up a week later I opened the package and excitedly put on my new vest...only to find that I couldn't come close to wearing it. I should have known that it would be a 3XL in Euro sizing, which is vastly different from American sizing. I could get the zippers a little past my nipples, probably 5-6" from actually zipping them. So into the closet it went and I essentially forgot about it.

Now here is a photo of that original black vest, from my group ride last October, which "fit" when the yellow vest wouldn't even come close. I put fit in quotations because as my friends back in CA would say I was "taxin' the hell out of it".



So today I was getting ready for a ride and as I pulled out my jersey I thought, "hey I should give that vest another shot, it might be getting close to zipping". As it turns out it not only was close to zipping it zipped just fine and I wore it for the entire ride and didn't feel like I was a human sausage. Now that first photo I posted isn't exactly flattering, and that vest is black, which as we all know is a slimming color. Yellow is not so much a slimming color. Here is a photo from today.



The feeling of being able to wear a vest that a mere 3 months ago wouldn't come close to fitting was pretty amazing. It made me happy for my ride, and I was also happy that I was able to ride 26.5 miles in 1hr 45min and feel pretty damn good at the end of it. And so the journey continues....