Dieting Update

Many moons ago, I wrote a post about 2 small dietary changes I had made and their initial results. To review:

1) no snacks in my drawer at work

2) severely reduce my sugary drink consumption (no pop at lunch, no choco milk at home)

In 3 months, I lost 15 lbs. Then, in January, I had to go to Phoenix for a 3 month work assignment. I gained 5 of it back. I was ok with that. I got back on the wagon in April, but didn't see much in the way of results. I was biking to work, but not doing much else by way of exercise. Then we had a vacation, immediately followed by a week of the bike in the shop.

When I got the bike back, it was July 6. 25 days until a planned solo century with lots o' climb. So for the first time, I was training hard and had no snacks at the office. Lunch time became very productive. In addition, I took a cue from my big bro, upped my protein intake and downed my bread intake.

Result? Dropped 7 lbs in 4 weeks.

I figured out my basal metabolic rate (which was really handy), how much I was biking, and how much I was eating over the course of a regular week. Guess what? My normal food intake was enough to meet my BMR. So by keeping my food intake steady but upping calories burned, all my exercise was losing fat. And building muscle. Turned out it's really not that complicated.

Now, I'm not dogmatic. When we go out to eat as a family, I'll get what I darn well please. When I go to Taco Bell, I'll get the Big Box Meal. I had a root beer float last night. But on my long bike ride on Saturday (112 miles, over 6000' of climb), I ate 2500 calories and burned 10,000 calories. I also ate a normal breakfast and dinner, for about a net burn of 5,000 calories.

I've still got about 20 lbs around the middle to lose, and I'd like to increase my upper body mass, but I'm on a sustainable path, and that's very exciting.

Now, off to the studio to repair my airplane. Gotta fly!