Day 493-Weigh-in Day: 271lbs

WEEK 69

Start Weight: 365.4

Last Week’s Weight: 277.2

Current Weight: 271lbs

This Week’s Weight Loss: 6.2lbs

Total Weight Loss: 94.4lbs

To Go: 61lbs

Miles Biked this Week: 29.57

Total Miles Biked: 2737.09

Miles to Go: 4762.91

GEOGRAPHY (Where I'd be on the map having started at my house in Salt Lake City, Utah, heading for Tokyo):

Pacific Ocean (2000 miles off the west coast. I am heading for the Hawaiian Islands which is 2650 miles from San Diego)

Weekly Bike/Workout Totals

Monday: REST

Tuesday: REST

Wednesday: REST

Thursday: REST

Friday: REST

Saturday: 29.57

TODAY:

I spent most of this holiday week building a chicken coop for 5 beautiful hens and a beautiful, yet neurotic rooster. It’s been a busy week of hard work building this coop. So much so that I’ve been focused on the coop and not on riding. However, I did go on a good Saturday morning ride this morning up Emigration Canyon.

My trusty ole brother Dallin came back for another ride even after the crazy 65-miler we did last Saturday. He ordered some new “slicks” tires (non-knobby) for his mountain bike so he could have a better experience road biking this morning. Today was another “climbing” ride, which basically was a good hour-long climb of 2000 feet…then it’s a fun coast home. Dallin, my brother, was out front most of the time. I made the ride, however, I felt really tired and sluggish once we got in the canyon. Some how on the last 1.5 miles up the 17% grade, I didn’t need to stop and rest, but I needed to stop and rest along the initial part of the ride a few times.

As I think about it, I have been doing 12-16 hour work days out in the heat for the past 3 days. I didn’t eat too much yesterday, but did drink a ton. I didn’t eat  dinner…and then I probably only got 4 hours of sleep before the ride. So, if there’s anything to learn before a serious ride, it’s rest up and eat a good dinner. Oh well, I was still able to ride and plow through it, but I learned some good lessons.

You’ll notice I had a great weigh loss week! 6.2 pounds is a lot to lose for me. I can attribute it to a few things.

-I think I lost at least a couple of those pounds from last weekend’s ride.

-I ate pretty clean this week. I will admit I had about a half a bag of kettlecorn popcorn, some potato salad, yogurt. and some crystal light drinks. These are un-kosher in my weight loss eating regimen, but nothing too terrible. I have noticed that my portions are shrinking just a tad. I dish up exactly what I want to eat, and sometimes that’s not much.

-I worked outside and may have been slightly dehydrated, and thus lost some water weight.

I have 7 more weeks left before I go to Japan for the ride. There is a lot to do and I’m half panicking. I am hoping to continue to consistently lose 2-3 pounds each week before the ride. If I were to do so, there is the chance that I could be down in the 250’s for the ride. I think losing an additional 20 pounds would help for that ride!

I’m going to keep my entry today short, and wrap it up. Just know that I am working hard! Not just with biking, but with eating. Eating clean is hard work. It takes will-power! I would like to eat so many things, but it really is a cool thing to have a big goal that holds me accountable. There are some valuable principles I’m learning for myself through this experience…stuff that only one can personally understand by doing it.

The good thing is that change and progress is occurring, both inside and outside!

Happy Belated Independence Day!

Don

2nd week in a row biking with my bro! We're 2000 feet higher than when we started 2 hours earlier.

The 2nd time to the top of Emigration Canyon in a month.

My cool Bro!

The reason I'm building this chicken coop...and losing weight ;)

Framing up the coop.

We're counting on getting a lot of eggs out of these nesting boxes.

 

Some of our crazy chickens. They're 2 months old.