Losing Lance 2.0 Update

After 11 weeks on Optifast I've noticed that as long as you follow the plan, you will lose weight no matter what. There are a few things you can do to make it go down a little faster. The obvious one is exercise. But because of the ketosis process, it turns out water is the other item. Besides my "food" intake being only the 5 shakes a day and a pre packaged chicken broth, it's recommended that you  drink around 100 to 120 oz of additional water every day. That's been tough for me.

The last couple of weeks I decided to make an effort on the water front. My daily goal is to drink at least 100 oz a day. Some days have fallen a bit shorter than others. But for the most part I was successful. I actually added the "Alarmed" app to my iPhone and it reminds me every 90 minutes to Drink Water. The result has been pretty impressive: over the two weeks of drinking at least 100 oz. of water I've lost 12 lbs.

Because my ultimate weight loss goal is so huge, I've broken it down into manageable goals or stages. Each stage is based on losing 10% of body weight. (I wrote about this process during the first attempt at Losing Lance) My stages look as follows:

Starting weight: 344.5 (started 8/22/11)
Stage 1 Target: 310.1 (reached 9/19/11)
Stage 2 Target: 279 (reached 10/31/11)
Stage 3 Target: 251
Stage 4 Target: 226
Stage 5 Target: 203
Stage 6 Target: 180


So today, I reached my stage 2 target. Yesterday I went shopping for clothes and found myself buying size XL dress shirts. When I started this plan some of my XXL shirts were pretty tight and I had a couple of XXXL shirts. So it's been a good couple of days on the weight loss front.


Ride On!


Losing Lance 2.0 Update
Starting Weight: 344.5
Current Weight: 279.5
Weight Lossto Date: 65

Back on the Saddle Again...

The Losing Lance Project 2.0 is moving right along. Week 7 resulted in my smallest weekly weight loss to date, only 1.5 lb. Total loss however is, even if I do say so myself, an impressive 50 lb. The two week Fall Break was challenging. As I mentioned last week, I attended a wedding in Des Moines and this past week there was a trip to Sacramento for a CTA PAC Committee meeting. Food temptations were everywhere. Moreover, all that traveling made sticking to the water intake requirement (120 oz) difficult. Now that I’m back in school and in a regular routine, I’m hoping things will improve. But enough of that, let’s talk about the bike; this is a cycling blog for goodness sake.

As I’ve lost weight I’ve discovered that I have more energy. The problem is that my daily caloric intake is only 400-500 calories. This means that long endurance rides are out of the question. When I started the weight loss program I thought my riding would be doomed. What I’ve discovered is that I can ride for about an hour without the risk of bonking. The first time I rode after starting the program I  did an 80 minute ride and had to sleep the ride off for a couple of hours. So I’m relegated to doing 1 hour rides.

The key to short workouts on the bike is to make them meaningful. Each ride has a goal or a focus. One day it might be improving the pedal stroke, another ride might be interval training another might be climbing repeats; there can even be easy recovery rides, but even those rides have a purpose. The key is to plan.

The goal for the new training regimen is two-fold: 1) Accelerate the weight loss. 2) Increase aerobic conditioning by the time I reach my goal so that I can quickly build endurance for distance riding. I want to return to El Tour de Tucson in November of 2012 and do the full 109 mile ride. For now, I will be laying down the base for that, one hour at a time.


I've decided to share the training plan I'm using for anybody interested in a doable plan with limited time. Click on the Training Schedule tab at the top of the page for more info.

Ride on!

Starting Weight: 344.5
Current Weight: 294.5
Weight Loss to Date: 50

Losing Lance 2.0

So it was over a year ago that I started blogging about my Losing Lance project and I haven’t posted anything here since. There's a reason why I didn't share much more, it was utter failure. Frankly, it was a great plan. But it suffered the fate of many great plans, bad execution.

What became apparent to me during my year of on-again off-again struggle with weight loss was the realization that I just had too much weight to lose to nibble at the edges by modifying my calorie intake slightly. For me, constantly thinking about food and tracking daily intake seemed like too much effort. So I found myself on a lose two pounds gain three roller coaster. I needed something drastic.

After years of rejecting the notion of surgical solutions I was ready to give it serious consideration. I quickly decided not to have bariatric surgery. So that left lap band surgery. As I talked to friends who had had the surgery and looked into whether my healthcare provider offered the surgery I found something drastic, but non-surgical, through Kaiser's Positive Choice Wellness Center, Optifast.

Optifast is a drastically reduced calorie liquid diet program. 400 calories per day, served up in a shake that you mix yourself. It's a 70% protein 30% carbohydrate drink. Enough to nudge the body into mild ketosis, with enough carbs to allow the brain to function normally. In other words, because your intake of carbs is so low, your body shifts into burning fat stores, and I have plenty of those. So, like a bear in hibernation, I'm living off my body fat.

I'm four weeks into the program and have lost a total of 35 pounds! About 10% of my starting weight. Which by the way had turned into an all time high of 344.

 

So the goal is the same. To reach a weight of around 180 lb.

As far as bike riding is concerned, because the calorie intake is so low, I can’t do long bike rides. The first time I went on a bike ride after starting the program I was exhausted after a 1 hour and 15 minute ride. I’ve gotten better. As I’ve lost weight, the rides have gotten easier, but I still don’t push it much past an hour. So my rides are now shorter, but are pretty focussed. So far I’ve been working on improving pedal stroke. Next week I’ll start working on some short climbing. I still see a personal trainer twice a week. I want to ensure that I don’t lose muscle mass.

My goal is to update this blog at least weekly as life allows.

Ride on!

Losing Lance Update #2

As Lance's chances of winning his final Tour de France have disappeared in the Alps, his chances of staying on me are also not looking good. Last update, I talked about creating the required calorie deficit necessary for losing weight. I mentioned the need to create a calorie deficit in order to achieve my goal of losing 2-3 pounds per week. I'm happy to say that since that update, where my weight was 329, I'm now down to 323. It's a modest loss, but you know, "a journey of a 1000 miles..." and all that. And while I still have a couple more days before reaching the end of week 4, we've got company coming so I wanted to post early.

So what has happened the last 3 weeks?

Time flies when you're losing weight. I can't believe I started Operation Losing Lance four weeks ago. After a week of struggling and a week in New Orleans, things are looking up! The combination of taking in roughly 2,250 calories and burning between 400 to 1000 calories at least 5 days a week has worked. What this creates is a net calorie range of between 1,500 and 2,000 calories. The graph below shows pretty consistently that when I stay in that range, weight loss happens. (Don't pay too close attention to June 30 - July 7, I was in New Orleans, where bad food doesn't exist)

Remember, 1,500 net calories does not mean that that's all I eat. I think my body would rebel like hungry peasants on Bastille Day. I always eat around 2,250, but if I exercise and burn say, 750 calories, that creates a net calorie intake of about 1500 calories. If I go on a long bike ride, say I burn 1,500 calories, I will eat additional calories to get to around 1,500 net calories for the day. It's important that the body have enough energy to recover. In the last 3 weeks, I have never felt starved. As a matter of fact, there have been days, especially when I work with the personal trainer and we do a lot of core and weight work, that I actually feel a lot more hungry. On those days, if net calories are around 2,250, I'm ok. (You'll notice those high peaks on July 10 and 13)

The graph below shows the relationship of net calories and weight loss.

As I mentioned above, June 30 to July 7 happened in New Orleans. I was actually pretty happy that I only came back with 2 extra pounds. Even in NOLA I was pretty careful exercising and watching what I ate, without really denying myself of anything. I even enjoyed a great dinner at Emeril's NOLA and a very good dinner at a restaurant called The Pelican Club. But as you can see, as soon as I got back in town, I got back down to handling business.

Coming up...

The next few weeks will be interesting. Next week I will be in Monterey, for the CTA ABC Committee Summer Meeting. It also marks the beginning of the school year. (I'll be missing the first 3 days of school). Going back to school means old and very ingrained eating routines. I'll have to strategize as to how to deal with them.

A couple of people have asked me what I'm using to track all of this. I will put together a post with all the tools I'm using and some quick reviews soon. For now...

Ride on!

Losing Lance Week 1 Update

The first week started with a stumble. I only lost 1 pound. More importantly, the week led to some learning about creating a caloric deficit, and Resting Metabolic Rates and some modification of my food plan. This post is a bit on the geeky side, but if you've ever struggled with losing weight, it might help you explain how it is that you cut calories and you exercise and the pounds don't go away quickly enough.

I've always operated under the simple assumption that to lose weight there was a simple formula: calories out must be greater than calories in. My daily calorie intake target for week one was around 2400 calories. With the exception of Friday and Saturday, I pretty much stayed with it. Here's my chart for the week.

The interesting line here is the green line. It shows how many "net calories" I took in per day. 2400 was the goal. The days that were low net calorie days were days in which I did some sort of workout, like a bike ride where I burned in excess of 1,000 calories. So that If I ate 2400 calories, but I burned 1500 calories on a ride, my net calories for the day were 900. The chart clearly shows that on the days after a low net calorie number, you see a drop in weight. June 22 reflects the exercise of June 21. As my net calories see-sawed, so did my weight for the week. The anomaly is on Friday 25, where my food log doesn't really reflect what happened. It was a party celebrating my goddaughter's graduation, where too much of the wrong food was had.

Now what?

So, while I'm down 1 pound from the high of 330, the week was essentially a wash. However, I decided to do some research. It turns out that the formula of burn more calories than you take in to lose weight, is very incomplete. The chart above shows that. The beter question is: How many more calories do I need to burn than I take in to lose the weight I want to lose? That question led me to more questions.

• How many calories can I take in and not gain any weight?
• How many calories does one need to burn to lose 1 pound of body fat?
• How many calories must I burn in order to lose my goal of between 2 and 3 pounds per week?

This is where the geeky part starts.

Resting Metabolic Rate

It turns out that the answer to the first question "How many calories can I take in without gaining weight" is really complicated. The answer depends on your height, weight, age and the daily activity that you do. My activity varies widely on a day to day basis. So I found a a way to "ballpark" it. I used something called a Resting Metabolic Rate Calculator (RMR).

The Resting Metabolic Rate measures the amount of calories you burn by simply sitting on your butt all day long doing nothing. Turns out that my RMR is 2,383 calories. Adjusted for a fairly sedentary day to day existence (teaching, driving, sitting in meetings) my RMR increases to 2,860 calories. This is this amount of calories, according to this ballpark estimate, that I could consume per day and pretty much not gain any more weight.

Clearly to lose weight, I need to either take in fewer than 2860 or burn additional calories than the 2860 that it takes to make it through the day. I need to create some sort of calorie deficit. The obvious next question is: how large of a calorie deficit do I need to create to lose Lance?

My calorie deficit goal

To answer that question I needed to know how many calories it takes to burn off 1 pound of body fat? A quick google search gave me the answer: 3500 calories. This was a surprise, for some unknown reason, the number that was in my head was 1,000 calories. I was way off. What this means is that in order to lose 1 pound per week I would need to either lower my caloric intake by 3500 calories per week or take in no more than my RMR calories per day and burn 3500 additional calories through exercise. The healthiest way is some combination of taking in fewer calories and burning more calories.

Given my goal of 2 to 3 calories per week. I need to create a deficit of between 7,000 to 10,500 calories per week. This translates into a daily calorie deficit of between 1,000 and 1500 calories.

The Plan for the next few weeks

I'm going to try a new calorie intake goal of about 2,250 calories. If you go too low, your body adjusts by lowering it's metabolism and then not letting go of fat stores. This new goal creates a deficit of around 600 calories per day. That's the dietary modification portion. The additional 400 to 900 calories need to come from additional exercise.

The challenge for weeks 2 and 3 is that I'm flying to New Orleans for the NEA-Representative Assembly. This translates into a lot of sitting and a lot of good food. And while I don't intend to deprive myself of the bounties of the Big Easy, the hotel does have a gym and I have at least one gym buddy there. I will continue to track all of this stuff, but I probably won't have an update until I return. That's it for now, in the meantime...

Ride on!

Dropping Lance in Stages

As Operation Losing Lance approaches the end of it’s first week, I want to share my approach to dropping a 7 time Tour de France winner from my body. If I sit here and ponder the loss of 156 lbs., The goal seems too big, I mean it’s enormous! I kinda want to go buy a huge bag of potato chips and cry. That would only make things worse, so I’ve broken down the goal into manageable chunks.

It’s a Grand Tour!

Pro bike races fall generally into three categories. One day classics, as the name implies, these races happen in a single day, Paris-Roubaix for example. These races are tough and usually present some unique challenge, whether it’s cobble stones, epic climbs or a very long distance. Another is a stage race. These are usually 5 - 7 day stage races. Think of the Tour of California. Some days are relatively easy, some days are very hilly and there is usually a day for the all out time trial effort. The third type is the Grand Tour. Think Tour de France. A 3 week long stage race where what matters most is endurance, your ability to recover, and a lot of strategy taking into consideration your strengths, weaknesses and the team that surrounds you. Operation Losing Lance is definitely a Grand Tour. It’s going to be long and endurance will be key. I know I’ll make mistakes. The key is to minimize them and recover.

So what’s the strategy going in? In order to make the ultimate goal of dropping 156 lbs. manageable, I’ve broken down the “race” into manageable 10% weight loss stages. In other words, starting at 330 lbs. the first stage will be completed when I drop 10% or 33 lbs. At this point I will weight 297 lbs. Stage 2 will be achieved when I lose 10% of that or 30 lbs (OK, 29.7 but I’m rounding up). You get the picture.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight you know that the first few pounds are somewhat easy to lose, you make a few changes, burn a few extra calories, and bam! The pounds come off. As you move along further, it gets harder. Chunking the overall goal into 10% stages presents a nice solution. I get to reach interim goals and celebrate progress each time having to lose fewer pounds. And I get to make changes to eating and exercise strategies for each stage. I’ve laid out my stages in the chart below:

Stages	10% weight loss	Weight goal for stage
Stage 1	33	297
Stage 2	30	267
Stage 3	27	240
Stage 4	24	216
Stage 5	22	194
Stage 6	18	176

l'm thinking that each stage will be marked in some way. Just like at the end of each stage there is a podium ceremony. Details to come, but I'm pretty sure Stage 6 will be celebrated with a nice new expensive carbon fiber bike of some sort like a Specialized Roubaix, but I haven't given it much thought.

How long is this going to take?

Most doctors and diet programs say that losing 1 to 2 pounds per week is the safest way to lose weight. My goal is an average of 2 to 3 pounds per week. So, if I’m dropping Lance (156.5 lbs) at 3 lbs. per week, it would take me roughly 52 weeks. At 2 lbs per week it’s a little over a year and a half. In a perfect world, that's my range. However, I know there will be plateaus and perhaps weeks when weight gain will happen. So I’m giving myself a range of 12 to 20 months.

I know this seems like a very long time to be “on a diet.” But as I said in my first post, diets don’t work. I’m not on a diet. I’m not doing anything drastic (in my own estimation) like a liquid diet, or a protein only diet or some sort of surgery. Those methods offer some great advantages, but also big disadvantages. And while they work for many, I don't think they are for me. I'm looking for a lifetime lifestyle change. Much like I did 9 years ago when I became a vegetarian, ok, technically a "pescaterian." This is about improving my own health. I'm following a middle path. Moderation as opposed to deprivation. My goal is to lose Lance, but more than that, to make the necessary changes in my life, so I never find him again. If this means it might take longer to drop him, so be it.

Saturday will mark the end of week 1. I’ll be posting a progress update probably on Sunday, since Molly and I will be on the road to Arizona on Saturday.

Ride On!



Operation Losing Lance begins!

Every once in a while life brings us a rare moment of clarity. A moment when you actually see things as they are and not as you wish them to be, or through the filter of your ego’s denial. Buddhist monks call this clarity, when it's a permanent condition, enlightenment. Most of us are lucky to get mere glimpses of raw truth. I know I’m waxing philosophical in what is essentially a cycling blog, indulge me a bit.

Shedding Light

A few weeks ago I caught a glimpse of this type of unvarnished reality, unfortunately the glimpse came via my bathroom mirror. The one I always avoid looking at. Those of you who struggle with weight know exactly what I mean. We get really good at avoiding mirrors and reflections of ourselves. That glimpse however came in a moment of careless absentmindedness. I had no time to mentally prepare, which meant that with no filters and no softeners, I saw myself. I had no time for a forgiving “it’s not so bad” or the optimist “It could be worse” or the existential “you just have to be comfortable with yourself.” There was none of that. It was a basic simple stark truth: “Oh crap, you’re fu#@ing fat man! What the hell have you done to yourself?” It’s not like I was deluded before and all of a sudden I saw the light. I mean, I’ve known for a long time I’m dangerously overweight, but in that little unhindered peek at my self, it all came together as one huge reality lightning bolt.

In that instant, random facts such as my actual weight, the size of my pants, the feeling of discomfort in my own skin, the lack of energy to hop on my bike which I love to do and the troubling thought that if I didn’t want to see myself in the buff, why would anybody else? All of these independent thoughts and many more that are easily dismissed when dealt with one at a time, became impossible to deny in that one instant when they all came together.

I’ve wrestled with being overweight all of my adult life. The last time I weighed below 200 lbs. was December 1987. That year I had lost about 60 lbs. going from around 240 to the low 180s in preparation for my wedding in December of that year. Since then I've steadily gained weight. There have been some ups and some downs but mostly it's been an upward trend: weight gain leading to plateau, leading to an effort to lose, small loss then up more than before. Repeat. A familiar pattern for most of us dealing with weight issues. All of this begs the question...What now?

Step 1: See the Problem for what it is.

The first part of solving a problem or reaching a goal is looking at the current situation as clearly as possible. A couple of weeks ago, when the lightning bolt struck, the first thing I did was to step on the scale: it read 330. The suspicion that I was at my highest weight ever was confirmed. And while I’ve never been this public with my weight, it’s important to call a spade a spade.

In an effort to find my ideal weight I looked for a BMI (Body Mass Index) table. I knew I was in trouble when I couldn’t readily find a chart that listed 330 lbs. I’m off the chart. I finally found a chart that listed my weight. At 5’10” and 330 lbs. my BMI is 47. Obese. I know, big duh!

Having established the current condition, I looked for what would put me in the “normal” range. According to the BMI table the highest I could weigh and be in the normal range would be 173 lbs. Setting aside whether this is a realistic goal for someone that doesn’t even remember ever weighing below 180, the chart was telling me that I had to loose 157 lbs.

Operation Losing Lance

As I wrestled with the hard cold numbers I was reminded of an event a couple of years ago after the Rosarito-Ensenada Bike ride. It’s a 50 mile ride with a pretty tough hill right in the middle of it. The tough climb is known to locals as “El Tigre.” At a family get together my oldest brother asked me how I had gotten over the climb. I remember telling him jokingly that it was difficult, because for me it’s like two guys on the bike and only one is doing the work. Those words have been constantly buffeting me over the last two weeks. Needing to lose 157 lbs. made them real.

Out of curiosity I checked some websites looking for weights of some of my favorite pro cyclists. It didn’t take me long to find how accurate I had been when joking with my brother.

Lance Armstrong is listed on Team Radio Schack’s website as weighing 156.5 lbs.

I looked up “The Big Man,” Thor Hushovd, on the Cervelo Test Team, and the big guy comes in at 183 lbs., if my conversion of 83 kg is correct. Those two riders combined weigh 339 lbs. Just 9 lbs. more than myself. I’m also sure that in the middle of a Grand Tour like the Tour de France, by week 3 they weigh less than I do.

Thus, Operation Losing Lance was born. I need to lose a full Lance Armstrong to get within the border of a normal BMI range. My 330 lbs. minus Lance’s 156.5 lbs. gets me to 173.5 lbs. Right on the border of a normal BMI

I don’t know if this is a realistic goal or not. I will consult with my doctor along the way. What I do know, is that If losing a full Lance isn’t realistic, I do have to shed a pretty large portion of him.

The Basic Plan

I’m not approaching this without a plan. A lifetime of struggling with weight has taught me a lot about what doesn’t work. For this task I know that nibbling around the edges definitely won’t work. I have a plan which I will share in the coming days, but I’ll outline some of the basic points here:

1. See the Problem for what it is. I’ve shared that process above.
2. Diets don’t work, a lifestyle change is absolutely necessary in regards to food and how I relate to it.
3. Keeping a food journal is critical.
4. Exercise is key. While I love cycling and it will be a big part of the plan, I need to do more than that. I’ve already started that, more to come on this.
5. Accountability and support. Between the time I was working with Coach Sean on my cycling, and working with my current trainer at the gym, I know that accountability is important for me to be successful. Which is why I’m being so public with this process. Not that I expect you to “take me to task,” although I’m certain some of my friends will, I’m hoping that by putting it “out there” I feel an added sense of responsibility to follow through.
6. Make this the number 1 priority. I can't give the best of me, either to my students, or in service to colleagues or to Molly, who puts up with me on a daily basis, if I'm not at my best.

Ok, this is enough for today. There will be more to come in the upcoming days and weeks. I hope you'll join me on my journey. For now...

Ride on!

A good week of training

I had a good training week. After weeks of wishy-washy, more days off the bike than on, and the fact that I struggled a bit with Tour de Palm Springs, this week was hunker down week. Palm Springs was the first ride of my "season" so I don't feel so bad about struggling a bit. With the Solvang Half-Century in March, the Tour of the Tucson Mountains in April, and possibly the San Diego Century in May, I'll be spending a lot of time on the saddle and more time than ever before on climbing. Its time to put serious ass time on the saddle.

This week was all about getting back into a training routine. During the week I did 3 rides, all focused on time trialing and doing cruise reps. My ride today, Saturday, was completely focused on hills. Coach Sean, had me go out and find some 6 minute climbs. My task was to go up but not go above my Zone 5a heart rate. I accomplished that for the most part, but not entirely. Although only about 30 minutes of my almost 3 hour ride was spent abouve that zone. With roughly 1520 feet of climbing, and thankfully about the same in descents, it was a challenge, but it was fun. Training my weaknesses.

This is what my ride looked like today:

The weight loss program also went on hiatus for a few weeks, but I am now back on track. Tracking all of my food through the Livestrong website and their "Daily Plate." Good tools and a very impressive amount of foods listed in their database. I'll report more on that as I become more familiar with it. In any case, I've been keeping track of my food intake all week.

Another bit of fun news, is that the rest of the year I'll be wearing the 53x11Coffee kit on the organized rides I'm participating in. I mentioned this to my students the other day and they thought it was completely appropriate for me to be sponsored by a coffee company that caters to cyclists. I want to extend a big thank you to Evan Laurence at 53x11Coffee.com for agreeing to be a sponsor even though I'm not a racer. My students are also thankful that I will be well caffeinated.