Sunday, July 26, 2009

70 days and counting: Fitness update

With only 70 days remaining to the start of Enduro Africa, I've stepped up efforts to meet 3 fitness goals:

  • getting physically fit,
  • building strength and endurance specifically with the off-road ride in mind,
  • losing another 10 pounds.
Here's what I've done so far. First, I started an account with a free online fitness tracking tool to log exercise activities and weigh-ins. Second, I set a personal goal of exercising at least 4x/wk for 60 minutes. Third, I scheduled a consult with a trainer at the neighborhood gym, largely to help map out a routine to augment my preferred training activities - viz., swimming and biking. Finally, although I'm not tracking calories, I am cutting way back on the vices: Ben & Jerry's, coffee shop muffins and scones, and chocolate. At the same time, I'm increasing intake of veggies and fruits.

And so far, so good. I've been using my online tracking tool regularly and find it very reinforcing to see graphically changes in my weight. I've been exercising 5 - 6x/week, most often with a .75 - 1 mile swim or 20 - 40 mile bike rides after work or on weekends. I've lost 2% of my weight this month, bringing me from a BMI of 27.1 to 26.5 (Goal BMI = 25.4, still "overweight" but not really). We'll see how I feel when I get to my target; I may try to drop another 5 lbs. if I can.

Best of all, I've regained somewhat the level of fitness I had back in California, when I'd think nothing of our 25-mile mountain bike rides through Arastradero OSP and El Corte de Madera OSP, some of which started with a 5 - 6 mile climb to the trail head.

So, slowly but surely I'm getting there.

2 comments:

Mike M. said...

That's great! Which online fitness tracker do you use? I'm looking into it for myself.

Andrew said...

Hey. There are a bunch out there, but the one I like a lot is Calorie Count (http://caloriecount.about.com), which thankfully allows one to track and graph exercise and weight, not just calories.