It was mid-January when my 'winter training schedule', as I liked to call it, started in earnest ahead of my first race at the end of April. Back then it seemed so far away but so to did my targeted fitness levels ahead of it. After being somewhat conservative with my eating through the winter months I had dropped from around 218 lbs in mid October to 213 lbs, but still had an ideal 30 lbs to go not to mention all the stamina work. Things got off to a good start putting in plenty of time in the gym, but once I bought my Garmin and the weather showed the slightest signs of turning allowing me out onto the road, the gym was abandoned. Sadly the weather never turned enough and I haven't done near the amount of road miles I might have required and it's left me playing a little catch up.
On February 22 -- Ash Wednesday and the start of lent -- I decided to make sugar the item I would give up for forty days and forty nights, if only to see how it helped in the 'get-fit-shed-weight' plan. By then things had been going really well. I was down to around 205 lbs and pleased with the progress. Those forty days and forty nights without any kind of refined sugar taught me something quick: You can lose your sweet tooth -- and I suppose anything you have a craving for -- after about ten days; and, what you do in the gym is nothing compared to what cutting out sugar can do for your waistline.
With the birth of my daughter in early April I didn't go to the gym much and limited anytime I had to get some exercise in to short spins on the bike. That was okay and despite that anytime I stood on the scales the numbers continued to drop. By Easter when I was cracking into my first chocolate egg to bring Lent to an end the scale was reading 195 lbs. It was the lightest I had been in about eight years. Only 13 lbs to go, right?
Well, a week of eating sugar filled items again and a slip from the habit of going out on the bike for a week, I climbed onto the scale this morning to read 202 lbs. Safe to say I was off the wagon two weeks before the first race.
Alright, alright. Still time to turn this thing around. So here I am, April 19th and committing to abandon sugar once more . . . at least until after that first race. No alcohol for the rest of the month and a limited amount of eating out. A weekend of road and mountain bike riding planned and a couple of midweek spins to get as ready as possible for that first race and we'll see where it takes me. 182 lbs is out of reach for the end of April -- though not for the summer -- but it's time to get at least lower than I have been and call it one last hard kick in this 'winter training schedule'.
