Stronger, Fitter, Faster

Stronger

Twelve years behind a desk does things to your body. For the first time in ten years I've started hitting a gym 3x a week but that doesn't mean I can muster too many pushups just yet.

Fitter

Lose a serious amount of weight. This is definitely key to making everything else work, so I'll be focusing on dropping pounds to get not only into a healthy range of BMI, but to also increase my endurance and fitness.

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My Big Fat Bet

As I've been riding and training and playing with power meters this year, I've quickly realized I can put out a lot of power (1200+ watts in a short 5 second sprint) and I can put out a decent amount of power over longer rides (250 watts for 2hrs). I've seen power watt profiles of PRO racers and their numbers aren't terribly off for their typical stage races but it doesn't take a math wiz to realize they're going fast and I'm going slow because I weigh 220 pounds and top racers are frequently down in the 130-150lb range. Watts per kilogram is a good rough measure of cycling speed (here's a post explaining it) and I've just barely hit the 3 watts/kg mark, or the bottom end of a local amateur bike racer.

Watts per kilogram is a simple calculation and I could train harder all summer to slowly inch up my 20 minute thresholds, but lowering the denominator, or my weight, would really improve my total score in a big way. Lose ten kilos while putting out the same effort and I'm suddenly in the 3.3 watts/kg range. If I was down at my college fitness weight, I'd be closing in on 4 watts/kg which would make me tremendously more competitive locally and even regionally.

The Bet Idea

Early on, my bike coach said losing weight before the next cross season starts this Fall would be necessary, and he mentioned that coming up with interesting bets worked well in the past with his riders. He proposed trying to put up a financial bet that was big enough to be motivating towards winning the bet without being too painful of a cost if I didn't. He said typically it's a $1,000 bet, where I give him a check for that much money, we agree on a weight and a date to hit it, and if I meet the goal, I get the check back to tear up, but if I don't, he gives it to a bike-related charity. I considered this for a couple weeks until I stumbled upon a similar idea.

Don't drink and eBay

I scour eBay fairly regularly for deals on hard-to-find parts, recently I came across a pro jersey auction from team Garmin/Slipstream for Steven Cozza's dirty jersey from this year's Paris-Roubaix race. Now, this is my favorite race of the year and the Slipstream team is one of my favorites as well. So late one night, against better judgement I put a bid on the jersey. I figured I could get it for a couple hundred bucks, since Cozza didn't win (he was in an early breakaway and lead for some length of the long course) and he wasn't a famous guy. So I put down $200, and I was outbid. I pushed it to $300, still outbid. I watched it for a couple days and when it was about 24hrs from being done I saw that it was nearing $500. I knew this was madness but I really wanted a Paris-Roubaix momento and I had a bit of money sitting at paypal, so I put in $600 but it wasn't enough to be the top bidder. You can guess how this ended -- I did win the jersey but not until it hit the $1,000 mark.

Again, I'll admit that I know that was crazy and way too much for a mid-pack rider's jersey and I never intended to pay anywhere near that amount but at some point I really wanted to get that jersey and I did what was necessary to get it.

The Actual Bet

When I woke the morning after and realized what I'd done, I also remembered the coach's idea for a weight loss bet so I proposed the following: I'll frame the jersey and give it to Seth my coach around May 1st (at the weight of around 220lbs), and if I can get to 200lbs or below by September 1st, I'll get the jersey back, and if I fail to reach the goal, Seth gets to keep the jersey on his wall.

The photo to the right shows the jersey fresh from the frame shop, where it cost several hundred dollars more (!!!) to mount in a custom frame. I got a copy of Graham Watson's amazing photo of Cozza leading the race wearing the jersey itself.

Weight Loss Diary

I've put a bit of an uptick on my mileage in an effort to burn some more calories, but after watching my morning weight for the last six months I'm really finding that portion control is the key to weight loss. No matter how many miles I ride or hours I spend in the gym, I'm staying about the same weight unless I scale back on sweets and the amount of food I eat at dinner. So while I stopped eating most junk food years ago, I stopped eating red meat almost two decades ago, I rarely drink, and I reduced my intake of bad stuff like soda, the key is really keeping my dinners as light as possible.

In order to hit my goal over four months, I have to lose just over a pound a week and so far I'm about on track. Last week I hit an all time low that was already over 25% of the way to the goal weight, but I think it was mostly dehydration because I bounced up shortly after. At this point I'm optimistic as I'm down a couple pounds in the first couple weeks but there is always a chance I might not make it, because I've been stuck in the 220-230lb range for the past four years.

Now that I'm knee-deep in the bet I have to admit the size of the bet definitely helps motivate me to say no to cake at birthday parties and I'm trying to cut down on soda to only once in a while. I know if I'm not halfway down by the halfway time point, I'll definitely be working frantically to reach the goal and possibly freaking out a little because damn, after all the time, effort, and money I've put into training and the money I blew on that jersey, I better get to keep it.

Posted on May 20, 2009 in goals, weight

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