edward spurlock

Working from home today — no morning bike ride. My stats:

Thursday’s stats:

I had to stop at a number of traffic lights, and I even had to come to a stop twice on the final hill, due to construction traffic. It made for an easier ride, but not a fun one.

As 23 states get even fatter, heavy costs loom

It’s time for the nation’s annual obesity rankings and, outside of fairly lean Colorado, there’s little good news. Obesity rates among adults rose in 23 states over the past year and didn’t decline anywhere, says a new report from the Trust for America’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

And while the nation has long been bracing for a surge in Medicare as the boomers start turning 65, the new report makes clear that fat, not just age, will fuel much of those bills.

…Health economists once made the harsh financial calculation that the obese would save money by dying sooner, notes Jeff Levi, executive director of the Trust, a nonprofit public health group. But more recent research instead suggests they live nearly as long but are much sicker for longer…

Well, if I can get my weight down to a healthy range, now I don’t have to feel as guilty about my projected longer lifespan.

Here’s another reason why I’m not going to quit weightlifting:
Is Bicycling Bad for Your Bones?

It’s a scary title, but the article goes on to say:

Even more encouraging, most recreational cyclists probably don’t need to worry too much about their bones. “The studies to date have looked primarily at racers,” Smathers says. “That’s a very specialized demographic. These guys train for hours at a very high intensity. They sweat a lot. They never go for runs. They don’t usually do much weight-lifting,” to avoid adding bulk.  “They’re strange.” He knows. “For competitive riders, I’d recommend spending some time weight-training.”

Given that I’m getting older, I’m going to continue weightlifting as part of my exercise program. When I get my weight down (reducing the stress on knees and ankles), I’m going to get back into ballroom and swing dancing. Jitterbug and jive ought to be real good for adding the light-to-moderate impact that bones need to stay strong.

Lucky day 13! My weight is under 186 pounds for the second day in a row - 185 pounds yesterday, and 184 pounds today! 186 pounds is where someone of my height crosses into the “obese” category according to the BMI calculation, so for two days in a row I am now officially merely “overweight!”

After yesterday’s rest day, let’s see how the pre-exercise numbers look:

Well, this is interesting. As one can see above, my calorie burn over 30 minutes was one less at 11 AM than at 8:30 AM. What the table doesn’t show is that I’d had no caffeine for over 12 hours at 8:30 AM, but had a 200 mg caffeine tablet about 10 AM. Caffeine is said to raise metabolism, but it doesn’t raise mine that much anymore, apparently.

There’s a new product on the market — Celsius energy drink, with caffeine, guarana (another caffeine source), green tea and ginger extracts. Supposedly, Celsius kicks up one’s metabolism. Maybe I’ll add it to my “test protocols” over the next few weeks and see if I can establish whether it really does raise my metabolic rate. Stay tuned…

A rest day today –

Monday’s stats:

I tried to go faster today, but the overall calories and average calories/minute were not that much greater than yesterday.

Sunday’s stats:

Once again, another morning after a short night. I didn’t feel very strong at the start of my commute this morning, so I wound up saving energy for the end and pushed a bit harder up the final hill to work.

I suspect that 194 max HR was recorded when I was trying to breathe a bit more deeply, shifting the transmitter on my chest and causing the transmission to glitch. I certainly wasn’t trying to exceed my “max” heart rate at any time during this morning’s ride. Even on the final climb, I barely hit 100% of 171 (220 minus my age)

Saturday’s stats:

I didn’t feel all that strong this morning (probably due to only getting four hours sleep last night), but I pushed. I thought I had a head wind, but given my time, I think it was just the way I felt.

Riding home, I stopped at the library for about 20 minutes, then continued. I made good time up to the library, but I slowed way down on the rest of the hot ride home.

Today’s stats:

I had nothing in my legs this morning. I’m glad I’ve decided to put the bike on the bus for the majority (and the hottest part) of the ride home.