Category Archives: Losing Weight

Losing Weight

Restructuring

Richard Ha writes:

Today’s weight: 199.3 lbs. 
This week’s target weight was 193.6 lbs.
I am 5.7 lbs. behind schedule.

Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs. 
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs. 
Since 5/23, I have lost 15.3 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute. 
Today’s resting heart rate: 65 beats per minute. Recently it was mid-to-low 50’s. This higher heart rate is likely a result of the interval session I did yesterday. I pushed it more than I normally do.

* Heart rate goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

My goals: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks and to lower my resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute.

* * *

June and I flew to Las Vegas three weeks ago because Grandma became ill and was in the ICU there. Grandma is much better now, and Grandpa and I flew back home yesterday. But Grandma and June are on a cruise ship heading to Hilo right now because Grandma is not able to fly.

We’ve been on the mainland for four of the last six weeks, and losing weight at the one lb. per week rate has been very challenging. Considering that we ate out every meal and did not have easy access to a gym, just keeping the weight off was a major accomplishment.

I accomplished this by being conscious of how much I ate. I never ate all the starch on my plate, whether it was french fries, baked potatoes or rice. A lot of time I chose salads. Most of the time “kiddie meals” were the right size and regular meals were way too much food.

The way I avoided gaining weight, therefore, was by portion control. I didn’t have the opportunity to do a lot of training.

But while I didn’t gain weight, I didn’t lose my pound a week either.

As a result, I have decided to restructure my weight loss program. My new plan is to lose 15 pounds in the next 15 weeks. I will start at 200 pounds and finish this phase weighing 185. After that I will lose 10 pounds in 10 weeks, ending at 175 lbs.

By resuming my exercise program and maintaining a reasonable diet, I’m sure that I will resume losing weight.

I’m confident I could have caught up and accomplished my initial goal of losing 39 pounds in 39 weeks. But why stress? Catching up by losing the 5.7 pounds I am “behind schedule” would add stress to my life. It’s important to me that I make this an enjoyable journey.

Losing Weight, Travel

Weight Loss on the Fly

Richard Ha writes:

We’ve been in Las Vegas since ten days ago, when June and I flew here suddenly because June’s mom went into the hospital. She left the hospital yesterday, but the doctor says she cannot fly. So we are arranging to bring her home on one of the cruise ships that visit Hilo. Tomorrow we drive to San Diego.

I did not bring my heart rate monitor and haven’t had a chance to weigh myself. I’ll try to post my weight loss statistics next week.

Trying to lose weight under these circumstances, while eating hotel food, has been a real challenge. For the first few days, we ate a combination of hospital cafeteria food and hotel food. I exercised by walking for an hour each day through the mall and around the hotel. But it was not very useful since I hardly broke a sweat.

One day I even walked the stairs of the hotel’s six-story parking garage. I didn’t realize it was so high. The stairs are like a fire escape on the outside of the building, and it got a little hairy up on the top floors when I was breathing heavily and hanging on to the railing closest to the wall.

I finally had to acknowlege that the hotel food was way too much volume and too many calories. I had to tell myself, “Even if you paid for it, you don’t have to eat all of it.” Getting over that idea was a big deal.

Since I don’t gamble, even for entertainment, I was able to justify paying to go to the spa. It’s a place where people go for manicures and massages, and where the walls and ceilings are mirrored and the trim is done in wood tones. The ambience is quiet and sedate. There was a pitcher of ice water for guests that had slices of lemon and cucumber in it. It was not your ordinary power lifting gym by any means.

But I was on a mission and I went twice. The first time, I wanted to do a long session at a 125 heart rate or so. I started at 5:50 p.m. and at 7:00 they told me the spa was closing. Two days later I went in and did three intervals–one at a 138 heart rate for ten minutes, another at 145 for five minutes and the last for three minutes at 153.

I don’t know what my weight is because I did not go into the locker room where the scale was. I know that I have gained a few pounds. But not many.

I started to get control of the situation once I realized that serving sizes were twice what I needed and adapted to that. As far as exercise, it’s been the first time I ever set out with the intention of walking as far as I could for an hour. I had to take side trips so I wouldn’t draw attention to myself as the guy who was coming around the block again. But it was enjoyable as I saw a lot more of the place than I otherwise would have.

Once we reach San Diego, we will be in a more stable environment and I’m sure losing weight will be much easier then.

I wasn’t able to plan the exercise portion of this trip ahead of time because we had to get here as fast as we could. But I’ve found that I can adapt and maintain my weight even under unplanned conditions.

It’s been a great learning experience. There have been obstacles in the way of my continuing the weight loss program. But I feel I’ve adjusted well and I am more convinced than ever that I will succeed in losing 39 pounds in 39 weeks.

Food and Drink, Losing Weight

Catching Up

1 Comment

Richard Ha writes:

I’m over 200 lbs., just barely.

Today’s weight: 200.3 lbs.
This week’s target weight was 197.6 lbs.
I am 2.7 lbs. behind schedule.
But I weigh 6.1 lbs. less than when we got back from the mainland Wednesday evening.

Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs. 
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs. 
Since 5/23, I have lost 14.3 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute. 
Today’s resting heart rate: 54 beats per minute. *

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

My goals: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks, and to get my resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute.

***

I didn’t report my weight this past Sunday because we were in Carmel for the annual Tomato Fest and I did not have easy access to a scale. My mission there? To taste test all the heirloom tomatoes I could, as well as all the tomato dishes served up by 60 of the area’s top chefs. I was not going to hold back on the samplings. I expected that I would gain a lot of weight.

And I did.

We arrived back in Hilo on Wednesday afternoon and went to dinner at the Sunlight Cafe, where I had rack of lamb. The minute we got home I went straight to our accurate-to-one-tenth-of-a-pound scale to weigh myself.

Vacations, especially eating vacations, are hard on the weight loss program. I was “scheduled” to be at 197.6 lbs. but I weighed in at 206.4 lbs. I calculated that I was 30,800 calories behind!

I was surprised, but not as horrified as you might think. I’d been expecting the worse, and had simply made up my mind ahead of time that I’d catch up back home by using a combination of training and portion control.

I’m starting to realize that it is not as simple as one pound equaling 3,500 calories. It appears that months of exercising have increased my metabolism. It seems easier to lose weight now, as long as I am willing to cut back on calorie intake—food.

By resuming my exercise schedule, and cutting back on portion size at every meal, I lost 6.1 lbs. When I first weighed myself back home, it was right after the rack of lamb dinner at the Sunlight Café. This is the time of day that I expect to weigh the most; normally I weigh myself early in the mornings. So I think that adjusted for time, I might have actually lost four pounds in three days.

Since I knew that I was not starved for nutrition, I skipped breakfast on Friday and then had a Quaker Oats “Weight Control” instant oatmeal breakfast for lunch. I notice it fills you up more than regular oatmeal.

For dinner I ate a large lettuce, tomato, Japanese cucumber and sweet onion salad with crumbled blue cheese, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. On Saturday, I had the Weight Control oatmeal for breakfast and then a large salad with oil and vinegar dressing for lunch.

For dinner Saturday, we went to Rodrigo and Charlotte’s house. I had a beer and ate everything, including flan for dessert. It was made from Rodrigo’s mom’s recipe and was delicious. Flan is sort of like custard, only better.

I’m eating everything, but in moderation.

As for exercise: On Friday, I exercised for 25 minutes at a heart rate of 128 and another ten minutes at 138. This is aerobic and as far as I want to push it; I’m being careful not to over train. On Saturday, I spent 40 minutes on the elliptical at a heart rate of 112 or so. I’m very conscious that this is supposed to be active rest.

Weighing in on Sunday morning, I’m down to 200.3 lbs.

I plan to do active rest for 40 minutes, at 112 heart rate, for the next couple days. When I feel ready, I’ll do an interval session. The plan is to reduce calorie intake—food—and do two interval training sessions per week and then active rest for the other days.

Together with reducing calorie intake, I’m pretty sure the pounds will melt away.

Losing Weight

On The Road

4 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

We are in Carmel, California right now for the Tomato Fest.

Normally on Sundays, I weigh myself at 8 a.m. and post the week’s results. However, I don’t have access to a scale here, or exercise equipment. Plus I’m going to need to taste as many tomato dishes as I can. There are going to be 60 chefs with dishes to sample and around 200 varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

I have no intention of holding back on trying whatever looks interesting. I’ll deal with the consequences later.

I plan to see where my weight loss program is at when we get home, and I’ll post about it next Sunday.

My resting heart rate is 54. Last week it was 52. A few beats either way is expected and so this is not indicative of a trend yet. I think the low 50s is good since I started out being too heavy to run. I have had to find other ways to exercise. An elliptical trainer and a mountain bike work for me. It appears that intensity—high heart rate training—is key to a lower heart rate.

I am now 61 years old, and I don’t feel any limitations in terms of accomplishing high levels of fitness just because of age. The challenge is to find the right combination of exercise and rest that will keep one improving at an optimum rate.

One of the reasons I know I can keep improving is because I’ve been doing a few dumbbell exercises with cardio all along. And now I can do dumbbell curls with heavier weights, and more reps and sets, than when I was into powerlifting.

I feel that a muscle is a muscle. They all work the same way. Just don’t overtrain.

I have some early observations on my ambitious 30-minute exercise plan, which involves different levels of intensity three times per week plus low level exercise on the other four days.

It is much harder than it appears. It seems that I cannot recover fast enough to stay on the three times per week schedule at a high intensity. I am thinking of modifying it so it’s an intense interval program twice per week, with the remaining days accumulating 500 calories at a low level—below 70 percent of max heart rate.

I think this can be done, because I was successful at power lifting by doing one intense training day per week for the major lifts. That, too, was a situation where it took a long time to recover. At that time, like now, the major caution was to avoid overtraining.

After the Tomato Fest, we plan to take a leisurely coastline drive from Carmel to Santa Maria, where we will visit our friend Judy Lundberg and her family. Judy owns Babe’ Farms, which is one of the premier specialty vegetable farms in the nation. I’ll tell you more about our trip on Wednesday.

Bike, Health, Losing Weight

Nodding Vigorously

3 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

I’m under 200 lbs., just barely.

I lost .6 pounds this week.

My goals: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks, and to get my resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute.

Today’s weight: 199.5 lbs.
This week’s target weight was 199.6 lbs. 
I am .1 lbs. ahead of schedule.

Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs.
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs.
Since 5/23, I have lost 15.1 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute.
Today’s resting heart rate: 52 beats per minute. *

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago and this week I’m there again.

***

I broke 200 lbs., and hit my lowest resting heart rate of 52 beats per minute this week. This is cause for celebration. I’m going to call our friends Dan and Linda Nakasone and invite them to celebrate at Alan Wong’s restaurant with June and me.

I was finally able to do an intensive bike ride and not have to take off the following days to recover. On Wednesday, Rodrigo Romo and I went up Banana Hill. It was funny because at the beginning, Rodrigo was holding a regular conversation with me. At first I answered, and then as we were further along I nodded and answered in three-word sentences. As we rode higher, I held up my end of the conversation by nodding vigorously.

Then, while I was trying to keep myself together, Rodrigo took a business call on his cell. I’m sure the person on the other end of the phone had no idea Rodrigo was on his bike climbing Banana Hill. As for me, I kept my game face on, taking really deep breaths in case I needed to make a one-word sentence.

But this was better than the first three times I rode the hill. This time, I did it in three intervals. The first stop, just above Damasco’s house, I hit a heart rate of 140+.

Rodrigo kept on cruising up the hill and although I kept falling behind, I did fairly well, for me. I actually rode straight up; I didn’t have to ride side-to-side, searching for flat ground in first gear. On that segment, I hit a 160+ heart rate. Very good.

I stopped on the intersection of Susie and Danny’s house road to get my heart rate below 120, and then rode up to the forest line where it climbed back up to 150 again.

This was the part that Rodrigo was looking forward to—the downhill. I asked him to go first and he took off, coasting downhill. I followed behind, making sure my brakes were working well. As I started rolling faster and faster, this question came to mind: “Are you sure you locked the front wheel down?” I wasn’t sure.

The faster I rolled, the more another thought crept to the front. “You do remember that you don’t bounce very well anymore, right?” That was what I learned when I crashed a dirt bike many years ago, and broke a couple of ribs and a collarbone.

So I balanced all those thoughts and went as fast as I dared under the circumstances. By the time we were three-quarters of the way down, I had fallen quite a ways back and pedaled as hard as I could to lessen the gap.

When we hit the bottom, I asked Rodrigo how fast he’d been going. He had hit 39 miles per hour, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t pedal at all. I hit 26 mph. But that’s okay, considering how well I bounce nowadays.

That was Wednesday. On Thursday, I got on the elliptical and did 500 calories worth at a slow speed, and on Friday I forced myself to do it again. On Saturday, I felt rested and I increased the intensity. This is a big deal to me because in previous weeks I’ve had to take two days off after bike rides.

Recently I’ve been losing a half-pound per week. I hope to resume losing a pound per week from here forward. We’ll see.

Losing Weight

So Close!

Richard Ha writes:

Next week, under 200!

I lost .6 pounds this week.

My goals: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks, and to get my resting heart rate below 50 beats per minute.

Today’s weight: 200.1 lbs.
This week’s target weight was 200.6 lbs.
I am still .5 lbs. ahead of schedule

Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs.
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs.
Since 5/23, I have lost 14.5 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute. Today’s resting heart rate: 54 beats per minute.*

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

***

Below are typical training times that various categories of bike racers commit to training. The lowest category racer commits from 30 minutes to an hour every day of the year, and sometimes more than two hours per day. I can’t realistically commit that much time, no matter how much I want to improve.

Category Hours/Year Minutes/Day
Pro 800-1200 132-197
1-2 700-1000 115-164
3 500-700 82-115
4 350-500 57-82
5/Junior 200-350 33-57

Three weeks ago I hit a weight loss plateau, so I increased the length of time I exercised at a low heart rate (110 beats/minute) from approximately 40 minutes per session to more than one hour per session. I did this seven days per week. But it was taking too much time and I was hardly losing any weight.

I read about interval training a few months ago and learned that one can get the benefits of the above training program with a shorter time commitment. It involves working out at a higher intensity three times per week for 30 minutes.

For the last two weeks I have been doing this. I checked with my doctor first and he said that I should have no problem going on this exercise program as I had already been exercising for three months. Having a resting heart rate of 60 in his office also helped to convince him.

For this new program, I start to count seconds from the time my heart rate gets into the zone. After the length of time scheduled, I stop and walk around until my heart rate hits the recovery level of 115, and then start another interval. The idea is to squeeze as many intervals as possible into a 30-minute session. Three intervals is plenty for right now and as I get into better shape I should be able to do more.

My first month’s schedule of Interval Training:

Week % max heart rate Beats/minute Duration
1 75-80 123-132 3 minutes
2 85-90 140-148 90 seconds
3 90-95 148-156 45 seconds
4 70-75 115-123 1 hour

So in week 1, I do 3-minute intervals of 123 to 132 beats per minute during a 30-minute total session, and I do this three times (say, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.)

In week 2, I do 90-second intervals of 140 to 148 beats per minute, during a 30-minute session, 3 times during the week.

In week 3, I do 45-second intervals of 123 to 132 beats per minute, during a 30-minute session, 3 times during the week.

In week 4, I do a 1-hour session at 115-123 beats per minute, one time each on Mon., Wed. and Fri.

Then I repeat the cycle.

This training program is more like competitive ice skating than bicycle racing. The Kulani Trails require this type of short burst of intense work and some coasting and then repeat. It’s like doing triple jumps and resting and then doing it again.

Since I am trying to lose weight in addition to improving my performance, I have modified this program to make sure I expend at least 500 calories of energy per day. I spend that additional time at a low recovery heart rate of 115 or so.

I feel this program will help me start losing weight again. Several days ago, I actually weighed 197.5 pounds. And on Friday morning my resting heart rate was 50.

Due to the increase in exercise intensity lately, I am craving food, and I also needed to take two days off each of the last two weeks. This makes me think this program will work just fine once my body adapts and I can start to do low heart rate exercise on some days instead of having to take them off completely.

P.S. I have noticed I can eat the largest fresh salads and hardly gain weight. And they are nutrient-dense. But I do need to watch the rice, bread, meat and fat.

Awards, Bike, Hamakua Coast, Losing Weight

Shedding Pounds and Picking up Awards

Richard Ha writes:

I lost .5 lbs. this week.

My goal: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks

Today’s weight: 200.7 lbs.
This week’s target weight was 201.6 lbs. 
I am .9 lbs. ahead of schedule

Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs.
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs.
Since 5/23, I have lost 13.9 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute
Today’s resting heart rate: 57 beats per minute.* (after 2 cups of coffee)

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

***

I lost half a pound this week. I started riding my bike, and because of the increase in intensity I had to rest for two days. Based on how rested I feel today, I should be back on track with my workouts this week.

On Wednesday, Rodrigo and I rode our bikes from the farm down to the ocean and back. We went over the highway and down Banyan Tree Road through an open gate–the same one featured on the front page of the Tribune-Herald a few days later because it was blocked with boulders—and down to the ocean access road. We headed north and stopped at the main fishing spots to see what was going on.

The coastline is falling into the ocean there and pine trees with most of their roots exposed are barely hanging on. We saw a few turtles floating on the surface, and even a flock of seabirds gliding in and out of a sea cave as if with the wave motion.

Rodrigo’s comfortable pace is much faster than mine. Of course, he’s a couple of decades younger than me. If he had not stopped to wait for me, he would have been halfway home by the time I reached the top. It was a good reminder that I still have a ways to go with my training.

The week before, Rodrigo had ridden the Kulani trails for the first time, and he commented on how challenging and active the trails were. In Tucson, he used to ride to work on a 15-mile loop several days per week, and he’s been riding a similar trail since they moved to the Big Island a couple of months ago.

He said that the Kulani trails are different in that you tend to be outside your comfort zone. The terrain is varied and the trail is such that one needs to accelerate, decelerate, maneuver though and around roots and rocks and trees and branches the whole way. To make it more interesting, the person he rode with was an advanced rider/racer.

My goal is still to ride in Kulani and have fun. In order to do this, I need to weigh no more than 175 pounds and be in good aerobic shape. I’ve got a long way to go. But I do know what I need to do.

We have some news and here’s even a bit of entertainment:

We were going to wait to announce that Ha Ha Ha! has been selected as a Typepad featured blog and will appear on its homepage on September 1st.

But when we started checking out Typepad’s featured blogs, we enjoyed this one from the San Jose Mercury News so much that we wanted to share it.

It features two Chinese guys lip-synching to Jessica Simpson, the Black Eyed Peas and others. These guys are big in China and they are hilarious. Check it out.

We’ll come back and tell you more about the Typepad thing when it’s time.

Bike, Losing Weight

Gaining Weight

2 Comments

Richard Ha writes:

I gained .6 lbs. this week.

My goal: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks
Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs.
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs.

This week’s target weight: 202.6 lbs.
Today’s actual weight: 201.2 lbs. 7/23/06
I am 1.4 lbs. ahead of schedule

Since 5/23, I have lost 13.4 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute
Today’s resting heart rate: 55 beats per minute.*

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

***

I gained weight this week and it’s starting to worry me.

I’ve read in a lot of places that one can expect to come to a weight loss plateau. And I am in the middle of one right now. So I need to increase the duration of exercise or the intensity or both.

The routine that I had settled into felt harder when I started it three months ago. I must have adapted fairly well as it feels very easy now. Maybe too easy. I believe that I need to get back to the original feeling of difficulty in order to start losing weight again.

I notice that a heart rate of 118 per minute seems to feel the same as when I first started. I’ll increase from the 110 beats per minute that I’ve been doing lately to 118 beats per minute and see what happens.

Last week, I rode my mountain bike up Banana Hill for the first time. It was tougher than I remembered. I made it to the bottom of the last steep climb before I had to stop to rest. I’ll be riding my bike several times per week and should improve steadily.

To recap: I’ll ride my bike twice per week and that will automatically increase intensity. I’ll do the other five days at a heart rate of 118 per minute or so. This will still be fairly easy. But it will be slightly more strenuous that the 110 or so that I had settled into.

Hopefully, this will get me pass this plateau that I am stuck at. Fortunately, I am 1.4 lbs. ahead of schedule.

Losing Weight

Shedding Pounds and Washing Dishes

Richard Ha writes:

I lost 1.4 lbs. this week.

My goal: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks
Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs.
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs.

This week’s target weight: 203.6 lbs.
Today’s actual weight: 200.4 lbs. 7/23/06
I am 3.2 lbs. ahead of schedule

Since 5/23, I have lost 14.2 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute
Today’s resting heart rate: 55 beats per minute.*

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

***

For about two weeks now, I’ve felt like I was hitting a plateau. The 1 lb./week weight loss was becoming difficult to maintain by exercising at a rate of 500 calories per day (3,500 calories per week).

I am eating more than I was when I started. If I compensate for that, I should have no problem. So I increased the time I spent on the elliptical from 40 to 60 minutes. This week I exercised 70 minutes everyday, which burns off about 1,000 calories per day. Because I was feeling exhausted, I took Thursday off.

I do this at a comfortable easy pace, but at the end of the time I am soaked in sweat. This is a huge percentage increase in exercise rate. I normally don’t increase this much. But it was either do this or diet.

I think this amount of work will allow me to continue losing weight comfortably. I plan to stay at 70 minutes for a while and I will increase intensity gradually as my body adapts to the increased work load. My goal is to lower my resting heart rate into the 40s. I feel that at my present pace, it will not go lower than 55-56 beats/minute.

Next week, I plan to add short bursts of higher heart rate training, maybe twice per week. I have been doing this sporadically and I think that is what’s most responsible for lowering my resting heart rate to 55 beats per minute. Otherwise, I think it would be in the low- to mid-60s.

In order to get my resting heart rate into the 40s, I know I have to work harder. But I want to take the easiest path to accomplish my goal. On the days I work harder, I will do three spikes of increased work for either three minutes or 45 seconds per spike—three minutes if my breathing coincides with every other step, and 45 seconds if I need to take a breath on every step.

It’s pretty simple, but it works for me. I hate to suffer for a long time. The rest of the 70-minute session will be spent at the low heart rate that I normally do. I get on and off the trainer whenever I feel it is necessary, and I know I need to work harder. But I don’t have to suffer needlessly.

Since I increased my exercise time, I have had a lot more energy. I don’t know what has come over me, but yesterday I told June that from now on I will do all the dishes.

It reminds me of the time several years ago when she went to Las Vegas with her parents. I had not had to fend for myself much before and so I was determined to show her that I could take care of myself. I figured I would use just one cup, one fork, one plate and I thought that this would be a piece of cake.

One day I looked around and decided that I would water the house plants to prove I could do more than just take care of myself. So I took the hanging basket and started watering it in the kitchen sink. Something was not quite right. Then it dawned on me—it was a silk plant.

I almost fell over. I had to call her in Las Vegas and tell her. We had a good laugh.

Here’s my chance to try again and get it right.

Alan Wong, Losing Weight

There Goes Another One

I lost 1.1 lbs. this week.

My goal: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks
Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs.
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs.

This week’s target weight: 204.6 lbs.
Today’s actual weight: 201.8 lbs. 7/23/06

I am 2.8 lbs. ahead of schedule

Since 5/23, I have lost 12.8 lbs.
On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute

Today’s resting heart rate: 55 beats per minute.*

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

***

I ran across this article in Web MD: Moderate amounts of regular exercise might delay Alzheimer’s disease in older adults.

The findings are based on more than 1,700 adults, aged 65 and older, who didn’t have dementia at the study’s start. Those who reported exercising at least three times per week were nearly a third less likely to develop dementia—primarily Alzheimer’s—over six years.

To me, this seems like a good reason to exercise.

Lately I’ve been having a tougher time than usual losing my one pound per week. I missed two exercise sessions this week. I’ve decided I need to do more than 500 calories per day to anticipate times when something comes up. Three thousand five hundred calories equals one pound, and it usually takes me a little more than 30 minutes to achieve the 500 calorie per day goal. My new plan is to do more calories per day in the early part of the week and build up a credit, in case something comes up and I have to miss an exercise session. 

I’ll work myself up to 50 minutes per day, which at my rate is the equivalent of 800 or so calories. To make it easy on myself, I will either break it into two 25-minute sessions, or else do one session but get off the elliptical trainer every 10 minutes to walk around. This is much easier than just powering through 50-minute sessions every day. It will also allow my body to adapt to the increased work load without too much mental strain. I always like to take the easy route.

I have been weight training off and on for more than 30 years. A little more than five years ago, I was a competitive powerlifter in the 54-59 age bracket. I entered 16 sanctioned powerlifting meets and several state championships and won my class in most of the meets I entered.

My best result was at Sonny Ronolo’s first annual Bench Press Contest held at the Windward Mall on O’ahu. I benchpressed 341 lbs. and won the best lifter award in the “Raw” category, which means without the stretchable bench shirt and other aids.

So I have a bit of knowledge as to what works for me as far as training is concerned. And the older I get, the wiser I become.

Several things I have learned:
   
1. It really is the journey that is the reward. I’ve been on this weight loss/exercise journey for two months now, and although it may seem that the main goal is to lose weight, another real benefit is that my resting heart rate has been in the 50s for two months. That means that my heart is getting stronger and working more efficiently, which hopefully will help me in the long run. As a bonus, the journey is even more fun because I am setting goals and giving myself rewards. The weekly goals are not too high, but the rewards are very good. For instance, when I break 200 lbs. soon I plan to take June to eat lunch at The Hualalai Grille by Alan Wong.

2. Overtraining causes injuries, even if your last name is Man and your first is Super. Injury causes one to abandon the journey. This is not good.

3. Set small achievable goals and reward yourself for hitting them. The idea is to set your self up for success. It’s always better to smile than frown.

4. Be realistic about what you can achieve and go ahead and do it. It’s better to successfully achieve 95% of what you hope to achieve than to fail while attempting 105%. Ninety-five percent of a big grin is still a grin.

5. It’s all in the mind. When you’re young and inexperienced, you may actually slap your own face for motivation; when you’re old and wise, you only think about slapping your own face for motivation; you don’t really have to do it. All that face-slapping did not make up for what I didn’t accomplish in the gym in the weeks and months prior to a powerlifting contest. Because I am older and wiser I don’t slap my own face for motivation anymore. Instead I go to The Haulalai Grille by Alan Wong for lunch.

I believe that half the battle in my attempt to lose weight has been planning my weight loss program in advance. 
    
I’m approaching the big “200 lb.” mark and I don’t want to get stuck there. I think that I’ll creep up close and then speed pass and not look back.