Excellent in-house spin workout last night.  The Expert ran four miles on the treadmill and I cycled, all out, for an hour and twenty minutes while watching Ironman 2010 and listening to T.I., Eminem, and Nelly.  890 calorie burn, according to my trusty Garmin.

It may seem stupid to own two road bikes, two mountain bikes, a bike trainer, a treadmill, dumbbells, yoga mats, exercise ball, foam roller, various DVDs, plus a spin bike – but we are fond of being surrounded by lots of exercise equipment.  (Even though you wouldn’t know it by looking at us…oh, there was a time, though….sing with me now, “the way we were…”). And being snowed in over the past four days has proven this equipment obsession to be most helpful.

I am down 8.5 pounds since my New Year’s resolution solution kicked into gear on Christmas Eve.  I would be down more, except I ate nothing but Stella’s birthday cake with wine for two days, so at least the cause is identifiable.

I am tracking my calories, weight and activity on Calorie Count website, which I have tried before, but never been very successful at managing.  However, the Expert likes the scientific end of this – there’s an “analysis” screen which shows you exactly how much you are burning, eating, daily values, etc.  He loves it, and it’s rubbing off on me a little.  Interestingly, I am targeted to lose about three pounds a week with my chosen structure (and working out like crazy), and the analysis is showing just that.  Maybe there really is a science to weightloss – not some big mystery. 

Maybe that’s why I have always struggled so much, because I have failed to be cognizant of exactly how much food I am eating.  I wouldn’t keep track, and at the end of the week, when I hit the scale, I would assume that I just couldn’t lose weight.  When I was in weightlifting, that was a different story because I was working out really hard, and basically floating in between weight classes. 

I’m talking about my pre and post-weightlifting days.

Even still, there have been three times in my life when I really lost a great amount of weight:
1) When I was 11 years old – I joined Weight Watchers with my grandmother (we won’t go into all the issues that surround an 11 year old being put on a diet) and rode a stationary bike;
2) As a 2nd year law student, I kicked off about 55 pounds.  That was just simply giving up alcohol, running  and kickboxing, and eating about 1,200 calories a day – I had signed up for Weight Watchers again here, but this time it was online;
3) During a four month vegan stint with killer exercise to start off my third decade and to celebrate my 30th birthday – I lost about 22 pounds.

All the three times, the weight lost hinged on three factors:
1) No alcohol (at least, I hope not at age 11);
2) Some sort of serious exercise regime; and
3) Keeping tract of calories/points – or whatever I put into my mouth.

So here I go again.  Training for a triathlon, keeping track of what I am eating and laying off the fun juice.  The trick for me is always making the conversion from the diet to a lifestyle.  At this rate, I should be able to have 45 pounds off of me by St. Anthony’s.  And with the Expert on board, I think it will be much more feasible to actually keep it off.

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