Biking! Whats the fun in it?

This blog is mainly about two things: my love for biking and my journey (or shall I say struggle) to lose weight and and maintain it.

Today, I would like to focus on the fun that got me into biking and left me there to stay. After all, I don't think I could keep running at the Gym for much longer. If you're not really into running but you do it 3-4 times a week like i did, most likely you'll stop sooner than later. Unless off course you enjoy the treadmill torture, the boredom and the unattractive smells around.

I was lucky, thanks to Assi and the gang, I found biking, a sport that although can be super challenging, is it also full of enjoyment. Here's why:

Ladybugs at Purisima creek

Nature. Always loved it. The views,smells, the wildlife. I am lucky enough to live in northern CA where my bikes takes me to places I have never been to and would probably wouldn't get there on my own.
Such an awesome feeling seeing all those beautiful views and visiting all those amazing places that I can later go back to with my family.
Not to mention the little treasures you find while in nature. In one of the rides, near HWY 35, we stumbled upon a Bee guy that was selling local raw honey from his beehives. Another ride we got to a place where the trees were all covered with thousands of ladybugs. It seemed almost unreal.
There are many more little unique, nature related stories that I constantly come back home with (my lovely wife who has to listen to them every time I get back excited from a ride, can testify for that). I'll save some of them for future posts.

The Guys. It is always fun to ride with bunch of great people. There are the ones you already know and happy to see again and there are new ones you meet who share your love for the sport and the fun of it. You are not alone in places and situation you rather have guys around and you learn... you learn a lot! Most of what I know about biking today (and other stuff too but that's for a completely different blog I'm afraid) is thanks to those guys I've been riding with for the past year and half

Dani, Gil, Yishai, Alex and Assi, THE GANG!

The Exercise. Biking is a long aerobic exercise. My fitness keeps improving, my weight stays the same more or less (more when the lovely wife cooks like crazy and less when she's busy) and I can afford eating almost everything I want.
Mountain bikes are a great form of exercise because when you cycle, even slowly, you burn plenty of calories. It is a great way of toning muscles so whether you are trying to lose weight or simply tone up you are bound to be happy with the results.

The Challenge. Mountain biking can be hard. Some trails are easy and allow a more relaxed ride while others are intense with uneven terrain, lots of hills, and obstacles (trees, bushes, rocks, logs, etc.) It requires skills and focus, and it always keeps you alert. Since there are so many places to get to, I am constantly encouraged to improve and make it to the next challenging trail, climb or what have you. I'm the kinda guy who loves a good challenge and biking provides plenty of those :)

The Coffee. Every good story should end with a good cup of coffee, no? No doubt, the best thing after the ride and sometimes a good motivation to go on with rider, especially in wet conditions is the hot latte or cappuccino that is waiting for you in the finish line. Yes, a bunch of us coffee lovers manged to arrange some wonderful rides that just happen to end right at the door of a good coffee place. I believe we deserve it ;).



Biking all around. Biking just brings a lot of interest into my life. I love looking at bikes, talking with other bikers, planning the next trail I'll do, buying accessories for my bikes (this one is not as loved by my bank account though). It's hard to explain, but at the end of the day, for bike freaks like me it's more than just a sport. It's the feeling you get where in the middle of your life (or close to it) you find a new love that does not necessarily gets you in trouble with your wife. how cool is that?! (Stay tuned for the story about my new mountain bikes)

At some point I got into road biking as well. I believe that's a whole different experience and I will tell you about it in my next posts. In the meantime, enjoy the images...


and another one....

Alex in Russian Ridge

Loseit (or: know what you eat)

I view loosing weight as a simple math. You need to get rid of more calories than you consume. Sounds simple? maybe for all those thin people out there who feel stuffed after munching on a carrot. However, for all the slightly to heavily overweight people who desperately try to loose weight, it's everything but simple.

This can be one heck of a frustrating process: first, you need to be aware of what you eat (Yes, that includes the box of chocolate chip cookies you sneaked in late at night thinking no one was watching...), then you need to be able to actually control it, which means limit what you eat or how much you eat of it. On top of all you need to understand the calorie value of every bite you take, then finally understand how many calories you burn so you can actually change something.

I read somewhere that in order to loose a single pound I needed first to "loose" (burn or take out from your daily diet) 3600 calories! let me please repeat the number: 3600 calories! for loosing one lousy pound.  So you either exercise like crazy to burn those calories or you eat less and reduce them from your overall diet or preferably you do a little of both. But how?? To my aid came technology.

As I mentioned in previous posts, I am a numbers freak. I need to measure everything and see the numbers in front of my eyes. So I got that Polar heart rate monitor that told me how many calories I burned while I was working out. Ok, that was a start.

Next, I researched and found that for my weight and height I was supposed to consume between 2000 to 2500 calories a day.  Now what was left was to find out exactly how many calories I eat. I guess I could look up the calories for everything I eat. I could also write it somewhere, calculate, sum it up, and keep track somehow... Well, I said I was a numbers guy but I definitely was not into making my life harder or adding more chores to the ones I already had...

God bless the iphone :). One day I stumbled upon an iPhone application which a friend of mine called "Life changing". That application was Lose It (http://www.loseit.com).  The Lose It application is integrated with a web site and allows you to put in what you eat so it can calculate your daily calorie consumption. You can add and customize foods and it even remembers your meals. And on top of all it is very simple to use.

I could enter my current and goal weight, my exercises, and even share it with friends (but i didn't :-) )
The really life changing aspect about this application for me was that I developed an awareness of how many calories were in every single bite I took.

An Apple-100 Calories , a piece of cake-450 Calories, Whole milk glass-120 Calories. No wonder it is so hard to loose weight, it is practically on the verge of impossible with all those calories flying around you, ending up in your mouth and than in your stomach.

I know it may sound discouraging, especialy when you're envisioning those chocolate chip cookies chasing you holding big flashing calories signs... but trust me. This can be exactly the push you need, at least it was for me.

The Lose It application was a significant participant in my journey to lose weight. I kept entering everything I ate and the workouts, no cheating and no rounding up, and it just did the job. I have already lost weight before I started using it but I have reached the famous plateau and felt stuck although I really wanted to loose some more. Since I started using it I lost at least an extra 12-15 pounds, but more importantly, I became aware of what I ate and how many calories were in it. This gave me control on the amount of food I consumed, something I never had before

Bottom line: Highly recommended, if you own an iPhone (and hoping to lose a few pounds), it is a MUST app to have!

Biking (or: how the love story began)

Being an out of shape fat guy did not mean I did not have any slim or fit friends. In fact many of my friends were engaged is various sportive activities. Few of them were into biking. They were meeting every weekend for a mountain biking riding and more than once they offered me to join. Waking up at 6 am on Saturday just to exhaust myself in what seemed to me back than as an uncomfortable and unfriendly sport, was not my idea of fun. It was bad enough that I was tortured 4 times a week at the gym. Why should I go to the mountains and be tortured in new and creative ways??

One day, My friend Assi, One of those mountain riders, managed to be a little more persuasive and persistent than usual. He even offered to arrange a mountain bike for me to make it more bearable and promised that despite all my arguments against it, it will be fun. I guess that I was in an exceptionally good mood that day because I ended up saying "ok".

Assi, a man of his word, arranged a pair of bikes in no time. That was it. Place and time were set and all I needed to do was to show up. ho, and have some fun too. 7am, Sunday morning, near Fremont Older. Hmmm who could have guessed how familiar I would become with this place...

Saturday morning we all met at a friend's house. I got the spare bike, the group arrived, and we started riding. Let the fun begin.

That was a NIGHTMARE! we climbed from the friend's house to Fremont Older, which was about 4 miles, climbing probably 800-1000 feet. Now let's go back a bit... this was after a few months of training at the gym and at least two dozens of pounds lost. I was lighter than ever and in a relatively good shape. Or so I thought...

Assi is climbing one of Fremont older's hills

It was a nightmare, it was hard, it was unbearable at times and it also was probably one of the sweetest things I ever did (not including the time I spend with my lovely wife off course, who also reads this blog from time to time...). I fell in love. The views, the smells of nature around me, going downhill (although i was scared to death on my first single). All there was missing was a cheesy love tune to be played in the background that would have made this love story perfect.

Went down exhausted but with a stupid smile on my face, this smile was there to stay!

The process...

So, if you read my previous post, you probably know that I managed to survive the first day at the gym.  Since then, I kept on going at least 3 times a week, increasing the running vs. walking time. After a while I realized that I was really doing it, I was actually loosing weight.

I have to say that it took about 20 or 30 pounds for people to actually notice the change. Suddenly I started to get feedback from people around me; "you look good", "did you loose weight?" At the beginning I was still turning my head looking for the slim good looking guy behind me that everyone were talking about. I could not believe it was me they were talking about. Was I the one there getting compliments about my looks? me, the fat guy? How weird was that!?

I wasn't only a fat guy, I was (and still am) also a numbers guy. It was all about the numbers... How many calories I burned, how many miles I ran, what speed, how many times a week, and so on. I measured everything I could measure so it was only natural that I would start document my weight loss officially.

I never really liked stepping on the scale. I was afraid from what it would tell me every time. The scale was like this evil fortune teller that told you some ugly truth you did not want to hear but you keep going to him anyway hoping that this time you'll hear something reassuring... "You're still fat dude", "not working hard enough fat guy", "0.5 pound?? that's it? this is what you woke me up for??".  As frustrating as it was I made up my mind that I had to look at the ugly truth, I had to know my weight every day, every week and every second (did somebody mention OCD?)

On January 1st 2009 as a New Year resolution, after about 6 weeks of training, and slowly reducing meals portions, I created an Excel spreadsheet and put on the data + weight, I added a formula that would show me exactly how many pounds I lost. At the beginning I checked my weight every day, then every two days, finally I realized how stupid, not to mention obsessive It was and I decided to do it once a week. Friday became my weigh day and this is how it looked:

I think the happiest day for me was when I went below 100 kg (220 pounds). I couldn't really remember when I weighed less than 100 kg, (since i was 19 or so) so that was a real breakthrough for me.

Few things that helped me during that first year,

1. I was always a pretty methodical guy, which meant numbers for me. I purchased a Polar heart rate monitor, the kind that allowed you to put your weight, age etc... and calculated how many calories you burnt in a work out. For me, a success was when I passed the 800 calories for a single training.
2. Document, document, document! I insisted on writing my weight every week and that was the most important file on my laptop, backed up to at least 5 places. Looking at that graph going down just did the job.  It was not always linear, there were ups and downs here and there, but overall the trend was weight going down.  I have learned that even if I had a "bad" day with too much food or too little exercise, it didn't mean much. I could always go back on track and the trend kept to be loosing weight. I did not give up to the thought that came in saying "well fat guy, you eat so much already leave this stupid weight loss attempt and go back to be your old fat self..."

The pace of my weight loss got slower and slower. This is how 2010 looked like. Overall I didn't loose much at 2010, only around 10 pounds but I was content and even proud of how I was able to keep my new low weight despite all those dis-encouraging ups and downs...

In my next post I will write the story about getting into biking, sometime in summer 2009

How it all started

This is me 2 years ago

And this is me today

This blog is about my journey to loose weight and the story of how I became a bicycle freak.
I decided to write this blog so I won't forget where I was just a few years back, hoping that this will help me through the tough days.

When I was 18 years old, just before beginning my army service I weighed 77Kg which are about 169 pounds. I think that was the last time I stepped on a scale until two years ago, at the age of 34, when I went to see my doctor for a check up. Needless to say neither me nor my doctor were thrilled to see the numbers. 

I don't remember how I got to be the 265 pounds guy in that picture up there. I guess I never really paid attention to my weight.  I mean, I knew I was fat (kinda was hard to miss), and off course I wished I was thinner but I did not let any thoughts about my weight interfere with my daily life too much. I was carrying the extra weight for years, occasionally unsuccessfully trying this diet or the other but never truly invested my self in any of the attempts. Slowly but surely I got used to being a fat guy.

So... how did it all start?

I guess there was something inside me that told me that it was time for a change.  There was nothing mystical or exciting about that. Just a small nagging voice (no, it was not the wife) that started quietly and slowly became louder and louder. When I look at my pictures from back then, I am amazed that up until two years ago, I did not do anything serious about my weight. Didn't I realize how fat I was? didn't the people around me notice?  Maybe we all noticed, only chose not to do anything about it.

It's not that I did nothing. As I said, I did try a few diets here and there and even found my self going to the Gym once in a while, loosing few pounds (i believe). However, immediately I had to compensate myself for my tremendous efforts by eating a nice subway sandwich or 4 pizza slices. I pretty much ate everything I could, any time I could.  Luckily, most of my nutrition was relatively healthy (if you overlook the 4 sliced of pizza ;-)) , so my blood works were fine, but still... 265 pounds...not a very healthy weight for a young man.

So let's go back to two years ago, when my journey began.  One day my wife and I received a mail offer from the 24 fitness club, the gym my wife used to train in.  It was a "Special spouse discount",  only $15 a month. Being the cheap guy that I was, I immediately told my lovely wife "That's a very good deal. we cannot miss that opportunity". A day later we signed up. After all, good deals are hard to pass on.

Few days later my new membership card arrived.  As happy and excited as I was, the membership card somehow found its way to the nearest drawer. Deep inside. I tried hard to avoid it, knowing that every time I would look at the card it will remind me that it was not such a great deal any more if I wasn't actually going to the gym.
A couple of months passed with my card laying safely in my drawer.  One day, while we were eating lunch with friends, one of them, who just got her personal trainer diploma asked me... "So... Oded, when will we see you at the Gym?" I mumbled something lame like "I've been busy... maybe next week", off course without having any real intention to go anywhere that was not the nearest Sushi place.
After a few weeks there we were again with the same friends and that same stubborn friend asked me the question again... hmmmm, now what could I do? I was too tiered to come up with a reliable excuse. She knew I signed up, she used to go to the same gym every day, how could I get myself out of it?!   I thought that if I would throw the ball back into her court she would back down. "If I come, will you have time to show me what to do?" I asked, feeling like I was saved. But no! The friend smiled a viciously motivated smile and said: "off course, I would love to". I was doomed!

The next day, 9 am we were both at the gym, the same place I tried so hard to avoid.
Stepping on the treadmill I asked my friend: "now what do I do?" The wise friend said in reply: "go very slow, don't kill your self.  Run for 1 or 2 minutes, then walk 5 minutes, and again, run for few minutes, then walk. The next time you come, try to run a little bit longer"
So i started. I remember looking at all the people around me.  I was very impressed of how they could run for so long, and so fast... kind of admired them I have to say. One women who I noticed, was running for a complete hour... how could she do that?

Running for only 2 minutes wasn't easy at all. I set a 4.5 mph speed on the treadmill and it started moving , after 10 minutes of running and walking like that, I was sure I was going to die, or at least faint. Not only I was about to remain fat, I was going to be remembered as the fat guy who fainted at the gym.  Finally the 15 minutes I decided to dedicate for that torture were over and my friend (who kept running in an incredible pace next to me hoping to encourage me) stepped off and walked me to the another torture devices that was designed to work on my fats and magically turn them into muscles.
She showed me around, told me what I should have and should have not done. Once again, her keywords were... don't kill yourself, don't push too hard, its better to lift lighter weight more times... so I did. and I did not die. I did not even faint. could you believe it?

I left the gym that day very proud of my self, thinking I could sign up for a marathon, filled with motivation to come again the following day.
Well, I did not run a marathon yet, but that gym soon has become my second home, where I spent many of sweaty hours trying to get into shape. It started as a love-hate relationship with a lot of self pity going on but ended up to be a rewarding love story as the pounds started to drop.