Why I ride...

A page on facebook popped into my feed and there was a statement "Why I ride" there, I am currently reflecting on things because the struggle with keeping myself in check is in full swing right now and I thought about that statement.

Why I ride....

Why do I ride? I ride because there was a point in my life when riding was not a possibility, I watched from the window on my broken couch at 534 pounds as people walked by and honestly asked myself "why would someone want to just go for a walk or ride a bike?" this is where I was. A decision was made to lose weight and during the time that the weight came off I found cycling again, the last time I had ridden I was a kid. On my bicycle I am free, I am limited only by my own strength, my own endurance so as long as there is a road or a trail I can ride. Going from 534 pounds down to 300 paired with cycling could be compared to being a caged animal, one day you realize that the cage is unlocked and watching other people do the things that you want to do is no longer reality because now the wind is on your own face.

It may sound silly to some people that the freedom riding a bicycle gives to me is a very powerful feeling because knowing how the cage feels compared to moving down a trail is such a stark difference. My life on two wheels includes freedom, freedom to go where I want when I want while getting a high at the same time all while under my own power. Now when you were once powerless this is an exceptional feeling, to be moving forward literally and figurativly seeing life through the eyes of the child that you once were atop a frame bolted to some wheels a chain and some handlebars truly is something to not be taken for granted.

Like the saying goes, "It's like riding a bike, you never forget" the same can be said about that caged feeling when you weigh 500 plus pounds, you never forget....

I will not be caged..and THAT is why I ride.

As Ever
Me

A new record and really missing the trail.

Back to the gym and the timing couldn't be better, Feeling a bit of a twang in my throat yesterday I decided to do some push ups last night to get the blood pumping then today after my trip to the gym today its completely gone. Missing out on my real bike rides being forced to accept the fact that I will be on a stationary bike or spin bike until it dries out and warms up I thought that it would be a chance to go for that over 100 average RPM zone that I have been wanting. Thirty minutes on the bike set at level 11 netted me 12.34 virtual miles, 228 avg watts, 12.37 avg MET's and 101 avg RPM's, something else that I found out on this ride is that K7's song Come baby come is good for a solid 108 RPM pace. This new record avg RPM for me has me thinking about that perhaps I should start riding the rail trail with one ear bud in on low volume just as a cadence tool, I enjoy the wind and the sounds around me when I ride though so perhaps not but I do think I will toy with this idea when I get back out there.

101 average RPM's, finally busted into that triple digit mark.

It still amazes me that when I don't get my cardio into any given day how piss poor my attitude gets, I honestly crave the movement and get grumpy when I can't squeeze a solid workout into my day. It wasn't that long ago when I would get a piss poor attitude because I had to move! I still to this day can't blame myself and I do feel bad when I see a heavier person struggle because I know exactly how it feels, I am unsure that I will ever forget that part of being 500 plus pounds. I honestly feel that my bike, or should I say bicycling as a whole has played a huge role in my weight loss, "but Mister meatball you only bought that K2 bike in June of 2009 right? you had lost just about 200 pounds at that point already" Indeed I did! BUT I bought a stationary bike off of craigslist only 11 days into my trip to the half. From the beginning I, dare I say dreamed? of getting back onto two wheels again but when you weigh 500 pounds and are unsure if making it through a month of good eating and exercising is realistic but from that day when I got the new/old stationary bike I hoped that I would be able to get back onto a bike.

My bicycling means a lot to me, more than I probably let on and when I am riding down a trail I am in control, I am doing something that I want to do and its on my terms and my terms alone which at 500 plus pounds is not an option most of the time. I have even incorporated my bicycling into a tattoo that I got to remind me how far I've come down this road that is weight loss, Last year I designed and drew up the line work and off I went to add to my ink collection. I have heard that some people wear their hearts on their sleeves, this somewhat like that as I wear the design on my forearm for anyone to see and have answered a coupled inquiries already as to what it means, it serves as a reminder of all of the hard work that has gone into my health. Saying that I am a changed man some 1114 days after I made the decision to make my health a priority would not begin to describe how different things are in my life and those around me who depend on me.

Today it is raining on top of the remainder of the snow that was dropped into the New England air last week and looking out my window I am literally weighing the pros and cons of taking my new Crisscross out for a ride. My life, my terms my future, I refuse to live it any other way at this point and though I remember like it was yesterday the struggle to do anything past sitting on a couch will never be my present again, memories will be all that I keep of life at 500 pounds.

That my friends, is all that I have for today.

As Ever
Me

Day 1098.. Thats alotta days!

Here here! another year has come to pass and I find myself still chugging along with the choice to live cleaner and healthier at the fore front of my way of life. My blog has always been written from the perspective of a 500 plus pound guy that needed to lose weight to stay alive, to be able to do things that the mere mortals of the world take for granted each and every day and over the course of the last three years I have changed everything about my life. Coming to the realization that I am not 500 pounds any more has been harder than I expected but I think that I am coming around to the fact that I don't get out of breath from the most remedial tasks and that feeling has become the "norm" finally. Losing more than 200 pounds and keeping it off for the last couple years is an amazing feat of determination in my opinion but pushing through a comfort zone has to be a priority for me and the plan is as you know if you have read along is to hit my goal of 275 this year hopefully before April.

My new acquisition, early 1990's Schwinn Crisscross as i picked it up.

Other than a FD shifter that needs some love this bike is in amazing condition, of course the fella could have bypassed wiping it down with WD40 before I got there but hey! I need to go through it anyways so it will get a bath either way.

Helping me achieve that goal is my bicycling hobby, I call it a hobby at this point because I currently own seven bikes ranging from mountain bikes mainly to hybrids and even a road bike. When I bought that first bicycle back in June 2009 I never anticipated it becoming the beginning of a new addiction hobby. Accruing enough bicycles to ride a different one each day of the week wasn't a thought and I am sure my wife had no idea that our house would be full of bike parts and whole bikes when she got me that K2 back in June. Come spring I shall thin my herd significantly utilizing the list of Craigs to move a few to new homes and hopefully make some happy riders for this years riding season. Having a hobby that keeps me moving and allows me to get out there and really enjoy my workouts is nothing but a positive and anyone that knows me knows that I like making things my own so getting a bike on the cheap and refurbishing it is fun for me. This weekend I happened upon a bicycle on Craigslist that I thought the price was decent enough so I emailed the lady and it turns out that the frame was my size and it is sort of a hybrid/cross bike so long story short it was added to the fleet.

I am noticing that I have more posts mentioning bicycles popping up so I may work on a "bicycling" section for those posts to be search-able as I have got a couple hits/emails on the blog because of the bike stuff I have posted. My workouts have completely changed from when I started which through evolution is normal I suppose, where I was only able to walk for 20 minutes and about 1/3 of a mile at a go now walking a distance of 5k is just something that I do because its nice out on that day! My first ride on my mountain bike was about a mile and I had to pull over to ponder whether I should name my bike "Prison sex" because of the apparent violation that took place during said ride and here I am expanding my rides out to about 20 miles these days. I am no where near the same person physically as I was when I first sat down behind my lap top and wrote out my first blog post a defeated 534 pound man who couldn't think of anything else so common sense had to be the plan. With all of that said its time to get back to basics with ye olde blog and I am going to start posting my menu's and workouts more often again as I did in the beginning, I liked having my entire week out there for me to look back on as well as any of you fine people who care to take a peek.

So much has changed for me since making the decision to drop the weight from my bones, coming from a place where walking up a flight of stairs was a chore to where I am now going to the gym 5-6 times per week and riding my bikes 15 to 20 miles per day in the warmer months. Looking into that mirror that leads back to my former 500 pound self from time to time forces me to never forget why I gotsta keep on keepin on until I get where I set out to go and though I don't think that I will ever forget that fella I do know that I never want to wear his shoes again.

The end has come to this episode of as the fat guy turns...

As Ever
Me