An interesting experiment

The last two or so weeks I've been very strictly monitoring my diet including keeping a food journal. I hate keeping a food journal. However, keeping that close of an eve on my intake has allowed me to drop back almost to where I was a few months ago (~25 lbs down) before I got lazy. During that time I have been very lax about exercising, having gotten in only one true ride, no runs, and a heap of yard work/activity of daily living stuff.

The next two weeks will be almost the polar opposite.

I have two weeks of travel coming up, most of it for work, and the nature of the trips will limit my ability to control my food choices. The first week I'll be in a fairly small town for a training and doubt that there will be much available, in addition I'm in a standard hotel (as opposed to an "extended stay" style one with a kitchen) which limits cooking options. The following week I'll be traveling to Honolulu for meetings, but won't have a car, which reduces me to joining my colleagues in their food choices or guiding them to mine. What I will be doing is bringing my running shoes (and for the first trip my bicycle) and planning to work out for ~60 min per day.

All in all, it will provide an interesting comparison - which is better for me when it comes to losing or at least maintaining weight: rigorous calorie counting/food choice limitation or exercising?

On hydration and being fat

Warning - I will be writing about proper hydration, and as any fitness person knows that means discussing what happens after proper hydration.

I've finally gotten back on track with watching my diet, and as such have seen my weight start heading back down. After a couple of days though I noticed something odd - my body fat % (measured by bio-electrical impedance) was climbing. Climbing at a rate of 1.0 to 1.5% a day. Keeping in mind that my scale reports in 0.5% increments this still seemed like a lot (not to mention odd) so I looked up the impact of hydration (lack of) on this sort of measurement. Short version, the worse your hydration is the higher your apparent body fat %, because it screws with the conductive properties of non-fat body mass.

Since I was already in "fun with Google" mode I decided to see what I could find about "proper" hydration. Sure, I've heard the old "8 x 8 oz glasses per day" thing, but it has always struck me as odd that my wee little friend Pest, who's maybe 5 feet tall in heels and weighs significantly less than I do, would need the same amount of liquid as me. The old stand-by is "clear and copious" urine and I knew I was failing that test, but the closest thing to a formula I found was to halve your body weight in pounds to get the number of oz of water you should drink. A little math gives us:

275/2 = 137.5

For comparison - 8 x 8 = 64

So, I need to be drinking not 8 8 oz glasses, but 17.

No wonder my body fat % has been climbing. I've made the effort for the last couple of days, managed to get close to 80 oz each day (and that was rough) and the body fat % has started reversing. Keeping up this level of drinking (water) is going to be tough.

The awesomeness....

On my ride home tonight I was passed by a, dare I say, dapper gentleman (slacks, cardigan, neatly-trimmed grey beard) riding

a unicycle.

It was one of those days where my desire to have had a camera in my bike bag was unimaginable. He was moving down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, an older Bell (all white, obvious red logo) on his head looking like he'd stepped out of a college-based coming of age movie.

As I said, the awesomeness...

(Possible) Upcoming solo mini-tour

I've got a class for work near the end of the month that will take me up into the Red Bluff (CA) area. After posting on Bike Forums for some good 2-3 day routes in the area I've come down on doing a loop around Lake Almanor. Sure, it's only a little over 30 miles, but this would be my first tour and it looks like I'll need to carry food with me (not fully loaded, but reserve).

Image from MapMyRide

The class is M-Th, so my plan would be to drive over from Red Bluff after the class ends, crash somewhere for the night and leave my truck at the hotel while I do the ride. I plan to finish in 2 days (one night on the road) and would probably stay at the same place after so I can rest before the drive home (3+ hours) which I wouldn't want to do right after the ride.

This would give me plenty of time for the riding and to check out the area. I'm not sure about the terrain, but it looks pretty level. If that's the case and I do the whole 30+ in one day then it will turn into a couple of day trips from the hotel. I would still ride fully loaded and can use it as a chance to check out the bags and get used to the balance of a loaded bike.

Rainy birthday

Should be out riding today to celebrate, but work and weather have gotten in the way...So I'll just post a pic from riding in Carson City a few months back.

GPS oddities and my commute

A little while back I switched from a wheel magnet based bike computer to a GPS one. This was mainly to make it easier to track my running and biking with a single device (read: toy). I had a couple of odd runs before I figured out that you have to wait until the signal is strong (correct number of blinks per minute) before starting off. Now though, I'm having a different issue.

Simply put, the GPS doesn't like my place of business. I can sit outside my building for 10 min (and I have) waiting for the signal and it won't come through. On multiple occasions I've given up waiting and ride the short distance (0.6 mi) from the building to Jack London Square and re-tried, only to get a connection in about 30 sec. Annoying, if not actually significant.

Punch it...

Last time I rode, home specifically, I encountered another rider heading my way. He passed me when a light changed and, mainly because I was in the @$$-end of my ride, the part where no matter how great I feel when I'm putting along my legs start to die on me, I decide to pace him. Keep in mind that I was in mountain shorts (nobody wants to see me in spandex these days) and had a pannier on the back end full of clothes, and my semi-companion was in nothing but bike clothing with a wee-little Camelback.

For about 2 miles (out of my 10) I went harder than I've done for a while - held better than 17 mph and cranking at around 85 rpm. It felt great.

The next morning - not so much...

Perfect temperature for riding

I rode in yesterday and my morning commute is done in work clothes. I discovered that 56F is the perfect temperature to bike in long pants and a button, long-sleeved shirt. Cool enough that I didn't overheat, warm enough that I didn't need any excess "stuff".

Riding home it was 60F, which was just about perfect for riding in my kit.

Keep in mind that I've ridden in everything from snow to 100F+, bone-dry and muggy-wet. I do love riding in extreme heat, if it's dry, but that's a special event kind of thing. For my daily, regular riding give me the mid-60s.

Did Bell make "British" versions of their city helmets?

Riding in this morning I found myself wondering that, are there "British" versions of the Bell city helmets (the Citi and Metro)? These helmets were great because they have little accessory kits that include a mirror, rain cover, and air vent plugs for cold weather. My morning commute it primarily through downtown Oakland on one way streets, most of the time on the left side of the road. That makes my (ordinarily very handy) mirror almost worthless, unless I want to check out the parked cars.

When I got to work I noticed that the visor has a slot on the right side for a mirror, but that the one I have is left-sided only (which makes me wonder if there really are left-handed smoke shifters, no matter what the people at the Wolfeboro Trading Post said). Are there right-sided ones for people who use the other side of the street?

On a less-whimsical note I could see this being handy for international touring, especially if there is just a second wee little mirror to pick up.

Travel and training

The next couple of months involve a lot of travel for me, most of it short trips of the "fly one day, sleep, meeting, then fly home" variety. This is killing my ability to train. In most cases I work a partial day and then head straight to the airport, getting to my destination in the late evening (8pm or later). Since I am an evening-trainer, this means no workout those days. The following day is meeting, followed by a late flight home, arriving in the same time window (8pm or later), which means a second day without training. Again, in most cases I'm pretty thrashed and playing catch-up the third day, which means a late night at work and again no training. Additionally, it means two or three days where I don't eat the way I should. All in all, it's bad news.

Any ideas on ways to still get some training in with all this travel?