Tuesday, April 14, 2009

So I've started a diet...

I am calling it an exercise promotional/motivational ploy to get my ass on the bike. I have been thinking about trying a diet along with exercising but the only diet I've done in recent years that worked was Atkins which really is not a good diet to coincide with strenuous exercise as it saps your energy badly... and really I have always acknowledged that exercise is much more beneficial than reducing caloric intake. So this diet is almost more to motivate me to exercise than it is to lose weight (just by dieting). The idea is that on days I do not ride my bike, I will limit myself to 1,000 calories... this will be in the form of 2 slim fast shakes and then <640 calories for dinner. I am on day two of the slim fast and right now I can tell you that I WILL be riding tomorrow even if there is an ice storm followed by a tornado. It isn't even that I am necessarily hungry right at the moment... I had a shake 3 hours ago and I will take one for lunch around 12:30... but it is the idea that I have placed limits on myself. It is totally my old nature that is causing me discomfort. If I could go eat whatever I wanted to right now I most likely wouldn't even be thinking about it... but since I cannot, I am.

Tomorrow though will be nice... actual food for lunch and I don't have to count how many Doritos I eat. I am arbitrarily dooming myself to this diet until the end of June... the tricky part will be to make sure I can ride my bike anytime we are doing something where I really can't effectively count calories... i.e. church potluck, or when I have the guys over for a movie and beer/food or when I go on a date with my wife. This Friday I'll have to ride rain or shine... fortunately it looks like even if it does rain, the weather is finally going to be within the normal Spring temperature range.

Actually I really like the idea behind it... I can eat whatever I want as long as I earn it by riding, and earn it I shall.

3 comments:

The Angry Coder said...

Not a bad idea. I would also recommend giving South Beach a shot- it seems more balanced in terms of being generally low carb but with great emphasis on good carbs, ie- veggies and fruit. I would think it much easier to stay tanked up for riding without storing extra energy in the ol' long term energy supply tanks.

I can also highly recommend rampant weight lifting- 4 or 5 days a week. You will get tired of eating if you do that. Five meals plus snacks, at least for a while. It really gets old.

The Unabashed Blogger said...

I'm not sure you care and I know someone will disagree, but here is some info on what helped me and the wife. I didn't win the biggest loser contest at church by going on a "diet"; I just changed my diet.

Here are some of the things I did:
-ate smaller portions
-cut out a lot of extraneous sugar
-used small bowls and plates
-used small spoons and forks.
-ate slower
-drank a large glass of water before supper
-stay away from calorie injected foods (pot pie anyone?!)
-one drink or one dessert a night; one or the other, not both!

We both lost 15 pounds. What did I not do? I didn't exercise to try and lose weight. It's hard to do both it seems. The more I exercise, the more I want to eat.

Other things that helped was not eating out and eating tasty cereals for our dessert. Ya know, without my wife's support I wouldn't have done very well, though I'm not sure the rest of your family should jump on the bandwagon.......

Do you have a goal? I commend your choice and laugh at the irony that now the contest is over you want to lose.

Percussivity said...

Good suggestions... the only reason I didn't join the contest was because I didn't want to win money taken from tithes.

I'm just being pious... I'd have taken it alright!