The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

So, our national sales meeting was last week in Las Vegas. Even though our schedule was jam-packed, I did my best to exercise when I could. This usually meant taking the stairs instead of the elevator (18 floors up to my room from the meetings). I walked instead of taking the bus back for one event and walked to dinner the first night. My calves are mad at me for taking the stairs so much. They're sore and achy. I took Thursday and Friday off from the stairs because they were really sore on those days. No pain, no gain.

The Good: Upon my return I hopped on the scale this morning and i was "only" up 4 pounds. Given the types of food that was served, and the sedentary days, this could have been much much worse. I'm please that the gain was only 4 pounds but would have liked it to be less of course. It shouldn't be too hard to get back to where I was pre-meeting. I will get back by walking the dog and eating the way I'm used to eating. No problem

The Bad: The food we ate, while tasty, was much heavier and served much later than my body is used to. For example, our last night's dinner and sales awards presentation started at 8:30. We had a small salad, steak ,potatoes, and creme brule. The dinner was tasty enough, just way too late for me. I like to eat earlier in the evening and get to bed by 10:00. Our awards banquet didn't end until 10:30. I'm just glad I don't eat like this all the time or I'd be a coronary event waiting to happen.

The Ugly: I typically like a good 7 or 8 hour night's worth of sleep and usually get close to that. I believe that the body needs rest in order to function properly during the day. I don't know if they were pumping pure oxygen into my room or what, but I slept like crap. I typically wouldn't fall asleep until 1:00am or later and would wake up around 4:00. This machine needs more than that amount of rest. The coffee helped, but on the last day, I was really feeling the lack of rest.

I'll bounce back. Back to the routine, back to walking, back to healthier food, back to normalcy. Most importantly, it's good to be back with my family.,

National Sales Meeting Week

So I left yesterday for our national sales meeting here in Las Vegas. I was able to hit the bike at the gym hard to jump start my week (13 miles in 35 minutes averaging 22mph) and walked 1.2 miles to dinner. I had a chicken salad for dinner knowing that less health choices await me the rest of the week.
I hope to jog/run early in the mornings with a buddy but they have our schedule very full for this meeting. My personal feeling is that they want to keep us busy so those that are more inclined won't do anything stupid and get themselves in trouble. I'm not in that group. I have too much at stake and too much to lose if I act like an ass. Anyway, my plan was also to take the stairs as much as I can. This is no easy task it appears. The stairs down on the main levels are difficult to find and the stairways on the room levels are hundreds of yards down the hall. To make it worse, I'm on the 22nd floor! I will take the stairs at least once per day assuming I can find them. We'll see how I feel after my first 22 story climb. Who knows, I may take an extra trip up and down just for the workout. The "health club" here at the hotel is $25 for 2 days which I find ridiculous (I may try to sneak in though).

As promised, my starting weight for the week was 178.2 the day I left. It will be interesting to see if I can keep that number within sight.

UPDATE: Took the stairs tonight, 18 floors, it felt great! I think I will do a 30 minute session tomorrow morning to see how it goes (I may just have found my workout dilemma's answer).

Off the Program

I'm not actively trying to lose weight, it is just happening. I am, however, eating healthy and exercising regularly. I am walking the dog almost every night and we usually do at least 3 miles a night. We will mix in a little jogging to boost up the intensity level. This has all resulted in dropping a few pounds.

Next week is or national sales meeting which will be very long days and probably very heavy food. Our days will officially start at 6:30 and dinners will usually end at 9:30 or 10. I will do my best to select the healthiest of the foods available, but I think those selections will be few. The part that really sucks (aside from being away from my family) will be the difficulty in finding exercise time. I planned on bringing my bike and riding in the mornings before we get started. With the early start and the logistics of getting my bike in and out of the hotel early in the morning and the idiot people driving around Las Vegas, it doesn't make sense. I am going to bring my resistance bands and try to do some exercising in the room. I am also going to take the stairs to my room whenever possible. Just for grins, I will try to post my weight on the day of departure and the morning after I get back.

It will be interesting to see if I can gain as little as possible. Right now, it's time to ride the stationary...

It Wasn't Broke, but I Fixed it Anyway

I just installed my fixed gear cog on my bike today and gave it a test spin up and down the street. The install was super easy and now I have 2 bikes in 1! I can now go either single speed or fixed gear by simply flipping over my rear wheel. My initial thoughts after testing the FG:
1. "Wow, this is going to take some getting used to!"
2. "This is a blast!"
3. "It's not going to take much distance to get a good workout in!"
4. "I can't wait to ride this bike!"

The thing that first caught me off guard was when I subconciously tried to coast to make an adjustment. FAIL! You can't coast. It will take some getting used to with the mounting and dismounting so I don't fall on my face. I'm sure I will a few times, hopefully nobody will be watching. The second thing was the brakes. I didn't need them. I could slow down and even stop by slowing my pedal cadence adn then stop pedalling. Way cool. I could really feel it in my legs as I was testing this concept out.

I really think riding this bike is going to take my performance to another level when I get back on my regular road bike. I can't wait to ride this bike for a while and then switch back to the geared bike and see what differences there are.