Progress Report #2.1

Feels silly to write a progress report more than once a month, but I'm not making great progress. So maybe let's recap weekly.

Cycling fitness has stayed in the 80-90 range, as I wanted. So I haven't gotten any stronger. Weight hasn't moved either, really. I'm still at 200lbs.



I haven't been riding as much lately, mostly due to snow and bad weather. And I've been eating more, mostly due to social occasions and a failure to adhere to my diet. So let's modify the plan a bit. Why have I been eating more than I need to?

  • Not measuring portions of home-made meals
  • Eating more at social occasions than necessary
  • Compensating calories from bike riding
Ultimately, I really want to eat more, and I'll use any excuse to do so. Having MyFitnessPal show me the calorie counts from bike rides encourages me to eat extra on those days, which is obviously counterproductive.

Not measuring portions is just laziness. I need to measure what I eat, even if it isn't precise enough to know with great confidence how many calories. Eating more at social occasions is also a willpower thing. I'm going to figure out some habits I can build to help with this.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jamis Bike Comparison: Coda vs Sequel vs Renegade

Jamis released the Sequel recently.  It's a more modern competitor of sorts to the Jamis Coda series.  The Renegade is their gravel/adventure bike, but these kinds of bikes are fantastic commuters typically.  Let's compare these bikes. EDIT: I've appended a brief "test ride" comparison to the end. Frame The Coda and Sequel are running a Reynolds 520 steel frame.  The Renegade has a 6061 aluminum frame.  The Coda and Renegade have an extra water bottle mount on the bottom of the downtube. Geometry Here are the geometries for a medium bike on both: +----------+-------+-------+---------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+---------+-----------+-----------+ | Bike     | Stack | Reach | Top Effective | Head Angle | Seat Angle | Chain Stay | Wheel base | Fork rake | BB Drop | Head Tube | Standover | +----------+-------+-------+---------------+------------+------------+------------+------------+-----------+-...
Read more

Lezyne Mega XL GPS vs Wahoo Elemnt Bolt

Image
EDIT HISTORY: This post was initially published in February 2019, and updated in the summer when some firmware updates landed. Those firmware updates fixed a number of problems, but not all of them. It was updated again in October 2019 to try out the new firmware, which caused many of the old problems to resurface, effectively ruining the device. I've owned the Wahoo Elemnt Bolt for a while, and I like it. It has poor in-app route creation, and the battery life could be better. ( see my whole review here ) The Lezyne Mega XL GPS came out recently and seems like a better fit for bikepacking. Lezyne advertises a 48 hour battery life and much improved offline navigation and maps. It's also $50 cheaper. If the Lezyne delivers on it's promise, then it would be a compelling choice. I got it to test out and see how it works in real life scenarios. Side by side comparison tl;dr: The Lezyne has dramatically better route creation from the phone app. The Lezyne has bett...
Read more

Drop Bar Conversions

So I've got a drop bar Mukluk. It's awesome. Here's what you need to know in order to successfully do a drop bar conversion: Geometry This step is really important, because it will determine if the end result will fit you. It would really suck to finish the rather expensive conversion and have a bike that was too big! The geometry of the bike will change. While flat handlebars are, well, flat, drop bars have significant extra reach associated with them. The Salsa Cowchipper has a reach of 68mm, and the Woodchipper has a reach of 56mm. The Salsa Rustler handlebars that came stock on my Mukluk had a 11 degree backsweep, which worked out to roughly -20mm of reach when I measured it. So, we're talking a total reach difference of 88mm. The stock stem on the Mukluk is 60mm, and you can get 30mm BMX stems, which gets us to a 58mm difference. What I found is that your lower back angle doesn't change as much as you might expect due to the narrower bars. If we d...
Read more