Twenty Pounds lost since the start of the journey!

 

The first blog post I made about my journey I weighed in at 180 LBS. That was not my heaviest but it was the number I started the journey on and since that first post I lost 20 LBS! Now main goal of getting into some work pants is just about there I can fit in them and they are tight but they will button so I am very happy about the progress thus far. One porblem I currently have is none of the clothing I bought over the past few years fits me now. I have jeans that if I do not have a belt on they just fall right down and I don't have other size jeans so all of them are too big. I am very happy with clothing being too big for me even though that means having to buy new things I will do that over time. Other than a bathing suit! I brought my kids to the local lake and my bathing suit did not fit to the point where it was about to fall off like my jeans. I ened up getting it working but the strings holding it to my body made everything look awful. I will say though I lost 20 pounds I am not fit looking by far. I still look mostly the same as I did at the start of the journey just a little less round on the belly area but not drastically. If I were not so self conscious about things I would post a picture of my body to show what I mean but for an example it would be like the number 0 instead of a capital O. 

How do I feel about my self you might be wondering. I feel fairly good about things right now. I don't seem to feel like I have more energy or the stuff people normally say they feel when they lose weight and exercise. I am assuming that this is something that is exaggerated by other people or something as far as the having more energy stuff goes. I am able to run or bike for a long time now and every day and not feel like garbage so there is a good amount of stamina gained from this. For example at first thinking of running a 5k ourtight would seem like a lot to me. Today I can get a 5k done in about 35 minutes and trying to get that time down. I still end up running for 1 hour too so I don't have the limit at 5k. I also been able to do a 10k but there was a small break in there after about 8k but I think with just a little more work I will be able to get to 10k straight through with no breaks. This type of stuff makes me feel awesome about myself. Another thing a lot of people say about exercise is that it helps your mental health. I will say a good thing first, I do feel happier about my self image but its not magic my mental health is about the same right now. I don't think that exercise is as much of a fix to something like depression as people think it is. I still have some very depressed days and overall it seems about the same as before.  The difference I do have is that I don't feel like just going to bed instead of getting on the treadmil. I will keep an eye on that as I continue the journey as I do hope that improves too. 

As for some progress this is the monthly report from Strava today. Total ride distance is 50.6 miles and a few walks have taken me to 53.1 miles total. I have not run on the treadmill in the past 5 days so all of my journey has been outside on my bike or walking my dog. I have put a little over 200 miles on my Ozark Trail G.1 Explorer gravel bike. I still love the bike but the parts sure do show their cheapness now. The breaks not only squeek but they also jitter now. The best way to explain this is like the pads or disks are worn down spotty so when you break parts grip on better in some spots better than others so breaking at slower speeds you jitter forward when the bare spots are there and jitter back when you get better spots. I got on my specialized mountain bike and tested the breaks to make sure I was not crazy and that other bikes did not jitter and the mountain bike did not jitter one bit it just stopped and quicker than the gravel bike. I am going to need to buy new breaks but the bike stops and I do use the squeek to let people know I am coming when they don't hear me call out when I am passing them so I am not going to rush out and buy new breaks. Another issue with the Ozark Trail gravel bike is the derailleurs. The front one has been broken for a while and it still shifts but was rubbing but the back one was working fine. About 2 days ago it was skipping and shifting slowly so I had to figrue out what was going on with that. The fix was simple as it was just some barrel adjustments to get things perfectly aligned again and a quick check on the limit screws. I tried to mess with the front derailleur to get it to not rub but it was not fixable in all the gears. I think that is normal for some bikes to not have all gears useable but I was trying to get it to not rub in the big front ring and not care about the smaller ring as I only use the bigger ring.  Even with all the rubbing the chain still looks fine no major wear on that but the front derailleur is going to need to be replaced soon. Other than that the rest of the bike is fine no other issues with it. It rides smoth and fast enough for me to get a good work out done on it. 

Last little bit I don't have any images for is the weight lifting. I have been keeping at it with what I had done before just to make sure it is not going to cause issues with my main goals for now and things are going well. The squats are easy and I could go higher on them. Bench press is easy and I could go higher on that as well. I will think about doing that soon to keep the lifting momentum going as well but I am loving the bike rides for the summer time right now so that is my focus for now. 

I am off to continue the journey! Have a wonderful day and thank you very much for reading!