Hub On Wheels

We had a great time at the Hub on Wheels this year.  This is our third year riding a tandem at this event.  We did the 10 mile route the first year, the 30 mile route last year and the 50 mile route this year.  We were a bit confused at the beginning, though, because it wasn't raining.  This is our first year with decent weather and we thought we might have been at the wrong ride ;-)
We got there very early.  Stef had not received her registration packet in the mail so we wanted to get there before the lines got too long.  We've found that it's much easier to ride over there in the morning rather than make Jonathan drive us.  We had ridden the tandem down here last Thursday.  We left here while it was still dark and got to see the sun come up as we crossed the Longfellow Bridge.  I love being on a bike as the sun comes up.

We got there in plenty of time and actually had some time to hang out before the ride.  I, fortunately, had brought my knitting so I got to combine my two favorite pastimes!  I have no idea why I look so cranky.  I was having a lovely time!
The ride got started with a wonderful trip up Storrow Drive and back.  They close it for this ride once a year and I wish they'd make it a bikeway permanently!  It is so much fun to ride there.
This is Stef at the first rest stop.  I took a picture of her eating Fig Newtons.  She never eats this kind of thing except on bike trips.  I just wanted to have photographic evidence.

About six miles from the end, we managed to get a rear flat.  We were riding on a section of the Emerald Necklace that is kind of like a double-wide side walk and I think the rear tire got caught in the one of the ruts as we were going around the corner.  One of the things I usually like about this ride is that it's a bit of an obstacle course.  It really challenges my bike handling skills.  The downside of it is that it's a bit of an obstacle course and we end up riding over a bunch of stuff that can give us a flat.  We managed to change the flat with just a little help from a passing biker.  There are three things that I've learned from this.  The first is that the tandem is just going to get flats on long rides and I'm going to have to get used to it.  The second is that I'm never buying tubes with tiny, short valves since it's really hard to pump them up from flat  The third is that our pump sucks and I'm getting us a new one.

All in all, though, the ride was a great time and we'll look forward to doing it again next year!

BTW, this is us last year, slighty soggy and me 30 lbs heavier.

Saturday Stats

Miles ridden this week: 52
Average calories per day: 2002
Pounds lost: 0
Current weight: 242.5 lbs (110.2 kg)
Total weight loss since 3/26/10: 48.5 lbs.

I'm done with the cleanse now.  On the one hand, I'm pretty irked that I haven't lost anymore weight in the last two weeks.  On the other, I'm just glad that the 5.5 pounds I gained from celebrating my birthday has come back off.  I met with the nurse practitioner yesterday and we're changing my diet back to pretty much what it was before (protien, fruits and vegetables).  I got my first look at the allergy testing and I'm ragingly allergic to all dairy and, oddly, soy.  I'm moderately allergic to kidney beans, cherries (sad face), cilantro (seriously?) and safflower oil.  I have low reactions to a whole laundry list of things including a lot of meats and all gluten bearing grains.  The nurse said that I can eat the low reaction foods.  I just have to not eat them daily.  I'm leary of the grains, though.  I showed up as mildly allergic to them even though I haven't been eating them for months.  Also, the whole I ate a piece of birthday cake and gained five pounds thing is probably a strong indicator that I shouldn't eat wheat.
I'm going to spend some time rethinking my diet and trying to work out how I can cut down on the low reaction foods, many of which I eat daily.  I'm also going to start ramping up my biking again.  Stef and I are riding the Hub on Wheels 50 mile route on Sunday and really looking forward to it!

Bloated

To celebrate my birthday, I gave myself a little over a day off from most of my dietary restrictions.  I didn't go entirely off the wagon.  For example, there was no eating Nutella with a spoon but I did eat a whole lot of sushi, some cake, a few french fries and possibly a brownie sundae.  Just for shits and giggles, I decided to weigh myself this morning to see what the damage was.  My weight was up five and a half pounds!  I'm back on program today as planned and remembering why I don't eat a lot of that stuff on a regular basis.  It is good to remind myself how I used to feel all the time and why I made changes.  Meanwhile, my hands are stiff and my pants are tight.  Hopefully, the puffiness will go down in a day or two.

Zoom!

Since the cleanse, my average speed cycling seems to have jumped!  Stef and I now consider 13.5 mph average for a ride to be a bit on the slow side.  Last week, we rode 15 miles at an average of just over 15.5 mph.  My city riding speed has jumped from just over 10 mph to 11+.  It's pretty exciting!

Saturday Stats

Miles ridden this week: 50 Average calories per day: 1715
Pounds lost: 0
Current weight: 242.5 lbs (110.2 kg)
Total weight loss since 3/26/10: 48.5 lbs.

I've been doing the second week of the cleanse where I get to eat actual food and I've been feeling a lot better.  I've even been adding back some riding, though I'm going to have to take it easy until I can eat more.  The 1600-1700 calories per day on this program aren't enough to support much riding.
I'm not surprised that I didn't lose weight this week.  I've lost 11 pounds in the last five weeks and my body was due for a week off.  We'll see what happens next week.  If I don't lose weight by next week, then there will be whining.  Meanwhile, I have another week and a half of the cleanse.  I'll be interested to see how I feel at the end of it.

Saturday Stats

Miles ridden this week: 47
Average calories per day: 1862 (I ate a lot over the weekend)
Pounds lost: 3
Current weight: 242.5 lbs (110.2 kg)
Total weight loss since 3/26/10: 48.5 lbs.

Phase 1 of the cleanse is over and I'm really glad.  I'm dying to eat food I can chew!  I'm also looking forward to my brain coming back on line.  I've been having some chicken every day so that there wouldn't be dizziness and falling down but now I get to add rice cakes, fruit and vegetables to my shakes and chicken.  I can't even tell you how excited I am about crunching on a rice cake. 
I do three days of a combination of shakes and food and then two weeks of fewer shakes and more food.  All the foods I'll be eating are ones that have a reputation for being non-allergic.  Hopefully, my bloodwork will be back soon and we can figure out what I actually should be eating.
I hope I'm less dopey and uncoordinated today.  I was planning to ride my bike over to the Common Cod Fiber Guild meeting last night but had spent the day knocking over so much stuff and forgetting things (like how to spell) that I thought it would be a better idea to stay home :-(

Lighter

Today, I feel better.  Thanks everyone for your encouragement.  Tuesday and yesterday were tough but I felt the love. 
I'm still a little loopy which is why I haven't replied to any email.  Hoping to get to it tomorrow.  The only way I can describe how I feel is lighter.  Not lighter like I weigh less but like something that was pushing down on me has lifted.  I still had the afternoon sleepies but nothing like the past couple of days.  I'm also not as hungry which is nice.  I have one more day of having mostly shakes to eat then Saturday I can start eating real food again.  I'll keep you posted as things progress.

Dragging

I'm in the second day of the detox and I'm dragging.  The doctor told me that my symptoms would increase for the first few days of this and he wasn't kidding.  I'm trying to clean my room and it is pathetic.  I've cleaned less the 20% of the room and I need a nap!  I wouldn't bother but the exterminator is coming Friday (found mouse dropping in my recycling last week, eww!) and I have to tidy up some.  I guess I just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other for the next couple of days and then I'll feel better.  At least, I hope so!

Cycling the North Shore

Stef and I had a great ride today.  We decided to join the North Shore Cyclists' Sunday ride.  We took the 45 mile route which was just beautiful.  We didn't get to spend much time with the NS Cyclists since we are slow and got dropped pretty quickly.  The time we did spend with them was very pleasant and we felt very welcome.  The group is nice, organized and had a very good cue sheet which was easy to follow.  This was good since we spent most of the ride on our own.  This was actually fine with me.  Riding in a group on a tandem can be tricky.  We go uphill slower and downhill so much faster than everyone else that riding with a group that is going an equivelant average speed ends up being a fairly nerve wracking game of leap frog.  We also take turns wider and take longer to get going from a stop.  I would like to increase our group riding skills as time goes on but it will mean increasing our average speed quite a bit.  This is happening for us, but slowly.  Used to be we averaged 11-12 mph on a regular ride.  Our last three rides, though, we've been averaging 13.5+.  This is exciting stuff, especially considering how crummy I've been feeling.  Riding has been getting to be the only time I feel really good lately.  It just sucks the life out of me for the rest of the time.  Hopefully, things will improve once I de-toxify.
I'll be really interested to see how next season shapes up.  Right now, I'm only ten pounds heavier than I was the year I did three centuries and rode my bike down here and back from where I was living in Maine (378 mile round trip done in four days).  I was also eighteen years younger but we won't talk about that.  So, if I can lose a bunch more weight over the winter, who knows what next season will bring.

Toxic

I had a long visit with Dr. Rothfeld yesterday and it was very interesting.  I was all set to tell him how difficult and weird things have been since I saw him last except I didn't need to.  He pretty much told me.  He'd talked to the nurse practitioner I'd seen three weeks ago and knew that I was feeling fatigued, moody and ill and that my weight was zinging up and down for no apparent reason.  Why?  I have the type of body that is very bad at clearing toxins.  What has all the weight loss been doing?  Dumping toxins into my system.  He said that my body's default way of dealing with toxins, since I was a little kid, is to store them in fat rather than moving them out of my body.  This explains why I had been getting consistently more overweight as time went on.  It also explains why, when I have lost weight in the past, I feel crappier and crappier and hungrier and hungrier until I finally give up and start eating more.  I've always noticed that when I start eating more after dieteing for a while, I immediately feel better.  It is hard to feel like dieting is good for you when you feel like crap the whole time and only start to feel good when you go off the diet.
My weight fluctuating up and down is also a sign of flares of inflammation from all the toxicity.  I eat something that wouldn't usually set me off and suddenly I'm retaining five pounds of water.  After a couple of days, it lets up and my weight goes back down.  It is disheartening but not the result of anything I'm doing wrong which is an entirely new concept for me.
So, what do we do now?  Well, starting Tuesday, I'm going to go on a fairly drastic cleanse for a few days and then I'll slowly start to add back foods that are very non-allergenic.  Dr. Rothfeld is hoping it will clear out the existing toxins and, maybe, teach my body to clear them rather than consistently trying to put them back into fat.  First thing Tuesday morning, they are taking a bunch of blood for allergy testing so that when I go back on a normal diet, I can avoid foods that are going toxic in my body to begin with.  The cleanse is going to be fairly drastic for me, though not as drastic as a lot of cleanses I've heard about.  The hard part is that it's going to make all my symptoms worse in the short term before things start to get better.  I'll deal with it because I've got to break my body out of this cycle somehow.

Saturday Stats

Miles ridden this week:  100
Average calories per day: 1996
Pounds lost: 1
Current weight: 245.5 lbs (111.6 kg)
Total weight loss since 3/26/10: 45.5 lbs.

I'm very surprised to have lost a pound considering the loop-da-loops my weight has been doing this week.  I was up over five pounds on Tuesday (more on that in the next post).  I'm not complaining, though.

So Tired

I am so tired today.  I didn't start the day tired but then I rode almost 30 miles.  Now, I'm really tired and considering taking a nap on the couch even though the shop's open.
I do this to myself a lot.  I love riding so much that I use all my energy to ride and then other things I should be doing don't get done.  Have you seen my yard this summer?  Wild kingdom.  My kitchen and bedroom?  Getting ready to cut them off and throw them away.  I really need to find some balance between how much riding I do and how much time I spend doing other things.  I'm just so desperate to make the most of the summer while it lasts.  I can always clean in the winter, right?