Banana Boost

When you're trying to rebuild self-control, and chocolate cravings hit you hard, if you wait long enough, natural consequences sometimes will give you that little boost you need.

I had gotten serious about losing 20 pounds (or more if I can!) ten days earlier. I'd been walking with Lizard when I could, being as it had been too cold and too icy for us to ride much for close to eight weeks. I successfully avoided sugar for ten days, and then it hit.

Ouch!

I wanted chocolate! I wanted Hostess Cupcakes! I wanted a fresh, homemade chocolate chip cookie from the little diner downstairs.

The diner is open from breakfast until 2 p.m. Many times on days so busy I don't get a lunch hour, I have run down there right before closing to grab whatever is left, often hoping for chicken lettuce wraps or a spicy noodle bowl. Most often they are sold out of everything, and I do a build-your-own spinach salad.

I tried to be strong until 1:45, then couldn't hold back any longer. I checked our own kitchen, which is stocked with animal crackers and pretzels. Sometimes there are tiny containers of cream cheese, and that makes a tasty dip with the animal crackers. There was no cream cheese, and animal crackers just were not going to soothe this sweet tooth.

So I went downstairs, mentally kicking myself the entire elevator ride for being so weak.

The diner was predictably sold out of chocolate chip cookies. And brownies. There were no Rice Krispies bars. There were two donuts, of which I am not a fan, and there were candy bars, of which I'm still able to shun at this point. Thankfully!

So I grabbed a bag of vinegar potato chips and a fresh banana.

Potato chips aren't a decent healthy diet menu item. But I knew (from experience, of course) the bag would have only about six whole chips, about six chip pieces and about six chip crumbs. I was right. And vinegar is good for the digestive tract. Also has a tendency to silence cravings.

And the banana... That was a very wise choice! It would not have been my choice had there been any cookies.

I've wanted to lose weight since about 2014. I make great progress during the spring and summer the years we train for Ride the Rockies, but I always seem to put the weight back on as soon as winter robs me of daily rides.

We're not doing Ride the Rockies this year, even though we love the route, and I am determined to lose the weight and keep it off this year. It will be more difficult without a huge ride on the horizon, but I'm going to be the little train, armed with a yummy banana.

I think I can! I think I can! I think I can!

Actually, I need to do better than that.

I know I can! I know I can! I know I can!

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Go A-Weight

I've been on this kick to lose weight for two whole years now, derailed by loss of shower and dressing room at work, injury, harsh diagnosis and re-injury. Temporarily forced into changing my lifestyle, I didn't bother to alter my eating habits.

Ouch.

Now I have even more to peel off. When I first began writing this post, I had less than 60 days to prepare for Ride the Rockies and lose what I hoped would be 20 pounds. At least. That was last year!

Once the snow stopped collecting in vast amounts in the spring of last year (after an abnormally dry winter, of course), I began taking predawn training rides, focusing primarily on climbing as opposed to distance, my normal motivation for the last ten or so years.

Then, last year, instead of dry cereal to munch on in the mornings, I tried to morph over to fresh fruit. My blood sugar has been good for four whole years now, and I had been cheating a little more than I should have. Last year, I cut out almost all of the cheating until Ride the Rockies. (Chocolate. Deep, dark chocolate. Bittersweet decadence.) We also did some serious cross-training by pulling all the grass out of our front yard and installing our very own xeriscaped rock garden. Talk about elbow grease! All this, and I was still doing 50 crunches every morning because that prevents back pain from being unmanageable and intolerable.

Further motivation was provided last year by my closet. I couldn't fit into some of my favorite spring clothing that had been packed away for months. Most alarming was a particular dress of which I couldn't fit my arms through the sleeves.

It's SO hard to loose underarm flab!!! But I wanted to wear that dress again. I do NOT want it to become part of the quilt scrap pile!!!

I did pretty good and probably lost 15 pounds before Labor Day, when I reinjured my back because I felt so good I did something I shouldn't have done. (I ran too much too fast and in too close of intervals.) I got grounded again. And again, I didn't change my eating habits.

Ouch again.

It didn't take long for the extra weight to find it's way right back to places I did not want it.

Our new dressing room and shower at work was scheduled to open in November, just about the time I was allowed to get back on my bike. However, winter set in early, and the new dressing room was not ready until February.

I rode to work again the first time since last June in March. I waited until I would have daylight downtown because The Lizard didn't feel comfortable with me riding downtown in the dark. It took me 45 years to find someone who cares whether I get home safely each day, so I'm giving him that.

The new shower at work is the most awesome thing since sliced bread! There is a setting that actually feels like a back massage! If there's ever a day I don't feel like riding, all I have to do is imagine that thick beam of hot water pummeling my back. Aaaaaaah...

However, I had a bit of a slight wardrobe problem AGAIN. I have to work to be able to fit into my cycling clothes AGAIN. What a drag! But I am not re-investing!!! I am not moving up to the next size, even though that seems easier. I WILL lose the weight again. This time, I'm not going to let it grow back!

And then there's that dress again... the one my arms wouldn't fit through last year...

I'm wearing it today. I can fit two fingers between the sleeve and my arm! I still have a few pounds to go, but I am on my way!

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