Tag Archives: Strength training

Weight Maintenance

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It’s been almost a year since we started this site and one of the major topics we thought would be difficult to tackle was weight loss maintenance. Below is a graph of my weight since I started keeping track of it in about October 2010 up to recently.

I have been pretty happy with how things have been going, but how to maintain weight loss going forward remains an interesting challenge. On the one hand, I think that some habits are relatively easy to break (at least after you’ve been on track for a little while). For example, I haven’t had a soda, even a diet one, since around October. I can’t remember the last time we ordered a pizza, much less ate the whole thing together for dinner. I don’t think we miss it very much.

At the same time, you can see a slight drift up over the last year or so on the graph from a low of somewhere in the 216 neighborhood to a current weight around 225. It’s difficult to decide whether that’s a bad thing and I need to be careful or not. I’ve added more strength training, so I’d like to think it represents gain of muscle mass. But on the slow path from 220 to 280 to 320 lbs I never really thought I looked very different along the way.

We were discussing recently the issue of checking your weight. It is probably not good to do it too often, but never checking is also dangerous. (Maybe showing everyone a graph of your weight can help!) Probably the best idea is to slowly institute new habits – you often hear the term “lifestyle change,” which can sound like a cliche, but I think is the best way to describe it. At the same time, placing too much emphasis on weight as a number is perhaps not good either. Do you have tips for weight loss maintenance? Hope you are achieving all of your goals!

2011 Summary

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Happy New Year!

Here are our stats for the finish of the year, hope everything is going well in 2012 and hope everyone will have an even better year than 2011!

Running miles: 538.9

Cycling miles: 1388.9

Rock climbing hours: 54.4

Pathguy’s weight

  • January 1, 2011: 285 lbs
  • December 31, 2011: 220 lbs

We have not nailed down any goals for 2012 yet, but I think the theme will be to exercise smarter (not necessarily trying to beat these mileage numbers). Perhaps it will include more strength training and more frequent runs of shorter mileage, as well as more walks!

Do you have goals for 2012?

First climb

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Although this site is called runbikeclimb, lately it might seem more like runbike-and-maybe-climb-eventually-if-we-get-around-to-it. Although we haven’t been shirking our climbing training, we’ve been delinquent about writing about it. We promised to share more regarding our first time climbing, and it’s time to make good!

When we arrived at the climbing gym for the first time, we received a lesson on how to tie into the rope and belay, or take up slack on the rope for another climber. (In many indoor gyms, the climbing routes are often called “top rope,” meaning that the rope is already anchored around a fixed point at the top of the route. Often this is not the case when climbing outdoors.) First, I belayed for Eyegirl and then for my work friend to demonstrate that I understood how it was done.

Then came my turn to climb. My friend from work was already quite experienced, so he belayed for me. After getting tied in, I turned back to look at him, “Are you sure this is going to work?” I was around 300 pounds and although I am terrible at estimating other people’s height and weight, I imagined that I was nearly double his size.

“Oh yeah, no problem,” he said. He clipped his harness to the ground so that if I fell, it wouldn’t lift him too far in the air. I was still worried, but he seemed confident, “You’ll be doing all the work, I’m just holding the rope.”

So I started climbing. Little did I know at the time, but that particular wall is actually slightly inclined away from you, making it much easier and more similar to climbing the stairs than a purely vertical wall, or worse yet, one that is inclined toward you. So, up I went. I probably would have chickened out and asked to come down if all of my group and the instructor weren’t watching to make sure my technique was OK. I got to the top and suddenly wished that we had done a test fall from a lower point.

How can he hold me? I thought, I’m so much heavier. But, my hands were feeling weak and I was starting to lose my grip. Here goes, I thought. I leaned back into a seated position and  . . . everything was fine, of course! He lowered me down, and needless to say, Eyegirl and I were hooked from that day on. We tried a bunch of more difficult climbs that day, but I don’t think I made it to the top of any other route.

It’s a difficult feeling to describe, the sensation that comes with climbing so high off the ground. (Of course, still not nearly as high as what many “real” outdoor climbers do, but 20-30 feet feels high to us.) When I went to bed, I had sort of a “phantom” adrenaline rush of being high off the ground, similar to when you have been swimming all day and feel that you’re still in water. Now, Eyegirl and I are much less afraid of heights, but it’s still a great feeling to succeed in climbing a new route.

The next day at work, I was surprised to find that my forearms were so weak that the little cardboard folders I was carrying around felt heavy! Now that we climb semi-regularly, it feels like a great workout, but there is not much in the way of soreness or fatigue the next day. Happy climbing!

Here is a great article from REI that gives some good information on beginner climbing. Tune in next time for some tips on beginner climbing techniques!

Getting Started Rock Climbing