Maiden voyage 2011

Ok, done. The virgin trip on the road 2011 finished. Together with Simen I took the bike out of the shed this afternoon, cleaned it and made sure gears and breaks where ok. Simen cleaned his own bike and was a very happy 4 year old :)

At 16.00 I walked the bike down from the house and saddled up. Janicke reminded me the temperature was below 0 C before I went out, but I was certain I was going to be ok as I was wearing two layers of long woolen underwear, wind resistant jacket and wind resistant trousers. 30 minutes into the ride I realized my Shimano cycling shoes are nicely ventilated for a warm, sunny, summer-day or spinning classes. Today however, I was certain I would freeze my toes of!!

Other then the wrong choice of footwear I got a nice hour on the bike and it felt really good finishing the first ride of the season already. Especially as I need a LOT of hours on the bike before June 4th!!!

For some reason Janicke was laughing her head of when I got home and she insisted on taking a picture for my blog. Not certain what all the laughing was about :)

Trip info:

Distance: 19km
Time: 60 minutes

Spinning

Todays spinning class was good especially since I did not get any exercise during the weekend.

Although the spinning classes are good, I am looking forward to the weather warming up so I can get on to the "real" bike again. Perhaps I should take it down from the wall in the shed and overhaul it. Probably need to change the tiers, at least. Looks like this is a project for the weekend.  

Pizza, got to have pizza!!

So, does a low-carb lifestyle mean I have to give up Friday evening pizza with the kids? No, luckely it does not :)

The problem with "normal" pizza is the crust and I have tried different approaches before I finally found one that works for me. This recipe for a low-carb pizza I actually like a lot. The crust is based on cauliflower, strange I know, but it works.

Spinn/Styrke 90

I know, probably overkill to have 3 posts today. I promise this will not happen every day.

Thursday again which mean a new round of Spinn/Styrke 90 (45 minutes spinning and 45 minutes weight lifting with instructor). I can tell already that tomorrow will not be a good day, but again that mean todays workout will pay of :)

New jeans

Feeling very happy today. Bought a new pair of jeans and this time in a "normal" store. For as long as I can remember now, at least since our wedding 9 years ago I have had to go to the plus size store downtown Bergen for my jeans.

Now not only could I go the the "normal" store to buy them, but I did not even need their biggest size :)

Down from size 46 to size 42 since January 1st :)

Oh happy day :)

Bergen - Voss

For real? Sure! Are you crazy? What did you say!!!

I got a lot of different reactions when I announced that I had signed up for the Bergen - Voss road bicycle race, and quite frankly, I can not blame them now can I. I am not exactly what one would call athletic but you know what, that is the plan, to become a bit more athletic.

I think the best reaction was from my mother in law. She saw my note on Facebook where I said I was signed up for the race.

She sent a text message to my wife asking if "I had lost it" :) .

Her second text message said: "We better have a plan in order and a car to follow him" :).

Well, I am going to prepare well for the race, and my competitive nature will make me work hard the next 5 months to make sure I at least stand a chance to finish the race. This will of coarse also help my with my main goal, loose weight an get a better health :)

Now a little bit about the race.

The race is 170km long starting downtown Bergen and ending downtown Voss. The race will take us through some of Norway's most beautiful areas in Hardanger and across two small mountains. I hope I will be able to enjoy the ride :)

I am signed up to race together with my sister in law and one of my wifes coworkers. He actually signed up first and then my wife sort of tricked me into it as well :) We will start out from bergen at 05:00 in the morning and the plan is to use 8 hours and be at Voss around 13.00. However for me the main goal is to finish and I do not really care that much about the time!

The beginning

During Christmas 2010 I got a real awakening. I did not feel very well and had a lot of headaches. When stepping up onto the bathroom scale it stopped at 146.9 kg. I went to the doctor to get some help with the headaches I was having and learned that my blood pressure was WAY to high.

So I realized that I needed to do some serious changes in my life. First of January 2011, just to have a good starting point I started what I hope to be a life long change for the better. I started a low carb lifestyle, NOT a diet, and I started to exercise. Hopefully I can stick with this and become the healthy father and husband my family needs.

Today it is February 05th and I decided to start a blog to make my weight loss attempt public, I hope it can make me push myself when things are challenging and hopefully I can inspire others in the same situation as me.

As I am new to blogging I am looking forward it and I hope I can do just as well writing on this blog as I have been with my diet and exercise.