Richard Ha writes:

I gained .6 lbs. this week.

My goal: To lose one pound per week for 39 weeks
Starting weight on 5/23/06: 214.6 lbs.
End goal, on 2/18/07: 175 lbs.

This week’s target weight: 202.6 lbs.
Today’s actual weight: 201.2 lbs. 7/23/06
I am 1.4 lbs. ahead of schedule

Since 5/23, I have lost 13.4 lbs.

On 5/23, my resting heart rate was 65 beats per minute
Today’s resting heart rate: 55 beats per minute.*

* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong’s is said to be 32. George W’s was reported to be 47 beats per minute. Out of shape, mine is in the 70s. My best was 52 many years ago.

***

I gained weight this week and it’s starting to worry me.

I’ve read in a lot of places that one can expect to come to a weight loss plateau. And I am in the middle of one right now. So I need to increase the duration of exercise or the intensity or both.

The routine that I had settled into felt harder when I started it three months ago. I must have adapted fairly well as it feels very easy now. Maybe too easy. I believe that I need to get back to the original feeling of difficulty in order to start losing weight again.

I notice that a heart rate of 118 per minute seems to feel the same as when I first started. I’ll increase from the 110 beats per minute that I’ve been doing lately to 118 beats per minute and see what happens.

Last week, I rode my mountain bike up Banana Hill for the first time. It was tougher than I remembered. I made it to the bottom of the last steep climb before I had to stop to rest. I’ll be riding my bike several times per week and should improve steadily.

To recap: I’ll ride my bike twice per week and that will automatically increase intensity. I’ll do the other five days at a heart rate of 118 per minute or so. This will still be fairly easy. But it will be slightly more strenuous that the 110 or so that I had settled into.

Hopefully, this will get me pass this plateau that I am stuck at. Fortunately, I am 1.4 lbs. ahead of schedule.