Richard Ha writes:

On January 7th, I started on a program to lose a half-pound per week.

Weight on Jan. 7, 2007: 204.5 lbs.
Weight on Sunday, Mar. 18th: 198.5 lbs.
Target weight yesterday was 199.5 lbs.

I am 1.0 lbs ahead of schedule.
I gained .5 lbs. this week.

My resting heart rate was 57 beats per minute. As long as it’s in the 50s, I consider that good.

I trained twice this week instead of the five or six days I normally do. After spending the last two weeks on special, one-time work projects, I spent a lot of this week catching up and I lost focus. If I had planned properly, I could have fit in the exercise. I must remember to put my exercise time as the highest priority.

Two days this week I rode my bike for 90 minutes. A circuit that normally takes me an hour only took me 50 minutes. That was surprising. But then I was very well-rested.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I cannot lose weight by exercise alone. I think I need to really concentrate on how many calories I’m taking in. I’ve tried to work around that. But I don’t think that there is any alternative for me. In contrast, my friend Mike Tanabe tells me he can eat anything he wants. He’s in his late 50s and is an elite mountain bike rider. I’m far from that caliber of bike rider.

I now have four weeks left to prepare for the Poker Run. I plan to train this week at a medium high rate, next week at a high rate and at a moderate rate during the third week. I’ll take the fourth week off except for easy riding, and that should be good enough preparation for the Poker Run.