OK… I got some motivation back… Getting some good feedback from the clothing. I put on a pair of pants that I could barely button 1 month ago and even thought about putting on a belt….only for a second. 😉 My calves hurt just walking to the bathroom so I hopped in the car and went to the gym. I rode the recumbent bike for 40 minutes and the sweat was embarrassing. I kept the heart rate above 140 almost the whole time but it seems to take a while to get it up there at the beginning. Maybe that’s a good sign…I don’t know…but I did check my resting heart rate in the morning last week and it was 61 BPM.
Eating salads, eggs, veggies, string cheese, yogurt, and mostly lean meat… I admit I must have a couple slices of salami on occasion or some Corralitos sausage… Those I cannot give up entirely… Oh, and I had a sweet tooth craving before bed and looked for some sugar free jello to make, but couldn’t find any. I had a pair of Metamucil wafers (chocolate flavor) to boost the fiber. I think they said 6g of sugar… Oh well, they’ve got FIBER! …and they taste pretty good. Thanks Nina! Cheers…
A few months ago I did a bunch of research on fiber and found 2 products I really like. The first one is a fiber supplement called Konsyl – much better than Metamucil, Benefiber, FiberChoice, and all the others on the pharmacy shelf. The second is the cereal FiberONE. This cereal has the highest concentration per serving of any cereal I have ever compared it to. 14g of fiber in half a cup of the cereal. The stuff tastes like cardboard alone so I usually mix it into a protein shake or mix it with another cereal. The only downside is that it also has a bit of Aspartame in it. Since the recommended minimum amount of daily fiber is 35 grams for men, it takes a lot of nuts, fruit, veggies and grains to get all that per day. A supplement is a very necessary part of a healthy diet.
Sugar Free Jello – Unfortunately the only sugar free jello is the kind sweetened with Aspartame, but there is a way to make your own sugar-free jello using gelatin, stevia, and unsweetened sugar-free cool-aid. Haven’t tried it yet here but we plan to.
My philosophy on giving up those foods you really enjoy is – DON’T. I am always on the lookout for healthy alternatives to the foods I love – and I usually find them, however I certainly still eat hamburgers, pizza, steak, pasta heaped with white sauces etc etc. The difference now is that I eat them in much smaller portions and much less often.
Yes the warm-up is always important and you shouldn’t worry about your heart rate until at least 5-15 minutes into the workout. One really great way to measure your cardio capacity is to record how many watts of power it takes to maintain a specific heart rate.
A couple ways I deal with sweating profusely while on the recumbent so I don’t drip it all over the carpet: Have an extra t-shirt and change half way through the workout. Some mornings I would go through 3-4 t-shirts. You can also wear a heavier sweatshirt over so the sweat has a lot more material to soak it all up.