Frank N' Andy

At my place of employment, there are many opportunities to exercise, and, eat right. It's been voted one of the top 50 healthiest places to work in the country, and, I'm pretty psyched to have the opportunity to work there. However, they're also dealing with a huge obesity problem. Something like 65% of the STATE (yes...you read that right...)is obese, and our company is doing a lot to fight this. One of those things is having access (free) to nutrition counseling. It's pretty awesome. They'll do a full dietary analysis, and, even an RMR to check your daily caloric needs.

I did an RMR waayyyy back in the day (maybe even before the blog!?), on suggestion from Frank so we could really effectively use the power data I was going to collect during training. I was a little "soft around the edges", and, weight loss was imperative if I wanted to be competitive. So, I took the test. Over the year, I dropped something silly like 17 lbs, and, was down to a fighting weight of 155! I set some PRs that year, and, no doubt had my best results (ahem...Salida TT Jordo :-p).  Fast forward to 4 or so years later...with "some" structured training, a new baby, a new job, a move, yadda yadda, and, while I'm not "overweight" by any stretch, like any cyclist, I am having a weight crisis. So, I want to drop about 10 or so lbs by March when racing really kicks in. So, rather than guesstimate what I needed to eat on a daily basis, I took advantage of the work perk and talked to the nutritionist. I got my RMR done (1680cals), and, now I can really start to hone in on my caloric needs/etc for the day. I have to remember it doesn't happen overnight, and, is going to take time...like anything. However, I'm psyched for this challenge. We've admittedly been eating too much garbage lately, and, I'm definitely over it. The only exception I'll make is going to be celebrations (like birthdays) and even then, I'll vow to be judicious in my "caking".

So, with RMR knowledge in hand, I woke up this morning at 5:30, jumped on the trainer, and, chased the Schleck brothers around their homeland of Luxembourg. It's really pretty there, and, might be a place to visit when we go back to Europe.  The route was rolling with steep "berg"-like climbs and twisty descents.Supposedly this was filmed last summer as TDF prep, so, I wonder if the boys are talking about their move to their own team. I did a strict zone 2-ish ride with zero efforts, simply to spin out the legs from last nights semi-bullshit yoga class, and, not to load them up too bad in the event it's warm enough tomorrow to do the local group ride. If not, I'll hit the Tormaulet or something and blast out a bunch of LT work. Time to rack up the KJs wherever possible!

*Note the coffee cup...very important to sip a teeeeeny bit at this hour zzzzzzzzzzz