Sick at Home

I have a head cold. Missus will tell you, with a great deal of truth, that I am a terrible patient. I hate being sick (doesn’t everyone) and I tend to get the worst of it when a cold or the flu goes through the family, as it is now.

It started with the Younger One and moved on to Missus and now I have it. Last night was hell. No sleep, pain in my throat, congestion. Sigh. I hate colds…

So I am catching up on some blog stuff.

It is almost two weeks since the Five Boro Bike tour and I am still enjoying the glow of a fun ride and time with good friends, new and old.

I hope to be well enough to ride on Saturday or Sunday. I didn’t ride last weekend, though I did hike, and I want to get on the bike…..

Yes you CAN

This is a steady theme on this blog. YOU can lose weight. Don’t dare tell me you can’t. You can get out and get exercise, get fit, lose weight. YOU CAN.

I did. I have lost the weight, I am keeping it off. I am getting more and more fit. I decided to do it. I put my mind, heart and soul in to doing it.

You can do it.

I am worn out by people telling me I did a great job, wish they could lose weight like that but they just CAN’T.

The body knows no secret to keeping weight on. Don’t feed it and you will lose weight. Under feed it and you will lose weight slower. YOU WILL LOSE WEIGHT.

When I was a waiter at a Catskill Mountain resort in the late 1970′s, there was a masseuse at the hotel who was as wide as she was tall, let’s call her Sally. I worked the Children’s/Athletic Staff dining room and Sally ate her meals, three times a day, in my dining room. Lunch was always interesting. She would order the salad platter. A scoop of Tuna Salad, a scoop of Egg Salad, lettuce, tomato, some other vegetables. The platter was probably a reasonable 600 calories or so. Sally would then reward herself for eating the salad platter by having two pieces of cake.

Then she would complain about not losing weight.

She could. She wouldn’t.

I think that is the distinction. If you are overweight you can lose weight. The question is will you? Will you make the changes in what you eat, how much you eat and WHY you eat to make the weight loss happen?

Enough pulpit pounding for today.

Pictures from the Five Boro Bike Tour

It was a beautiful day for a ride. Very cold at the start, very windy as we waited on Church Street at 6:00 in the morning. I was wrapped in a plastic trash bag to keep the wind off me. In one of the pictures you can see it rolled up in my jersey pocket before I put it in the trash at the first rest area.

I think I stopped shivering somewhere on 6th Avenue just before we entered Central Park.

By the time we crossed back from The Bronx in to Manhattan I had warmed up as the temperatures rose on a sun-filled day with little wind and not a cloud to be seen. Once out of the Concrete Canyon that is 6th Avenue it was a wonderful ride.

SM, NI and Me. 6:30 AM, at the start line. Trying hard to look cheerful and not frozen….

Crossing the Queensboro Bridge

I think you can see on my face the pleasure I am taking from this ride. I had crested the bridge, I had clear road ahead of me and I was soaking in the sun. Captured in this picture is all that I have worked for over the last 18 months

At the Brooklyn Bridge Rest Area with Lower Manhattan as a backdrop. You can see the New World Trade Center Tower behind me.

Rolling down the FDR Drive….

And one Last Picture from the Tour(s)

On the left is the 2010 tour as I cross the Queensboro Bridge. 260 pounds and my weight is on the way up.
On the right is the 2013 Tour as I cross the Queensboro Bridge. 201 pounds and holding steady.